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The precision of this installation was no mistake. The architects went to great lengths to make sure their creations felt like a natural part of the forest, as if the tents were giant drops of water that landed there and remained frozen in place. The design process began with 3D scans of the natural environment, which mapped the position, size, and shape of each tree down to the tiniest details. Yuko Nagayama Associates then determined how their massive teardrops could fit in the available spaces without disturbing the natural setting.

The architects wanted their tents to enhance and reflect the surrounding trees while also maintaining their own dramatic presence. Standing more than 30 feet high, each of the three inflatable tents faces a different direction, its pointed tip visible from a distance. For those inside the tents, the not-quite-transparent material blurs the forest without blocking it out, lending the experience a surreal, dreamlike effect. The pointed shape encourages visitors to look straight up at the canopy and the sky.

Each of the three tents has a different function. One is for sleeping, one is for gathering, and one is for solitary study or contemplation. Visitors were invited to stay in them overnight, their sleeping bags providing their only cover in a place where privacy is hard to come by.

The event took place at Kiyoharu Art Colony, which was established on the former site of an elementary school in 1983. The village includes museums, studios, restaurants, and shops set among birch trees and Yoshino cherry trees, with arts exhibitions taking place indoors and out.

Architectural works on site include creations by famous architects, including the Museum of Light by Tadao Ando, where exhibited pieces interact with natural light; the Kiyoharu Shirabaka Art Museum by Yoshio Taniguchi; the studio of painter Ryuzaburo Umehara created by Isoya Yoshida; and even a portion of the original stairs from the Eiffel Tower. One of the most popular features on the grounds is the Tetsu “treehouse teahouse” created by architect Terunobu Fujimori, which stands on a central pillar of an 80-year-old Japanese cypress and hovers four meters above the ground.

On Instagram, Yuko Nagayama Associates revealed that they weren’t quite ready to move on from their unusual teardrop tents once Hokuto Art Program ed.1 was over. For lead architect Yuko Nagayama’s birthday, the firm commissioned a special cake from Katsutadai cake shop VIN ROSE that captured the scene in sugar, matcha powder, and little birch trees made of pasta.

The post Translucent Tents by Yuko Nagayama Look Like Giant Teardrops in the Forest first appeared on Dornob.

The clients wanted to preserve the aspects of the site that felt special, like its rocky terrain, tall trees, and breathtaking views. So the architects created an unusual floor plan that avoids removing any existing trees, arranging triangular volumes to fit in between and around them. These volumes are offset from each other, gently flowing in a stack from the elevated street level down the slope of the hillside. Most importantly, the layout leaves a central private garden around which the living spaces are arranged, allowing sunlight to reach every room.

The structural base of the home consists of concrete textured to resemble the natural boulders and a steel framework that seems to shift from white to silver depending on the light. In between the polished concrete floors and the elongated triangular shapes of the roof panels are floor-to-ceiling expanses of glass, frosted in some areas for privacy and transparent in others. The glass reflects the silhouettes of the surrounding trees and the color of the sky.

The central patio functions as “the heart of the project,” the architects say, planted with lush greenery that’s echoed inside and on a multitude of outdoor terraces. The garage also features glass walls, turning the car into a display piece with a prominent presence directly above the level of the swimming pool. Black cabinetry and mostly monochromatic furnishings help visually anchor the home to the cliffside and keep the focus on the nature outside.

Though this is clearly a luxury residence, it’s not hard to imagine using concrete and steel as relatively affordable materials in a lower-budget project, finding ways to arrange them as artfully as RE+D has done here. The firm’s founder and lead architect, Susana López González, is a former professor of architecture, industrial design, and fabric design with a master’s degree in sustainability design, and it’s interesting to see how those influences come together in her work. Like Casa Cañadas, many of RE+D’s residential projects use the dynamic qualities of diagonal lines, contrasting geometric shapes, and textural materials for spaces that feel uniquely tailored to their locations.

