The countercultural art movement began with a group of students at the Academy of Fine Arts, Kinshasa, who decided to make art from what they could find around them. Most of what they found was the waste of faraway strangers: tires, foam, bottles, paint cans, CDs, flip-flops, exhaust pipes, and more. In 2015, the artists founded the collective Ndaku Ya Life is Beautiful, led by Eddy Ekete, and began performing while wearing their startlingly creative costumes.

Each costume echoes the ancestral clothing arts of the Congolese, and each has its own story to tell. Jared Kalenga’s “Robot Annonce” is a suit made of broken radio parts in a warning against the spread of fake news. “Femme Électrique” is a costume made of electrical wiring by Falonne Mambu, symbolizing the Congo’s inconsistent electrical service and the kidnappings and sexual assaults that occur when the lights go out.

“Tin Can” by Mvunzi Muteba Jr. aims to raise awareness among Africans about how the presence of multinational companies (such as those mining for rare minerals) has affected the continent and kept its citizens poor despite its many riches. “Tire Man” by Savant Noir is a protest of those stolen resources, like the rubber used to manufacture tires. Other issues represented by the costumes and performances include gang violence, viruses, pollution, a lack of safe drinking water, and the Western-style consumerism that’s beginning to creep into the country.

Gladieu’s photos capture these costumes against relevant backdrops, including graffitied concrete walls, industrial sites, gutters full of trash, and public street markets with locals looking on. In publishing the book, he hopes the levity and creativity of the images will catch the attention of Westerners who don’t want to be guilted into caring about where their waste ends up. His approach celebrates the Congolese culture and the resilience of the community of Kinshasa, sharing the ways in which the artists have reclaimed their experiences and translated them into something beautiful.

“(In the photographs), we are talking about ecology, but we are talking about ecology through African masks,” says Gladieu. “As you can see, they’re completely covered up. You don’t see any part of the skin. The traditional masks were done with natural materials. They symbolized the spirit of the ancestors or the spirit of support of the natural world. These young artists reinvent these traditional masks in a way, but they do it today with trash because they find more trash and natural materials.”

Published by Actes Sud, Homo Détritus was released in hardcover in November 2022 and is now available for backorder from Bookshop.org. You can see more of these images at Gladieu’s website, and on Instagram.

The post Stephen Gladieu’s New Book Spotlights the Congo’s Protest Art Against Western Trash first appeared on Dornob.

Jamais Content is a unique architectural room divider solution created by Atelier Marc Ferrand and produced by Italian furniture company Bottega Ghianda. The modular system is, first and foremost, a functional bookcase with large open square-shaped shelves. But it’s also the foundation for building your own rooms-within-rooms — even rounded ones. That’s the coolest part of this kit of parts. You can assemble them to create organically shaped spaces in your desired proportions and forms.

The modular bookcase is made of individual pieces of citronnier, a type of wood sourced from Ceylon Island, along with a satin-finished brass “cross” element that acts as a decorative fastener. Small brass bolts connect the wooden elements to the crosses and to each other for stability. The wood shelves come in two different sizes, and a leather door is available as an optional add-on to create “a fascinating interplay of solids and voids.” The process is meant to be experimental. If you build something and don’t like it, or your needs change, just start over. The name, Jamais Content, translates to “never satisfied” in English.

The possibilities of this system seem virtually endless. Sure, you could create linear installations, much like you would with any other modular bookcase or room divider system, but the ability to produce rounded rooms is just too fun to resist. Imagine creating a little rounded office, reading room, meditation space, or study area for kids within your living room. As Ferrand explains, Jamais Content is architecture, enveloping and protecting like any other shelter.

Rendered in sophisticated materials with a focus on fine craftsmanship, Jamais Content is definitely a step up (okay, quite a few steps up) from IKEA. Based near Lake Como in Italy, Bottega Ghianda is a leader in Italian cabinetmaking known for its expertise with wood. That 200-year-old reputation shines through in this piece.

About Atelier Marc Ferrand

As the designer’s website explains: “The work of Marc Ferrand, nourished by minimalist forms, is characterized by a reflection on the temporal nature of matter and its relationship to architecture, creating a design that evolves with time and each imagination. A designer who graduated from the École Bleue (Paris, 2006), Marc Ferrand became the same year a collaborator with the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, for whom he was responsible for the design of nomadic and temporary architectures.”

“In this capacity, he was notably in charge of the Hermès Pavilion in Milan, the Shiseido Pavilion for the Venice Biennale of Arts, and the Paper Tower for the London Design Festival. Atelier Marc Ferrand develops industrial design projects with international publishers, designs reconstruction projects, and pursues research on forms and their relationship to the body and architecture.”

The post Modular Bookcase System Lets You Build Endless 3D Storage Structures first appeared on Dornob.

German designer Deniz Aktay took a cylindrical wooden side table and carved a deep J-shaped groove into one side to create “Bookgroove” — one large enough to hold roughly two dozen mid-sized books. The visual effect is playful, with the color of the book spines contrasting with the neutral tone of the light wood grain. And it’s still functional as a side table, with plenty of room to set down your glasses, the remote, or a cup of coffee (though not everyone is comfortable with the idea of placing liquids over their favorite reads).

