LA76 strategic design

JUMP!

2010-05-24T22:18:00.000-06:00

You still have couple of days to catch Philippe Halsman's exhibition JUMP in Laurence Miller Gallery, New York.

Quirky and fun-filled series of fifty vintage photographs were taken by Philippe Halsman five decades ago of movie stars, politicians, royalty, entertainers, artists, and authors, all jumping before Mr. Halsman’s camera. He called the series “Jumpology.” The extended series has never before been exhibited in New York.

Philippe Halsman, with an unsurpassed 101 LIFE magazine covers to his credit, had the bold and unconventional idea back in the 1950’s to ask the famous and prominent people he was commissioned to photograph for the likes of LIFE, LOOK and the Saturday Evening Post, once the formal sessions were over, to jump! The results were amazing, as each subject interpreted this bizarre request in their own unique way, often defying their typical public image. We see Richard Nixon as he floats twelve inches above the floor with a peaceful smile on his face, a far cry from the scowl many of us ultimately remember him by. And there is the rather large Jackie Gleason, in a handsome dark suit and his fingers extended wide, defying gravity as he lifts off, and from somewhere off-camera we can’t help but hear “To the moon, Alice.”

Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Salvador Dali, Weegee, Jack Dempsey and even the Duke and Duchess of Windsor agreed to take a leap of faith. In that era of live television along with the popularity of the big glossy magazines, one’s image was not nearly as protected and shaped by handlers as it is today. There was a feeling of innocence, a desire for spontaneity, and Halsman, with his playful and charming personality, knew he had to get almost everyone to oblige his demand: JUMP!

Philippe Halsman was born in Latvia in 1906, and began his photographic career in Paris in the early 1930’s. He emigrated to New York in the fall of 1940, as Paris fell to the Nazis. He soon became one of the most prominent photographers in America, his photographs published widely and regularly. He died in 1979. His photographs have been collected and exhibited by museums around the world.

THE MUSEUM OF AGRICULTURE, CULIACÁN

2010-05-19T11:23:00.001-06:00

Our friends from a10studio, with offices in Cabo San Lucas and Mexico City, has sent us an exciting news about their recent work. It's a project they did for The Museum of Agriculture in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico.

Agricultural production is one of the most internationally recognized emblems of Mexico, and particularly of the State of Sinaloa. The state of Sinaloa is known as the "granary of Mexico" because it is the producer of a big variety of food. Its efficient fields have become national leaders in their yields.

Because the economy of Sinaloa is sustained by its agricultural activities, the project seeks to recognize it and promote it, through a work that displays objects related to branches of technology, history of agriculture and agronomy as well as agricultural ways which sustain the economy of Sinaloa. Through the creation of the Museum of Agriculture the city government tries to allow the public to learn more about the forms of production in the locality, while recognizing both the agricultural practice as such, and those who make possible such a noble activity.

Project Brief

Intro:

Through agriculture, man has colonized the territory for centuries, creating irrigation systems and by planting with geometric laws. He has de-naturalized the natural areas through the planting of natural elements; the distance that is between the planted trees or plants depends on both the size of the crop itself as the collection systems used. Each plantation produces a texture and color over the territory.

Agriculture industrializes, the landscape urbanizes.

a10studio proposal's outside is as important as the inside. There are no objects and an external reality, but a continuum between forms that wrap and un-wrap, that close and open, that focus and serve as a focus. The architecture as this, expanded in reality, in the middle, through the environment, is an extension. The environment in which it appears is a field.

They present 3 key strategies for the development of the project:

_Operative Topographies

_Ecomonumentality

_Active Ecology

The spectacle of nature and city become now comparable.

_OPERATIVE TOPOGRAPHIES:

Based on the topographic analysis of the site, we suggests a strategy of folding, cutting and movement of the territory. Such movements define platforms developed as programmatic scenarios, functional plateaus exacerbating their flexible surface condition, either as slipped and extended surfaces [dynamic soil], or as extruded surfaces [located reliefs]. In both cases it is manipulated landscapes that refer to the nature of vacant spaces, and ultimately, the very definition of landscape as a background, as construction and stage at the same time: landscapes within landscapes.

The ground respond to a willingness to overlap, the reliefs to an interlock.

These topographies form in any case, new geographies on the ground; mineral and vegetal landscapes in which the movements and flows are articulated by a manipulated geography and a generated space.

_ECOMONUMENTALITY:

We are used to think of architecture in function of the place, meaning that it could find the keys with which to tackle the project. There are many ways to anchor to the site. The whole place has gone from being understood as a landscape, whether natural or artificial, and it has ceased to be the neutral ground on which man-made architectural objects stand out, to become the object of primary interest and focus of attention. Thus, changing the point of view, the landscape loses its momentum and becomes an object of possible transformations, both at the architectural level, neighborhood and city-level.

The architecture starts a process of artificial blurring with an obvious interest in incorporating a natural condition, both in terms of composition as constructive (proposed construction system of rammed earth walls, to emphasize the use of existing assets in the site as well as develop strategies for sustainability and passive ecotechniques), in search for environmental sensitivity and a formal complexity that responds precisely to the values of the Culiacan society.

