Designed by San Francisco-based artist Mary Button Durell, this body of work uses only tracing paper and wheat paste as material.  At first glance these pieces appear to be built onto a rigid wire frame, however, the process is much more organic and the structure is created from hand building.  Individual cells or cones that comprise most of the pieces are first formed over molds of various shapes and sizes and then joined together using wheat paste cell by cell.  Additional layers of paper and paste are then added for strength and reinforcement which creates the net-like structure around the individual cells.

The translucent quality of the tracing paper allows light to play a significant and dynamic role in the work.  In combination with the physical structure of the work, this translucent quality creates an interior, as well as exterior, perspective. In certain light, however, the translucency of the paper appears to have the visual characteristics of more solid materials, such as oyster shell or marble. Read the rest of this entry »

By drawing from our historically predominant obsession with the heavy and the permanent, La Voûte de LeFevre Installation re-examines our current addiction to the thin. The rapid, efficient and surface-oriented digital fabrication is used as a modern equivalent of ancient stone carving, marrying the two major architectural parameters – surface and volume. Designed by the New York based Matter Design, the project was preceded by an extensive research dealing with the eco­nom­i­cally friendly sheet mate­r­ial, while main­tain­ing a com­mon thread of a ded­i­ca­tion to vol­ume. Read the rest of this entry »

The most exciting architecture today is not only environmentally astute but re-imagines a sense of place. The book [ours] by Andrew Michler is a collaboration between eVolo and the Institute for the Built Environment at Colorado State University on contemporary architecture trends of sustainable design in selected locations around the world. We have put together a Kickstarter campaign to help support the ground breaking research behind the book.

[ours] disseminates how the best architecture comes together to create regional identity in the 21st century. Site specific design is a core reality in developing robust, thriving communities and informing the shared nature of the built and natural world through environmentally attuned development.

Regions are already responding to the challenge through inventive and provocative architecture. [Japan Condenses], [Spain Wraps], and [Australia Unfolds] explores how design practices inform a sense of place and provide solutions to complex issues in the built environment. These three divergent areas exemplify the quality of redefined design vernacular that addresses deep sustainable objectives.

Other regions from around the world will be explored as well including [Denmark Plays], [Germany Maintains], [Mexico Buries], [Cascadia Grows], South Africa and Central America.

The germ of the idea is to explore sustainable design by putting these buildings into context. We see the re-imagining of the built environment as one of the most important goals in thriving in an altered planet in the 21st century. By pushing the envelope these buildings create new architectural archetypes, integrating function and form to improve performance. We will explore how architects have learned from their failures and from taking risks. Read the rest of this entry »

Paper Sculptures is an exercise by artist Richard Sweeney that tests the limits of folded paper as a medium for the creation of spatial situations. Sweeney pursues a ‘purely experimental’ trajectory with this work, utilizing the manipulation of two-dimensional sheets of paper to arrive at three-dimensional creations. Through a process of drawing, tracing, cutting, and folding, Sweeney is able to achieve incredibly complex sculptural forms. The artist begins with simple and methodical geometric manipulations that ultimately result in a complex array of abstracted polyhedral forms. Through the combination of repetitive geometries, curved lines, and modularity, Sweeney pushes paper into compelling quasi-architectural terrain, finding that paper, though flat and essentially limited to a two dimensional plane, can be articulated into a myriad of forms and functions. The limitless potential for variation inherent in the sheet of paper is determined by subtle changes in physical approach: the degree of each fold, location of cuts, as well as the orientation, sequencing, and execution of each manipulation. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

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 »

Your Sound Galaxy, is a new combination geometric installation light fixture by Danish-Islandic artist Olafur Eliasson that focuses on a user-based interaction between compound geometric forms. Your Sound Galaxy consists of twenty-seven polyhedra suspended from the ceiling and arranged in two horizontal, concentric rings. The polyhedra are further arranged in an ascending clockwise sequence, increasing in the number of faces per polyhedron as the sequence advances. These concentric circles are organized into nine ‘families.’ ‘families’ consist of three polyhedra each, which are organized within the circles like slices of a pie, where the two outer ‘dual polyhedra’ and one inner polyhedron make up one ‘family.’ The ‘dual polyhedra’ relate to each other in that the number of vertices on one match the number of faces on the other; the inner polyhedron is a physical combination of the two. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »