When Cerri first released the Ouverture sofa in 1982, it was unlike any other furniture at the time (or any that had come before). The design draws inspiration from music, architecture, and technology, incorporating industrial elements like a distinctive metal frame perforated by circles. And while the framework of most sofas remains hidden beneath upholstery, the Ouverture puts it on full display, leaving the T-shaped steel bar and simple legs visible as a major design element.

The sofa’s load-bearing beam is free of joints, supporting its weight in such a way that it almost appears to float. Finished with matte black epoxy powder, the metal is meant to evoke a high-tech aesthetic, contrasting with the warmth and malleability of the cushions. Poltrona Frau has only tweaked a few small details from the original for this new reissue: the cushions were modified to be more ergonomic, and the sofa now comes in two sizes, a two-seater measuring 239 centimeters long and a three-seater measuring 318 centimeters.

The Ouverture sofa may be 40 years old, but unlike most other furniture pieces from the 1980s, it remains a contemporary classic. Original vintage sofas from the first release are sought-after collectibles, selling on sites like 1stDibs for $7,000 to $10,000.

“Apparently simple in form, the cushions conceal a wealth of details: from the backrest buttons, a recurring detail of 1980s designs and nod to traditional upholstery, to the slight tapering of the joint between the seat cushions and the backrest, for the optimum overlapping of the two elements,” says Poltrona Frau. “The cushions, with removable covers in either leather or fabric, are filled with goose down and polyester wadding with a polyurethane foam insert that ensures non-deformability and absolute comfort.”

Poltrona Frau rereleased Ouverture as part of its celebration of the company’s 110th anniversary in 2022. It’s available in various upholstery options, including bouclé, twill, piqué, and the company’s signature Pelle Frau leather in a pleasing variety of shades. Dusty eggplant, tomato red, malachite, tranquil marine blue, and a bright goldenrod are among the more colorful options, alongside plenty of neutrals. Prices are available on request.

Pierluigi Cerri died on November 29th, 2022 at the age of 83. He is celebrated as a visionary three-time Compasso d’pro laureate. In addition to his work in the worlds of design and architecture, he was a curator, graphic designer, academic, and editor for Casabella and Rassegna magazines. He handled the design of collections for Italian publishing houses like Electa and Einaudi and designed objects and layouts for well known brands like B&B Italia, Unifor, Desalto, and Fontana Arte.

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The renovation will begin in May 2023 and be completed in 2026 for a 2027 reopening ahead of an important occasion: the 1,125th anniversary of Sugawara no Michizane’s death. Keeping the shrine completely out of commission for a three-year renovation wasn’t an option, since Tenjin is worshipped internationally and Dazaifu Tenmagu draws up to 10 million tourists every year. The renovation will repair the hall’s thatched Japanese cypress bark roof and its lacquered interiors, and make the whole structure more resistant to earthquakes.

Fujimoto’s single-story temporary sanctuary hall will be set up in front of the honden hall to host rituals and worship. Made of steel beams, it’s designed so it can be quickly built in just a few months between February and May 2023. The temporary hall is the same size as the main hall but will be open to the air, set on a black platform with a single solid wall in the back. A ramp enables wheelchair access, and unlike the main shrine, the temporary hall will also allow visitors to enter without taking their shoes off.

The temporary hall’s defining feature is its tilting green roof, which will disguise and soften the construction going on behind it while also creating the spectacle of a “floating forest.” Grasses, shrubs, and full-size trees will be transplanted onto it for the effect of a mature forest.

At a press conference, Fujimoto said, “I aimed for a design that can connect the tradition of Dazaifu Tenmangu shrine with today and pass it down to future generations.”

“We will build a ‘cave’ in front of Kumamoto Station to welcome everyone to visit,” says the team at the Dazaifu Tenmangu shrine. “Since it has only been exhibited for three years, we wanted it to be a place that will be pleasing to the Tenjin Sama and all the visitors. It has been designed to blend in with the surrounding landscape, carrying on the tradition and connecting to the future.”

Sou Fujimoto’s unconventional nature-oriented approach to architecture has produced some incredibly unique projects in the past. For his “Flowing Cloud” resort complex in China, the architect created a terraced plan cascading down a hillside, partially covered by a ceiling made of woven grasses. In Budapest, the Hungarian House of Music revives a 300-acre city park with 97,000 square feet of both open and enclosed exhibits and theaters, all topped by a distinctive circular roof inspired by the vibration of sound. And in Maebashi, Japan, the architect’s renovation of the Shiroiya Hotel produced a faux hillside covered in greenery, trees and walkways.