The project seeks to build a complete redefinition of the place, offering primarily the invention of a topography. So with this double movement, from the nature to the project and from the project to nature, we seek to rescue a "ecomonumental” condition.

An architectural proposal characterized by:

- Address both what is between things as things in themselves: public space [a hall, a plaza, a terrace] is therefore the primary object.

- The identification of the variability, the change as a key ingredient of architecture. With emphasis on the design of objects rather than the definition of definitive architectural programs.

- The commitment between scales. The project its determined and affects many areas beyond those granted by reason of mere physical contiguity. A project with translation capability, traveling between scales.

- Understand and feel simultaneously different scales and fields of perception and action.

- Acting on the near, immediate, tactile, and understand at the same time many other receptacles and dimensions that get modified with user actions, it is a flexible work program for the upcoming years.

_ACTIVE ECOLOGY:

To the old nostalgic or pseudobucolic ecology (freezing landscapes, territories and environments) we propose a bold ecology; reclassified to be reformulated. Based not in a fearful and non-intervention purely defensive -resistant- but in a no-tax, projective and rating -(re)promotive- intervention in synergy with the environment and also with new technologies. Not only possibilities but (re)positivist.

a10studio proposes:

- An ecology where sustainability means interaction.

- Where Nature is is also artificiality.

- Where the landscape is topography.

- Where energy is information and technology the vehicle to development.

- Where development is recycling and evolution is genetic.

- Where environment is the field.

Where retain involve always intervene.

The selection of vegetal species to exhibit took into account the degree of maintenance as well as the main agricultural products of the state of Sinaloa and the natural species of native vegetation. In this way we achieve that public space becomes in a same gesture an inside museum-park-public space. Presenting the exhibiting object in real time with their processes and characteristics of agricultural activity, where the user can directly see how these are conducted and its temporality. Species selection also took into consideration the color palette that these species may have throughout the year generating a "living park" an ever-changing exhibition and intervention which always seem dynamic and not static representation of agricultural processes.

PROJECT DATA:

architectural project: a10studio + lab07

project team: Mariano Arias-Diez, Luis Alarcón, Carlos Marín, Hugo Sánchez, Mia Modak

type: institutional, museum and park

location: Culiacan, Sinaloa (Mexico)

area: 45,000 m2

project year: 2010

client: Instituto Municipal de Planeacion (IMPLAN) de Culiacan

status: Competition finalist

CONSULTANTS:

landscape architecture: Hugo Sánchez / ENTORNO taller de paisaje

structural engineer: Ing. Fernando Alvarez / Construcciones FASA

rendering and digital visualization: Carlos Marín / lab07

lighting design: a10studio

contact a10studio:

_Sierra Guadarrama 85-1, Col. Lomas de Chapultepec, Mexico .D.F 11000, Mexico

_Isla Santa Catarina, Cabo San Lucas, B.C.S., Mexico

tel. +(55)26.23.26.73, +(624)13.15.14.7

email: info@a10studio.net

web: http://www.a10studio.net

Check out the story boards. We love how the thought has been put to every single detail:

Congratulations!

Peppersmith chewing gum with clever packaging

2010-05-17T10:39:00.001-06:00

Two friends, Mike and Dan, started a refreshing business and presented a refreshing chewing gum Peppersmith. They've set a bunch of noteworthy values and promise that while they can't promise they'll do everything perfect they do promise they'll always do their best to do the things right. As far as we can see, they're doing great. I'm personally not a big fan of chewing gums, however, for Peppersmith I'd be willing to give them a second chance. The natural gum + intelligent design packaging wins me over every time.

Sweetened with wood sugar from beech trees and peppermint grown in Hampshire (there are also no artificial flavours, colours, preservatives or aspartame), it's touted as the first British all-natural chewing gum that's also approved by the British Dental Health Foundation. Besides that, the packaging itself will make you buy at least one pack of Peppersmith. Each box slides out of its case to reveal a moustachioed icon like Salvador Dali and Charlie Chaplin – the moustache being a sly riff on the company's stylised mint leaf logo. Lovely attention to the details (and very useful one) is that they equipped each gum case with small slips of Post-It-like paper to wrap up used gum.

Currently available in peppermint flavor, coming soon you'll also be able to try Peppersmith in Spearmint, Cinnamon and Fish & Chips (huh?). If you've tried them, let us know how they taste.

BETTER CITY, BETTER LIFE - Shanghai Expo 2010, UK Pavilion

2010-05-13T20:32:00.000-06:00

We absolutely love the UK Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010. Mastermind behind it is Heatherwick Studios, run by acclaimed architect Thomas Heatherwick.

The Pavilion's design seeks to engage meaningfully with the Expo's theme, "Better City, Better Life". It veers from the expected trend of digitally-driven pavilions and explores the relationship between nature and cities. The Pavilion is made up of two interlinked elements, the Seed Cathedral and a multilayered landscape covering 6,000 square meters.