The Bookgroove is not his first foray into the realm of bookshelf furniture. Aktay’s “Booknest” is a vertical shelf with an almond shaped opening, wherein users can stuff a number of books like a squirrel might shove its food into a tree hole. Similarly, his “Plot Twist” resembles a warped version of an old 90s CD storage tower.

Before discovering his passion for furniture design, Aktay studied architecture and urban planning at the University of Stuttgart. After working as an architect for some time, he started making his own furniture in his free time, even entering several furniture design contests. “The more I focused on designing furniture and objects, the more my enthusiasm grew,” he says on his Behance profile.

That enthusiasm eventually became a full-time job for him, and he now has almost 100 different projects posted on Behance. He explains: “Over time I figured out that good design means…finding the right harmony between proportion, material, and functionality. This goes with my demand for simplicity, originality, proper element joining, detailing, and appropriate use of the materials involved. Considering all these aspects, designing a new piece is an interesting challenge every time.”

While the Bookgroove is a novel concept, one concern yet to be answered by the designer is whether the books at the base and curve of the inset would become misshapen over time, or if the books at the bottom could even be removed individually. But maybe that’s missing the point, and form is meant to trump function in this striking design. It’s definitely a head-turning piece, as evidenced by the over 120,000 likes on Aktay’s Instagram handle.

Aktay’s next task is to get enough interest to be able to sign on with manufacturers of his unique pieces. “The biggest challenge is to share your ideas with the public. I met so many nice people, got lovely comments, so much good advice, much encouragement,” Aktay said in an interview with HomeCrux. “I could attract attention from various interesting manufacturers – so my first professional jobs in designing and furniture realization as well as in visualizing them are just getting started.”

Those intrigued by his innovative designs can check out his work on his website and Instagram account.

The post This Modern Side Table Holds Your Books in an Awesomely Unique Way first appeared on Dornob.

These designs are now almost as much of a tourist draw as Miami’s white sand beaches, and when photographer Tommy Kwak saw them in 2019, he decided they deserved to get even more attention. Preserving the towers forever in their prime, Kwak’s series “Lifeguard Towers: Miami” captures the unique personalities of each one. Kwak wanted to catalog the structures as a means of inviting viewers to appreciate and compare their similarities and differences.

The series has been exhibited at Clic Gallery locations across the United States, and collectors have sought out limited-edition prints. Now, Kwak is offering it in the form of a fun photo book of the same name, published by Brooklyn-based specialty publishing house Blurring Books. A June crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter made it possible for Kwak to bring the project to life, and pre-orders are now available at booksellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble, with a release date of November 1st, 2022.

If you’re interested in seeing Miami Beach’s lifeguard towers in person, you can expect to get a fair bit of exercise in the process. Kwak says the towers stretch across 8.5 miles of shoreline — and that he burned 13,000 calories in the process of trudging through all that sand. They begin with a striped red and white tower at South Pointe, the most southerly tip of Miami Beach. Along the way, you’ll see fun combos of green, pink, and orange; a funky lime green swirl; an orange one with spiky “hair” reminiscent of Lisa Simpson; a patriotic paint job of Stars and Stripes; and more.

Kwak himself was drawn to Miami Beach by his love of water, which led him to look for unique lifeguard towers first in Miami, then Southern California, and finally in Montauk, New York. Next, he plans to photograph unique lifeguard towers in New England, and says he’s even gotten tips on unusual towers of interest in South Korea and Argentina.

About Tommy Kwak

Kwak’s website explains that his “work explores the transience of landscapes and natural forms through ethereal large-format color photographs. His work has been exhibited internationally, most recently in commissions for Louis Vuitton at their locations in New York, Seattle, and Cologne, Germany. He earned a BFA in Graphic Design from California College of the Arts in 2002 and completed photography courses at International Center of Photography from 2006 to 2008.”

“In 2010 and 2016, Tommy participated in the SIM Residency program in Reykjavík, Iceland as well as the international arts festival, Villa Reykjavík. Tommy grew up outside of Chicago, lived and worked in Brooklyn, NY for 13 years, and now resides in Montclair, NJ. He has been a member of Fowler Arts Collective in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and SONYA (South of Navy Yard Artists).”

The post Tommy Kwak Captures the Candy-Colored Lifeguard Towers of Miami Beach in a New Photo Book first appeared on Dornob.

The Reese’s Book Club x Havenly collection is the first of a planned multi-year partnership between Reese Witherspoon’s media company Hello Sunshine and interior design platform Havenly. More than 100 items range in price from $50 to $1,120 so you can put together the perfect spot to get lost in a book. Ideally, your book nook would be in a tucked-away location like the corner of a room or near a window, and include a soft ergonomic chair, side table, lamp, and bookshelf.

Some standout items from the collection include the super cozy-looking Hannah Swivel Chair in cream, which features encircling arms reminiscent of a warm hug, and the Annotate Floor Lamp, an elegant brass fixture at just the right height. Mix and match these pieces with items like the Chapter Ottoman, which comes in a playful cheetah print, and one of many textured throw blankets. Keep a glass of wine, a candle, and your current reads on the Index Cocktail Table. The Sequel Bookshelf offers the perfect space to show off your collection du jour.

Fun printed wallpapers include “Lemon”, “Floral Leaves”, “Faded Dream”, and “Dot Shell”, all available in three different color ways. You can get each one in either a peel and stick version or traditional pasted application, depending on whether you want the look to be permanent or easy to change. They’re a great way to connect the design of your nook to the space around it.

“We are thrilled to partner with Reese’s Book Club to celebrate book lovers and bring a new category to our design offerings,” says Lee Mayer, CEO and Co-founder of Havenly. “We are both fully female-led teams and we are dedicated to servicing the female/female-identifying community to further the mission that women can rule their lives and still take a break for themselves.”

“This partnership is solely focused around creating a more productive and positive type of self-care based on relaxation, comfort, and accessibility. Heavenly is the go-to destination for those looking for design, inspiration, and curated home product recommendations, and we are excited to partner with Reese’s Book Club to make it fun for book lovers to reimagine the space where they enjoy what they love most—to read.”

Havenly is an online interior design service that makes expert design accessible to anyone, no matter where you live or the size of your budget. They’ll connect you with a network of professional, screened, and trained interior designers who can create custom designs based on your needs and personal style. You can start designing your own space at Havenly.com or on the Havenly app.

The post Design a Reese Witherspoon-Approved Book Nook with This Havenly Collection first appeared on Dornob.

“The idea is simple: recovering projects by little-known and unknown architects, works that remain in the shadow of the great masters, looking into ‘minor figures,’ and combining different backgrounds in the history of architecture to complete students’ university studies,” The Forgotten Architecture Facebook page explains. “It is a collective experience that goes beyond the purely architectural, a virtual world peopled by more than 27,000 members from a variety of different professional backgrounds.”

The book is a compilation of many of the site’s exciting finds, with each page listing the Facebook contributor that introduced it to the group. It went on sale from March 7th to June 7th only, never to be sold again as a way of turning it into an instant collector’s item.

In case you can’t get your hands on a copy, here are some of our favorite highlights:

Casa Saldarini

Nicknamed the “Dinosaur House” or “Whale House,” the zoomorphic residence was designed by architect Vittorio Giorgini in 1962 in Piombino, Italy. Giorgini’s objective was to create an animal-like building that looked like it was at home in its own natural environment. Evocative curved walls flow organically through the unique house’s interior and exterior.

Complesso Rezidenciale di Piazza Grande

Built over the course of a decade starting in 1979, the Piazza Grande in Naples, Italy was designed by native architects Aldo Loris Rossi, Donatella Mazzoleni, Annalisa Pignalosa, and Luigi Rivieccio. Its influences were a mashup of Italian rationalism (like the Royal Crescent and Circus of Bath) and the organic architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. The circular complex includes private residences, offices, and commercial spaces, as well as schools, gyms, and public outdoor gathering areas.

Aquila Petrol Station

Originally constructed in 1949 in Sesto San Giovanni, Italy, this architectural treasure has since been demolished, but pictures of its undulating vaulted roof make clear that it must have been a striking sight for drivers along the Serenissima highway back in the day.

Chiesa del Sanatorio

Perhaps the first rationalist religious architecture in Italy, the church of the Vittorio Emanuele II sanatorium in Alessandria was built in 1926. Its concrete design sticks to only the essential geometric elements.

Arnaldo Pomodoro House

Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro had this “non-house” designed by renowned architect Ettore Sottsass Jr. in 1968. It was to be a place for welcoming clients and friends at social events. The geometric lines and emptiness created a “metaphysical” and “entropized” space that invited people to “stay but not to live.”

Roybal Comprehensive Health Center

Of course, not all the featured architecture in the book is from Italy. Known as “La Clínica de Colores” by the Spanish-speaking inhabitants of Los Angeles, California’s Roybal Comprehensive Health Center was designed in 1979 with a heavy Latin influence showcased in its colorful tiled facade and inset Aztec imagery.

The post Forgotten Architecture You Have to Check Out first appeared on Dornob.

Designed by Shanghai-based X+ Living, the firm drew inspiration for the new bookstore from the city of Shenzhen itself. Within just 40 years, the special economic zone has transformed from a small fishing village to a globally influential metropolis of innovation and entrepreneurship. “These achievements and history are the result of the sweat and hard work of pioneers. The city has been forged by countless dreamers,” chief architect Li Xiang notes.

“When I received the design assignment for Zhongshuge in Shenzhen last year, I had led the designs for several completed Zhongshuge across China,” she adds. “In the process of researching the cultural background of this city, I realized that I could design a space which could become a symbol of Shenzhen itself as an inclusive and vibrant city of migrants, paying tribute to all those who have struggled to make history in this city.”

“Thus, this retail space, which seems to have grown out of a giant art installation, was born. Straddling the earth and sky, it is examined as an otherworldly presence that creates a subtle experience of unease mixed with familiarity, making the space a proposition posing silent questions to the viewers.”

