The Folder Chair, designed by the Serbian architect Vladimir Paripovic, is made of thin steel panels and beech wood for the seat. It has a side pocket that can hold books or magazines, or anything else you’d like to put in there, and is perfect for small spaces due to its compact size. It’s actually more of a stool than a chair. Great way to brighten up a room!
Claydies: The Fairytale of a Bicycle Helmet
The ceramicists/designers ladies of clay at Claydies came up with these humorous bicycle helmet concepts for a crafts exhibit at the Art Museum of Northern Jutland in Denmark. 18 Haute Couture bike helmets in all! Check out the rest at their site as well as their floating tea cups and their hairstyle inspired ceramic bowls. They certainly seem like a fun pair.
via Lustik
Rainbow City and High Line Too (Two)
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The pop-up plaza, deemed The Lot, at 30th Street and 10th Avenue is just as promised. Rainbow City, the interactive balloon installation by Friends With You is cute, fun, kid-friendly and adult-silly. It feels a little like being on a real-life Candy Land game board with a hipster twist. The food section (The Lot On Tap) with its tables nicely angled to be parallel with the High Line above it, and stylish hanging lights, food trucks, large bar and container ticket booth, is all very appealing and I can imagine will be hugely popular in the evenings and weekends.
For me, the true star, once again, is the High Line. It’s hard to believe that they could top the original section, but in some ways I think they might have. Much more seating is available and incorporated very creatively and elegantly. There’s a coziness due to the proximity to the adjacent buildings (which might get a little claustrophobic on a crowded weekend) and there are many romantic little branches, or cul-de-sacs, throughout which work very nicely. Oh, and a lawn! A decent size lawn for NYC standards.
Definitely worth a visit, or three, this summer. Rainbow City is up through July 5, 2011, and Colicchio & Sons’ The Lot On Tap will continue through the summer. Open Sundays through Wednesdays from 11am to 10pm, and till 11pm Thursdays through Saturdays.
Fesetti: Disappear
Juan Astasio: 100 Smiles Project
I saw the charming, funny, and smart Juan Astasio (who just finished his MFA in Graphic Design at Yale) speak last night at the AIGA Fresh Blood event. Many of Astasio’s projects combine a playful wit with an interesting interactive aspect. The photos above are from his 100 Days project (I believe this is a Michael Bierut assignment) called 100 Smiles. Juan made a smile a day from found objects, every day for 100 days and photographed each one. They have all been placed on a website and scroll to the song Always Look on the Bright Side of Life by Eric Idle.
The rest of his site is worth checking out as well. Some of my favorites include: Issues, a personal project showing our insensitivity towards powerfully disturbing images; One Minute of Silence Project where you can write epitaphs for things you’ve lost; and Weather Escapes.
Szum: Polish Street Art
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Recent work from Polish graffiti artist Szum.
Marla Dawn Double Teapot Set
These porcelain teapots made me chuckle. Uniquely designed by Marla Dawn to pour two teacups at a time.
Available here.
Rolling Bridge: Heatherwick Studio
Heatherwick Studio is probably best known, recently that is, for their spectacular Shanghai Expo UK Pavilion which, quite deservedly, received a lot of attention. We are also familiar with their impressive staircase at the Longchamps store in Soho, NY but, all their projects are worth checking out. The Rolling Bridge at the Paddington Basin in London is no exception.
Completed in 2004, Heatherwick’s challenge was to design a pedestrian bridge to span an inlet providing an access route for pedestrians while at the same time lifting to allow access for the boats in the inlet.
From the Heatherwick website:
The aim was to make the movement the extraordinary aspect of the bridge. A common approach to designing opening bridges is to have a single rigid element that fractures and lifts out of the way. Rolling Bridge opens by slowly and smoothly curling until it transforms from a conventional, straight bridge, into a circular sculpture which sits on the bank of the canal.
The structure opens using a series of hydraulic rams integrated into the balustrade. As it curls, each of its eight segments simultaneously lifts, causing it to roll until the two ends touch and form a circle. The bridge can be stopped at any point along its journey.
You can watch a video of the bridge in action here. To see it open live, you need to be there any Friday at midday.
via our buddy Nils!
Marimekko & Converse: Fall 2011
NOW we’re talking! Can’t tell you how disillusioned we were with the last round of the Converse/Marimekko collaboration. Such a great idea, but such a disappointing selection of patterns. This time around, with the announcement of their Fall 2011 line, (in our humble opinion) they really got it right.
The collection will be available in stores and online at Converse on June 23rd.
via notcouture via Nylon
Michael Craig-Martin
Dublin-born artist, Michael Craig-Martin, currently has a show of new paintings and sculptures at the New Art Centre outside London in the town of Wiltshire. I especially like the sculptures, which really do look like 3-dimensional line drawings of everyday objects.
Up, Up and Away with the Balloon Bench
Inspired by the 1953 film, The Red Balloon, Japanese designer Satoshi Itasaka from h220430 studio designed the Balloon Bench. While it appears to be suspended in the air by balloons, the bench is actually suspended from the ceiling by four anchors concealed by the balloons.
Available at Somewhere in Tokyo.