The cathedral itself is 20 meters high and is formed from 60,000 7.5 meter-long transparent fiber optic rods, which draw light into the interior by day and at night become illuminated via inside light sources. The rods, or "optic hairs," also sway in response to the wind to bring dynamism to the structure. The overall design riffs off the mission of London's Kew Garden Millennium Seedbank, which seeks to collect the seeds of 25% of the world's plant species by 2020. It sits on a multilayered landscape continues the cathedral's texture, covering 6,000 square meters. Made of a special artificial grass, it is intended to be a welcoming and restful space for Expo visitors.

Heatherwick Studios won the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office's commission to create the Pavilion, besting other top name competitors like Zaha Hadid Architects, John McAslan + Partners, Marks Barfield Architects, Avery Associates, and DRAW Architects with dcmstudios.

Shanghai Expo runs from May 1 to October 31, 2010. See also our article on EXPO 67.

See the video. It lasts 10 mins, but it's worth it!

Rock Me Baby

2010-05-12T20:30:00.001-06:00

The summer has arrived to Baja California Sur. With an average of 86 F / 30 C in May there are several ways to enjoy your day. The best one (obviously) is at the beach... And the other, our personal favorite, is at your garden, on a hammock, with a nice easy drink (mojito, michelada, a glass of wine or a fresh lemonade...) reading your favorite book and listening to some nice tunes, like The Bird and The Bee.

Today we fell in love with this knotted hanging chair by Anthropologie .

See also a hanging chair from collection Garden of Eden by Ontwerpduo.

Windcuts

2010-05-06T20:28:00.002-06:00

Windcuts [flickr.com] consists of various experiments that turn quantitative sensor data into visually compelling physical instantiations. Wind movement measurement data, such as wind direction, velocity and temperature, was used as the foundation to generate a 3D form, which was then physically drilled out of a piece of wood.

The direction of the physical line corresponds with the direction of the wind. The width and speed of movement reflects the wind speed. The temperature is mapped unto the height. The materials ‘surface plateau’ height represents zero degrees Celsius. So when the shape dips below the surface, it means the wind’s below zero degrees.

Images and articles first seen on el conTEXTO

Origami soap packaging by La Compagnie de Provence

2010-04-26T20:27:00.000-06:00

Sometimes the best surprises come in little packages. To coincide with its 20th birthday, Compagnie de Provence has added a substantial 180g version of its iconic vegetable soaps to the ranks.

Each bar, made according to Marseille tradition from local natural ingredients, comes with a tiny instruction card so that once undone, its wrapper can be transformed into an ocean-inspired piece of origami.

With eight fragrances to choose from, there's an entire menagerie waiting to be revealed, from swans to sea lions, and even a whale. Designed by Studio Plastac .

The Future of Reading: Popular Science+ on Mag+

2010-04-24T20:23:00.000-06:00

We love to read. We do it on-line, but we also love to hold the printed book or a magazine in our hands and flip through pages, smell the ink... As internet and new media devices develop and offer more engaged reading experience - as for example now new iPad, reading on-line becomes more and more attractive. True, you can't smell the ink (yet), but there are some projects at work which are making on-line reading (or reading on a device) more and more appealing. We have been writing already about digital magazines as seen by Mag+, and we've got an exciting letter from them - their fist Mag+ digital magazine is live: Popular Science+.

Mag+, Bonnier’s digital magazine platform, is a project that began months ago in a collaboration between Bonnier’s global R&D task force and BERG, a London-based design studio. It is now an ongoing project across all Bonnier titles in the U.S. and Europe to rethink the way magazines can be read on a new generation of full-color, touchscreen tablet devices. It’s been a fascinating journey with only 60 days available since Apple announced the iPad in San Francisco. They’ve had 6 editorial teams in 3 countries working together to re-imagine the form of magazines. The feedback from the Mag+ video was encouraging and since then they have been deconstructing tons of magazines, used more whiteboard space than any project before and building many many prototypes. They can be really proud of what they've have achieved together with the PopularScience+. And - without a doubt - there is a lot more to come.

Their design vision was to create a digital magazine, which should feel like if you are touching the actual magazine, using your natural body language – not looking through the screen and layers of buttons.

Popular Science +, the first digital magazine to emerge from Bonnier's Mag+, is a new way of experiencing magazines on digital devices and a first step toward our vision of what digital magazine reading can be. The Popular Science+ digital magazine features simple, fluid swiping motions let readers move horizontally through stories, while vertical scrolling allows them to read an article without interruption or distraction. In the app's unique Look mode, users can tap the screen to make the words disappear, highlighting the magazine's big, bold photos and illustrations. Another tap returns to Read mode.

The Bonnier Mag+ platform and the Popular Science+ magazine are based on 6 design principles:

1. Silent mode. Magazines are a luxury that readers can lose themselves in. Mag + has fewer distractions than the Web. It allows readers to lean back, away from the browser, and just focus on the bold images and rich storytelling. Reduced complexity increases a reader's immersion.
2. Fluid motion. Magazines are easy to browse, and Mag+ replicates that with a story-to-story navigation that's more like a panning camera than a flipping page. As we say, "Flow is the new flip."
3. Designed pages. Magazines are defined by their carefully conceived layouts that give readers an immediate understanding of the content and why it matters to them, a quality that got lost on magazine Web sites. Mag+ brings design back to digital publishing.
4. Defined beginning and end. Unlike the Web, magazines have a defined storyline and flow from front to back. Mag + returns to the notion that something can be, and wants to be, completed. It's the end of endlessness.
5. issue-based delivery. One of the great joys of magazines is that feeling of anticipation when a new one arrives. Mag+ maintains that by delivering full issues at once with all the same content as the print edition, and on the same schedule.
6. Advertising as content. Relevant, attractive advertising is as much a part of the magazine experience as the editorial content, and Bonnier wants Mag+ advertising to include both pin-ups and applications readers can appreciate.

