The Curtain Door in the House with Wall of Light

Matharoo Associates won the Architectural Review’s Emerging Architecture Awards (sponsored by Ramboll and Austin-Smith:Lord) that celebrates the best pieces of design by young architects from across the world by just submitting a DOOR DESIGN despite, the accompanying 1700m² showpiece House with Wall of Light features a number of similarly inventive components, including a light-emitting onyx wall, which also caught the judges attention.

'The DOOR, to a diamond merchant's residence in Surat, India is at 5.2m high and 1.7m wide. The door comprised of 40 sections of thick 254mm Burma teak where each section is carved so that the door integrates 160 pulleys, 80 ball bearings, a wire-rope and a counter weight hidden within the single pivot.

Stacked one above the other in the closed position, each plank can then rotate by a simple push causing the door to reconfigure into a sinusoidal curve.'

- The Architectural Review.

The house:

'Designed for Mr. Dilip Sanghvi, the House with Wall of Light, sitting between an anonymous plot and the house for Parag Shah (house with warped court), the complex geometry of the site is used as a cue to develop its spaces such that all areas of the house open out onto a tranquil and private green space.

On entering the site, one encounters a ramp down to the parking level and the blank concrete walls, the green of the lawn near the entrance enfolding a few seconds after. 

The house can be entered from two sides, both through large, custom designed entrance doorways that transform into a wooden curtain and gently open into the entrance hallways. The two separate entrance hallways allow the smaller home and the larger house to coexist; one opening into the family spaces and the other leading directly into the formal drawing and dining space and veranda outside. The high formal living space in concrete can also be distinguished by the skewed box, representing the industry. The double height entrance hallway also serves as a meeting place for the household and a connecting space between the formal and informal. At one end of the passage, and accessible to all, is the family prayer room and the study above, giving religion and intellect its fair place in the house, respecting their everyday importance in the home. 


The dwelling emulates the various facets of the jewel in several ways through the use of contrasting materials. The rough diamonds are represented by the concrete walls poured in stone casts and the polished ones are represented by the light emanating onyx wall. One is opaque, the other transparent. One envelops the house and the other ties the house together. One absorbs, the other radiates, one is neutral, the other colourful, one is rough and the other is smooth, diametrical opposites in the same house. The core family and private areas are placed in a “black box” characterized by the use of kadapa stone representing carbon, another avatar of the diamond. The base flooring in economical and common but robust kota stone as if representing continuity, and all this is set against the chic neutrality of travertine representing contemporary living. 

The industry dwells in between the incoming rough and the outgoing polished stone in all its entirety; static, dark and unyielding spaces placed amidst sunlit areas- dynamic, light and agile.
The three identical staircases are aligned to the three site angles converging near the entrance; one is placed on the floor, second on the wall and the third on the ceiling; signifying the illusionary world of diamonds.'

-Matharoo Associates.

(Click for clearer view.)

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Personal Space by Tithi Kutchamuch

Hehe...admit it! cute huh? Nominated, New Traditional Jewellery 2008, Sieraad Art Fair and designed by London-based designer Tithi Kutchamuch, Personal Space can be descibed as an emotional based design when you try to understand the diagram above...

'I often get a knock from the flat below.

The inner side of the ring rubs against my bare skin, my personal space. It’s not always comfortable when someone try to get intimate.'
- Tithi Kutchamuch.

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Newspaper Wood by Mieke Meijer + Vij5

“A reversing of a traditional production process; not from wood to paper, but the other way around.”

The Newspaper Wood is a collaboration between 2 Netherlands designers, Mieke Meijer of Mieke dingen and Vij5, the designlabel that was started by Arjan van Raashooven & Anieke Branderhorst. Mieke Meijer came up with the idea to use piles of discarded daily newspaper making it into a renewed material. The layer of paper appear like lines of a wood grain and the rings of a tree just like a real wood when the Newspaper Wood is cut. It can be cut, milled and sanded and generally treated like other type of wood.

The designers:
Mieke Meijer

Designer of Mieke dingen, which she produces on a small scale in her own workshop.