Photos © Ikunori Yamamoto
via Yatzer
Van Alen Books
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Walking over to Chelsea the other day, I happened upon this very eye-catching and unique storefront on West 22nd Street. Turns out it’s the recently opened Van Alen Books, a bookstore and public reading room devoted to architecture and design publications. Designed by the architectural firm LOT-EK (the same architects behind the design of many impressive container structures, among other projects), the small space is predominantly occupied by the dramatic steps/seats made of recycled doors (if you enlarge the photos you can see where the hinges and strike plates were) stacked and bolted together to form a triangular hanging platform which felt surprisingly sturdy when I climbed up. The delightfully welcoming and enthusiastic young woman at the store told me that there will be a lecture series starting this Wednesday and the steps will be used as seating for the audience, stadium style.
If you’re in NYC and interested in architecture or design (which is likely, if you’re reading this blog), this may be a place you’d like to visit. The lecture series schedule isn’t up on the website yet, but you can call the number on their site to find out more. Van Alen Books is located at 30 W. 22nd Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues.
Chelsea in Motion or, Motion in Chelsea
Zilvanas Kempinas’s piece at the Yvon Lambert Gallery, part of the Play Time group show exhibit. Kempinas had another one of his fan pieces at MoMA last year: Double O.
Jean-Pierre Gauthier’s Sweeping Spirals installation at the Jack Shainman Gallery. I’m thinking of purchasing this one for Daniela’s room.
Arthur Collani Chair
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I’m not sure how I ended up finding this Collani Chair from the 1950s, but I really love it. Apparently these were a do-it-yourself design by Arthur Collani published in the January 1952 edition of Home Craftsman magazine. It’s definitely not sleek, but it’s got so much character and, having grown up with different three-legged chairs, I have an appreciation for them.
Available at MondoCane.
Rainbow City at the High Line
U P D A T E : See our post-visit post here for the latest on Rainbow City.
This looks like fun! Em just read about this upcoming event on the Friends With You site (you may be familiar with their collaborations with KidRobot, among other things.) In celebration of the opening of the second section of the High Line, FriendsWithYou (sponsored by AOL) will be showcasing their forty piece installation Rainbow City.
FriendsWithYou presents a vibrant collection of mutable, air-filled sculptures. Inaugurating in the art district of Chelsea during the month of June, this will be FWY’s first large-scale installation in New York City. This happy city is made up of intensely colored balloon pieces, encouraging visitors to be active and explore the giant 16,000 square foot playground. Built for adults and children alike, the installation allows for interaction with each art object, making the experience unforgettable.
According to the article in the New York Times, the installation is part of a “pop-up plaza” at 30th Street and Tenth Avenue. There will be a 350-seat bar run by Colicchio & Sons, as well as a variety of fashionable food trucks offering a range of edibles from lobster rolls to ice cream.
The installation and festivities open on Wednesday, June 8th, 2011 and run through July 5th. Worth checking out for sure.
SOFTlab
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In my next life, I want to work at SOFTlab. These guys look like they have a great time doing everything they do. And what they do is everything. For them “a good idea does not discriminate between any medium or any type of project, it just works for everything.” That includes design of furniture, a website, a brand, a video, a gallery installation, a store display, and pretty much anything else that can be designed. Their approach is to make design customizable; it should allow for change, or growth, and be adaptable.
Just visiting their site is an immensely entertaining experience beginning with the computer animated video on their home page. Unknowingly, I was already familiar with (and a fan of) some of their work such as the colorful taped projection mapping of the New Museum as part of Festival of Ideas for the New City.
Above are just four of SOFTlab’s projects.
From top to bottom: CHROMAtex.me, a site specific installation for the bridgegallery, LES, New York. Photos: Alan Tansey
(n)arcissus, a site specific installation for NODE10 at the Frankfurter Kunsteverein in Frankfurt, Germany. Photos: Marius Watz.
POLYP.lux, a hanging installation for School Nite, part of the Festival of Ideas for the New City, NYC. Photos: Alan Tansey
CHROMAesthesiae, an installation for Devotion Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Photos: Alan Tansey
There are plenty more interesting projects on their website.
TOMA
The Montreal company TOMA “takes hold of daily living with a dash of humor and a hint of cunning” in their approach to designing their household objects, as well as adhering to a green philosophy. I find their InsideOut series especially appealing. Shown above, clockwise from top left corner:
Concrete Bootwear tiles, footwear mats made of concrete and fiberglass.
Cork Trivets, also available in wood.
Earrings, laser cut from black acrylic, also available in red or transparent colors.
Accessory hangers, for keeping belts, scarves, and umbrellas in the same place.
Port Authority Bus Terminal Goes Graphic
Come the end of this month, the Port Authority Bus Terminal here in NYC will be covered with a 6,000 sq.ft. LED-embedded mesh which, from the interior is transparent, but from the exterior provides a fabric for high-resolution graphics wrapping around the corner façade. The MediaMesh appears opaque during the day (see rendering above).
Hopefully the façade will be used as a medium for art though, unfortunately, unlike the renderings, it’s likely that advertising will be displayed instead. It would be great to be wrong.
via notcot, via Architect’s Newspaper
CollabCubed 