“With a contemporary language and with the use of exposed materials, the social area is developed with the concept of the open plan; in this way the user has the freedom to handle the furniture in different ways and combinations, giving ownership to the space,” the architects explain, adding that “with the help of a curtain wall, the social area is unified with the terrace to generate communion between the spaces and moments of coexistence, which respond to the need to generate more flexible and comfortable spaces.”

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From the outset of the project, Chinese firm Shulin Architectural Design wanted to create a space that felt both contemporary and deeply connected to the historic and cultural roots of the surrounding village. The structure sits on a narrow strip of land on the terraced mountainside adjacent to centuries-old courtyard houses made of rammed earth, a vernacular architectural style that first emerged during the Qing Dynasty around 1200 C.E. A nearby public square and walking path give the reading room an ideal central location, but its the stilts that really help it shine. After all, if the single-story structure had been built at ground level, neighboring buildings would have blocked out views of the area’s stunning natural scenery.

Thanks to the architects’ brilliant choice to elevate the building in this way, it feels as light as a cloud, and it only marginally increased construction costs while also allowing the project to have a light footprint on the land. The translucent walls create a space that’s flooded with natural light during the day for a bright and cheerful effect while still allowing it to retain a subtler, more intimate feeling at night. Meanwhile, the lower level offers a protected space for anyone who might walk by. They can pause, sit at a picnic table, order a drink from a tiny beverage bar built into one end, and enjoy another one of the building’s cooler features: a reflecting pool set under an opening in the roof.

“On rainy days, water rain falls from the patio into the pool, and the sound can be heard inside the house; while when the sun shines directly, it creates a unique light and shadow effect,” say the architects. “A patio is designed in such a small place because it makes the house more relevant to nature, time, and space. This is a sense of time in the house from my perspective. The setting of the patio looks like it is waiting for a certain time – for the sun to cast in a beautiful shadow, for the rain to drip ripples, or for the breeze to blow in.”

“At those moments, the patio is set as a special space waiting for its significance of being created. The essence of rural architecture as I understand it is a state in which people and space, people and nature, and people and time coexist harmoniously. This patio makes it happen by including sunlight, rain, and air into the interior space.”

The reading room itself offers bookshelves built into almost every wall, from floor to ceiling, along with built-in benches, window nooks, a loft, and a long book-lined corridor that traverses the space. It’s also at the same level as a flat area on the hillside behind the building, which itself has been turned into a playground for children.

The architects add that “as the reader wanders around in the corridor, their horizon opens together with the entrance, and the boundaries disappear. When standing on the other side of the entrance, people can see through the window and watch others reading books on the balcony, and farther away, the hills and forests. The perspective from different layers creates communication between people, space, and the environment.”

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The installation explores the relationship between place and person through both the language of classical architecture and the transparency of what Tresoldi calls “Absent Matter,” illustrated here by the lack of solidity in his work. The 46 pillars stretch eight meters (26 feet) into the sky within the surrounding 2,500-square-meter (26,910 square foot) waterfront park. “Opera” will be part of one of Europe’s largest public spaces, and what local officials hope will eventually become a new landmark.

For its debut, “Opera” was paired with a sound installation by Italian musician and composer Teho Teardo that’s designed to interact with the site three times a day, at morning, sunset, and night. Italian poet and writer Franco Arminio curated poetry events, including readings by Lara Chiellino, and other performers played live music

“’Opera’ was created to emphasize the character of place through the built element, thus suggesting an additional layer of understanding,” says Tresoldi. “I tried to build a place of contemplation and to investigate the role of public art today, which I believe should be able to embrace the present.”

Visitors are welcomed to explore the site and stand within the colonnade, gazing up at what feels like a phantom echo of lost architecture. Tresoldi’s work uses the transparency of mesh to “transcend the time-space dimension” and narrate a dialogue between art and the physical world. Sometimes it feels like he’s giving us a glimpse of another era, architecture that once was or could have been, or maybe even a vision of a possible future.

With his previous works like “Gharfa,” an experimental pavilion in the Saudi Arabian city of Riyadh, Tresoldi has offered visitors not just an object to view, but a space to inhabit where they can meet, rest, and meditate. Reality and illusion are intertwined, especially after dark when the structures are illuminated.