Mag+ live with Popular Science+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

Follow Bonnier and Mag+ here: www.bonnier.com/betalab, and check out Popular Science+ digital magazine on iTunes.

No Sweat - Exercises for Gentlemen

2010-04-22T20:22:00.002-06:00

The reprint of a century old fitness manual for working man "Exercises for Gentlemen. 50 Exercises to Do With Your Suit On." inspired a fashion shoot inside the headquarters of The New York Times. We love the photo shoot and idea, photos by Matthew Kristall.

About the book:

Laugh your way to a better you! For those too busy to go to the gym, try some of the fitness advice provided in this 1908 classic revisited. In today’s challenging business environment, the achieving executive needs every possible advantage, fitness included.

If gym fees and personal trainers do not fit into your schedule or budget, Exercises for Gentlemen offers just what the trainer would have ordered. With excerpts and original illustrations from The School of Health—the classic health reference of the early 1900s—here is a "practical course in physical culture" designed as a fitness program not even requiring a pair of exercise shorts, let alone joining a health club.

What results is both an entertaining glimpse of times gone by, and an exercise regime ideally suited to the modern man with neither the time nor the inclination to change clothes when he steps out from the busy office. This book contains detailed guidance on everything from knee bends and arm bends to proper posture, bathing, and homeopathic remedies—all to be taken with a suitable dose of humor.

A daily regime of a mere fifteen minutes of be-suited exercise is guaranteed to "reduce undue fullness at the waist, square the shoulders, round out the arms, improve leg development, and, in short, make a more graceful, strong, and symmetrical man."

Gone With the Wind

2010-04-15T20:20:00.002-06:00

Milan is so hot right now! And we're in love with Nika Zupanc's newest collection Gone with the Wind, featured at Milan´s International Design Fair 2010 (Salone Internacionale del Mobile) as well.

Collection information by Nika:

This year’s edition of Superstudio Più will again be marked by the intriguing spirit of Nika Zupanc. With her exhibition Gone with the Wind, Nika Zupanc continues to be sincere while uncovering the excuses for a socially acceptable status quo.

By positioning archetypes that are considered feminine in the carefully selected centers of public attention, her chillingly beautiful forms become emerging reference points. Her battles are of a higher style, and so the presence of famous female literary heroines remains mandatory.

The entry point to the world of Nika Zupanc – a frame for her gallery and a prism for readings of her work – is also a metaphorical structure. It is a tiny house driven by toy-like windmills on the outside and with a big bang of connota- tions from the inside.

The Wind Pavilion stands as an icon evoking a sense for nature. With it, Nika Zupanc embraces the issue of responsibility by introducing the elegance and poetry of creative expression into predominately technical solutions.

Like so many magic pavilions in the past, this one is also outfitted in one of the latest wonders of the industry – the unique modular façade system Qbiss by trimo. Optically smooth surfaces, unique rounded corner elements, and “shadow joints” allow great freedom of expression and enable an optically enchanting combination of an inclined grid and an attractive landscape of 45 restless windmills.

Inside the Wind Pavilion Nika Zupanc put her newest family of objects on display. This time they came to address you as advocates of a sort because they present a case for new symbolic and emotional readings of design, and are told through elements of modesty and self-reliance.

Instant fave!

You can see more on Salone 2010 on Dezeen.

We Are All Animals

2010-04-12T20:19:00.000-06:00

We received an email by SLip, a french artist working on collage and cyanotype technic especially on his collection W3A - We Are All Animals. We liked the idea (and final result) and are happy to share it with you.

"The XXth century was particularly rich in incredible events and people became famous of numerous manners. However, far from the excitement of the big events of this world, the life continued and John Doe’s everyday life could show itself exciting.
This wealth and this variety supplied the bases of the reflection of SLip for this series of pictures where animals take our place to describe the nonsense of the world in which we live.
By the grace of the cyanotype, a primitive technique forerunner of the photography, mixed to the most modern techniques of digital cut, SLip suggests returning in the time and confiding again through animals."

This collection is constituted by 20 unique editions in the size of 14,8 x 21 cms printed on paper of extra-strong art 340g.

#2
Sergi Fuentes is the first Spanish to join the deceased ABA (Animal Basketball Association) in 1967. At the end of a summer of love which will stay in annals, he joins Detroit and his Pistons. During its first match, the mascot of the team annoys him accidentally just like that with piston. He will remain weak light for life.

#9
In 1986, Leon Grellutch became the first Belgian astronaut. Unfortunately, the trip sponsored by Jupiler will never see the day and Leon will land forever. He’s always visiting Belgian universities to give lectures about life on Mars.

