Thinking of getting the new iPhone 4S next week? Maybe upgrading to the iPhone 4G instead? This could be the perfect time to get yourself a new EARonic iPhone 4 Case. Just sayin’…
We’ve restocked, so visit our CollabCubed Shop and pick the one that makes you chuckle the most.
Click to enlargeAustralian architect Sarah Crowley, whose jewelry we posted about previously, joined forces with David Brooks on their winning entry for Austral Bricks’ Architectural Ideas Competition. The design challenge was to “design an experiential element for an urban space that reflects the future of brick.” Crowley and Brooks’ solution: a magic carpet installation made of bricks.
The Magic Carpet forms an undulating terrain providing ergonomic curves that serve as seating and lounging spaces, at the same time showcasing the extensive color range and texture of clay brick products.
Currently, it looks like the Magic Carpet will become a reality in the Docklands, Melbourne, Australia. Fun idea!
Click to enlargeA couple of days ago, on a nice stroll up from Canal Street, a friend and I spotted an interesting structure in the window of the very cute Lafayette Espresso Bar + Market. Going in to explore further, and have a tea while at it, turns out the large sea urchin-like object was a lamp made from 300 of the classic “It’s Our Pleasure to Serve You” coffee cups, cut into slim triangles. The artist/designer behind the lamp? The multi-talented Christian DuCharme. Previously a set designer and window display artist, the Swiss designer from Zurich now works as an interior and accessories designer. And, well, he also makes lamps. Very cool ones at that.
The top four images are the 300 Cups Lamp, presently on display at the previously mentioned espresso bar in NYC. The lamp that follows is made from plastic coffee spoons, and the two photos below that are another lamp made from coffee filters. Amazing!
Two of Christian DuCharme’s beautiful bags are at the bottom of the photos. If you’re interested in purchasing Christian’s lamps or bags you can get in touch chrisducharme1@me.com.
Click to enlargeThe new Adidas Laces R&D building at the corporation’s headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany, is Kada Wittfeld Architektur’s latest project. In addition to the innovative communicative architectural ‘laces’ theme with criss-crossing connecting walkways — a metaphor for the Adidas sports shoe as well as the networked communications of the corporation — the ‘turbocharged’ typographic signage system by Büro Uebele leaps across walls, doors, and handrailings throughout the center. Words identify places as well as becoming colored surfaces and sculptures.
Truly spectacular inside and out.
via e-architect and typetoken
Dutch artist Jan van der Ploeg has been painting walls and large panels for a couple of decades. His colorful and precise geometric designs are mostly simple forms sometimes in black and white, other times in bright contrasting colors, but always producing a dramatic effect, in my opinion. Painted in multiple layers of acrylic to create a smooth, untextured finish, reinforces the notion that the color has been reduced to a mere surface.
Jan van der Ploeg is also a co-founder of PS Projects, an artist-run exhibition space in Amsterdam.
Photos courtesy of the artist, CCNOA, West and Minus Space.
I’m a fan of rust. Not so much on the inside of a toilet or behind a drippy faucet, but a nice slab of rusted steel à la Richard Serra offers such a great combination of rich color and texture.
Not surprising, then, that I really love this building by German studio Scheidt Kasprusch Architeckten. The four-story Haus der Essener Geschicte, in Essen, Germany, is clad in corten (weathered steel) which constantly alters and protects itself by corrosion. It demonstrates the change of time as well as alluding to the background of Essen. The building was built to house archives as an extension of the Luisesnschool which is used as a library and exhibition space.
via e-architect
Russian artist Anya Zholud creates minimalist wire sculptures that appear almost as 3-dimensional line drawings. Their simple forms and often ‘interiors’ setup offer a back-to-basics and paring down view in the present world of excess. Proper lifestyles without luxuries.
I especially like the dramatic effect these have when placed in the starkness of a white or black gallery room, in the contrasting color of the sculpture.
via Aidan Gallery.
Click to enlarge.Last night, a night bookended by heavy rain showers here in NYC, fortunately offered a 2- to 3-hour precipitation-free window. Just enough time to ferry on over to Greenpoint and catch the Bring to Light Festival.