“Opera” is modest in form compared to some of Tresoldi’s other works, but it’s a permanent installation, inhabiting its environment in a totally new way. It will be interesting to see how it changes over time, perhaps with nature becoming a part of it in the form of vegetation or bird’s nests.

In an interview with DomusWeb, Tresoldi explains how these eerie and beautiful creations come about:

“I begin with the physical, historical, and social elements of the venue and its territorial and climatic characteristics. I analyze the emotive relationships which are created between venue and person, constructing narrative elements which can be used through this channel. The entire project is created by my studio through a participative process and continuous discussion… I always try not to have a single vision, but rather to identify an emotional fil rouge on a collective level. I structure my story with these colored notes, constructing my intimacy in a public space, imagining to communicate this dimension to whoever experiences that venue.”

The post Opera: New Public Art Installation by Edoardo Tresoldi Opens in Italy first appeared on Dornob.

But that doesn’t mean rural architecture has to remain stuck in the past, either, even when it comes to the most basic of dwellings. For instance, the humble cabin is usually associated with rusticity, simplicity, and disconnection from all the distractions and complications of modern life. That usually translates to the use of natural materials in its construction, but when you really investigate the root of a cabin’s purpose, there’s simply nothing as important as the feeling of connection to nature it gives you. Aesthetics are secondary.

Today, it’s really no surprise that many contemporary cabin dwellers seeking that all-important immersion in the natural world are bringing their preferences for contemporary architecture along with them. And sometimes, the contrasts that come out of that are fascinating.

David Coleman Architecture recently completed “Bear Run Cabin” in Marblemount, Washington, a wooded, low-population area along the Skagit River in the northwest region of the state. Describing it as a “striking modern cabin,” the architects explain that they’ve put a lot of thought into how the year-round home interacts with its surroundings. Its angled rooflines are designed to mimic the North Cascades mountains, while the colors and materials make the most of the area’s rainy winters and sunny summers.

But above all else, the cabin’s defining feature is a long, narrow volume lined with green-tinted windows on one side, picking up some of the more vivid tones in the vegetation outside. At night, when it’s illuminated from within, it emits a gentle glow. This ‘studio’ measures 1000 square feet and contains a music room, workshop, and guest loft, while the 890-square-foot cabin holds a great room, bath, and sleeping loft.

The firm explains that the cabin “has a big presence in a big landscape. Surrounded by dramatic, distant peaks, the site slopes gently to the east and overlooks a large woodlot. Our clients wanted a building that had presence in and subservience to the wild landscape. This duality became the thematic tag that informed the design.”

“The building site is marked by a 30-foot by 100-foot perimeter. Two buildings are juxtaposed within this footprint in a yin/yang fashion, leaving a sinuous exterior space that is defensible and varied. The western terrace is carved into the site, stepping down into the earth, leading toward a soaking tub set behind a glass wall. The south-eastern porch and monumental stair, both covered by a soaring roof, rise above the site, offering shelter from the rain and summer sun. Both spaces meet in an interstitial ‘rain garden’ – a place where seasonal rains gather and flow toward the river below.”

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When renovating old buildings for contemporary use, some architects deal with this challenge by replacing the original windows with large expanses of glazing, or by knocking down nearly all interior walls. Ivo Carew, a London-based architecture firm known for its conservation-led projects, looked toward the sky instead.

“The Bakehouse” is an airy transformation of a 19th-century brick bakery on a quiet backstreet in London’s Peckham neighborhood. You don’t get a sense that the building has changed much over the last century until you look up, taking in a new translucent glass volume poking out of the roof. The architects say their goal was to preserve the “simple unostentatious grace of the building” while renovating it into a comfortable home for a client working in the music industry.

The unapologetically modern rooftop extension is clad with glass panels that flank a defunct chimney left over from the former bakery’s operations, adding a whole new set of rooms to the original structure. The box’s cloudy glass diffuses light from the outside and draws it inward, granting the interiors a much-needed glow. It’s exterior appearance alone  presents an intriguing contrast with the warm earth tones of the aged brick around it, but the addition’s interiors look absolutely nothing like what you might imagine a Victorian bakery to be.

Starting with a material palette that would freshen up the brick without overwhelming it, the architects brought in tones of pale wood, dark limestone, Douglas fir floors, textural tiles in various shades of gray, and lots of white paint. Nearly all of the surfaces are new, though the architects did leave a brick wall exposed here and there. In line with their intentions, the result is unfussy, putting the focus on the quality of light that now streams in from spacious anodized aluminum windows.

If you can’t spot a second extension on the building from looking at the photos, then the architects have truly succeeded in their design. They intentionally used new yellow stock bricks (handmade in London) to blur the boundaries between old and new on the ground floor addition, along with a frameless square window. This extension creates an L-shaped living area comprised of a kitchen, lounge, and dining room, while stairs lead to the two upper floors.

Ivo Carew hopes the result will help temper the growth of the Peckham area during a period of rapid change. While the modest neighborhood was traditionally home to families and students in the past, the arrival of a new Campari bar, a multi-story parking garage, and a train line linking Peckham to east London have led to an influx of young professionals.

“We have designed a number of new art spaces and studios nearby and another one will be beginning shortly. These projects required converting redundant industrial buildings into dynamic spaces,” Carew told Domus. “It is really important that building projects in Peckham continue to take an idiosyncratic approach and resist large-scale commercial development. This is the best way to maintain the vitality of the area.”

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Jean-Marie Massaud envisioned this particular series of mirror art, subsequently realized by Glas Italia, but his other works address reflections in likewise fanciful ways. They range from clearly-bent reflectors to mirror-surfaced furniture and reflection-distorting wall mirrors. Some of these items can be purchased online, including a selection of Fiction Mirrors at UK store Chaplin’s. You can also check out Massaud’s collaborations with Glas Italia, including the Diva Mirror, pictured above, at the latter’s website.
Glas Italia describes the Diva Mirror as “a floor mirror made of glued smoked glass. The upper and lower part is transparent, while the central part has a special mirror through which the luminous trace of a lamp positioned on the back can be seen. The lamp turns on and off by pulling a red cord.”
“A graduate of ENSCI in 1990, Jean-Marie Massaud is immediately looking for synthesis, reduction and lightness. It addresses the different aspects of design: from furniture to industrial products, to equipment. In 2000, he created Studio Massaud and extended his activity to architecture and development strategies. He collaborates with several prestigious companies such as B&B Italia, Axor Hansgrohe, Dior, Poltrona Frau, Lancôme and Renault. Rejecting trends and fashions, Jean Marie prefers to question the current situation, working on the progress made and possibly proposing answers to contemporary challenges. It is this symbiosis between man, his creations and his natural environment, which Jean Marie Massaud strives to achieve, as a catalyst for innovation, as an economic model and as a life project.”

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The faceted translucent exterior of the Plasencia Conference Center and Auditórium may give it an amorphous appearance from the outside, but it actually conceals a complex multi-layered floor plan full of vivid colors and dynamic spaces. The building is a contradiction in terms, appearing both organic in form and utterly alien, gleaming in all its artificiality over the rugged natural landscape. Occupying a steeply sloped plot on the side of a hill, it seems delicately balanced. Its perched position beside a retaining wall and parking lot reflects a need to impact the rocky landscape around it as little as possible — to the point where it physically juts out at one end.

The semi-translucent ETFE panels wrapped around the conference center give it the look of an enormous lantern by night, similarly producing a skin-like effect by day as visitors access its scarlet innards. Comprised of an entrance lobby, a secondary hall for 300 guests that can be divided in three, a restaurant, and exhibition halls, the building is accessible via the bright orange gangway that cuts a stark diagonal line across its facade.

“From here it is possible to move all around the central concrete shell, [going] up or down on a set of ramps and spiral stairs that mingle exterior and interior spaces,” explain the architects. “This is for two reasons, economy and expenditure. Economy by not climatizing or using glass to enclose certain parts. Expenditure due to a crossing of spaces — in-out-in on account of the mixture of their climates.”