Xiang and her team also took Maxim Gorky’s quote “books are the ladder of human progress” as the metaphorical basis for the store’s horizontal spiraling staircase. The enormous coil can easily be seen from outside the store thanks to the floor-to-ceiling windows, beckoning passers-by to step in and explore the world of knowledge flowing through the expanse.

The staircase’s handrails each take the form of a clock hand seeming to rotate around an invisible clock in the center. They “allude to the fact that this is a ladder of history that has been built up over countless hours, conveying the sense that history is being pushed through time at a rapid pace,” according to the firm.

A table-height black bookshelf also runs through the vortex of the corkscrew, allowing patrons to feel like they are entering the flow of time and insight.

Continuing the ladder of wisdom imagery, X+ Living combined a host of stepped bookshelves to make a towering “sacred temple of knowledge” in the store’s forum room. A dark, mirrored ceiling and an assortment of warm and cool lighting make the space feel like it expands forever.

The store also includes a children’s area with a much more whimsical aesthetic. Decked out in lilac, peach, and salmon, the bookcases in here are designed in the shapes of childhood favorites, including a carousel, a castle, and a race car. Best of all, the room incorporates playground items like carousel horses and a train for the ultimate interactive reading experience.

Shenzhen Zhongshuge is the ninth retail branch that Li Xiang and X+ Living have designed, each one seemingly outdoing the last in terms of creativity and visual enchantment. Their imaginative work can be followed on both Xiang’s Instagram page and the company website.

The post X+Living’s Newest Bookstore Design Revolves Around a Spiraling “Ladder of Wisdom” first appeared on Dornob.

Virgil Abloh’s Architectural Vision for Louis Vuitton

The late designer Virgil Abloh gifted us with a lot of creativity before his untimely death this year, including a fun collection of architecture-meets-menswear for Louis Vuitton. Taking inspiration from James Baldwin’s 1953 essay “Stranger in the Village,” the Fall-Winter 2021 collection introduces wearable buildings modeled on such recognizable structures as Mies Van Der Rohe’s 1929 Barcelona Pavilion.

Selgascano’s Experimental Outdoor Office in Los Angeles

Office environments don’t have to be sad, stuffy, and boring. Selgascano’s Second Home Hollywood staggers lemon-yellow office pods and communal spaces through a lush landscape for a co-working environment that fosters connection, concentration, and good mental health. It’s the kind of work environment you might not actually mind returning to when the pandemic danger is over.

GROW, A Light Show for Plants

Bringing the same LED technology that benefits plants in greenhouses into open fields, Studio Roosegaard explores how artificial sunshine can benefit both plants and people with GROW. Part art installation, part agricultural innovation, the project turns farm fields into a setting for spectacular light shows while boosting crop growth.

The Chapel of Sound Concert Hall by OPEN Architecture

Strikingly sculptural in appearance, The Chapel of Sound is an open-air concert hall by OPEN Architecture set near the Great Wall of China outside Beijing. It’s organically shaped enough to seem almost like a natural growth, but its concrete striations produce an ideal acoustic space for performances, and it even has a rooftop observation deck.

The Symbolic Architecture of Squid Game

Somewhat depressing story aside, Netflix’s Squid Game stood out for its striking sets, each one symbolizing a contrast between childhood innocence and the harsh reality of adulthood in the modern world. Exaggerated and oversized playgrounds, eerie combat arenas, models of traditional Korean villages, and beds stacked like stadium bleachers come together to produce a nightmarish spectacle of life-or-death competition.

Cabana, A Tiny House That Can Be Built By Two

Tiny houses have a reputation for feeling a bit too cramped and utilitarian for most people, but the Cabana offers middle ground on both fronts. What’s remarkable about this 355-square-foot off-grid abode is that not only is it two full stories with an attractive modern design, it’s also made up of modules that are light enough for just two people to transport and put together.

Wutopia Lab’s Meditative Urban Bookstore

Wutopia Lab deftly demonstrates how to make urban locations feel zen with its Duoyun Bookstore, a cloud-themed commercial space that takes visitors on a journey of tranquility and discovery. Located in the Huangyang district of Taizhou in China, the nearly all-white bookstore features a series of connected outdoor rooftop spaces for reading and discussion in between interior spaces that show off the books to their best advantage.

Imaginative Furniture by Bethan Laura Wood

Sculpture, self-expression, a rebuke of sexist design standards: Bethan Laura Wood’s ornate and imaginative furniture reflects a daring approach and a uniquely brilliant vision. The English designer put together a collection of both new and old works for “Ornate,” a solo show at Nilafur Gallery in Milan, and it was a buffet of beautiful and strange objects that are also functional pieces for the home.

NCaved: A House Built Into a Greek Hillside

Sure, Mold Architects’ NCaved house in Greece looks a bit like a Bond villain’s lair. But it’s also smart in various ways: passively cooled and heated by the earth, blended into its hilly environment for a lower visual and environment impact, and designed to perfectly frame views of the water.

K-Thengono’s Adaptable Design for an Impossibly Narrow Apartment

Designs for ultra-tiny apartments that rely on robotic and electronic elements are certainly impressive, but out of reach for the average person who actually lives in a small space. Design firm K-Thengono took a more practical approach for this ultra-narrow apartment in Jakarta using drawers, cabinets, and fold-down tables. It’s a great example of what’s possible when you think creatively.

The post Our Favorite Designs of 2021, from Squid Game to Virgil Abloh first appeared on Dornob.

The old Bund Post Office was the very first one to be built in the province, giving it considerable significance as the center of the community. But its building had seen better days, and its location was no longer convenient for the largest possible number of local residents. The new facility needed to reestablish its former role and evoke a sense of nostalgia, while also shattering the boundaries “of what is traditionally associated with the concept of the post office,” explains design firm Yatofu.

The firm chose to collaborate with a neighboring business, Nordic Books, to combine the post office and shop as a single attraction. That gave them a bigger budget to work with, more opportunities to create dramatic visuals, and the ability to add some contemporary cultural interests to the mix. Occupying a three-story building, the new Bund Post Office makes use of a rich, evocative color palette that draws from historic references to emphasize its connection to the past.

Passersby are immediately drawn to the building’s exterior, upon which the entrance is framed by soft white illuminated panels. The large glass doors provide a view straight in to an arch-shaped bookcase in vivid red on the back wall. That’s your first sign that this is unlike any post office you’ve ever imagined. All the way at the top of the building, a ring of windows hints at the day-lit space you’ll find when you climb the last set of stairs.

Upon entering the dramatic double-height atrium, you’ll find the postal service counter set among gift and souvenir retail displays. Its fluted counter mimics that of the translucent white metal screens that line the staircase and the graphic shapes on the green floors, which complement the warm pink and clay hues throughout the space. A checkout counter for the bookstore is set into another end of the room, and the stairs sweep you up to a mezzanine lined with crimson bookshelves. The perforated metal mesh triples as a railing, built-in functional writing surfaces, and retail display structures.

Two built-in reading booths featuring green leather and custom lighting are also found on this secondary level, and when you follow the stairs to the top and cross a small bridge, you find a private children’s event and workshop space lined with undulating panels of glass windows. The layout here is inspired by community rooftop gardens.

“The brief from the client was posed as a question: How can we reimagine the role of the post office in the community?” says Yatofu. “The initial research led to the realization that post offices are often seen as most necessary during times of celebration – this means holidays, festivals, birthdays, and of course, the culturally significant Chinese New Year. This led to the redefinition of the brief itself as creating a post office that combined its normal functions with gift retail, cultural events, and a children’s event/play space.”

This captivating interior design was nominated for a 2021 INDE award in the shopping category, which recognizes progressive, innovative projects from 14 countries in the Indo-Pacific, and long-listed in the small retail interior category of the Dezeen Awards 2021.

The post Yatofu’s Festive Palette Makes This Space in Zhejiang the Cutest Post Office Ever first appeared on Dornob.

“Suddenly, I decided there should be a cloud, calmly and slowly rising over the river,” Ting says. “Clouds have a sophisticated and pure beauty.” Thus, a particularly unique bookstore was born, incorporating a series of indoor and outdoor spaces that take you on a meditative journey, clearing your mind to make way for all the written content you’re about to devour. If the layout looks familiar, that’s because it’s based on the traditional courtyard houses of China, in which the most important internal spaces are grouped pavilions looking out onto a central outdoor area.

Even as you approach from the street, the bookstore has an ethereal feel to it. The facade is a white perforated metal screen that almost blends into the sky, the entryway a cutout shaped like a cloud. Those perforations vary in size to create a layered effect that either reveals or disguises the rest of the city beyond the walls. Ting describes it as “a serene and pleasant visual subtraction” that focuses one’s gaze on the real clouds that float above the river. Trees, dark gray stepping stones, and islands of grass also punctuate the field of white.

The courtyard doesn’t just serve as a mood setter. It was also a way for Ting to to bring together the various “scattered” volumes that already existed on the site and give them a sense of flow and cohesion. One is the lifestyle book area, one is the coffeehouse, and another serves as a display for reproductions of rare books. New additions house areas like the sales kiosks and main bookstore displays. On the second floor of the coffeehouse is a future “urban parlor room,” while other upstairs spaces serve as exhibition areas. Even the rooftops are connected into a series of elevated terraces looking out onto the city, giving you a whole new level of spaces to explore. They include a children’s play platform, a “discussion terrace,” a fire pit, and a “labyrinth terrace” to sit and enjoy your coffee.

“I insist that architecture should be full of metaphors,” Ting says. “We distilled the clouds into an easy-to-read formal symbol, turning them into doorways, logos, and even UIs, while the white of the clouds covers all the background spaces of the building to reinforce the symbolic meaning in the clouds and represent the Shanghai of the clouds. The orange color extracted from Huangyan’s most famous orange not only represents the Huangyan of Duoyun, but also becomes the main color in the foreground of the entrance book and coffee area. From white clouds to orange clouds, it is easy to build a story about five-color auspicious clouds.”