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The idea for Muuw started during the pandemic when Tommy Truup, an expert in steel fabrication, decided he wanted to create work-from-home spaces that could also act as backyard retreats. Truup founded Muuwspace and designed his ideal one-room escape, with a shape inspired by beehives and the carbon structures in human cells.

Three of the pod’s six walls are floor-to-ceiling windows, so the 100-square-foot space feels much more expansive than it really is. Insulated glazing from Saint-Gobain features a metallic blue external reflection so you can maintain privacy and avoid getting overheated.

The cabin is constructed from durable galvanized steel, insulated fully for all climates, and capable of withstanding a heavy snow load on its roof. It also boasts luxurious floor heating, a quiet speed-controllable ventilation system, dimmable LED lights inside and out, a triple-glazed aluminum entry door, wall-integrated speakers, five electrical sockets, and two separate USB charging sockets. It even comes with an attached terrace with a frame made of hot dip galvanized steel.

A variety of interior finishes are available for the Muuw backyard work pod, including oak laminate on the ceiling and walls. The outdoor deck and screen at the entrance of the pod can be made of ash or pine wood. Buyers customize the Muuw to their liking and send the order to Muuwspace’s factory, where it’s built and delivered to the installation site in separate pieces. Assembly takes just one or two days depending on access to the installation site, which could be a backyard, garden, terrace, or even remote land. The whole thing is delivered on the back of a truck.

“Muuw can be used as an add-on to your main home or placed in a completely separate area of your choice – depending on whether you’d use it for focused work, productivity, reading, self-development, hobbies, or full relaxation,” the company says. “The interior is a calming, personal space – fitting snugly inside the building’s hexagonal structure. Each Muuw space boasts modern interiors and vast, panoramic views.”

“The unique exterior design also feels incredibly contemporary, using minimalistic materials combined with warm, traditional wood that’s sure to attract everyone’s attention. Just picture yourself stood in the Muuw, looking out over the horizon – we guarantee it will provide you with the feeling that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to, with relaxation being the key to productivity and accomplishment.”

Pricing for each Muuw pod starts at $32,000, depending on the options you choose. Muuwspace is currently able to deliver and assemble the pods throughout Europe and the United States, including the UK, Ireland, Norway, and Switzerland. It takes 8 to 16 weeks to receive your Muuw after ordering.

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Not only does the Tower of Light make this industrial facility a lot more beautiful on the outside, it puts on light shows by day and by night in two very different ways. When the sun shines on it, polished reflectors inside it move in the wind, reflecting patterns of light into the tower’s chambers to create a natural sparkling effect. After dark, LED lights directed at the reflectors amp up the drama with animated, programmed light sequences every 15 minutes to mark the passage of time.

The tower’s unusual form derives from “Shell Lace Structure,” a biomimetic structural technique developed by Tonkin Liu in collaboration with engineers at Arup. This innovative technique uses digital design, engineering analysis, and advanced manufacturing tools to achieve complex organic shapes without compromising structural stability. The technique is inspired by the structures of mollusk shells, which gain their strength from optimized curvilinear geometry. Strategically placed perforations give the shell a lightweight quality while spreading loads in multiple directions. The Tower of Light is now the largest Shell Lace Structure ever built.

“The Shell Lace Structure technique represents an adaptive approach to architecture that allows for enhanced means of expression as well as additional opportunities to respond to site, structure, and climatic requirements,” say the architects. “The technique is multi-faceted and by involving both the hand and the machine in its design process, Shell Lace Structure enables us to regain intuition whilst wielding the speed, craft, and precision inherent in digital tools.”

The architects call the street facade enclosing the new energy center “Wall of Energy.” Visually complementing the tower, this facade features glazed ceramic tiles to reflect light and movement from clouds in the sky as well as human activity on the street to give it an ever-changing appearance. The shape of the tiles is inspired by “the dynamic energy of earth’s movements, as seen in patterns left in the sand by ocean waves,” Tonkin Liu explains.

The energy center itself is known as the Civic Quarter Heat Network (CQHN) and Energy Center, providing the neighborhood with low-carbon energy. It’s powered by an engine and two gas boilers, and designed so that future energy technologies can add or adapt to the power supply without disrupting the flow of electricity. Heat from the power-generating engine is harnessed to create hot water, which then runs through insulated district pipework across the city network, improving energy efficiency by as much as 45 percent.

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Part of the inspiration for the peculiar shape was that “the dome is the geometry that involves the minimum surface of the material, as well as working very well structurally,” the architects explain.

The 11.5-foot rounded structure was constructed from horizontal and vertical ribs cut with CAD-CAM technologies. The exterior was then covered with strips of cream-colored upholstery foam for maximum heat capture. “The flexible condition of the material easily adapts to the igloo shape,” notes Muiño.

Strands of steel chains wrap the outside, securing the foam in place and giving the entire dwelling an air of security. The entryway is also draped with a curtain of the same chains, all remnants of previous design endeavors. “This solution made out of individual vertical elements allowed us to adapt to the arch-shaped entrance as a regular door wouldn’t be able to do,” the Barcelona-based architects said.

The inside of the igloo is a cozy winter wonderland. “The interior space has a floor at a height of 90 centimeters (three feet) where the mattress lies, all covered in a white furry carpet ready to be enjoyed barefoot,” Muiño adds. “Below this big bed, there is a space for storing, playing, or hiding.”

Everything inside sticks to the arctic theme. In addition to the polar bear-like material coating the walls, bed platform, and stairs, the arched beams are bound in more cream-colored foam, the bedding looks like swiss cheese, and the lighting gleams in ivory. There are also six globe lightbulbs placed strategically at the top of the dome, simultaneously providing the impression of gazing up to the stars at night and warming the otherwise-cold loft space.

While unconventional as a residence, living in a warehouse provides the couple the freedom and flexibility they desire for immersive designing. “The house-workshop is a 400-square-meter (4,305 square feet) space that can host the installations that we design and produce,” says Luzárraga. “At the same time, the space is being colonized by some domestic spaces that condition it for living. It’s continuously changing depending on the work that we are developing. Some of the pieces stay forever, and some of them are temporary.”

Luzárraga and Muiño founded Takk in 2008 after both earning architecture degrees in Spain. In their own words, their work focuses on “experimental and speculative practices in the intersection between nature and culture, with a particular emphasis on the overcoming of anthropocentrism.” In 2012, the team won the Konecta Foundation prize for social architecture with their “Suitcase House,” an accordion-folding emergency dwelling. In addition to their design work, which has been featured in the 13th Venice Biennale and the first Biennale d’Architecture d’Orléans, the couple currently teach at several universities and institutes around their country.

The post Spanish Architects Craft a Cozy Igloo for Their Daughter’s Bedroom first appeared on Dornob.

Volcanic rocks form the base of each piece, left mostly in their natural form. Mined in Japan, these hunks of rock have a rust-like outer layer that developed as a result of air and moisture penetrating fissures in the crust of the Earth and oxidizing the iron content of the stones. When cracked or chiseled open, they reveal deep, dark inner cores. Park tops each one with steel polished almost to a mirror finish to contrast the grittiness of the rock.

“All the texture in the stone is actually created by unexpected accidents and it’s never the same, and this is so intriguing to me,” Park says, adding that “the cut of the stone is vital to the success of each piece. Its linearity is something that nature cannot produce – only humans work in straight lines. Their flat-cut sides serve to highlight the textured lines and irregularities of the stones’ exteriors and emphasize their natural beauty. The steel adds dimension to the cut line of the stone and extends it further into space, creating volume and balance.”

Park’s inspiration for this collection is rooted in the Japanese and Korean artists of the 20th century Mono-ha movement, which combined natural and industrial materials to visualize the tension between nature and the rapid development of Japan in the 1960s. Mono-ha, which translates as “School of Things,” focused on an exploration of materials rather than representation.

Although Parks’ work is both sculptural and functional, the spirit of Mono-ha is evident, even when he uses more refined contemporary materials. Straddling the line between “practical commodity and fine art,” as the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Korea described it, Parks’ oeuvre examines the ways in which materials can conjure certain feelings and associations.

His cast resin pieces, for instance, aim for a “sense of lightness and purity,” a texture that gives him “the sensation of painting enveloped air.” Its translucence enables him to convey the quality of light found in the sky, in water, and in rainbows, with colors he painstakingly mixes himself before combining them with the resin base and molding the material into slabs.

Metal, in contrast, is all about form and structure, as Park previously demonstrated with his “Plain Cuts” series. Sheets of aluminum come together into stark intersecting shapes, almost entirely rigid and rectilinear with just the slightest curve visible every now and then. “Stone + Steel” is a continuation of that series, and manages to give volcanic rock an almost malleable quality in its irregularity.

“In my designs, I want my objects to speak for themselves,” says Park. “To be beautiful, attractive, and engage with their surroundings. My work embraces simplicity, purity, and subtlety. People who experience my designs have the space to explore their own sensations and emotions.”

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The 355-square-foot “Cabana” was commissioned by a Brazilian steel company to highlight the adaptability of its product at Casa Cor 2021, the country’s annual interior and exterior design showcase. The project parameters required that the dwelling should be lightweight, easy to transport, and provide minimal interference with the surrounding environment.

Lead architect Barbara Fonseca created a two-story structure that includes an entire wall of windows to capitalize on the area’s picturesque nature views. The asymmetrical house is also compact and efficient. The entryway opens onto the living area, complete with an energy-saving wood burning stove. Directly behind the seating area is a small wall of kitchen cabinets including a built-in sink, two-burner stove, and small refrigerator.