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T14:17:00.000-06:00

Hello everyone! Happy Easter! We've been pretty busy lately (Thank You), that's why so little words from us. But today we'd like to share with you our latest assignment, a photo shoot at The Easter Champagne Brunch at Capella Pedregal Hotel & Resort.

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did taking pictures of it. Yummy! You can see the full photogallery in our photography library and store.

Easter Champagne Brunch as celebrated at Capella Pedregal Hotel & Resort, in Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur. The Easter brunch was offering inclusive Taittinger Champagne and Bloody Marys. Don Manuel's restaurant's Su Cocina was serving breakfast items, combination salads, seafood selections, traditional roasts and accompaniments, Continental Charcuterie and cheeses, Mexican specialties and a tempting choice of desserts.

Easter Champagne Brunch at Capella Pedregal - Images by Romana Lilic @LA76

TAXI

2010-03-15T13:26:00.000-06:00

Taxis in Tokyo, they glow with a sense of urgency in the business of someone’s journey playing out. The way the landscape of the city can interact with the reflective surface’s of the taxi is often overlooked, these images aim to capture that light play with the energy and bustle of city life and the stillness of the individual within it.

The taxi series was mostly shot in dark backstreets, isolating their graphical elements and bringing everyday neon signs to centre stage. They were shot hand held on medium format from some precarious locations such as on highways and at lane intersections. As with all personal projects by Distil Ennui studio, they are presented as shot. This is how they describe the 'shot' photography process: "We see the process as cathartic rather than a critical one, and this dedication to ‘in-camera’ purity establishes a predominant focal point for our personal practice."

Distil Ennui is a collection of works that attempt to capture the beguiling beauty of life’s everyday confinements, re-proposing the ordinary, the displaced and the overlooked.

Photography Copyright © 2010 Alexander James.
The Taxi series is available to order in fine art print or license for print and web use through alexanderjamesstockphotography.com website.

2010-02-28T15:50:00.001-07:00

There have been two approaches to designing world's fair architecture. One was to dictate the overall architectural style of the buildings like that of the 1893 World Columbian Exposition. The other was to allow pavilion architects free reign in their creative design. Expo 67 officials decided to allow free reign in architectural style as long as participant's pavilions fit in with the overall loose theme "Man and his World."

By the time Expo 67 was conceived, city architecture had become quite conservative and filled our cities with economical, predictable tall boxy buildings. It was exactly the unexciting style that the business society welcomed, but the effect was boring and it deprived cities a sense of identity. This same design philosophy proved expensive in large apartment buildings and public housing projects. Worse they robbed the individual or family, who lived there, a sense of identity they had when they lived in individual homes with gardens, porches and yards.

Architects of social consciousness were thinking of solutions to cover more space with less material and for less money in ways that didn't rob the individual of his identity. At the same time these architects wanted to make a creative statement. So when participating countries held architectural competitions for their country's pavilions, some unusual architecture evolved.

Perhaps the most innovative concept to be used at Expo was "space- frame" architecture. In an effort to "Do more with Less" architects covered large spaces cheaply and flexibly, by distributing the building's weight over a wide area, and by using complex techniques involving aluminum, plastic and other materials. The pavilions that used that technique were the United States pavilion, the Netherlands pavilion, the West German pavilion and the two big theme complexes, Man the Producer and Man the Explorer.

NETHERLANDS PAVILION
The Netherlands pavilion was an engineering triumph, a space frame structure consisting of 33 miles (57,000 pieces , each three feet long) of aluminum tubing. They didn't weld or rivet the pieces together, rather it was put together like a Gilbert Erector set, with wrenches. The exhibition room was suspended inside. The technique had its advantages in that if the building needed to expand, the builders could just add more pieces. It was a very flexible approach to building design and gave the structure a feeling of lightness.
The Dutch designed a "space-frame" building out of 57,000 pieces of aluminum tubing.

GERMANY PAVILION
Frei Otto's elegant space frame tent was used to cover the German pavilion's exhibit area. While it took the architect several years to develop his system, it only took six weeks to build. His system used a roof of steel mesh suspended from eight slender steel masts of varied height, situated at irregularly intervals and supported by steel cables anchored outside the structure, covered an area the size of a city block. The roof's steel mesh net, hung from the guy wires, was then covered by a translucent plastic skin. The tent itself and all of its components were fabricated in Germany.
The German Pavilion was covered with a modernistic tent.

The structure adequately dealt with the twin problems of aesthetics and economics. At the least it was a fanciful way of escaping from the tyranny of the box, but it also produced a unique and beautiful interior space. The space below was lit through the transparent plastic and through odd-shaped windows in the roof. As to cost, the building wasn't cheap to build since it was a one of a kind project. But it had potential for its steel and plastic roof weighed only 150 tons; one third to one fifth the weight of normal roofing materials. The tent concept had the ability to adapt to irregular topography of any site. The concept was used again with a much larger tent to enclose the swimming stadium at Munich's 1972 Summer Olympics.

