PIUMA – black aluminum, titanium, brass

How do we reimagine a classic pen design? Ensso, a small Los Angeles-based studio step up to the task of refining the classic fountain pen and bringing it into the 21st Century. The result is a streamline design focused on the purity of the materials with the utmost attention to detail. PIUMA is a fountain pen precision-machined from solid titanium, brass, and aluminum.

The interchangeable nib system screws inside the pen grip and resides a couple of millimeters in to create a unibody appearance. The cap threads are wider and allow a fast opening and closing of the pen. In addition, a milimetric-rounded gap defines the connection between the cap and the body.

PIUMA borrows its name from the same Italian word, which means feather. It pays homage to the simplicity of the first pens made from bird feathers. It is a writing instrument to be used for a lifetime and enjoyed by generations – a combination of the highest manufacturing quality and timeless design.

For a limited time, PIUMA is exclusively available on Kickstarter.

PIUMA – black aluminum, titanium, brass

PIUMA – brass, black aluminum, titanium

RepetiGrid

Two Weeks starting the 12th of December until the 22nd of December.

ArchitectScripta is organizing an international workshop of Advanced Architectural Design, part of an ongoing academic research, which introduces participants into contemporary discussions of formal exploration in Architecture and Art, through technical attainment of design and production. The Precise Inaccuracy by ArchitectScripta is under the auspices of Benaki Museum, the Hellenic Institute of Architecture and the Athens School of fine Arts. It is an opportunity for architects, students of Architecture and Art, professionals designers and artists to join and exchange ideas.

GUIDELINES

The Workshop will run primarily using AutoDesk MAYA and Rhino GRASSHOPPER, including other fundamental software digital design tools.

1.The main aspiration of this workshop is to precisely develop a critical argument based on an individual research, which will translate into pure geometrical-formal exploration; the format will be an ongoing deskcrit symposium.

2. Rather than assignments, the research will be divided into stages, tactics and strategies.

3. The students will develop an expertise in a specific Topological territory; this territory will emerge for a hybrid between 4 main intellectual fields, from the following menu:

TOPOLOGICAL ANALYSIS AND STRATEGIES OF

A. STRUCTURAL-RIGID.  A topological development of dynamics techniques, corrupting structure, prosthetic, rigid structural system with soft components – paradox.

B. SKIN-SURFACE-MASS. We will approach ideas of color, transparencies, reflections, refraction, textures, patterns, textile animals skin, surface effects, skin as mass, skin as volume, transparencies, opacities, corrugations.

C. GROUNDSCAPE. Efficiencies Plug into, dig in/out, scratch, stitch, seams, corrode, erode, articulate organization, heterotopia, dystopia.

D. MULTIPLICATION-REPETITION-ACCUMULATION.  Efficiencies calibration of systems, quantification of parts, behavioral mechanism efficiency, Defensive mechanisms, attacking methods, attaching.

The multiple level of experimentation will occur incrementally every week, but each segment will have a clear main topic of investigation, these are the reasons for the 4 legs sequence, so everybody can have the proper time for each aspect of the problem (intellectual, technical, abstract, physical, etc).

INTENTIONS

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 field of predictability. Our goal is to explore innovative, potential architectural expressions of the current discourse around form through 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.

Within this context, our work will turn into design and production; each student will operate within an expertise towards intuition by means of software and advancement of the discipline through a precise contemporary understanding of Architecture’s reliance on surface performance, unspecified systems, scale within the scale, mechanical parts and absurd precisions to expand its discourse. We will focus simultaneously in the attempt to negotiate the question of topology vs. typology, odd genus (Greek. γένος) and species within the condition of space and how fragmented surface state emerges through, constituting a potential assembly of parts and quantified normalities.

-> Apply at architectScripta

rendering Das Haus 2017 by Todd Bracher – courtesy of imm cologne

“Das Haus” is created anew every year at imm cologne by another designer. They have already been from London, Venice, Copenhagen, Shanghai and Offenbach. Next year the American designer Todd Bracher will design the approximately 200-square metre area in the popular “Pure Editions” area in Hall 2.2: a walk-in, almost habitable, fully-fitted and furnished house.