Though the ferry was quite empty, I was happy to see that the crowds obviously made it over by other means of transportation. It was one of those really nice NYC events, where everyone seemed so happy in sharing such a fun and unique experience. The brick and corrugated metal façades of the industrial warehouses on the Brooklyn waterfront made for the perfect backdrop and canvases for the various video projections and colorful light installations. There were over 50 works displayed, so naturally I can’t go over all of them here, and some I am not sure of the names or artists, but some of the highlights are pictured above starting with, possibly my favorite, a very Buñuelesque image:
It was all very bright, colorful, and animated. You can watch the short video clips below for a better sense of the atmosphere. Next year, I’ll at least hang a glow stick around my neck before heading over.
Click to enlargeOh how I wish I were in London to see this! Russian artist Andrei Molodkin has created a site-specific installation titled Transformer No. V579. The exhibit consists of three galleries: the first, a monumental corridor of transparent acrylic tubes filled with light and oil; the second gallery, shows a video with details of the installation’s construction; and the last, is a ‘laboratory’ of drawings and photographs that outline the project’s development.
Visitors are encouraged to interact and walk through the six cubed modules and corridors. The effect of the bleeding oil and its glowing white light counterpart is reminiscent of blood coursing through the human body.
Hard not to be reminded of my last trip to London and one my favorite light exhibits ever.
Transformer No. V579 will be on view at Art Sensus in London through December 17, 2011.
Japanese Berlin-based artist Chiharu Shiota often uses tangled yarn, cracked windows , and burned pianos in her art installations creating a creepy and disquieting atmosphere in her work. There is a haunted feeling to her installations, and at the same time they contain vibrancy.
via Volta
Click to enlarge.Dutch-Brazilian, world-traveling artist Rafaël Rozendaal uses the internet as his canvas, in addition to the more traditional installations, drawings and writing. Much of his art, however, is in the form of websites. Mostly interactive, these sites are playful and many times simple in their execution; each with their own URL. As a result the URLs of Rozendaal’s art are for sale.
Rafaël Rozendaal is also the creator of Bring Your Own Beamer, an international series of one-night exhibitions where artists bring their own laptop and/or slide projector (beamer) to show their work. Anyone can make a BYOB exhibition, according to Rozendaal’s website: 1) find a space; 2) invite many artists; 3) ask them to bring their projectors. Upcoming BYOB cities includ Sao Paolo, Portland, Maine, Darwin, Australia, Milan and Melbourne. You can check the calendar here.
Above are stills from a few of Rozendaal’s websites. The individual names link to their respective URLs and are definitely worth checking out in their interactive mode.
via +81
Click to enlarge.I went over to the DUMBO Arts Festival in Brooklyn last Saturday and visited many an open studio, as well as new (to me) designy shops, the crazy sale at Desigual’s Pop-up Shop, and the large bubble-making contraption in the tobacco factory. All were fun to see, but the star of the festival was the recently opened Jane’s Carousel housed within a pavilion designed by architect Jean Nouvel, as he describes it: the jewelry box for the precious jewel.
The carousel and its box are a gift to the city from the Walentas family. Jane Walentas had been restoring the exceptionally elaborate 1922 carousel since 1984. Positioned on the edge of the East River between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, the views from the carousel are priceless, whether direct with the retractable doors folded open, or through the impressively thick acrylic walls that add a wavy, almost drippy, distorted quality to the Manhattan skyline. At night, the box acts as a magic lantern with curtains that come down and become screens, allowing the projectors in the middle of the carousel to project the horses’ shadows onto all four sides of the pavilion. I would imagine that to be a lovely sight from either bridge, the water, or Manhattan.
I have to confess that I was not initially impressed by the design when I saw it in the NY Times, but after speaking with one of the structural engineers involved in the project (Gilsanz Murray Steficek) I was assured that the photos did not do it justice. That may be the case here as well, so if you happen to be in NYC, I highly recommend taking a stroll over to Brooklyn Bridge Park and experiencing the size and majesticness of the carousel in person. If nothing else, you’ll get a spectacular view of both bridges and the skyline across the way.
