Glass Cast, lighting design, glass blowing technique, glass chandelier

What makes the Glass Cast design unique and engaging is the manufacturing process itself. Created in cooperation between Wes McGee of Matter Studio Design and Catie Newell of Alibi Studio, it is part of a wide research on glass processing. The final form evolved through an investigation of two methods of working: hot glass blowing and warm glass slumping. The design process and its tools, including custom manual forming tools and a reconfigurable slumping kiln, are as significant to the work as the resultant glass components. Casting techniques and the limited range of material available to work at the high temperatures necessary to form glass are the basis of the research. Such tools construct environments to control the thermal performance through time-based processes, choreographing the work and physical mediations.

Francis Gregory Library, David Adjaye Architects, geometric facade, library design

Porous and open, the new addition to the Columbia District’s cultural scene in Washington DC chalenges the traditional library typology. Designed by Adjaye Associates, the Francis Gregory Library is conceived as an extension to the adjacent park. Its materials and lighting, along with the large canopy overhanging the entrance, welcome the public inside, providing a smooth transition from the street.

Francis Gregory Library, David Adjaye Architects, geometric facade, library design

The two-story library echoes the natural environment. The reflective geometric facade is a netowrk of quadrilateral openings, thus framing the views of the park. The curtain wall is designed as a thick structure oriented towards the street, allowing visitors to sit within the apertures. The library facilitates three major services: content for adults, teenagers and children, along with a public meeting room and a series of conference rooms. A social element is introduced to the program which inherently involves areas of quiet and less interaction between users. Read the rest of this entry »

Aeolus Acoustic Pavilion

Designed to make audible the shifting patterns of the wind and visually amplify the ever changing sky, the acoustic and optical pavilion is a large musical instrument. It is an Aeolian harp, designed to resonate and sing with the wind without any electrical power or amplification. The project was designed by Luke Jerram, a multidisciplinary artist known for his large scale public engagement artworks. The idea of investigating acoustics of natural elements was conceived during the artist’s research trip to Iran in 2007, when Jerram interviewed one of the Qanat desert well diggers. Read the rest of this entry »

Guggenheim Jeddah

The concept derives from the relationship between art and architecture, particularly the architectural drawing. By mixing water with ink, intricate patterns are revealed, tracing trajectories and organic shapes that can be translated into buildings.

The project is located in the city of Jeddah, one of the most promising building sites in Saudi Arabia. It aims to support dissemination of culture and the development of regional tourist capacities. It is part of a larger development plan, which seeks to link the neighboring Ubhor beach resort with the city of Dhahran. The building consists of several separate volumes, creating a configuration that morphs into the terrain. The roof design includes solar and ETFE panels, utilizing local environmental conditions. Read the rest of this entry »

Project Distortion pavilion

Made up of over 151 individually tuned sound and light cones, “Project Distortion” is a parametric installation that mixes light, sound, space and infinitely altered reflections into fantastic reality. It is a result of teaching-based research collaboration between CITA, Department 8 at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York.

Project Distortion pavilion

This mobile pavilion is digitally fabricated and reconfigurable, focusing on acoustic and visual performance and its interaction with the visitors of the Copenhagen Distortion Festival at Pumpehu, where it was exhibited in 2010. Splashing curious fragments of light onto the ground and its surroundings, the mobile installation visited four music venues during the festival taking center stage outdoors, in a small nightclub, on the street and in a crowded lobby. During the all-night parties, visitors could inhabit the structure that revealed a kaleidoscopic golden surface reflecting movement, light, sound and color. Read the rest of this entry »

The installation is a composition of three biomimetic pieces created for the Milan Design Week 2012. This project, designed by Zaha Hadid, is located in Milan’s Brera neighborhood, in the garden between the Academia Art Museum and historical roman houses. Together with Paola Navone’s installation, Hadid’s piece constitutes the ambiental whole named The Secret Garden.

“The composition of each of the three showcased works is derived from the intricate beauty of organizational systems in the natural world. These fascinating scenarios are established when energy is applied to geology–developing a geometric set of repeated growth and erosion cycles.

Each piece, immaculately crafted in marble by Citco, invites further investigation; revealing formal complexity, repetition and textures that celebrate the detailed process and fluidity of natural systems – a persuasive manifesto of nature’s unrivalled logic and unity; a journey of discovery into the forces of their creation.

The exacting arrangements, structural integrity and precision of these natural systems inform a rich architectural language with the inherent capacity for complex programming. Read the rest of this entry »

light installation

HouseSwarming is a site-specific installation designed by Didier Hess, for the Art Center College of Design, California. It was specially commissioned for the “Open House” exhibition, designed and produced by Ubersee. The project uses sensor-node technology that transforms it from a lighting source into an environment-sensing device. It is a responsive structure that mimics biological systems and natural patterns. Read the rest of this entry »

Wintergarden facade

The three frontages of the Wintergarden Shopping Center in Brisbane have acquired a new look. Designed by Studio 505, the project for the new facades was conceived as a combination of commercial entertainment and architecturally engaging detailing. The abstract geometry of the screens is achieved by overlapping layers of different patterns, resulting in a radically experiential composition that communicates the rich diversity of city life. Read the rest of this entry »

Bundle House

The project was created as part of Hernan Diaz Alonso’s Spring 2012 XLAB studio at SCI-Arc, an exercise in form and generative artificial landscaping. Designed by students Keyla Hernandez and Jason Orbe-Smith, the Bundle House is a single family home located in Los Angeles, California. Reinterpreting the ground as a potential three-dimensional grid, the project develops through deformation and a series of disruption of this linear system. It stems from a flat site and transforms space into an organically shaped, semi-open living area. Enclosures and apertures are generated by the density of linework, offering both privacy and filtered views to the exterior landscape. Read the rest of this entry »

Tandanor Performing Arts Center

The Tandanor Performing Arts Center is designed as a composition of sweeping forms and intricate spatial trajectories that stem from the existing urban network of Buenos Aires waterfront. The natural horizontality of the waterfront is contrasted against the historical skyline of the city, dominated by vertical buildings. In order to introduce new content to the public realm, the project alternates sequences of public foyers and halls with multiple access points to a large roof-plaza. Grafted onto the figure of an old shipyard, the Performing Arts Center seeks to operate directly from within the landscape conditions.

Programmatically, the building is designed in layers: the inner spaces hold a series of auditoria, public foyers, and great halls, while the outermost facilitates rehearsal rooms, workshops, a boardwalk with restaurants, and various retail and leisure attractions. Arriving from Antartida Argentina Avenue, an important artery along the waterfront, visitors are exposed to a transition from the uniformity of the coastal skyline to diversified horizontality of the Center. Through the introduction of multiple access points, they are allowed to choose their own spatial experience. Read the rest of this entry »