Upcycled: Gray Pants

I am completely enamored by graypants.   No, this is not a post about a wardrobe staple, but about a conceptual design studio.  Gray Pants was founded in 2008 with team members in Seattle and Amsterdam.  Their design philosophy is to create responsible, whether it's furniture or architecture.

Watch the bio: 

Dumpster diving has never looked more appealing.

Here are a couple of gray pants creations to pique your interest.

scraplights, made from salvaged pieces of corrugated cardboard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the slice chair transforms flat sheets of plywood into simple geometric forms that redefine seating. by creating a series of slices, the ottoman glides between the chair’s profiles allowing it to shift into a lounge chair. the ottoman can be completely removed and rotated for use as a magazine

Watch them build the slice chair:

ScrapLights are available for purchase here and range from $179 - $1,400.  The StepLight and Slice Chair are also available for purchase.

I look forward to seeing more of their up-cycled creations!

I want to go to there

Summer vacation is on my mind, and here is a collection of cool hotels I wouldn't mind spending a few days in.  Visit the links to see more images of these well designed hotels.

The Opposite House

Beijing, China

Bulgari Hotel

Milan, Italy

Remota

Puerto Natales, Patagonia, Chile

La Purificadora

Puebla, Mexico

Seven Hôtel

Paris, France

Semiramis Hotel

Athens, Greece

Dar HI

Nefta, Tunisia

Designing For Healthcare

Great ideas & great article

Worth the click:Designing for Health: Exploring Collaboration in the Consolidated Interventional Platform-By Allen Buie, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP 

 

Interior Design Giants

I should have posted this in January, but better late than never.

Visit Interior Design Magazine's site to see the report on 2012's Top 100 Giants and visit the links below to see a showcase of their work.

Projects for Giants 1-10 slideshow here.

Projects for Giants 11-20 slideshow here.

Projects for Giants 21-30 slideshow here.

Projects for Giants 31-40 slideshow here.

Projects for Giants 41-50 slideshow here.

Projects for Giants 51-60 slideshow here. 

Projects for Giants 61-70 slideshow here.

Projects for Giants 71-80 slideshow here.

Looks like 2011 was a better year than predicted for many of the firms!  

I am so relieved to see things are looking up for the industry.  

Hospitality Design: Blue Frog Acoustic Lounge

Project | Blue Frog Acoustic Lounge 
Location | Mumbai, India 
Architect | Serie architects 
Client | Blue Frog Media Pvt. Ltd 
Completion Date | 2007





 

 

For a full narrative about the concept and design of Blue Frog Acoustic Lounge visit this link. 

illy Push Button House

illy collaborated with artist/architect Adam Kalkin to create a dramatic work of living art - the illy Push Button House, a five-room home with a kitchen, dining room, bedroom, living room and library constructed within a standard industrial shipping container. The home, which transforms at the push of a button, is created from recycled and recyclable materials and is the physical representation of illy's dedication to sustainability, art and innovation.

 

Can't watch the video?  Try this link.

Cargo Shipping Container Offices & Homes

Shipping containers are a basic necessity for distribution of goods throughout the world. In the United States, shipping containers are actually becoming an environmental issue. We have become a society of import rather than export.  We export so little, that it actually cheaper for shippers to manufacture new shipping containers than to ship empty or partially filled containers back to their origin.


As a result, hundreds of thousands of empty containers sit litter the landscape of many port cities and areas around inland freight transit terminals.

Port of New York and New Jersey on the New Jersey Turnpike. In the first eight months of 2010, the port saw the equivalent of 700,000 more full 20-foot containers enter than leave.

Container Home in Jakarta

Resourceful people have been turning shipping containers into makeshift homes for years.  In recent years, there has been a surge of interest shipping containers from architects and designers.  They are modular and can be stacked and connected.  And best of all, containers are a relatively inexpensive (some start at $800 a container).

The low cost and modularity makes a shipping container for temporary disaster relief shelters.

Re:START by the Buchan Group, 1 year after a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck Christchurch, New Zealand

Container construction is not limited to short term solutions.  Containers can be used to build permanent structures. 

The original Container City project, located at Trinity Buoy Wharf, in the heart of London's Docklands.  Completed in 5 months in 2001, Container City I was originally 3 stories high providing 12 work studios across 4,800 sq ft.

Container structures can be completely fitted out on the interior.  Containers can be modified to add modern amenities you would expect from a home or an office (electricity, plumbing, finished interiors). 

This is what the inside of a Container home @ Cove Park, Scotland. Not to shabby, eh?