Clouds and gaze-directing white screens are common motifs in Wutopia Lab’s work, and in fact, in their previous bookstore designs as well. Check out their design for the ultramodern futuristic Zhongshu bookstore in Xi’an, China and their sci-fi inspired museum full of architectural models.

The post Wutopia Lab’s Duoyun Bookstore Takes You on a Tranquil Journey Through Clouds first appeared on Dornob.

“I love deserts and I love bizarre cars, so it was just a question of time that I would get in touch with this kind of species in this great surreal scenario,” Lier explains on her Kickstarter page, adding that “The first time I visited the [Burning Man] festival in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada…I was immediately captivated by the driving artworks. I wondered why no one has highlighted this art, without which Burning Man would not be what it is.”

A self-dubbed described “gearhead,” Lier has been traveling the world since 1999, photographing the story of vehicles and making “moto art.” This is her third fine art book and first Kickstarter-funded project. Her other works include The World´s Fastest Place from Kehrer publishers and Speedseekers from Gingko Press.

Lier began capturing the passion of Burning Man builders in 2014 and features all her favorites in Mutant Vehicles, including the Star Wars-esque “Rocket Car,” a giant bunny chasing a carrot, and a shiny flying saucer.

Burning Man, an annual creative gathering of 50,000-plus people in the Nevada Black Rock Desert, had to go virtual in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although dates for 2021 are tentatively scheduled for August 29th to September 6th, the “temporary metropolis dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance” will only take place if COVID conditions are amenable. That helps explain why many fans, hungry for the experience, were eager and ready to jump on Lier’s campaign. At the time of writing, a total of 313 backers pledged more than €26,170 to the project, surpassing all but one stretch goal.

For a pledge of €45, supporters will get a hand-signed VIP book, with a foreword by internationally acclaimed sculptor and Burning Man contributor David Best and an acknowledgment in the book’s Gratitude Page. The coffee table page-turners are expected to ship out in July 2021.

Since she was able to raise funds above her initial goal, Lier’s book will now also include interactive sections, with QR codes throughout opening a video of an exciting ride over the playa, audio and video interviews with some of the artists, and an augmented reality experience where the “Rocket Car will get three-dimensional.”

In terms of her decision to self-publish this book, Lier was looking for flexibility and community connectivity. “The crowdfunding campaign is for awareness and outreach and gives me as an artist the opportunity to produce and fund the book, inclusive post-production, book design, copywriting, and printing,” she writes. “The more who will order the book, the more books will be produced, and the more complex and interactive the book will be.”

Those interested in seeing more of Lier’s work can follow her on Instagram at @alexandralier.

The post Kickstarter Campaign Gives Burning Man’s “Mutant Vehicles” Their Very Own Book first appeared on Dornob.

Featuring 250 of the biggest ground-breakers in art, architecture, design, fashion, literature, music, film, and theater, Lubell reveals a previously unseen facet of these individuals. “An oft-overlooked, profound way to experience their power and legacy is to examine one of the most personal aspects of who they are: their homes, their refuges, their inner sanctums,” he writes in the book’s introduction. “The spaces that purely reflect their values, their wants, and their spirits, designed just for them and those they love.”

The creatives highlighted come from the Renaissance all the way up to modern times. Narrowing down the names and dwellings for the book was a difficult but intensely gratifying process for Lubell. “Once we finalized our list, I became so ensconced in these homes that I felt like I was somewhere else. Often, I spent hours communing with their art or listening to their music,” he explains. “I was like a character actor who doesn’t break his role after filming. I really felt transported.”

There were many abodes that reflected exactly what one would expect of the spotlighted icon – like animal print splashed across the rooms of fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg – but some of the interiors revealed new information. For example, Les Misérables author Victor Hugo liked to make furniture out whatever was lying around, and author Edith Wharton was actually a talented designer who helped with the plans for her house and gardens in Lenox, Massachusetts.

Lubell suggests that the decor and designs that artists surround themselves with can’t help but contribute to their work. “There’s this phenomenal feedback loop between a creative person and their living space,” he says. “Their experience inspires their art, which inspires their home, which inspires their art, which inspires their experience, and so on and so on.”

That may be most true of Chilean poet/politician Pablo Neruda. Lubell notes how his literary love of the sea was reflected in his personal surroundings with “seagoing objects like a ship’s buxom figurehead, compasses, maps, ships in bottles, seashells, and whale’s teeth. There’s even a large rusty anchor in the garden.”

“Few of us are aware of how much our homes, and architecture in general, shape us,” Lubell stresses. “It’s almost like peeking inside someone’s body. It’s just a perfect way to get to know them: their personality, their creativity, and what’s most important to them.”

Viewing artist Jean Cocteau’s villa in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France teaches that he was quite the fan of his own art, filling the walls with his own murals. And then there’s novelist Herman Melville, whose minimalist Massachusetts cottage shows that he kept a “sense of New England asceticism interrupted only by lovely dressers, clocks, beds, and china.” The southeast London apartment of textile and clothing designer Zandra Rhodes indicates how her eccentric and passionate personality set the tone for her “Rainbow Penthouse.”

Life Meets Art lists the featured homes in alphabetical order by artist, further indicating whether each is open to the public or not. Each photo spread also includes a caption with details about the residence and its creative inhabitant.