To the left of the kitchenette is a ladder that leads to the upper level. Around the other side is the bathroom, which incorporates two showerheads mounted on the ceiling and a composting toilet. Bringing the outside in, an indoor botanical garden bed placed adjacent to the shower allows green plants to recycle some of the residents’ carbon dioxide emissions.

A single bedroom with room for a queen-size platform bed comprises the entire second floor. The warm, wooden walls here are broken up by two oversize windows to allow plenty of sunlight and fresh air in.

To keep the environmental impact low, Liga Arquitetura e Urbanismo chose to utilize steel beams, cements slabs with steel pile foundations, and reforested wood as their primary building materials. Rock wool was also incorporated in the walls and ceiling, itself a very effective stone-based insulation made from Basalt rock and recycled steel slag.

The construction plans call for the use of steel screws to join all the parts, preventing extra air pollution from the by-products of welding and drawing attention to another one of the versatile metal’s many benefits.

“With the cabin project we hope to introduce people to a new way of life: more modern, practical, and simple. And to show that steel is accessible for all types of buildings,” said Ascanio Merrighi, director of Soluções Usiminas, one of the largest steel companies in the western hemisphere and the sponsor for the Cabana design.

The tidy cabin also includes LED strip lighting and strategically-placed windows for maximum cross-ventilation. “All these actions aim to reduce the need to use air conditioning systems, improve performance in the use of artificial lighting, and consequently minimize the consumption of electricity,” the architects note.

The whole structure is made up of modules that are light enough for just two people to transport, making cranes and other construction vehicles unnecessary. Plus, all the pieces can fit simultaneously into one box truck, reducing the cost and carbon emissions required to get the materials on site.

Liga Arquitetura e Urbanismo is based in Belo Horizonte, Brazil and was founded in 2015 with the aim of designing buildings that “transform information into matter.” The company has since gone on to produce many sleek and modern structures for both small and large commercial clients.

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But how do we house all of those people and meet all their needs? Most experts say the answer is vertical expansion. Urban architecture is set to grow taller and taller, and that’s not just limited to offices and apartment buildings. A new concept by architecture firm Carlo Ratti Associati illustrates how even sporting complexes will soon reach up into the clouds, to potentially dazzling effect.

“Playscraper” is a tower of eight stacked tennis courts, each one offset from the one below it for visual interest and alternating views of the city. Developed for RCS Sport, the sport and media branch of European multimedia publishing group RCS MediaGroup, this isn’t just some visionary idea created without a care for whether or not it could really be built. Its architects worked with a team of engineers and technical consultants to come up with a practical design based on a new construction technology that allows for ultra-tall but extremely strong structures. Inspired by the outer shell of a spacecraft, the B-Core slab structure consists of several prefabricated layers of lightweight stainless steel.

Eight of these steel boxes (each featuring transparent walls on two sides) are stacked to a height of 300 feet, offering 60,000 square feet (5,500 square meters) of total playing space. Each floor contains one stand-alone tennis court with a 35-foot ceiling height. As matches are played inside, the action can be streamed outside via electronic facades running along the long sides of each box, letting the public take part in the fun.

“This project would not just create a new icon for sports lovers,” says architect and engineer Carlo Ratti, founder of CRA and director of the MIT Senseable City Lab. “It also experiments with a new type of public space, extending vertically instead of horizontally. The tower is easy to install and dismantle and can be easily moved. This flexible approach fits the circular nature of today’s sports competitions, which move from location to location throughout the year.”

B-Core technology, developed by Broad Sustainable Building (BSB), is the key component of this skyscraper’s likelihood of eventually being built. The B-Core CTS slab consists of two steel panels clipped together with thin-walled internal tubes, with the gaps between the tubes filled with rock wool for thermal insulation.

These panels can be prefabricated and then assembled quickly and easily onsite. In fact, BSB used them to demonstrate how a four-story building could be erected overnight. CTS slabs are ten times lighter than reinforced concrete for far greater earthquake resistance, have 100 times more corrosion resistance than carbon steel, and boast a nearly limitless lifespan. It’s safe to say we’ll see a lot more structures built with this technology in the near future.

The post Playscraper: Eight Stacked Tennis Courts with Transparent Walls first appeared on Dornob.

The Originals series includes a stool, chair, bench, and tree tables made of birch plywood panels that simply clip together using heavy-duty steel clips normally used to hold together plywood shipping crates. In other words, these fasteners mean serious business. If they can be trusted by the commercial packaging industry to move billions of dollars worth of merchandise every year, they can be trusted to hold your dining set steady.

