The chair that embodies design, ingenuity and meticulous American craftsmanship.

Maximillian Chair

Los Angeles based industrial designer Armen Sevada recently launched his Maximillian Chair. Seven years in the making, the chair combines meticulous attention to design proportion and craftsmanship.

“Fine-tuning a timeless chair that needed to be built like a watch was perhaps the hardest part of the process. My goal is to design objects that are timeless and complete in and of themselves. For me, this is the true test of sustainability; designs that are not governed by style or frivolous form. I wanted to create an object that for me embodied meticulous attention to design proportion and craftsmanship. I believe the Maximillian embodies design, ingenuity and meticulous American craftsmanship. I wanted to create something that could be as close to a perfect chair as possible” ~ 
Armen Sevada

The Maximillian Chair took seven years of design and prototyping to create, and is a true testament to American manufacturing. Each piece is welded from stainless steel sheets that are cut with laser precision. It takes six weeks to produce one chair. The chair’s hollow structure is meticulously designed like a building, and is manufactured in Los Angeles, handcrafted meticulously by expert artisans. The chair is designed to withstand the effects of moisture, and will not rust or tarnish.

“I believe that furniture has become a commodity. The general public may spend thousands of dollars on their clothing, but care less how they live behind closed doors. I believe the handcrafted approach is important to show that there are objects that are built with care and precision rather than mass production. Hermès bags are also handmade and I think this is one of the reasons why they are valued as they are. I think it is important to make things that have a personal touch, and there is a beauty in subtle imperfection. We are too used to identical objects that are manufactured by machines”

The chair is a real investment piece, with only 100 available worldwide. Each chair comes with a numbered plaque and signature, priced at $25,000. The first one went to Armen’s son, Maximillian, the inspiration for this project.

Armen Sevada Gharabegian, designer and producer of the Maximillian Chair, is an accomplished industrial designer based in Los Angeles. He is the founder and principal designer of Lounge22, a modern furniture design and fabrication company, as well as the founder and CEO of Ethos Design, a production company involved in global exhibits and events worldwide. He is an accomplished artist, sculptor and published author who continues to pursue all his passions. A graduate of the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, he holds a Master’s degrees in industrial design and has taught furniture design for several years.

The complete story of the chair can be found at http://maximillianchair.com Read the rest of this entry »

X|A ATHENS Winter Workshop 2014: 15th-23rd of December 2014 @ Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece

X|Atelier is organizing an international intensive workshop of Advanced Architectural Design. The X|Pixel[ism] Winter Workshop 2014 is led by X|A principals Erick Carcamo (SCI-ARC) and Nefeli Chatzimina (USC) both Graduates of Columbia University in New York City, GSAPP AAD.

The X| Pixel[ism] Workshop is organized under the auspices of the Hellenic Institute of Architecture and the Athens School of Fine Arts. Selected Participants will attend the Computation Workshop, the Final Review and Exhibition at Benaki Museum of Athens from the 15th -23rd of December 2014. Daily meetings will take place from 10am to 6pm at the Benaki museum of Pireos 138.

As part of an ongoing academic research, X|A workshops introduce participants into contemporary discussions of formal exploration in Architecture and Art. Through technical attainment of design and digital production the X|A Workshops give the opportunity to students of Architecture and Art, Professional Architects, Designers and Artists to challenge new design territories. Our goal is to explore innovative, potential architectural expressions of the current discourse around Form through computational tools (Autodesk MAYA). We will focus on technique elaboration, material intelligence, formal logic efficiencies and precision assemblies as an ultimate condition of design. The workshop will develop and investigate the notion of proficient geometric variations at a level of complexity, so that questions towards geometrical effectiveness, accuracy and performance can begin to be understood in a contemporary setting. The workshop is a discourse based in the use of multi-layered techniques and production processes that allow for control over intelligent geometries, calibration of parts, and behavioral taxonomies, normalizing an innovative held of predictability.

For more information: www.xatelier.com/workshop

To apply: workshop@xatelier.com

“In the World” Category of Best Communicator Award 2014, the first Prize was granted to STONE GROUP INTERNATIONAL, with the project “Breathing Life into 12 Mythic Marbles” by Architect Michalis Theofilou. The award received the President  & CEO of the company, Yiannis Antoniadis.

A prestigious jury has been appointed for the Best Communicator Award for exhibitors attending Marmomacc and Abitare il Tempo who enhanced the importance of their exhibition space and exhibits as a means of communication.

They awarded Stone Group International for having “created an evocative set-up capable of combining the myths of ancient Greece with contemporary stone processing”.

Company’s marketing department along with the associate architects of ARCHKT Ltd and dolphins // communication design team, applied Moire Technique ( two almost similar patterns on a flat or curved surface) under Gestalt Principles ( the whole is other than the sum of its parts),  to create “12 Mythic Marbles” projectile motion, activated every time by visitors steps.

They have transformed company’s Booth into a theatrical scene of 144 sq m, where an art craft work force created the leading actors, the “12 Mythic Marbles” sculptures. Behind them, a unique visual movement displayed their aerial figures and their sculpture enactment in an unforgettable way.

The team thought of marble’s role not only as something static, tough inside, cold and isolated material as being referred according to its geological resources, but also as energetic “universe of value”.

STONE GROUP INTERNATIONAL – “a Piece of Greece”

Stone Group International is a leading world marble supplier, an ambassador of Greek marble and entrepreneurship worldwide, with presence in more than 72 countries.

Company’s expertise is based on in-depth knowledge of materials – seeking, finding, selecting, processing & trading more than 300 types of marbles, granites & natural stones, with annual capacity amounted to 650.000 m² under the most innovative mechanical equipment.

The company cooperates with the largest clients globally and their renowned architects, for the specification of marbles in commercial & residential building projects.

-Stone Group International

www.stonegroup.gr

-Awarded 12 Mythic Marbles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCCvoJJljPg

-Yiannis Antoniadis Interview at 49^th Marmomacc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD2Z46yYqC8

CONTACT INFO:

Iosif Iosifidis

Marketing Director

iosif@stonegroup.gr

Organic light emitting diodes (OLED) has long promised to bring low energy, soft, and flexible lighting to our homes and work places but costs have been a major obstacle. Aerelight is a desk lamp which fuses in-house developed organic light emitting diode technology with a ground up design to express the viability of the technology for a mainstream market. The lamp feature an ergonomic touch control interface, wireless phone charging, and thin OLED light panel. Read the rest of this entry »

Conceived as a kind of southern hemisphere Serpentine Pavilion, the MPavilion has just opened its first work, a 12×12 meter kinetic box by the local architect Sean Godsell. Using the typically restrained massing of his homes as a template Godsell has then animated the space with a fully louvered skin. The pavilion is placed in the 18th century Queen Victoria Garden with Melbourne’s high rises serving as a backdrop. To be utilized for weddings and other occasions the pavilion can match the formalness of the event and weather with a simple adjustment.

Read the rest of this entry »

The West Coast Premier Design Event Set to Attract Influential Design Community and Enthusiasts with Curated Selection of Leading Brands, Series of Special Events, Special Sales, Panels and Workshops

On an island in Lake Superior craftsman Robert Teisberg’s Ancientwood Ltd. studio has created an exceptionally rare and unique $100,000 table made from 50,000-year old Ancient Kauri wood, the oldest workable wood in the world. The 42-by-94 inch Kahiko (Ancient One) table is one of the most unique and expensive tables ever created.

The unique grain of this particular piece of wood creates waves that make the surface of the table appear three-dimensional even though it’s flat. The wave effect is exceptionally rare in Ancient Kauri and is not found in any other species of wood.

“This table is created from one of the rarest pieces of wood I’ve ever seen,” said Teisberg, who has been creating Ancient Kauri pieces for more than a decade as the sole U.S. distributor of the ancient wood. “The price of the table reflects the unparalleled collector quality of the piece,” added Teisberg.

The base of the table is as unique as the wood itself. The compositely engineered wood and carbon fiber base is a sculpted design that “offers” the two book-matched pieces of polished Ancient Kauri to the viewer.

Ancient Kauri is a conifer endemic to the North Island of New Zealand. Preserved in bogs for thousands of years, its size is comparable to Coastal Redwoods and Giant Sequoias. While Kauri species still grow today, only fallen Ancient Kauri trees are removed from prehistoric bogs and used by Ancientwood to create its one-of-a-kind pieces.

Ancientwood’s studio is located in La Pointe, WI on Madeline Island, the only inhabited island in the Apostle Island National Lakeshore.

Designed by OSW-Open Source Workshop for the 2014 Milan Design Week, HELIX is a diffuse furniture system that generates a continuous interior space by adapting simultaneously to any vertical and horizontal surface while defining an immersive spatial atmosphere. Its form recalls a natural system that emerges from the structure beneath.

HELIX is modular and can be aggregated in different forms following the logic of spatial branching and growth. It can be placed in any private domestic space or in public indoor contexts.

The modules can vary in size, color, use, and orientation. The system morphs the space allowing the viewer to follow the visual continuous trajectory generated by the wrapper.

It is manufactured through iterative procedures guided by a 5-Axis robot able to carve out the modules from a solid mass of material. HELIX is made of EPS- expanded polystyrene obtained by corn; it is completely recyclable and the manufacturing process helps to reduce CO2 emissions allowing the project to be completely executed through fully sustainable processes. The structure is lightweight yet highly resistant due to the resin finish. Read the rest of this entry »

Johan Voordouw and Aisha Sawatsky have completed 12 digital etchings currently exhibited at the Rotterdam Kunsthal for IABR 2014 “Urban by Nature” biennale. Each etching contains a folly that articulates a specific weather condition. The project explores how shifts in climatic patterns will have a resultant cultural affect. Each of the twelve drawings expresses a weather condition, an activity, a different month and one of the Netherland’s twelve provinces. Therefore, the project is a reflection of the country as a whole, geographically, culturally, and with the passing of the seasons.

The final prints were produced by Mark Herschede of Haven Press Studio in Brooklyn. The digital drawings were photo-transferred onto a polymer plate and printed on 250gsm Arches Cover paper through a Takach Etching Press. Read the rest of this entry »

“pina” is a part of the series of exploration by Taeg Nishimoto of fabric’s behavior in lighting, with three variations (#1 – #3.) The shade uses the fabric 95% cotton and 5% spandex. The fabric is hardened to structure itself while it is configured to make specific creases for light and shadow effects as the lamp shade. Fabric is cut into square and dipped into fabric hardener, then hung in a framed structure from four corners of the fabric. This hung fabric is pulled upwards from certain points by thread with spherical weight placed in between the pulled points so the fabric will create specific creases as well as stretch itself. This crease effect follows the way how the fabric behaves itself in relationship to the pulled points and different amount of weights. The hung fabric is left to dry until it is completely hardened. The resulting creased fabric is then placed upside down to create a lamp shade with the initial four corners of the fabric functioning as legs of the shade. When the light is not turned on, the object presents itself as a certain organic object. When it’s lit from below, the lamp shade creates light and shadow effects not only within the fabric creases but also on the adjoining wall. Read the rest of this entry »