The architects see the project as a midpoint between urban life and what’s left of the wild after human intervention. One side has been altered by our own activity, the other by only climate and wildlife. Everything that’s been touched by humanity “has covered up those millennia with the sweep of a trowel in a few years.” While it’s certainly artificial, the Auditórium aims to show maximum respect for the land, and with that goal in mind, it’s designed to be dismantled.

The space the conference center now occupies represents a preserved island of natural earth in a future expansion zone, even if it’s ultimately little more than “a small puddle in the sea” among the construction that will inevitably spring up all around it. One could argue that such a tourist-drawing development as the Auditórium can’t help but contribute to continued expansion and its negative effect on the environment, but the architects see the transition from untouched wilderness to suburban sprawl as a kind of unstoppable force. At least this way, some small part of the hillside will remain as it has always been.

The post This Angular Glowing Conference Center is All About the Environment first appeared on Dornob.

The project was commissioned by the Diocese of London, who called for a church and community building that would be able to accommodate various functions like social gatherings, yoga classes, parent and child groups, exhibitions, musical performances, art classes, and literary workshops. The winning proposal was developed by the local design firm Denizen Works in collaboration with boat-building company Turks and conceives of the brief in the form of a church atop a barge, enabling the entire structure to float along the canals and moor at regeneration sites that have already been specified by the diocese. They hope to erect more permanent congregations at these sites once the floating church is unable to accommodate more parishioners.

The boat’s unusual shape is inspired by both church organ bellows and the expandable roofs of camper vans. The translucent structure will consist of a durable hull and a collapsible rear made from sail material. Denizen Works explains, “the concept was developed to provide a dramatic and transformative space within the confines of a barge designed to traverse the London canal network. During its nomadic existence, the boat will alternate between two distinct characters. When navigating the waterways, the boat will be compact and low-lying so as to pass beneath bridges. When moored, the boat will bloom into an illuminated beacon with its sculptural pop-out roof canopies. The largest canopy will provide a dramatic internal space for worship through to arts and cultural events.”

London’s canals are often thought of as idyllic places with a quintessentially British character, and in recent years, especially in East London, the canal boats and barges that line them have been becoming increasingly coveted as living spaces and homes. The concept of putting a church on a canal boat is no doubt tapping into this new idea of canal boats as trendy, and with the proliferation of these types of dwellings on social media, the winning design seems to have been a wise choice on the part of the Diocese of London. Barges and canal boats are also steeped in British history and have appeared again and again in popular culture, so this barge’s association with the church could possibly cause the public to form positive psychological connections between the two. The church is set to be completed in December 2018, and it should be up and running as soon as the following year.

Denizen Works architect Andrew Ingram says “As architects, it’s been fascinating to engage with a different strand of the construction industry. We have designed a boat which we think will become a landmark on the London canal and provide its users with a unique and inspiring space.”

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The existing building, which measures about 3,229 square feet and takes up almost all of its lot, resembles most of the other 1970s and 1980s-era structures surrounding it. It’s simple, highly rectilinear in shape, and lightly colored to avoid absorbing too much heat. There’s nothing particularly architecturally distinct about it. The clients commissioned 314 Architecture to redevelop all four levels of the rental, including a small walled-in garden on the ground floor, the two middle floors, and a penthouse master suite on the rooftop.

The architects call their vision for the renovation “H102 Romance Contemporaine,” or “contemporary romance,” an aesthetic that’s immediately identifiable thanks to the billowing curtains shielding the top floor from view and the sultry shadows that can be discerned from behind the translucent panels of the new facade. The existing building features wraparound balconies on the two uppermost levels, which the architects transformed into solariums contained by the same sheer walls.

“The romantic character is even more emphasized through the continuous curved engravings, which are depicted as an imprint of light and shadow on the blurry translucent facades,” say the architects.