The QIK clips come from manufacturer Clip-Lok SimPak. As detailed in an interview over at Dezeen, FUZL Studio founder Oliver Theobald chose the clips because they use spring tension capable of absorbing “un-holy levels of industrial abuse,” able to withstand forklift trucks, tons of dynamic forces, and drop tests. That also means they don’t need to be tightened regularly.

It’s hard not to think about a certain Swedish mega-retailer and the oft-lampooned difficulty of assembling its furniture when viewing the refreshing simplicity of the Originals system. That was on Theobald’s mind while designing this series, too. When flat pack furniture was first introduced, it felt revolutionary because it made it so easy to transport. It shouldn’t be so difficult to put together that we have to hire help (not to mention comically disposable).

With the Originals series, Theobald hopes to demonstrate that flat-pack furniture can last a lifetime, look cool, and make moving the easiest it’s ever been. The collection uses the same exact clip to put together each piece of furniture, so as long as you don’t mix up the flat-pack components from different items, you should have no problem taking them apart for transport or storage and then putting them together again.

The Originals furniture may be simple, but it’s not boring. The pieces have interesting lines and shapes, and the FSC-rated timber sourced from responsibly managed forests is hand-finished in a range of VOC-free, food-safe colorful oils and pigments including burnt orange, olive green, vivid chartreuse, black, and cream. Plus, when you get your box of parts, you won’t find a mass of styrofoam, paper, and little plastic baggies inside.

“We’ve kept our designs ‘tool free’ so there are no nuts and bolts involved — so no more of those small plastic bags with fixings that all have to be produced, and similarly no synthetic glues or varnishings,” says Fuzl Studio. “And we’ve done away with printed assembly instructions in favor of online assembly instructions. We’ve also developed 100-percent recyclable protective packaging for our products. We use only biodegradable paper tape and origami folding and fixing methods, using recycled cardboard that is ‘cut to order’ meaning there is no unnecessary waste. This means no bubblewrap, no plastics — just 100-percent easily recyclable materials.”

The pieces start at £150 (about $200 USD) and can be purchased online directly from FUZL Studio.

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Depending on what the bolt is holding together, these mistakes could result in a chair leg that’s constantly wobbly, a shelf that collapses under the weight of its contents, or the kind of equipment failure that leads to catastrophic accidents.

Lucky for us all, a company called Stress Indicators Inc. is now offering one of those “why didn’t this already exist” products in the form of SmartBolts, completely eliminating the need for a torque wrench to ensure that bolts are properly fastened. Each one of these bolts boasts a red dot in the center of its head that disappears when you’ve tightened it just right, which means you’ll always know when you’ve hit the sweet spot. You’ll also get visual cues when you need to re-tighten bolts that have loosened over time.

Fasteners work like springs, the company explains. Every time you stretch a spring, it pulls back. That stretching force is known as tension, while the force that attempts to return the spring to its original size is called compression. And since tension creates a kind of clamp force, it’s perfect for holding objects together.

The SmartBolt’s built-in visual tension indicator shows you exactly how much tension is being applied to the screw, appearing bright red when it’s at its loosest and darkening several shades until it reaches the black color that indicates it’s properly tightened.

“Even though bolts may seem perfectly rigid, steel is an elastic material. This means that when they are tightened in a bolted joint, they actually stretch a tiny amount. Think of the bolt in a bolted joint as a stiff, metal spring. By tightening the nut, you are creating tension, a load or force that pulls on both ends of the bolt. As you increase the tension, the bolt stretches the way a spring would stretch when you pull against both ends.”

“From loose to tight and back again, the system is reliable and repeatable through countless cycles of operation. It is compatible with a wide range of fastener types, and we can adapt it to fasteners of nearly every available grade, finish, and coating.”

SmartBolts are available in a range of sizes, going all the way up to 2.2 inches in diameter for industrial usage in fields like mining. In fact, the largest ones weigh a whopping 25 pounds each. While they might be overkill for some applications, it’s clear that bolts with built-in visual indicators could offer a major safety boost for things like infrastructure and, say, roller coasters.

Perhaps in the latter case, if products like SmartBolts became the norm, people with anxieties about equipment failure could reassure themselves that they’d be fine to go on certain rides with just a quick visual assessment.

Where else do you imagine bolts like these coming in handy?

The post These Smart Bolts Change Color When You Tighten Them Properly first appeared on Dornob.

In Ghent, Belgium, a new guest house by Atelier Vens Vanbelle makes a sculptural statement beside a more traditional residence. Its exterior contrasts with the main brick volume in just about every way but somehow complements it at the same time, and its interiors are just as delightful.

The client, who works in the film business, wanted to host international guests in style without sacrificing privacy within his own home. What the studio served up fills that criteria and then some, offering up guest quarters, a screening room, and a lookout tower in a compact package that takes up very little space in the yard.

“The location is very idyllic, with the Schelde (river) flowing behind the romantic garden on the one hand and a castle view on the other,” the architects say. “The French-style house had a garden wall behind which an old dilapidated garage and shed stood in a wild garden. A lost and forgotten corner, but still this place had everything to be the ideal location for the guest house: cool setting, privacy, space, and view.”

“This project remains close to the reality of the owner, and as a guest, you literally descend into an alienating underground world before the ultimate log cabin is shown. Guests enter the new garden shed and bicycle shed through the living room of the client, after which they descend a staircase and end up in a long underground corridor. The disorientation is complete. A first surprise awaits them when they arrive in a small cinema hall with red curtains. David Lynch is not far away. Opposite there is a small, nice bar with an equally strange character.”

The spiral staircase then leads to a completely wood-lined guest space inspired by the cozy enveloping atmosphere of a cave. Instead of framing standard interior walls, the architects stacked laminated wood throughout the interiors for a chunky, sculptural effect. In fact, the whole guest house was built this way in the architects’ studio using four-centimeter thick slabs of wood, “layer by layer,” before it was transported to the site.

Two large round windows offer views of the landscape and of the home. If you continue ascending the staircase from there, you’ll find yourself at the top of a “lookout point” that’s actually an outdoor shower. The Corten steel facade of the guest house offers protection from the elements, and gives it an earthy feeling among the surrounding trees.

The architects add that “this project was designed as a kind of cinematic experience in which you are catapulted from one atmosphere into another, and which responds strongly to your feelings. One elongated surprise with a guest house that stays as far away from a typical hotel room as possible. Here, you are briefly away from the world.”

The post Quirky Guest House Pod in Ghent Boasts Its Own Lookout Tower first appeared on Dornob.

The Tsai Residence is set on 37 rolling acres in the rural community of Ancram, New York, about two hours north of Manhattan. Weiwei designed the Catskills vacation home for a Chinese-American businessman and art collector in collaboration with Switzerland’s HFF Architects in 2006. The compound includes a 3,500-square-foot, three-bedroom main house consisting of four blocky connecting modules and an adjacent Y-shaped guest house with a dramatic rust-colored Corten steel facade.

The main house is clad in white metal panels, looking quite outside the norm for rural architecture from the outside, but taking inspiration from the layout of traditional country houses for its interiors. The design is simple and minimalist, pairing expansive white walls with warm wood tones and gray stone. These volumes exude a quiet elegance, with narrow cutouts, large glass windows, and a terrace creating a connection to the hilly setting.

The guest house, in contrast, is eye-catching and dramatic. Designed three years after the main home, it features two symmetrical wings lined in knotty timber and a large round skylight. Within it are two bedrooms, a studio, and a gallery space. Other notable features include three fireplaces, a heated pool, and a high-end kitchen by Italian manufacturer Boffi.

The compound has already been rented, unfortunately (at a rate of $125,000 for the season), but it’s still available for purchase with an asking price of $5.25 million.

Ai Weiwei is best known for his highly political contemporary art. Born in northwest China, where he grew up under harsh conditions due to his father’s exile, he is among the Chinese government’s most vocal dissidents, especially in relation to democracy and human rights. In 2011, he was detained without charge for over 80 days for spurious “economic crimes”; since being allowed to leave the country in 2015, he has lived in Berlin, Germany, and Cambridge, UK with his family.

His many works include a recent series of installations in New York City commenting on border walls entitled “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors,” his stacked and layered bicycle sculptures referencing China’s position as a leader in mass production, and “Thin Line,” a four-mile-long fiberglass installation within the historical center of Amsterdam that lit up red during the 2018 Amsterdam Light Festival.

“Freedom comes from struggle,” said Weiwei in a 2017 interview with Cineaste. “Freedom does not exist if the struggle is empty. Freedom is not an absolute condition, but a result of resistance. The satisfaction of this struggle, in fact, gives shape to our lives. Life does not originally take a form of freedom; only through the process of resistance does this form take shape. At other times, life is just an empty frame requiring freedom to fill it, which requires constant effort. To fight for freedom is to fight against the political, ideological, or social structures imprisoning the individual.”

The post Ai Weiwei’s Artsy Vacation Home in Upstate New York Now For Sale first appeared on Dornob.

The Chinese architects created a museum within Fengyuzhu’s headquarters that contains all of the miniature architectural models within a structure that itself acts as a mega-model of a future city. The museum’s hallways and rooms mimic the roads, sidewalks, and buildings of an urban environment.