UNITED STATES PAVILION
The United States pavilion's designers choose a Buckminster Fuller dome, two hundred feet high (20 stories) and 250 feet in diameter. As in all of Fuller's domes both little and big, they used three- dimensional units, a triangle on the outside, hexagonal on the inside, and curved to fit a given arc, as its structural basis. By connecting them together in the shape of a dome, it distributed the structure's weight over the whole surface. To avoid his usual half-dome that produced a squat look, the pavilion's designers built a beautifully proportioned, three-quarter sphere that fit the site ideally.
The United States Pavilion was a Buckminster Fuller dome.

It was the most complicated of his domes. It used an elaborate system of retractable shading screens to control the heat within. A computer adjusted the screens in accordance with the sun's rays. Its exterior covering was exquisitely tinted, and surprisingly it was lovely to look at.

MAN THE EXPLORER & MAN THE PRODUCER
The architects (the firm of Affleck, Desbarets, Dimakopoulos, Lebensold and Sise) of the theme complexes were faced with the need to produce, quickly, some large buildings with large areas of open spaces. They decided to make them out of a type of small building blocks, much in the way the Dutch constructed their pavilion out of short metal tubes. The Canadian architects choose the truncated tetrahedron shape,- a four-sided triangular figure with the corners cut off, then flattened so that it looked like a prism. Thousands of these blocks would "nest" with other blocks, large and small, and be built up quickly into theme pavilions.
Several of the Theme pavilions used "space-frame" architecture to create large inexpensive display spaces.

The designs and models looked graceful, but the steel fabricators complained that there weren't enough welders in Canada to make the truncated tetrahedrons the architects would need. As a result, the units were bolted together and the pieces heavily braced. The final result was at all graceful, but was heavy and oppressive - miles and miles of thick rusted metal.

OTHER NOTEWORTHY PAVILION ARCHITECTURE
Both the Japanese and Man the Community pavilions used static forms composed of alternating crossing beams. The difference in their shapes was in the positioning of those basic structural elements. In the Japanese Pavilion, vertical stacking created a series of interconnecting cubes, but it closely resembled a concrete but graceful log cabin. On the other hand, the profile of Man in the Community resembled a Chaldean ziggurat. The wooden beams were placed so that the formed wooden polygons that rose in decreasing size from foot to summit.
Man the Community Pavilion

The Soviet Unions' Pavilion, by using great walls of glass and aluminum topped by a ski-jump roof, was a departure from its traditional monolithic architectural style. The escalator that lead up into the pavilion prepared the visitor for the surprise of the wide-angled V beams that supported its upswept roof, and carried him into a symmetrically organized display area dominated by a huge bust of Lenin. Inside was a show of technology and the progress of the country's space program.

Britain's was a ponderous castle-like pavilion, whose walls, while made of a kind of cardboard, looked like stone. The jagged top of its 200 foot tall cone-like tower topped by a Pop Art version of the Union Jack, represented incomplete construction. It symbolized Britain's unfinished contribution to the world. Fortunately the exhibits inside were very uplifting as the British made an attempt to charm the visitor.

The French Pavilion, on the other hand, modeled itself on the fine art of sculpture. While it was tastefully executed, architectural critics perceived its fins as merely tacked on. In the great well of the building, the floors full of exhibits were arranged around an open space. Its arrangement of interior stairways and balconies, which gave it an airy feel, was often overshadowed their attempt to overwhelm the visitor with technical displays

Austria's pavilion used the space-frame concept to a certain degree. It used triangular building units to construct large habitable cells. The result was a striking exterior architectural form, geometrical in style, that worked well as interior exhibit space.

HABITAT 67

Habitat 67, an experiment in apartment living, became the permanent symbol of Expo 67 after it closed. It was Canadian architect Moshe Safdie's experiment to make a fundamentally better and cheaper housing for the masses. He attempted to make a revolution in the way homes were built - by the industrialization of the building process; essentially factory mass production. He felt that it was more efficient to make buildings in factories and deliver them prefabricated to the site.

Safdie was dissatisfied with both suburbia, which destroyed open space surrounding cities and cut off people's enjoyment of the amenities of city life, and with the high-rise apartment block, which concentrated people on less land. Apartments generally were too small for growing families, and lacked both privacy and outdoor space. He was convinced the later were inadequate as family housing.

He planned Habitat with the goal to find a way to put a great many people on a small space, yet provide them with at least some of the pleasures of a private home. He wanted to build a city in the sky, a 3- D city and his city would contain 1000 housing units, with shops and even a school. What he proposed was an experiment, not just in housing, but in community life.

But between 1964 and 1966 when construction started, it was downsized to only 158 dwelling units, without shops and a school. What started out as a plan for a small city, instead became a hugely expensive apartment building. Worse, while it was on Expo 67 grounds, when Expo 67 closed, it would be some distance from the rest of Montreal's business and housing neighborhoods.
Habitat's 158 living units resembled a Taos Indian pueblo.

As Habitat was designed, it resembled a curious concrete mountain of dwelling places, strikingly modern, yet reminiscent of a Taos Indian pueblo village, or an Italian hill town. Its units were built on the ground, then hoisted by crane into place five, six or more stories above the ground.