 
It doesn't have to look like a container on the outside either, the exterior can be clad with standard building materials.

The SG Blocks Harbinger Container Home, Composed of five recycled containers. 

Shipping containers have been used to  build luxury homes and offices, and even a Starbucks.

  Starbucks opened its first reclaimed container coffee shop just south of Seattle in Tukwila, Washington on 12/13/11. 

The store is also the first LEED-certified structure in Tukwila.

Want to see and learn more about Container structures?

Here are some links to helpful sites:

46 Amazing Homes and Offices Built from Shipping Containers

General  Knowledge:

• Pre-Fab: a web resource dedicated to tracking developments in the market for ‘modernist prefab dwellings including Container Homes
• Habinet -former Habitainer- is a website regarding projects and buildings using ISO shipping containers on design and construction.
• How to: Buying, Designing & Building Cargo Container Homes
• General Container Specifications 

Architects, Designers, Builders & Developers:

• Next modern facilities
• Guller Padilla

Great Article: Generation Green

Watch out Boomers & X/Y gens.  Millennials are entering the workforce and ready to make a positive impact.

Follow the link below to read a great article about the greenest generation: the Millennials and how they intend to transform the planet for the better. 

Generation Green - Currents - Greensource Magazine

via Green Source.

Product Love: ASI Lamellux

Showing some product love to the Lamellux Collection of Wood & Resin and Carved Wood Panels distributed by Architectural Systems Inc.    The wall panels combine translucent or opaque resins, in a variety of colors, with exotic and domestic wood species, which can be backlit.

Chez Gerard, London, UK
Featuring Lamellux® - Vibrato - WPLMX047

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE DETAILS: 

• Sheet size is 48" x 102" nominal
• Thickness: 
• Quertec: 10-40 mm
• Vibrato: 12-20 mm 
• Inclusion: 15-30 mm
• Finishes:
• Satin varnish standard
• Species: Oak, Beech, Ash, Sipo Mahogany, Maple-Sycamore, Cherrywood, Bubinga, Walnut, Padouk, Iroko, Teak, Wenge, Zebrano
• Edge treatments: Machine-dressed
• Applications include tabletops, doors, walls, partitions, furniture, and bar fronts and customized to your specifications. Custom capabilities on all patterns, additional thickness available.Variations in color and texture may occur due to the nature of the material

There are 3 sub-collections:
 Inclusion: combining honeycomb, resins and wood

Quertec: linear patterns of bold colors and texture
Vibrato: 11 groups of abstract, kinetic designs (a selection from this collection shown below)

Griffe

Gouge

Alveole

Cric

City

Wave

Mini-Parrot

I can't wait to get my hands on a sample!  But this new product is so popular, they are currently out of samples.  Le sigh.

12 Solid Surface Fabrications That Will Blow Your Mind

Solid surfacing is great for commercial applications, especially healthcare and food industry, because 1)  it's non-porous, 2) With proper maintenance, it does not promote the growth of mold, mildew or bacteria, 3) it meets all of the 18 preferred characteristics outlined in the 2006 Guidelines for Design and Construction of Hospital and Health Care Facilities as an ideal healthcare surface to help facilitate improved infection control, and 4) it's Class Ι (A) fire rated. 

When you think of solid surface, you probably think about countertops, restroom vanities and partitions,  and wainscoting and wall cladding. Zodiaq is nonporous and when properly cleaned does not promote the growth of mold, mildew or bacteria.  

And you'd be correct, but you're a designer, why limit yourself?

Solid surface can be thermoformed into custom shapes and contours, sandblasted, routed, carved, and laser etched.  CNC machines can be  used to engrave solid surfacing to the most intricate detail.  It can be thermoplastically molded to create raised textures and patterns and three-dimensional shapes. Certain colors and thicknesses of solid surfacing become translucent when exposed to light.

With a little imagination and a great fabricator (the fabricator is key here), solid surfacing has nearly limitless applications.

Check out these amazing projects that prove solid surfacing isn't just for countertops:

 

 























Project | Raiffeisen Bank portrait wall panels

Location |  Zurich, Switzerland 
Design |   NAU Architecture, Drexler Guinand Jauslin Architekten

Product |   HI-MACS
Fabrication Method |   Thermoforming  & CNC Precision cutting

Fabricator| Keijsers Interieurbouw Horst
Photographer| Jan Bitter

Wallcovering patterns design: ROK, Rippmann Oesterle Knauss
Wallcovering patterns fabrication: Rosskopf & Partner AG
Wallcovering and joinery: Glaeser Baden AG

See more here.