Lubell’s book is currently being sold through global publishing company Phaidon and retailing for $60.

The post New Book Peers Into the Homes of the World’s Most Creative Icons first appeared on Dornob.

Following the recent announcement of winners for the ADI Medals of Industrial Design and ADG Laus Awards for Graphic Design and Visual Communication, winners in the student categories shared their thoughts on what the competitions meant to them, and how the student experience at EINA had shaped their personal and professional development. EINA is a university in Barcelona that is uniquely dependent on a private non-profit foundation, and is an extension of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB).

With their entry Magnet App, a team made up of Carles Giménez, Marta Pardina, and Laia Xixons took home the Silver Laus, awarded by the Association of Graphic Designers and Art Directors of the FAD (ADG-FAD). A team representative expressed: “We are very happy; for us it is the recognition of a job well done. To receive an award like this at the end of our career at the university, and in the circumstances in which we find ourselves, is a push to continue.”

As recent graduates of EINA, the trio all give credit to the institution for creating a foundation to help them launch their careers from, commenting that the college’s atmosphere encourages creative thinking, a deep understanding of design, and confidence — obviously a winning combination in this case.

Paula Terra, an EINA alumni with a Master’s Degree in Graphic Design, won the ADI Silver Medal (awarded by the FAD Industrial Design Association, ADI-FAD) for her Final Degree Project (FDP) Dröp: a non-invasive treatment for type 1 diabetes. When asked what the award meant to her, her response shadowed that of the Magnet App team’s, saying: “This award means satisfaction on a personal and professional level. It is a recognition of the effort and dedication to the project, but also an impulse to continue enjoying and working with the same enthusiasm and dedication.” She continued by expressing her gratitude for having an opportunity to share and develop a real-world application to make diabetes easier to monitor, an opportunity she likely wouldn’t have had without the university and design competitions.

Manu González won the ADI Medal of Opinion for his Final Design Degree Project TMBLight. Like other entrants, Manu focused on a product aimed at solving a problem (in this case, overcrowding on public transportation during peak travel times). The TMBLight connects to the system and provides real-time feedback of occupation levels in each carriage in the system, giving riders the option to avoid the highly congested areas.

The award reinforced Manu’s place in the design world both to others and himself, which seems to be a common feeling amongst winners. He summarized by saying, “I am extremely happy that it was the members of ADI who gave me this medal, because that means that not only do I believe in this idea, but there is a very large group of designers in Barcelona who also believe in it.”

Other top finishers included Marc Villalba, who took home the Bronze Laus Award for his 451, Literature en Llamas and Judit Serra, who won a Bronze Laus Award for “Poética,” a visual system that offers a graphic interpretation of lyrical poetry. Finally, Carles Giménez won a Bronze Laus Award for FOURTURES, a book and app that reinterprets a way of conceiving possible futures, based on the book “Four Futures” by Peter Frase.

The post Students from Barcelona’s Prestigious EINA Speak on Recent Design Competition Wins first appeared on Dornob.

A new book called “Interiors of Isolation” aims to find out. Conceived and edited by two candidates for Masters of Architecture degrees at the University of Toronto, the project calls on fellow students to create plans, drawings, and written statements on their spaces of confinement.

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Jana R. Nitschke and Valerie Marshall won funding for the book through the University of Toronto’s COVID-19 Student Engagement Award, which recognizes unique proposals that contribute to building and fostering a global community during the pandemic.

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“As students dedicated to exploring the relationship between people and the places they inhabit, we were profoundly impacted by the shift to staying at home which the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated,” say Nitschke and Marshall. “This shift has forced us to contemplate now more than ever, how we use the spaces we call home, and how we adapt, and adapt to, these spaces under unique circumstances.”

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The duo is featuring submissions on Instagram @interiorsofisolation, including some of the best written statements. Successful applicants will be featured in the book, set to be released in September 2020, and the top submission will receive $100 on top of that. The entries include colorful paintings, detailed sketches, complex floor plans, and humorous interpretations of the students’ surroundings.

New York-based Sheena, @sheemeetscity, titled her own cheerful pastel drawing “The art of staying in.”

Designer @j_archo is seeing things in the power outlets, explaining that “Since the quarantine began, I have not left my property line in months! I spend almost 85 percent of the time in my bedroom in my parent’s suburban home. You will mainly find me at my desk browsing the web on my laptop or on my bed scrolling through my phone, but I always try to make some time to exercise my creativity.”

Nitschke’s own submission reflects feelings of frustration and determination. She writes that “We are experiencing a time of places full of disorder, confusion, and chaos. John Milton describes in Paradise Lost, the Pandæmonium as the capital of hell for Satan and his peers. COVID-19 has become the invisible devil that needs to be fought. However, fear and isolation turn this pandemic into our own personal Pandæmonium. We need to break free from our mental cage to keep our sanity to get through this time, together.”