A factory was built beside the Habitat site. It contained four large molds in which the standardized units were made. To make each of them, a reinforcing steel cage was placed inside the mold, then concrete was poured around the cage. After the concrete cured, the unit was moved to an assembly line where a wooden sub-floor was installed with electrical and mechanical services below it. Windows and insulation were then inserted; afterwards prefabricated bathrooms and kitchen modules. Finally the unit was moved to its position in the building.

There were 354 of these units in all. But it was the way they were put together than produced the variety of forms that made Habitat, both inside and outside, so unusual. The units were arranged to provide fifteen different types of "houses". These varied from one-bedroom houses (600 sq. feet) to four-bedroom houses (1,700 sq. feet). Each had a private open garden space, 37 x 17 feet. Each man's roof was another man's garden. The arrangement of the units provided privacy and the variation in house layouts provides a sense of uniqueness.

While factory production techniques should have cut overall costs, building 158 apartments isn't really productive in factory work since there is often a steep learning curve. Also since the individual units would bear the weight load of the units above, the units on the bottom where actually thicker and stronger. In the end Habitat 67 cost $22,195,920, or about $140,000 per living unit. Effectively that was the same cost as building six-eight ordinary town houses. Luckily one could rationalize that it was only a prototype, and if scaled up, it might be much cheaper to construct.

While the visiting public was impressed, they didn't embrace the concept. At a distance the complex looked like an exciting piece of Cubist sculpture, at close up it's flat concrete-gray exterior looked boring and as if nobody lived there. Inside the complex Safdie's plastic covered pedestrian streets, connecting the apartments with the elevators and parking lots, were poorly sheltered from Montreal's cold window weather. Perhaps if it had been built near one of Montreal's exciting neighborhoods, the public might have been more willing to accept it, but then few of Expo's fifty million visitors would have seen the innovative housing site.

More images of the Expo:
The polymer Pavilion

La Ronde

Canada Pavilion

Air Canada Pavilion

Spring by Plein Sud

2010-02-23T09:30:00.001-07:00

While fashion weeks in fashion capitals all over the world are showing the trends we'll wear this fall and winter, i'm looking forward to spring. If it's gonna look as half as good as the spring by Plein Sud, it's gonna be just beautiful!

We love this Spring-Summer Plein Sud collection!

Dark-haired model: Valerija Kelava.

BLOOMFRAME

2010-02-11T17:50:00.000-07:00

The revolutionary balcony Bloomframe is designed and patented by Hofman Dujardin Architects based in Amsterdam The Netherlands. The Research & Development department from Hurks geveltechniek based in Veldhoven The Netherlands turned the design concept into a spectacular functional prototype.

The dynamic balcony offers a solution for compact apartments in dense urban areas. By transforming the elevation into a horizontal surface an outdoor terrace is added to an apartment. Bloomframe can play a significant role in the real estate property of the future.

The Bloomframe window can be used in various surroundings. Apartments for students can be easily equipped with an outdoor space. Hotels can add luxurious terraces to their rooms. In large scale renovations of former warehouses balcony's can be created by adding Bloomframe windows to the building. Complex constructions of balcony's or loggias are not longer the only option.

With one push on a button the balcony opens smoothly within 15 seconds. On the few square meters which are generated two persons can enjoy breakfast in the open air. Although the construction is extremely solid, the balcony looks elegant and transparent. During the development of the prototype safety had the highest priority. The upcoming months the development process continues. The final product is expected to be presented at the end of this year. Bloomframe is a registered trademark.

CHECK THE VIDEO!!

The Future of German Graphic Design

2010-02-08T09:35:00.000-07:00

Neuland - The Future of German Graphic Design reveals a previously undiscovered territory - in search of young talent that will shape the future of German graphic design. Neuland asks questions in place of providing answers: Are preconceived notions about German graphic design correct; does German graphic design really even exist? The answer to these inquires involved a journey to Germany, getting to know its German and immigrant designers, and a trip beyond Germany‘s borders, in pursuit of German designers who live abroad.

THIBAUD TISSOT Describe your working process: "I have no general recipe, but I know I'm obsessed.", What is German? "A strange mix of warmth and coldness, sometimes surprising."

Neuland provides a helpful map of information for designers curious about study, lectures, workshops, books, or exhibitions in Germany; those individuals that want to learn about the history of design in Germany.

KATRIN SCHACKE What is German? "Fences.", What is German design? "Vernacular, sensible, sometimes a bit chilly." What do you aim to achieve with your work? "I try to tempt people with pictures. Familiar things are taken out of their context and presented from an unaccustomed angle."

The editors of Neuland, struggled with all the usual big, philosophical questions while putting their book together: What is German design? What is German? Who cares? If they were Ellen Lupton or Steven Heller, they might have spent pages upon pages ruminating on these issues. Instead, they did what any editors who are actually designers by trade might do — they asked their 51 subjects for all the answers. In mini-interviews accompanying each entry, some said German design was “a cuckoo clock,” while others described it as “strips of pork” or “a bit chilly.” Each subject was also asked to submit a picture of their studio surroundings, of their workspace, and of “something utterly German.”

