Otto Table by Office dA

'The Otto Table functions as a dining or general work table. Fabricated from layers of carbon fiber, fiberglass, and wood veneer, the table is exceptionally sturdy and durable, yet slender and light. The carbon top and a protective resign coat ensure great durability. The carbon "fabric" material and its method of production also allow for seamless connections between table-top and legs. CNC routed tools are fabricated as form-work for the intricate shape that mediates between the flat surface of the top and the thin vertical laminates of the legs. The compound surfaces of the tools are layered with carbon and glass fiber, covering the aggregate components. The legs are designed as seamless extensions of the table-top, with the carbon surface funneling down into the supports. In their vortex-like geometry, the layered structure is turned inside out, exposing the under-table's wood veneer.

The leg has two divergent readings. Frontally, it exposes its delicate yet sturdy thinness in the end-grain of its composite laminates -- carbon, glass, and wood on end. Obliquely, the leg appears as a traditional massive wood post -- actually a thin veneer of African Mahogany wrapped around the laminates of carbon and glass fiber. The table can thus be seen as a marriage of these opposing readings: from one side, a draped piece of fabric slung down from the top and from the other, a sturdy and massive support: at once a technological innovation and a nod to convention.'

- Office dA.
Detail, section.

Detail, plan.

a+. office dA
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Kate MccGwire- The Space Between

Sluice 2008, Mixed media with Pigeon feathers, 4.5 x 2.5 x 0.5 m.
Sluice 2008, detail.

Kate MccGwire’s work exists in a twilight zone where beauty butts up against ugliness, the human and ‘bodily’ against the animal; an otherworldly place where rapture meets disgust and reason superstition.

She will take an everyday material or object – most recently the pigeon feather – and, by re-framing it, entice the viewer into examining their preconceptions. The viewer is left both seduced and alienated, relishing the spectacle but at the same time aware of something disquieting, something ‘other’. Her instinctively aesthetic approach – pared-down, spare and sensual – ultimately proves treacherous, the feathers invoking a gag-like response at their parasitic growth (see ‘Sluice’) or fear that the apparently inanimate creature may at any moment stir into being (‘Rile’).

The shift from a world in which objects sit in their ‘natural’ place allows us a new perspective, simultaneously exposing us, in the most visceral way possible, to the macabre truths that lurk behind the familiar and the falsehoods that cloud our vision.

The Space Between:
"In a world where we can be here, there and everywhere, where there is the promise that we can be anyone or anything if only we try hard enough, are good enough, we increasingly find ourselves in a Space Between. A space between being and becoming: a place of transformation and translation, rich with longing, melancholy and fantasy. A space that calls not for representation but presentation, for who knows what we are or what we might become? The act of presentation in/from the Space Between allows us to reflect on these oscillating states of being, providing a moment’s pause to stop and contemplate the state of flux in which we live."

Brood 2004, 23,000 chicken wishbones, 540 x 700 cm.

Insular (detail) 2008, 100 layers of paper burnt, 77 x 57 x 1 cm.

Snare 2007, Reflective tape and string, dimensions variable.

a+. kate mccgwire via fabrik project
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MAD's Hutong Bubble 32

Completed in year 2oo8, Hutong Bubble 32 is a renovation job on a 130 sqm plot and one of the measure taken by MAD Studio to introduce new spaces for the wealthy to live while maintaining the current neighbourhoods next door to these new comers in Hutong, central of Beijing, China. By inserting modern interventions into the historic poor neighbourhoods of Hutong, they will be able to minimize the tearing down of old buildings and preserved the living culture of Hutong as well.

'The Hutongs are historic poor neighbourhoods of central Beijing. Though the Hutongs delight tourists, life for the residents is hard: they have limited private space, and no indoor shower or toilet. At the same time as these residents are being re-housed on the outskirts of the city by the government, their historic homes are being occupied by the rich, whilst property developers tear down the old buildings and recreate them in ersatz form.

Rather than allow the Hutongs to become historical theme parks, we propose a more forward looking solution. We will insert super modern interventions into the fabric of the Hutongs, either to provide new private facilities (showers, toilets, playrooms) for the current residents; or to create new spaces for the wealthy to live next door.
Our proposal will mix current and future lifestyles into the historic fabric. 2050 Hutongs will value the lives of the people who live in the buildings, rather than just the buildings themselves.'

- MAD Ltd.


a+. mad ltd.
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