The entries aren’t always focused on the students’ own homes, either. Instagram user @RomanRevival, for instance, chose to highlight a situation he found more concerning than his own. He notes that “for some, a tent is what you take as you afford the luxury of fleeing the city on your way to a camping site in rural British Columbia during the COVID-19 outbreak. For others, it’s a home, and there is nowhere to run. For homeless people in neighborhoods such as East Hastings in Vancouver, neither isolation nor the means to afford an escape as a ticket to survival are an option.”

The post “Interiors of Isolation” Contest Asks Students to Reflect on Their Quarantine Spaces first appeared on Dornob.

That’s especially true for the firm’s spectacular bookstore designs, most created for various locations of the chain Zhongshuge. Thinking way outside the box, this practice founded by Li Xiang produces jaw-dropping results, often enhanced in unexpected ways with the help of visual tricks like mirrors.

For instance, there’s the Zhongshuge Chonquing Store, which was completed in 2019. Located on the third and fourth floors of Zodi Plaza in Yangjiaping, the bookstore is full of bookshelves shaped like lamp shades designed to make visitors feel like they’re “in a bright and warm private study when they read in the warm light projected from inside the lampshades.”

The firm adds that “further down the corridor is the children’s reading room, the main study, and a ‘ladder hall’ where the stairs double as bookshelves, and the mirrored ceiling overhead doubles the size of the already astonishing room. The space allows visitors to rest on the shelved steps and be immersed in books and thoughts.”

Then there’s the Zhongshuge Minhang Store in Shanghai, which achieves similar effects using different visual tricks. The interiors take inspiration from spinning tops, and when you first walk in, the kaleidoscopic effect can be mildly dizzying.

The firm explains that “the spinning top represents a balance of finding the fulcrum in the spin. The seemingly static posture actually implies a lot. It accepts every impetus, and it is like a diligent ballet dancer finding a balance in the practice of rotation. [We tried to indicate] a way of life using groups of spinning tops. The power of knowledge contained in books is also impetus and motivation. In the wall, the black bookshelves are designed into powerful shapes.”

“The triangular bookshelves don’t just carry the books, but greet bundles of a halo from the ceiling. The halo sprinkles downward along the triangular shapes of the lower bookshelves, like street lamps, to illuminate the name of each book. The black bookshelf wall echoes statically with the dynamic spinning top in the middle: soft, strong, quiet, and equally wonderful!”

The Zhongshuge Guiyang Bookstore takes a slightly more organic approach, with rolling curves that make you feel like you’re inside a giant barrel full of books. This one takes inspiration from caves and ships, with the mirrored floors mimicking the look of reflective water.

Zhongshuge Hanzhou is a little extra playful, from the surreal children’s reading areas to the contrast of a minimalist pure white room. X+Living envisions the floor plan as spaces that feel like forests of books adjacent to the heavenly sky-like atmosphere of the white room. This is one of their older bookstore designs, and it’s interesting to see how their style has evolved over time.

The post Kaleidoscopic Bookstore Designs by X+Living Almost Don’t Seem Real first appeared on Dornob.

Quarantine is offering many people a little extra time to work on projects around the house, including redecorating. If you’re in search of a little inspiration, there’s plenty to be mined in the way the couple blends modern and traditional styles, explores the contrasts between different materials, and mixes and matches clashing patterns. Even better, you can thumb through 11 of their favorite projects in their new book, Novogratz Design Fix: Chic and Stylish Tips for Every Decorating Scenario.

“The Novogratz,” as they refer to themselves, cover everything from their own former Hollywood Hills home renovation to a small Airbnb space in the book, with a wide range of stylistic influences interspersed throughout. Each chapter details the challenges of an individual project, offering up solutions for all kinds of interior design problems. The first, “Castle House,” features a 100-year-old house once owned by a silent screen star, which was later sold to actors Norman Reedus and Diane Kruger when the Novogratz’ work was done.

Some of the tips you’ll glean include scoring the best finds at flea markets, artfully arranging items on shelves, creating beautiful and functional open floor plans, and carefully choosing items to splurge on (and understanding which ones you’re better off finding at a bargain). Some of the best advice focuses on choosing art.

“Art is something people think they need permission to start collecting. They don’t know how to get going — what do I spend, what kind do I buy? We talk about art in one chapter; art is a great way to add color to a home,” Bob tells the Houston Chronicle. “I say everything is relative to your own budget. If you’re buying something expensive, research it a little. Find out where you’d buy it and who else is in the gallery. Have they had any art in museums?”

“There’s also inexpensive art. You can buy oil paintings in flea markets or limited-edition prints. Colleges all over the country have great art departments and you can buy from students. I always bought young artists. Now, very few people can afford anything but young artists. It’s fun to buy a young artist and later see them do well.”

More than anything, they say, they want readers to come away with the confidence to take chances. Find a tip or two that resonates from each chapter and use it to create something that’s uniquely you.

You can find Novogratz Design Fix: Chic and Stylish Tips for Every Decorating Scenario at retailers like Target and Barnes & Noble for about $30. Plus, check out their website for lots more photos of the work they’ve done around the United States, and to shop their line (which is full of cool stuff at great prices).

The post HGTV Stars Cortney and Robert Novogratz’ New Book Offers Insightful Home Decorating Tips first appeared on Dornob.