Sustainability, utility and beauty are the guiding principles that define Mieke dingen. Mieke dingen matches the needs of the consumer long term and fit well into their environment. Mieke dingen objects therefore keep their value. Their timeless design, their subtly light-hearted character and their distinct functionality create a bond between people and the objects.

Flexibility is the key to the choice of basic principles for Mieke dingen: whether it is materials, everyday situations or certain specific techniques. By developing a well-conceived idea and sticking to it, Mieke dingen objects have a distinctive and very recognisable signature. 

(Mieke studied at the Design Academy Eindhoven.)

Vij5 (Arjan van Raadshooven & Anieke Branderhorst)

Both have totally different characters, resulting in a ‘perfect symbiosis’.

They started designlabel Vij5 directly after they both graduated in 2006. Since they work on their product collection together, their interaction seems even stronger. In fact it became one of the basic principles of Vij5, visible in the growing amount of collaborations with other young designers. 

“We enjoy different visions at situations. But not until we both agree, a product is finished and approved.”



(Anieke studied at the Design Academy Eindhoven and Arjan studied Architecture at the Technical University.)

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Shari Mendelson Artwork from Discarded Bottles

Three Vessels.

Creating art pieces from discarded bottles, Shari Mendelson a MFA graduate from State University of New York at New Paltz, New York, lives and works in Brooklyn. A recipient of two New York Foundation for the Arts grants and a Pollock-Krasner foundation award, her current  were work constructed from found plastic bottles which is inspired by historical ceramic, glass and metal vessel.

'I collect discarded juice, soda and water bottles, cut them into pieces and use the parts to create new vessels. The original material is transformed from plastic trash into pieces that address issues of mass production, waste, the environment, the value of objects, history and culture.'

- Shari Mendelson.

Figure with 3 Legs.

Cupcake Vessel.

Vessels with 3 Spouts.

Green Pyramid Vessel.

Bumpy Blue-green Vessel.

Shari Mendelson other artworks.

Check out the rest of Shari Mendelson work from her site.

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Mia Pearlman and Her Paper Sculptures

Based in Brookyln, New York, Mia Pearlman received her BFA from Cornell University in 1996. She has exhibited internationally in numerous galleries, non-profit spaces and museums. Her recent on-going (7 October 2009- 4 April 2010) installation in the Musuem of Arts and Design, New York titled, SLASH: PAPER UNDER THE KNIFE exhibit her paper work INRUSH,
'which utilizes the natural light entering through the window cut on the west side of the building to blur distinction between interior and exterior space.'

VOLUTA.

Voluta is a limited edition laser cut sculpture made of translucent high impact polystyrene. Fun and easy to construct, it offers art lovers of all ages the opportunity to create and own a complex, luminous “paper” sculpture. In minutes you can transform a two dimensional piece of paper into a swirling three dimensional vortex. VOLUTA is meant to hang in a window or near a light source, but can also sit on a pedestal or horizontal surface. Several feet of monofilament is included for hanging. Each VOLUTA is invidually signed and numbered by the artist.

One of Flavorwire's 100 gifts for 100 Cultural Icon, Voluta is price at $195 and u can order it through Mia Pearlman's site.

Mia Pearlman is both a recipient of a 2008 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and a 2009 Established Artist Fellowship from UrbanGlass.

Artist's Statement
I make site-specific cut paper installations, ephemeral drawings in both two and three dimensions that blur the line between actual, illusionistic and imagined space. Extremely sculptural and often glowing with natural or artificial light, these imaginary weather systems appear frozen in an ambiguous moment, bursting through or hovering within a room.  Existing only for the length of an exhibition, this weightless world totters on the brink of being and not being, continually in flux. It is my mediation on creation, destruction, and the transient nature of reality.

INRUSH.

INRUSH utilizes the natural light entering through the window cut on the west side of the building to blur distinctions between interior and exterior space.

INFLUX.

INFLUX draws people into Roebling Hall from the street, transforming the gallery into a swirling wind tunnel.

CALIGO, 2009.

UMBRA, 2009.

Do check out Mia Pearlman's site to understand the making of her works!

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