Click to enlarge.French architects X-TU have designed a building for social housing on rue Marcadet in Paris. The modern structure is clad in a soft gray aluminum skin, with (seemingly) randomly placed boxed extrusions lined in bright green that frame the windows. In addition to the windows that project off the façade, there are smaller ones that lie flat within the aluminum. The result is a contemporary, bright building with coordinating bright green interiors in the mailroom and entrance staircase, as well as in the tiled bathrooms. And, of course, the bright green folding shutters, both within the exterior boxes and lying flat against the building’s skin.
The building is thermally insulated as per the new regulations and has solar panels placed on the roof, so clearly X-TU architects have taken sustainability into consideration…thus adding even a little more ‘green’ to the project.
via miesarch
These Ladrillos (Brick) Bookshelves designed by Estudio Mariscal in Barcelona are meant for kids, but I could see it appealing to an older audience, myself included.
The cute supports are made of molded plastic with laminated wooden shelves for the Me Too Collection distributed by Italian company Magis.
via coolhunting
Click to enlarge.Today, my dad and I went to explore the new IBM THINK Exhibit at Lincoln Center here in NYC. We were greeted at the entrance by the very familiar (my father is a retired longtime IBMer) ‘THINK’ logo, still looking fresh today in the same slab serif type that I remember from the 1960s.
The exhibit is in celebration of IBM’s 100th anniversary and illustrates – via multimedia – the possibilities that science and information technology offer to ‘make the world work better.’ Beginning with its 123-foot digital visualization wall which streams real-time data from the surrounding Lincoln Center area with respect to traffic, air quality and water consumption, to its interior 12 minute immersive film, which then converts to multi-panel interactive walls mostly displaying the changes in science, technology and comparisons in the way we display information in the past and today.
It’s all beautifully executed. The Data Wall, in particular, is mesmerizing. Designed by the transmedia studio Mirada (started by director Guillermo Del Toro) in conjunction with a team of mostly faculty and graduates of the UCLA Department of Design Media Arts who designed the software, it’s a perfect example of art and science merging; animated infographics at their best. Also quite lovely, are the print exhibition graphics throughout the exhibit that are clearly a nod to the great Paul Rand.
The IBM THINK Exhibit is on the inclined Jaffe Drive at Lincoln Center through October 23, 2011. It’s hard to miss the spectacular digital wall from Broadway.
Here’s an interesting concept for reuse of tires in a positive way. Rubbertree, designed by Dutch designer AnnMarie van Splunter, is a proposal for a school playground for refugee children in Thailand. By constructing an oversized sculpture of a rubber tree made of recycled rubber tires, the tires, in a sense, come full circle.
Imitating the long and expanding roots of a real rubber tree, this installation would be relatively easy to build requiring only local materials including motorbike tires, bamboo and rope. No metal parts are necessary. The frame would be made from the bamboo and the tires could safely hug the frame (see small illustration of tire and bamboo above.)
Nice!
Click to enlarge.Originally from Louisiana, Keith Sonnier has been working with fluorescent light bulbs and neon since the late 1960s. He has many series of light sculptures with different names such as ‘Ba-O-Ba’, ‘Sel’, ‘Blatt’ and ‘Chandelier’ each with its own distinctive style and twist. Some more minimalist and geometric, while others busier and loopy.
In addition to his extensive sculptural work, Sonnier has created many installations over the years in public spaces including working with architects such as Morphosis on the Caltrans headquarters building in Los Angeles, an installation in the Lever House, and others in various airports.
Quite the body of beautiful work.
As a designer and lover of type, I really enjoy when art and type are combined — I pretty much enjoy when type is combined with anything. So it’s not surprising that I enjoyed coming across Australian artist Emily Floyd’s work. Drawing inspiration from the text-based Conceptual Art of the 60s, Floyd thinks it’s important to find new ways of working with language. In her art, she likes to combine different texts and fragments of different narratives and have the viewer experience them. Themes in her work include politics, ecology, philosophy and fiction.
You can see more of Emily Floyd’s installations on the Anna Schwartz Gallery site.
CollabCubed 