But there’s one big change here from any city we’re used to. Instead of building out, Wutopia imagines building up. White cantilevered platforms stagger the smaller-scale models into airy vertical layers connected by thin steel columns that also act as translucent walls within the museum.

Li Hai, Fengyuzhu’s founder, asked Wutopia Lab to take inspiration from an architectural model museum in Tokyo called Archi-Depot. The firm’s principal architect Yu Ting explains: “When I looked through the photos of Archi-Depot, an idea popped into my head: since the museum focuses on models of various built or unbuilt projects, if we look at these vastly different projects from a macro perspective, and ignore the difference in region and time period, they can form a world together.”

“Therefore, I decided to make the entire museum into a mega model of [a] future city. The collected models become different components of the future city’s fabric, with each of them divergently predicting a different future. Such an architectural model museum is truly meaningful at an architectural level, and I defined it as ‘Models in Model.’”

Ting adds that “the dense models on Archi-Depot’s shelves remind me of A.B Walker’s comic quoted by Rem Koolhaas in Delirious New York, which was firstly published in a magazine in March 1909. Koolhaas thought it represented a utopian imagination of skyscrapers. In 2011, my PhD thesis cited this part of text and image in Koolhaas’s book. I think that the imagination of skyscrapers from Europe to North America in the early 20th century formed the prototype of a vertical city. This inspired me to make the museum as a model of a future vertical city.”

In order to maintain visual focus on each of the individual physical models, the architects kept the “city” of the museum abstract. A total of 5,653 round steel pipes became the basis of the design, which Wutopia Lab calls “Last Redoubt” in honor of the 1912 science fiction novel The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson.

The rest of the “city” spaces in the museum are also named for fictional sci-fi sources, like “Thunder Dome” from Mad Max, “Tijuana” from Cowboy Bebop, and “Pod Bay” from 2001: A Space Odyssey. A special exhibition hall with perforated walls, floors, and ceilings is even named “Tyrell” to pay tribute to Blade Runner. The mood of each space subtly shifts accordingly.

Can you guess from the photos which one is which?

The post Wutopia Lab Creates Sci-Fi-Inspired Museum Full of Architectural Models first appeared on Dornob.

From 2003 to late 2017, Saunders expressed his passion for design in a variety of ways, working with some of the biggest names in the business. From creating the highly-photographed Alexander McQueen Bird-of-Paradise prints to working as Chief Creative Officer for Diane Von Furstenberg, his aesthetic was virtually everywhere during those years. In 2017, however, he announced his departure from the fashion world in order to explore the creative aspects of home decor and furniture making.

With a world of excitement and a flurry of ideas to consider, Saunders forced himself to narrow his focus, concentrating on marquetry, tubular steel, and textiles as his three signature elements. The resulting furniture collection was released at Frieze Los Angeles in February 2020 — and not unlike the fanfare and award-winning reception from his earlier fashion designs, this new endeavor is being enthusiastically received.

To embody the marquetry and tubular steel aspects of his burgeoning furniture style, Saunders created pieces like a sycamore and stained beech long bench, a set of shelves with crystal surfaces, a colorful yet functional armchair with nylon webbing for a seat, a pyramid-style table made from squares that interlock with a resin top, a cube stool, and a square stool with leather upholstery. And of course, textiles will likely always be at the forefront of all his work, stemming from his early days in 2002, when he earned an MA in printed textiles from Central Saint Martins.

Saunders says he almost involuntarily fell into the fashion world as a result of his studies and desire to work in a design setting. He explains: “I studied product design at Glasgow School of Art as my first love. I progressed into fashion almost indirectly because I was involved in making things and I love textile design and it was a natural progression for me to go into fashion. But for many years I was always thinking I wanted to make furniture as part of my own collection, but there was just never any time.”

The transition hasn’t been flawless, and while Saunders has enjoyed the experience, he’s met many challenges along the way. Primarily he’s discovered that the design and production tempo of furniture is very different from fashion, especially the fast fashion realm so prevalent today.

He adds: “It’s a much slower process, but there’s much more development time — there’s definitely synergies and some similarities between how I worked in fashion and how I’m working as a furniture designer.”

With the newfound freedom to jump between mediums as he pleases, Saunders seeks to feed consumers interest in making their space their own. Similar to creating a sense of style (in clothing), he feels that the modern customer is looking for ways to insert personality into their decor through aesthetic appeal and color.

“I’m interested in developing more democratic pieces with a broader appeal, but that still allow you to have an emotional connection with something, that still has the language that I’ve used in terms of color balance and material choices. So I’m starting in this way with furniture and then branching off into other categories, other pieces, and customer bases, but that’s all to come. I haven’t given myself any constraints. I want to have a free attitude towards what this brand can become.”