Now, lush tropical plants flourish on those balconies, bringing some much-needed vitality into the interiors while screening some of the sunlight and improving the air quality. New arc-shaped openings in the exterior walls provide both visual and functional access to those same balconies, enlarging the amount of usable space. Inside, the rooms are bright, white, and open: the architects removed many of the dividing interior walls to encourage a sense of free-flowing movement. They also pierced through the ceilings of each level to create new atria, with a sliding ceiling at the top that regulates the circulation of warm air inside by allowing it to escape in the summertime and holding it in during the colder months.

The top level is where the project really shines, both literally and figuratively. A small rooftop volume gives the inhabitants beautiful views of the sandy hills surrounding the city, but it feels a little overexposed to both the unforgiving sun and the gaze of neighbors. The solution is a weatherproof metallic curtain that can be drawn around the entire space while keeping it open to the sky, giving it the feel of a private sanctuary.

Like “House in Corfu,” which transformed a bland building with spectacular views of the Ionio Pelagos, “H102 Romance Contemporaine” uses transitional indoor/outdoor spaces to create a dialogue with its surroundings and make the most of a warm, temperate climate. Free of fussy details, it puts the focus on modern Greek lifestyles, adding comfort and functionality while preserving the existing building as a natural fit in its Athenian setting.

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Making room for a home and workshop capable of storing a four-wheel-drive vehicle on a tight plot of land with an even tighter budget led to a novel solution for this project in Germany. Fabian Evers Architecture and Wezel Architektur lifted the living space to the second floor, creating a translucent light-filled garage below. It’s a brilliant way to maximize space, showing that you don’t have to give up all your prized possessions to build a home in a dense urban area.

The client wanted a special space to store his Unimog, a cult four-wheel drive vehicle by Mercedes Benz. House Unimog does just that with an extremely small footprint, orienting the living spaces away from the busy street to look out over the surrounding residences and farms.

During the day, the workshop is flooded with filtered natural light, the translucent panels blocking out distracting views of cars passing on the adjacent road. At night, it glows like a lantern, making the anthracite living volume seem to float. Stairs lead to a sheltered terrace on the second floor.

The compact living space features strategically placed windows and a glazed wall on the terrace side to offer views without looking directly into the closest neighboring homes. The open-plan residence is lined with oriented strand boards for a clean and uniform look that costs very little.

More from the architects

“The variation of the two different uses reflects itself through the facade: The lower part of the workshop is cladded with translucent polycarbonate elements. The workspace is filled with filtered natural light during the daytime, and turns at night into a light box which glows into the neighborhood. The living space presents itself with its anthracite facade as a monolithic volume. Precise set windows and a generous south oriented loggia enables beautiful views into the surrounding landscape.”

“The chosen materials for the facade and inside the building underlines the pragmatic and reduced design concept: a house which is rather located in the typology of a rational farmhouse or of a workshop than a classical residential house.”

Photos: Sebastian Berger – Breitscheidstr. 

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From winter weather-resistant, fireplace-equipped dwellings made for snowy mountainsides to meadow-worthy, naturally-ventilated residences, geodesic dome home designs have begun to take on ever more demanding and complex tasks.

Popularized as festival structures and event spaces, for everything from white weddings to corporate functions, flexible modular geodesic domes have enjoyed a rapid resurgence in recent years – and making them into habitable structures appears to be the latest frontier, with companies like Zendome leading the pack.

Some are simply shade structures used for covering pools or providing guest quarters and playhouse spaces for kids, but others come equipped with kitchens, bathrooms and other full-time-living amenities.

As off-the-grid, low-impact lodgings go, these kinds of frame-and-canvas structures are about as good as it gets. Lightweight and low impact, they can be quickly constructed between just one or two people and dismantled as easily and efficiently as well (not to mention: interconnected, extended and added to down the line).

The frameworks are constructed of galvanized power-coated steel, then wrapped in an all-weather membrane of PVC-coated polyester (both water-tight and flame-resistant). Starting at over $10,000, though, they are still anything but cheap.

What would be really neat to see, though, is a combination of their portable-but-large-scale and permanent-but-home-size applications – whole networks of interconnected rooms designed not just for events but for full-time dwelling, too. But there is time – after all, geodesics have a long history, and doubtless far further yet to travel:

“For centuries mankind has been searching for the perfect form. Around 600 BC the Pythagoreans tried to split up a sphere into smaller and smaller segments. The so gained Tetrahedron, cube and decahedron forms were further investigated and split up by the Greek Philosopher Plato in his Academy. The platonic geometric forms are still named after him (Tetrahedron, Icosahedron and Octahedron as well as the cube) and were presented as well as described in mathematical formulas by Euclid in his XIII book of elements (300 BC). With the help of these formulas Johannes Kepler was able to describe the orbital radius of the then known six planets by means of a certain combination of these five forms and their inner and outer spheres in his “Mysterium Cosmographicum” (1596).”

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Somewhere between thick and opaque noise-blocking curtains and clear sound-reflecting glass windows there was a missing link, and this textile is it: lightweight and translucent, it sucks in sound without obscuring your view. Though it sounds like a bad translation, when the designers say this design “quenches” sound, they’re using that word deliberately.

Specializing in Materials Science & Technology, the EMPA worked with textiles experts, acoustical engineers and computer modelers to weave disparate disciplines into a new compelling set of acoustically-altered patterns. Passive noise cancellation is of course a particularly tricky task in malleable and thin materials due to issues of density and directionality.

Mathematical projects and digital models led to real manufacturing and testing, resulting in something five times more soundproof than traditional hanging curtains (and significantly better than bare concrete or glazed surfaces) but still sufficiently fireproof and translucent to let in strands of daylight. Insert additional thread-and-weaving-related jokes here.

“Acousticians are pretty astonished when they see the readings we are achieving with the new curtains in the reverberation room,” says Kurt Eggenschwiler, head of EMPA’s Acoustics/Noise Control Division. “The weighted sound absorption coefficient is between 0.5 and 0.6. In other words, the new textiles ‘quench’ five times more sound than conventional translucent curtains. The new curtain genuinely absorbs sound, noticeably improving the room acoustics – and its design is also very high quality.”

Read on for more technical information about how these curtains were designed.

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New to a kitchen and not sure where to locate which dishes? No worries: this clever custom kitchen cabinet system will light your way to the right serving bowls, plates, utensils and gadgets, showing their forms as shadows directly on the doors of these cabinets.

Ever the hybrid architect, artist and minimalist designer, Jean Nouvel has accomplished a great deal with this design idea – the find-anything functionality of see-through cabinetry, the animated and ever-changing artistry of light and dark shapes and the naturally and of course the built-in lighting itself that can illuminate the kitchen background while you cook.

The components are surprisingly simple, cheap and low-tech considering the complex effects: standard translucent white panels and aluminum hinges on the cabinets combined with conventional lamps along the back wall behind the objects they store.

While their creator makes no explicit mention of this fact, there is an uncanny resemblance between this design and the way x-rays look when hung on the light-panels hanging on the walls of a doctor office. While the look is modern (which often implies expensive), local designers and do-it-yourself-ers could buy the components quite easily at wholesale prices for building a similar project.

“I have always seen Corian® as a material that symbolizes total abstraction – the materialisation of an “absence” that is difficult to construct. How do you make an absence present? That is the difficult and eternal question for an architect who wants to keep the poetry of the design while making it a reality. This is the main reason why I was passionate about the proposition of designing a space in Corian® that talked about light.
For the “Corian® Nouvel Lumières project”, I have attempted to reveal domestic atmospheres linked with the skin of Corian® and with this diffusing, intriguing power that gives the material different degrees of translucency.”

“I also wanted to play with the contrast between the monolithic look of Corian® – made possible by the material’s apparent seamlessness – and the sense of refinement that is contained in its mass. This is a very mysterious dimension of the material. I reveal it by playing with back-lighting, with bas-relief engraving, and with the abstraction of patterns interacting with the attraction of luminescence. It is also a question of revealing the ultra-smooth character of the skin of Corian® and making shadows and light reflections play on the surface with a surprising sweetness. In addition, I decided to evoke atmospheres linked to the different components of the house: kitchen, living room, dining room, bathroom, library.”

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