Why do we live in a particular way and not differently? Why do our homes have corners? How many walls do we need to feel comfortable, and why do we prefer particular furniture? Questions like these drive Todd Bracher when he is developing his diverse spectrum of work, ranging from product design, brand innovation to design strategies. The design event at imm cologne provides him with the perfect platform to challenge the traditional notions of how one lives today. “Das Haus 2017” will offer visitors to the international interiors show exciting insights into a close convergence of living and life.

“The home is an elementary synthesis of needs and functions that is very precisely directed toward supporting the people who live inside it in their daily lives and their growth,” is how Bracher understands the concept of “Das Haus”. The holistic project combines architecture, interiors and product design. For his “Haus”, he will follow his classical approach to design rigorously: reducing complexity to its simplest elements and functions. “Why do we choose a particular lifestyle?” asks the 41-year-old and sets out his intentions: “We want to question our conception of what makes contemporary living by rethinking the principles that define the home and asking ourselves if they meet the requirements of the world today.”

Todd Bracher is considered one of the leading names in the American design scene. Born in New York in 1974 and the son of a carpenter, he graduated in Industrial Design from the city’s prestigious Pratt Institute. Between graduating and founding his own studio, he took a exciting journey through the different cultures and design traditions of the “Old World”. Optaining a masters in design at the Danish Design School in Copenhagen; working in Milan, Paris and London; serving as Professor of Design at l’ESAD in Reims, France, and Creative Director of the Danish luxury brand Georg Jensen before returning home to New York in 2007 and setting up his own studio. From his Brooklyn base, he collaborates with leading design brands from around the world, including Cappellini, Fritz Hansen, Herman Miller, Humanscale, Issey Miyake, Swarovski, Zanotta and 3M.

“After Neri & Hu from China and the German designer Sebastian Herkner we do with Todd Bracher again a very wide step to the west,” said the creative director of the imm cologne Dick Spierenburg to the choice of Todd Bracher. “Surprisingly, we return therefore to our own design tradition, Todd knows firsthand. It shows the essential, without abstaining from an independent, aesthetic form. I expect a ‘Haus’, which is both: current and timeless and which provides a bridge between the US and Europe.”

rendering Das Haus 2017 by Todd Bracher – courtesy of imm cologne

There are thousands of pen designs and very few are exceptional, but even less are true works of art. That is the case of the P22 pen designed by acclaimed architect/designer Giovanni Pagnotta. The P22 pen is a functional organic sculpture- an orchestra of beautifully calibrated curves that equally respond to ergonomics and aesthetics. Curves pinch and bend in the right position to allow the most comfortable writing experience while they define an unbelievably beautiful object.

Equally impressive are the materials selection and manufacturing process. The P22 pen is the first additively manufactured pen going into production. It is grown in titanium using and advanced 3D-printing process known as Electron Beam Melting (EBM), where 30-micron layers of titanium are fused together. This highly precise technique is usually restricted to aerospace, military, and Formula One racing components. Each pen is subsequently hand-finished either in satin or high-polished finish.

To no surprise, the P22 pen uses the highly reliable German-made Schmidt P 8126 ink cartridge, which combines the smooth writing experience of a fountain pen with the convenience of rollerball pen.

For a limited time, the P22 pen is available from Pagnotta Design. This is a great and rare opportunity to acquire a product directly from a celebrated designer without any intermediaries. We love the idea of breaking the established model in which high-quality design is put in the consumers’ hands.

We had the opportunity to test one P22 and immediately fell in love with it. We truly believe that it will soon have its place in pen design history and hopefully it will empower other designers to break the norm and propel design into the future. Read the rest of this entry »

Pen Uno is an all aluminum pen for the Hi-Tec C Coleto ink cartridge that also transforms into a mechanical pencil by switching two components.

Pen Uno and Pencil Uno, designed by ENSSO in Los Angeles are perhaps the most minimal writing instruments in the market. Their design aims to be elegant and discreet focusing on the details and essential components. They are machined out of space-grade aluminum anodized in five distinct colors: gold, rose gold, red, black, and space grey.

When a pen it uses the amazing Hi-Tec C Coleto gel ink cartridge, which is widely available, inexpensive and comes in a variety of colors and lineweights. As a mechanical pencil it uses regular 0.5 mm leads.

Pen Uno and Pencil Uno are currently available on Kickstarter.

Zen Spinning Tops are precision instruments machined out of aluminum, brass and steel with unique concentric circles pattern for relaxing and meditation. Spinning tops are timeless toys often used for relaxation. Watching them spin could be a deep inner experience with your own thoughts. Los Angeles-based studio ENSSO wanted to design a top that would highlight these attributes. Upon studying different geometric patterns they decided to borrow the traditional concentric circles pattern found in Zen gardens and map it through out the entire body of the top. The result is a minimal design that reflects light in very interesting ways while providing a visual soothing experience.

Zen Tops are currently available on Kickstarter.

Editor’s Choice
2016 Skyscraper Competition

Woo Min Lee, Kang Min Yoo, Justin Baek, Tamin Song
New Zealand

While the use of glass in skyscrapers has proliferated, contemporary skyscrapers are effectively closed off from the environment. Since its inception, the use of closed and artificially controlled interior environments have caused large strains on the planet’s resources; have made these buildings homogenous experientially; and have also caused sicknesses related to this over-reliance on air-conditioning. Modern humans now live, work, play and learn in towers with the outside as if it were wallpaper: despite it snowing outside, the occupants feel no cold; nor feel any heat during a hot summer’s day. While comfort is of importance, this comfort-craziness has driven more and more advanced air-conditioning technology creating buildings that no longer open up to the nature’s seasonal changes and are the same all year round.

The Urban Tent seeks to change this static typology by reutilising the traditional tent concept: a breathable skin that adapts for multiple environmental settings without resorting to air-conditioning. Using innovations in smart fabric technology, such as the UHMWP fabric (ultra-high-molecular-weight-polyethylene), the Urban Tent Skyscraper can do more than traditional tent fabrics with its dynamic properties of transparencies, porosities, insulations, tensions, strengths and plasticity. The design for the Urban Tent Skyscraper is conceived as being more like the human skin with an outer porous fabric membrane around the outside of the building, like the epidermis, and different additional inner layers of fabric-walls around all the interior rooms and in particular spaces creating multiple temperatures and different layers of interior conditions within the whole building. Consequently, occupants can then choose to be in zones of different comfort and temperatures which also creates an opportunity for co-existence of different trees and plants. People can be enjoying the winter without feeling too cold in the outer zones, or feeling warm by being inside one of the warmer inner layer fabric rooms. The outside and inside fabric work together in a way that it creates different environmental conditions and different micro-climates on the inside of the building so that the harsh outside natural environment is filtered into the building in different amounts in different zones of the interior. Read the rest of this entry »

The integration of the Passive House certified museum Kunstmuseum Ravensburg into the fabric of a medieval city challenges the identity of architecture by bridging 500 years of vernacular with a single gesture. The museum maintains the German city’s fabric with a nod in materiality and form, but resolutely avoids mimicry or nostalgia. If you quickly walked passed it you may not even recognize it is of our era. The barrel vault roof relief and rich, historical brickwork allow the mass to slip into the old, dense neighborhood with only a whisper and wink of the contemporary on the outside. Read the rest of this entry »

2000 years ago, the Romans terraced a hillside just north of Barcelona to grow grapes. Those formations still exist in the sleepy town of Teià and were the first place Berta Barrio and her husband and collaborator Josep Peraire took me to on our visit to her project, the small public library Biblioteca de Can Llaurador. The gesture of the terraced slopes and the green-roofed library are immediately apparent. The building yawns out of the landscape, gently funneling in passersby to a womb of knowledge.

Read the rest of this entry »

This year Milan Design Week will honor the Miami based Italian designer Vito Di Bari by hosting his newest creation, MyEquilibria, in a solo exhibit at the historical botanical garden, the Orto Botanico di Brera, in Milan. There will be a press conference on Monday, April 11th at 2:30pm and formal unveiling ceremony the day after in the Orto Botanico to mark this historic occasion, and officially launch the annual event.
Following the ceremony, MyEquilibria will be available to visitors free of charge courtesy of Fuorisalone in collaboration with the city of Milan.

According to Di Bari, Milan Design Week was the only choice of venue for the public unveiling of MyEquilibria. Since 1961 Milan Design week or “Salone de mobile” has been an annual event where the world leaders in design unveil the latest trends in design from furniture and clothing to art and architecture. The term “Fuorisalone” is used to describe the tremendous influx of more than 1200 creative exhibitions that sprawl throughout the city of Milan for the month of April. Each year the internationally acclaimed extravaganza draws tens of thousands of artists, tourists, and design elite to share and celebrate the latest breakthroughs and brilliance in design. According to acclaimed architect and designer Gaetano Pesce, “The Milan Fuorisalone has been a benchmark for the Venice Biennale of Art, for the various fashion weeks in New York, London, Paris, for Documenta, Frieze, Pad, Basel and Miami Basel, the Armory Show and so on”.

MyEquilibria was born of Vito Di Bari’s ongoing crusade to promote the “cross pollination of arts and technology for a better quality of life”. The interactive art installation is a vision of beauty that skillfully balances form and function. MyEquilibria is completely comprised of next generation materials and technologies that make it the very first art installation of its kind in existence. MyEquilibria in Milan will pioneer a worldwide fitness community connected through the digital technology woven into the very structure of MyEquilibria’s wellness trees.

At first glance, MyEquilibria appears to be an elegant representation of some unknown organic life form, but the aesthetic appeal is only a fragment of the installation’s genius. The 23’ tall wellness trees are designed to provide an array of over 500 different forms of exercise. Replacing antiquated instruction boards found with other open-air exercise equipment, MyEquilibria has an app for smart phones and tablets that provides instructional videos specifically crafted for each MyEquilibria installation. Thanks to MyEquilibria’s geo-localization and augmented reality features, the app instantly identifies which MyEquilibria installation an individual is using, and offers videos of personal trainers using that very same art installation.

Visitors to MyEquilibria can build their own unique workout routines customized to meet their individual fitness goals through the app’s virtual trainer program. App users can mold their fitness regimens according to their individual body types, health and fitness goals with the aide of the fitness experts that contribute to MyEquilibria. The app also interacts with other smart devices such as wearables and smart phones to provide helpful data for users to monitor their heart rates, time, distance, speed, calorie burning, and progress. MyEquilibria provides a real-time forum for app users to ask advice from fitness experts and get relevant suggestions for improving their exercise experience.

The revolutionary concept of connecting people around the world – united in promoting physical and psychological health and well being, is made possible through MyEquilibria’s social network capabilities. People separated by thousands of miles and across oceans can work out together, compete, help, and encourage each other in real time thanks to MyEquilibria’s online connectivity. The app is also social media friendly for sharing the fun on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

About the Designer of MyEquilibria

Vito Di Bari is the CEO of DiBari & Associates and an innovation designer who develops creative solutions based on next generation technologies and materials. Vito’s Miami based studio, DiBari & Associates is a team of star artists, architects and designers known in the USA as the “Dream Team”, as they are the very best in their respective fields worldwide. Vito has been deemed one of the top three most important futurists in the world, and The Financial Times has defined him as “the Design and Innovation Guru”; Nobel Economics Prize winner, Kenneth Arrow, said, “Vito Di Bari engineers dreams. Concrete dreams, based on concrete facts”. Read the rest of this entry »