Saturday 10 October 2009

Puppet Theatre for Harvard's Carpenter Center

Puppet Theatre 1Puppet Theatre 2Puppet Theatre 3
Photos by Florian Holzherr.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Le Corbusier's Carpenter Center, his only North American project, this theater was constructed within the sunken exterior courtyard for a puppet performance by the conceptual artist Pierre Huyghe. The organic form of the theater was built with 500 unique white polycarbonate panels diamond shaped interlock to become a rigid structure and are simply bolted together, in order to be easily assembled and disassembled.

Once assembled, forces dissipate across the monocoque surface enclosing the theater space. The modulated ceiling panels are turned inside out to accommodate material tolerances, create skylights and for structural stability, similar to keystones. The panels are 3" in depth and span over 15' at the center of the theater. Foam inserts placed into the panels stiffen the plastic shell. An exterior layer of moss covers the plastic panels. At night, light permeates through the edges of the diagonal plastic panels, leaving the moss to appear suspended. Entering into the theater from Quincy Street through a soft flexible opening focused around a tree, the space bulges to form an interior of reflective white glossy plastic walls. Undulating white foam seating repeats the patterning and dimension of the plastic panels creating a uniform vessel.

The interior compresses, looking toward the stage opening. When the puppet performance isn't playing, it provides a rigid view framing the concrete entry cube of the Carpenter Center, while the soft entrance upon leaving frames a single tree.
Puppet Theatre 4Puppet Theatre 5Puppet Theatre 6
Photos by Florian Holzherr.

Puppet Theatre 7Puppet Theatre 8Puppet Theatre 9Puppet Theatre 10
Photos by Florian Holzherr.

a+. mos
a+. florian holzherr
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Friday 9 October 2009

Microbiology Museum- Simple Stunning Architecture 18

Microbiology Museum 1
Photograph by Arnaldo Pappalardo.

The Museum of Microbiology at the Institute Butantan, São Paulo, Brazil designed by Architect Marcio Kogan had won the IAB Award for "Cultural Buildings and Museums" 2oo2 and Merit Award for ASBEA- Group of Projects 2oo2. Marcio Kogan was approached by Dr. Isaias Raw with a very limited budget.
The structure of the original museum building has been respected as much as possible with only slats of natural wood on the exterior acted as second skin, while the composition of the facades has been radically changed, to accommodate facilities needed by the museum such as permanent exhibition area, laboratory and auditorium. The permanent exhibition area was made to appear more spacious with large glazed openings that allow natural lighting to fill in the opaque white space while the museum finished contour was defined by adding an entrance esplanade and a backyard with a lattice to match the whole building.
Microbiology Museum 2Microbiology Museum 3
Photograph by Arnaldo Pappalardo.

Microbiology Museum 4Microbiology Museum 5Microbiology Museum 6
Photograph by Arnaldo Pappalardo.

Microbiology Museum 7Microbiology Museum 8
Photograph by Valentina Barreto.

a+. marcio kogan via
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Thursday 8 October 2009

'ora' Concept Watch by Alexandros Stasinopoulos

Ora Concept Watch 1Ora Concept Watch 2Ora Concept Watch 3
'ora' concept watch is the latest creation by Greek designer Alexandros Stasinopoulos.

'ora' concept is a study on the field of haute horlogerie. it focuses on the display of time via an unconventional mode, by replacing the expected dial arrangement found in the vast majority of the mechanical watches with a set of three interwoven tapes – one to indicate the hour(s), one to indicate the minute(s), and one to indicate the day.

The arrangement of the indications derived from the aspiration to demonstrate in a bold and dramatic way the passage of time. the design of the case reflects an “inside-out” design approach as it was the mechanism’s arrangement that prescribed the overall form in an attempt to enhance its uniqueness and create a distinctive silhouette.

ora [awr-uh] : phonetically a) “hour” in greek b) in greek the imperative “look!”

Ora Concept Watch 4
Ora Concept Watch 5Ora Concept Watch 6Ora Concept Watch 7
Ora sketch 1Ora sketch 2Ora sketch 3Ora sketch 4Ora sketch 5'ora' sketches.

a+. alexandros stasinopoulos via
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Wednesday 7 October 2009

Table 'Voluta' by Oriel Harwood

Table 'Voluta'
Made from fibreglass with high-gloss finish, Table 'Voluta' is a unique piece design by Oriel Harwood.

'Oriel Harwood's audacious pieces - neither furniture nor ornamentation, but something in between - are not made for meek persons or clinically Nineties interiors. They are heroic, flamboyant, unashamedly ostentatious outpourings from the creative mind of Harwood, some 15 years in the business of recreating her fantasies: chandeliers of branches and thick oak leaves moulded over frosted glass, androgynous heads with flames or feathers shooting from their tonsures, six-foot-high unicorn's horn cast in clear glass, fantastical fire places, mirrored dining tables...

Fey her art may seem; its construction is not. Her dusty and overstuffed Walworth studio looks like a cross between a car body shop and a stonemason's. Her work has become refined in its very surface: the clay models are now gouged with naturalistic channels, inspired by close-up photographs of vegetative forms. Her art is growing into something feral and neo-romantic. It is both European and English, fantastic and surreal, and comes from a covert culture of excess, the aesthete's aesthetic offensive, flying in the face of what is considered "good taste" in an expression of flagrant escapism. It follows a "secret history" of taste which draws on notions of otherness, a family tree of flamboyance from the 18th-century Gothic of Walpole's Strawberry Hill and Beckford's Fonthill to Wilde's "house beautiful" and Beardsley's black and-red-painted Pimlico drawing room; from Robbie Ross Half Moon Street rooms painted "dull gold" in 1917 as a protest against the war to the Sitwells ("big heroes", says Oriel) and their Carlyle Square dining room, where green walls and grotto furniture gave visitors the feeling of being under water. (from an article by Philip Hoare for "the Independent")

Her work is exclusively represented by David Gill's contemporary gallery.'
- Oriel Harwood.

a+. oriel harwood
a+. artnet via
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Tuesday 6 October 2009

500 Pencils by Social Designer

500 Pencils
Aurora Display CaseAurora Display Case detail
Aurora Display Case

Social Designer came out with a set of 500 Colored Pencils which arrives to U in a set of 25 crafted to order colors per month for as long as 20 months because Social Designer believes:

"It's human to have favorites. To be drawn to certain colors, to have others surprise you. We believe the greatest beauty of 500 Pencils is that you don't receive all of them at once, but over the course of 20 months. It gives you new focus as an artist, working with color families and feeling the precious nature of each pencil."

'What would one color be without 499 others?

Introducing 500 Colored Pencils: the only set in the world that matches the span and wonder of human creativity.

Express whatever you dream, with beautiful visual precision.

Each pencil is its own story. A unique hue with an inventive name to inspire the far corners of your creativity.

Together, the colors suggest infinite possibilities.'

- Social Designer.
Orchestra Display CaseOrchestra Display Case detail
Orchestra Display Case


Color Wave Display CaseColor Wave Display Case detail
Color Wave Display Case


Flower Vase Display CaseFlower Vase Display Case detail
Flower Vase Display Case

a+. social designer via
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Uchiyamada-kun by Hideyasu Moto

Uchiyamada-kun, front
This is so cute!
Released exclusively at Tower Records and available only as limited run by Orange Train at ¥ 7,200, Uchiyamada-kun is a new exclusive designed for the mega music store, available only in Japan. Designed by world renowned Japanese animator Hideyasu Moto, this design, which has been in production for nearly a year, comes from his 'Arnold' anime series and has multiple points of articulation. Uchiyamada-kun stands at 6.7 inches tall.
Uchiyamada-kun, back
a+. hideyasu moto via tokyocube
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Monday 5 October 2009

Shin Tanaka and His Paper Toys Design

Shin Tanaka- Jon BurgermanShin Tanaka- Chibby
A maestro of paper arts, Shin Tanaka is a native of Fukuoka, Japan. Shin's style is easily recognize because of his combination of one-of-a-kind paper design with strong graffiti elelments. His passion for paper began with the familiar disposition of having no money as a student. He couldn’t afford his favorite sneakers so he made life-size paper versions of them. This caught the attention of many people, most notably the shoe companies he was imitating. Since then, he has collaborated with big brands such as Nike and Adidas…and should no longer have a problem procuring his favorite shoe.

Shin went on to design templates for paper figures. His most well-known figure is T-Boy followed by Spiky. These figures were an ideal blank canvas for Shin and other creative minds and naturally lead to many collaborations with fellow artists and designers.

Shin Tanaka will be converting one of his innovative paper toy designs into vinyl form. Shin and Play Imaginative will be dropping a 7-inch version of T-Boy, a shy and curious character from his paper toy series. T-Boy will sport a tee with Shin’s signature graphics, and his arms will have some articulation as well. Currently, Shin Tanaka has a downloadable Spiky Baby designer series as well as a worldwide Boxy collaboration with artists from many countries.
Shin Tanaka- T-Boy HoodyShin Tanaka- T-Boy OriginalShin Tanaka- Vinyl T-Boy
Shin Tanaka- Spiky WalkerShin Tanaka- TTB 3800Shin Tanaka- BoxyShin Tanaka- T-Ball
a+. shin tanaka
a+. play imaginative via
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