 

 

Project | DuPont Corian Design Studio conference table

Location |  Philadelphia 
Product |   Corian
Fabrication Method |   Thermoforming

See & read more here.

Project | EUROSHOP

Location |  Amstelveen, Netherlands 
Design |   Yasmine Mahmoudieh

Product |   HI-MACS
Fabrication Method |   Thermoforming, Backlighting

See & read more about the show here.

Project | KPMG Office

Location |  Amstelveen, Netherlands 
Design |   Marcel van de Schalk

Product |   HI-MACS
Fabrication Method |   Carving, Backlighting

Fabricator| Keijsers Interieurbouw Horst
Photographer| M.B. Simons Fotografie

 

Project | “Home of the Future”

Location |  Urban Nes(x)t Show

Design |   Italian architect’s studio Bestetti Associati

Product |   Partition walls made from LG HI-MACS
See & read more about the show here.

 

Project | Cantilevered Bar @ “Cafeneaua Veche” (The Old Café)

Location |  Bucharest

Interiors |   Sebastian Barlica
Product |   LG HI-MACS
Fabrication Method |   Thermoforming
See & read more about the project here.

 
 
Project | Hogatec Fair, Germany

Location |  Zurich, Switzerland 
Design |   JOI-Design, Germany

Product |   HI-MACS

Fabricator| Klöpfer Surfaces, Germany
Photographer| Tobias D.Kern

See more here.




Project | Leaf Collection for Avanzini Group

Design |   Giancarlo Zema

Product |   Corian Eco-Concrete

Project | Peacock Chair, Colors + Lines, a feature at IDS12

Design |   UUfie & DuPont Corian

Product |   1 sheet of Corian!

More here.

Project | Corian Light Ball

Design |   soliDline

Product |   Corian
Fabrication Method |   Thermoforming
Watch this video to see how it's made.


 

Project | Bubblegum Chair

Design |   Stuart Melrose

Product |   Corian 
Fabrication Methods |   Thermoforming, Inlaying, & Seamless Bonding
More here.

Project | Seating

Location |  Bronx Museum in New York 

Design |  Acconci

Product |   Corian  

Fabrication Methods |   Thermoforming 

More here.

Which one of these projects is your favorite? 

Want to see more amazing solid surface fabrications? 


Visit these links:
Corian USA Design Studio
Corian Design Inspiration
LG Hi-Macs Design Contests
LG Hi-Macs Project Archive

Innovative Idea: Save Water Brick

Bricks were one of the first man-made building materials materials (the oldest bricks made from mud have been dated at about 7500 BC). Throughout the centuries, the method for manufacturing has evolved, but at it's most basic level, a brick is a mixture of silica, clay, lime, iron oxide and magnesia fired @ 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Designer Jin -Young Yoon took a look at one of the oldest building materials and came up with the idea of the Save Water Brick.

The Save Water Brick is made from recycled plastic and decomposed leaves.The backside of the brick has funnels designed to direct water run off to nearby landscaping or to a underground storage tanks.

The Save Water Brick would definitely have a positive impact on the environment in other ways than water conservation, it would divert waste from landfills & support markets for recycled content products.

This is an innovative idea, but there are still some questions that need to be answered:

 How exactly will it be manufactured? Will it use less energy to produce than bricks on the market today (bricks  have an energy intensive process = more CO2 emissions)?  Bricks are relatively inexpensive to produce (a brick is typically made of silica, clay, lime, iron oxide and magnesia), how will the Save Water Brick compare in cost? And most importantly, how does the performance of the Save Water Brick compare to regular bricks?

I am interested in seeing how this product develops and if it will be released on the market.  Until then, I hope Yoon keeps cranking out the great ideas.

Educational Design: Kindergarten in Rosales Del Canal

I love the bright colorful facade of this Kindergarten located in Zaragoza, Spain. 

Project | Kindergarten in Rosales Del Canal

Location | Zaragoza, Spain

Firm |  Magen Arquitectos,

Year | 2009  

 

 

 

"With a square ground plan, the truncated pyramid-shaped roofing of these spaces, completed with a skylight, responds both to the primary identification with the protective roof of the house and to the advantages of height and additional lighting in the classrooms.  The general configuration responds to clearly organizational criteria, placing the classrooms around the patio, with service spaces situated between them and communicated on the inside with the corridor and on the outside with the patio, via a continuous exterior porch. The lobby, the multipurpose hall and an administrative area comprised of the reception. Modular and dry-joint systems were considered appropriate due to the need for the construction to be done in four months. "

Watch it grow from the ground up in this slide/video: