I just had to share this lovely program that I found when scouring the internet for cool ways to chart my new years resolutions this year… (and yes somehow I have managed to accumulate even more than usual for 2012!!) Chicago based Graphic designer, Monina Velarde has come up with a novel way of charting hers. I really enjoyed this app! And while you are at it, check out her design work too! She is involved in branding, interactive design and packaging and she mentions on her website that “Lines, geometric shapes, typography and colors are some of the things that inspire me”.

Monina Velarde Website

Enjoy!

x

. . . we are fast approaching the final days of 2011 and what a wild and wonderful whirlwind it’s been. There is already in the air, a nostalgia for what we are leaving behind . . . while feeling at the same time, an overwhelming excitement for the days and months ahead.

. . there are still so many things left to discover, words left unspoken, and plans to be made. . . so let’s raise a glass to the past, to no regrets, to living life to the fullest, to the kindness of strangers, to family and friends, to morning cups of coffee and laughter on a cold winter’s night, to living big and appreciating the little adventures. .

There is so much to look forward to in 2012, a brand new year filled with the promise of new beginnings . . .
wishing you a happy & wonderful new year, where ever you may be!

Nx

French studio FREAKS free architects have recently completed the interior of a new shop for new natural comestics brand Heliocosm located in Herold street, Paris 1st ward.

The architects concentrated on the refurbishment of the front and last rooms in the store, linking them with a wood-covered tunnel which hosts display shelves and cupboards. The tunnel works as a theatre decorum into which doors and apertures are arranged to manage technical storage, access, restroom and additional display.

The chosen colour of the tunnel is a light blue, applied to floors, walls and ceilings, which wraps the visitors with both a refreshing yet also slightly disturbing feeling. The shop consists of the installation of a big workshop table onto which customers are invited to make up their own cosmetics based on natural products lead by professional tutors.

Openings, cut away from the wooden box, provide locations for salvaged second-hand tables to showcase cosmetics, while integrated joinery displays products.

The furniture was salvaged from second hand shops and markets, so as to not overwhelm the visitor with a possible “over-designed” experience and enhances the low key, welcoming atmosphere of the store.

The final perspective through the tunnel is further reinforced with a large scale print dislocating the shop towards a parallel reality.

Photography is by David Foessel.

There is so much to see and do in London this week! Festival Season is upon us! Between London Fashion week and Open House weekend and the London Design Festival; there really arent enough hours in the day to get to see it all!

..On the way to the airport last week we passed the V&A on Cromwell Road where the entrance is being transformed by the construction of a new temporary entrance for the duration of the festival….

Architects AL_A and engineers Arup are responsible for the installation of the giant timber wave cascading down the steps to the museum. Built from oil-treated American red oak, Timber Wave is a three-dimensional latticework spiral, 12 metres in diameter, that employs construction techniques and materials normally used in furniture making to create a majestic three storey high structure.

Architect Amanda Levete of AL_ has said that her intention was to take the V&A out onto the street, in celebration of the festival. And the resultant Timber Wave does exactly that, creating an outdoor installation that is not only graceful, but technically ingenious.

Hardwood lamination techniques were used and applied for the structure. The timber entrance is three-dimensional and asymmetric in form, and each timber piece is precisely calibrated. The wood was treated with a biocide oil treatment that gives the oak the necessary protection to be used outside. In fact, it actually looks more like a corten structure up close!

It is such a beautiful structure. Even mid-construction, it still looked fantastic so I must get to see it other than whizzing past in a taxi!

Enjoy!

x

http://www.londondesignfestival.com/

Yesterday was a bright and gleaming affair and I spent much of my afternoon in a sunny haze drifting around Holborn and Soho! (…. as you do on a sunny Saturday!) I passed by Bedford Square, (such a lovely part of London), and I was instantly reminded of an installation at the Architectural Association that I read about on Friday!

Entitled 3013 Installation and coiling down four storeys in the courtyard of their college building in Bedford Square, a giant dramatic recycled timber installation, designed and constructed by students at the Architectural Association forms part of the schools’ summer programme.

The installation, led by artists and designers Lawrence Lek and Onur Ozkaya and architect Jesse Randzio, was conceived and constructed by the students themselves.

The thought behind the installation is concerned with what will happen to London in a thousand years time. Constrained by the green belt around it and freed from restrictions on building skyscrapers, the students believe that the city will grow inwards and upwards. Within this scenario of extreme density in mind, students imagined how public space could evolve and adapt to smaller, vertical sites. The project also assumes that new structures will built off older ones, using each other as support. As the students’ concept of the future is of also reliance upon recycling materials, the structures were built from leftover plywood cuts from salvaged exhibition panels, which were twisted into pairs and fastened together using cable ties to create the three separate parts of the 3013 installation. These were joined together at their edges to form flexible skins tailored to the site. The upper skins were suspended from above, lightly touching the existing brick walls for support; the fabric-like behaviour of the surfaces allowed their final form to be determined by how they rest naturally under gravity.

This installation reveals relationships between different levels of the building, creating temporary shelters, roofs and flexible gathering points that address how the city might be occupied today and in the future. I have not had a chance to check this installation out… I wonder if you have to be a student to do so..

Enjoy!

(All images courtesy of Dezeen)