The post Fashion Icon Jonathan Saunders Changes Focus With Debut Furniture Collection first appeared on Dornob.

Remarkably, corten steel holds up to even the most rugged and punishing environments, including rain, snow, ice, and fog. Its vivid orange hue contrasts beautifully with the greenery of many landscapes and harmonizes with the umber tones of deserts. It’s particularly well-suited to simple, geometric building shapes, so it’s no surprise that it pops up often in modern architecture.

US-based architecture firm Axis Mundi has envisioned a visually spectacular use for it in one of the world’s most dramatic landscapes. Set high up in the Swiss Alps, “XYZ House” consists of three long, skinny rectangular volumes stacked against each other to create one of the most unusual house shapes you’ve ever seen.

Measuring about 4,000 square feet, the house has a steel and concrete inner frame finished off with corten steel and glass.

The firm explains that the home’s “cruciform-ike assemblage contains three bold architectural volumes clad in corten steel,” adding that “conceptually the project is organized by three mutually perpendicular planes (the three Cartesian coordinates of x, y, and z): an entry tunnel/bridge, a tower which contains the vertical circulation (staircase and elevator), and the main habitable space, which is suspended weightlessly above the valley below.”

“In essence, this is a dwelling meaningfully stripped of all nostalgia from the material world. One is immediately reminded of the great German romantic poets and painters like Caspar David Friedrich and the poet Heinrich Heine, who’s work emphasized the tension between the daily world and the irrational and supernatural projections of creative genius. The project is a ruin from the future and its poetic power lies in its supreme muteness, as a place to contemplate the horizon and eternity in silence.”

As you can see, lead architect John Beckmann’s description of it as a “ruin from the future” is fitting. Its starkness against the mountain scenery, with no other structures in sight, conjures the feeling of coming across something from another time in an unexpected place.

It may seem like oddly shaped structures like XYZ House are unrealistic and unlikely to ever be built, but you might be surprised by some of the incredible modern structures that can be found in similar places. Mohr Life Resort’s new wellness area in Tirol, Austria by local architecture practice noa* is one recent example, and a vision for the Nemrut Caldera Observation Route in Turkey uses corten steel to a similar effect.

Interested in seeing how corten steel holds up in real-life projects? Check out the “Site Shack” portable prefab office by Powers Construction, which is designed to hold up to the rigors of construction sites, and a Washington State cabin sheathed in corten steel shingles.

The post Cantilevered Corten Steel XYZ House Looks Out on Scenic Swiss Alps first appeared on Dornob.

Japanese architecture and design studio Waterfrom Design did just that for “Ideal Gas Lab,” the new Taiwan offices of Jing He Science, a company selling high-tech gas. They set out to break the stereotypical idea of what an office looks like while emphasizing the company’s branding and keeping everything simple and budget-friendly. Naturally, they started by focusing on elements frequently associated with gas: steel cylinders and pipes.

Used primarily as the supports for the desks, the tanks are painted a vivid orange, simultaneously highlighted by the black and white walls and softened by the mint green tint of the wood floors. Their origin and original purpose are immediately evident, but there’s not a logo in site, and the effect doesn’t feel overdone. The tanks reference a recognizable corporate identity, and upcycling them in this way extends the timeline of their usability.

The studio explains: “With pressure of environment and change of temperature, the substance can be transformed into different states: static solid state, fluent liquid state, and gaseous state which is both static and fluent. This is not the opening remark of a physics class. It is the start of [the] design of a brand-new office, a technology company which sells high-tech gas. When the inspiration is based on ‘science’ instead of ‘office.'”

“We rely on the laboratory, which is most associated with products, factory, daily test tubes, cast iron, black iron, gas pipes, and unique steel cylinders which carry technological gas. Unified orange on steel cylinders, lake water color on solid flooring, and gradient baking finish from bright to dark colors and from orange to black show the existence of gas at different temperatures. We consider one stem and one leaf as the micro-world of change of substance. The cycle resembles the transfer among solid state, liquid state, and gaseous state of substances in nature.”

This approach can also be used to liven up designs that might otherwise fall prey to the insidious bland sameness of cultural homogenization. All over the world, cities are developing at a rapid pace, which often means demolishing old structures and interiors to make way for the mass-produced new. But a city that’s virtually indistinguishable from any other has lost its soul, and interiors full of nothing but IKEA furniture are painfully uninteresting.

Preserving or reclaiming a few contextual elements into design might mean upcycling objects in an unexpected way, like Waterfrom Design did here, or referencing local cultural traditions and motifs. Either way, it roots the aesthetics of a space within a specific place, history, or purpose, making it a heck of a lot more memorable in the process.

The post Steel Cylinders Repurposed as Furniture for “Ideal Gas Lab” Offices first appeared on Dornob.