PIXELGARTEN What is German? "Punctual, orderly, reliable. And Germany has the best sausage, so we've been told by some Japanese people."

PIXELGARTEN What is German design? "Not, in fact, typically German. And perhaps it's also often undervalued."

Although the book has a lot of moving parts, it’s more than just the sum of them. As you reach the end, you may not have a firm grasp on what, if anything, makes nationality so important in one of the world’s most globalized professions, but you do get to know Germany’s next generation of talent in small but poignant ways, right down to their enduring obsession with currywurst.

HEIMANN UND SCHWANTES What is German? "Beige. Round. Indeterminate."

HEIMANN UND SCHWANTES What is German design? "Grass green to turquoise. Oval. Fully functional."

FL@33 What is German design? "While I was studying in Germany in the mid-'90s I would have associated the graphics with the Bauhaus and the ULM school. Product design definitely with Braun and Siemens. Nowadays, I'm not so sure."

From Neuland: The Future of German Graphic Design, by Twopoints.net. Copyright 2009 by the authors and reprinted with permission from ACTAR.

[seen @ SightUnseen]

2010-02-03T19:23:00.000-07:00

Serbian product designer Damjan Stankovic [relogik] present us CIPHER:

An empty glass resembles a meaningless colorful mosaic, until a liquid is poured into it, revealing its name. Each side of the glass is reserved for a specific drink. The Dekrypt glass though complex in appearance in fact runs on a very simple idea. Differently colored shapes are scattered across the glass surface in a seemingly random pattern, however their position is hardly accidental. The true purpose of the glass mosaic is revealed when colored liquid is poured into it (orange juice, milk, Nescafe or coke) The pattern of shapes and empty spaces on the glass combined with the color of the liquid inside the glass end up forming a textual sign, revealing what exact drink or refreshment you are having, with each side of the glass reserved for a specific drink. Besides being a novelty item with entertainment value it can also serve as a marketing item for beverage companies as it has a promotional potential.

a10studio at restaurant & bar design awards

2010-02-02T17:47:00.000-07:00

Today we're very proud to share the joy with our friends at a10studio, as they are the only Mexican Architecture/Design/Interior firm to be nominated in this year’s Restaurant & Bar Design Awards.

Totally independent, the Restaurant & Bar Design Awards, now in it’s second year, is the only concept of its kind dedicated exclusively to design.

Judged by a highly influential panel of top international journalists from the design, hospitality and lifestyle sectors, the judges will recognise and reward both ‘restaurants and bars’ and their ‘designers’ for design excellence. With online entry and a wide variety of categories, applicants and their projects receive extensive exposure.

The Restaurant & Bar Design Awards have rapidly established a distinguished following, attracting submissions from such high profile designers as Zaha Hadid, Karim Rashid, Kengo Kuma and David Collins in its first year.

Culminating in a unique and innovative awards ceremony, the Restaurant & Bar Design Awards’ winners, including the best designed restaurant and the best designed bar, will be announced and presented with their awards at Westfield Stratford in June 2010.

Re*evolution Lounge is the project by a10studio nominated to this year awards, we hope to bring you more good news on this soon.

At the end we're also proud to mention that LA76 participated as a photographer in Re*evolution Lounge project.

More about a10 studio and their work on their website: www.a10studio.net , blog: a10studio.tumblr.com , and Twitter: @a10studio.

McFancy

2010-02-02T16:40:00.000-07:00

Created by the Access Agency (packaging designed by Amy Moss of Eat. Drink. Chic. and photographed by Marija Ivkovic). McFancy is set to launch at fashion weeks around the world :

"Today’s demanding consumers expect even their beloved, favorite brands to step up their game. Many run-away online successes of offline brand “stunts” attest that consumers expect, and get really excited about, experiences that are unusual, fun, thought-provoking and emotionally engaging. With the power and immediacy of social media, surprising offline events and stunts have now turned into truly powerful promotional tools.

In 2010, TCH will launch Access Agency. It is a dedicated entity that will continue our work of creating highly original, transformational, yet eminently practical and results-oriented strategies for companies to stage the kinds of offline brand experiences that will increase the economic value of their offering.

For McDonald’s, we envision a cool, surprising and fun mix of concepts. First is McFancy, an upmarket temporary McDonald’s store that launches at Fashion Weeks around the globe — London, New York, Paris, Milan, Sydney, Hong Kong. McFancy is part art installation, gathering spot and, of course, a restaurant that offers a traditional McDonald’s menu but packaged in a way that makes a playful yet stylish nod to the lifestyle of the highly desirable, influential consumers that attend Fashion Weeks."

weekend visual fix

2010-01-31T23:28:00.001-07:00

we checked this past weekend some nice packaging:

Designed by Raw Edges | Country: United Kingdom

An excellent example of structural package design applied in a functional and communicative way.

“These three different milk cartons distinguish between the rates of fat in the milk by using form rather than colour. The form of the milk cartons reflects in a way on the milk’s texture and smoothness. The two back folds are used as the carton’s handle, while the two in the front function as the spout.”

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Designed by Spavilla Designs | Country: Spain

“Health is the promotional wine from Spavilla Designs. An elaborate packaging for this limited edition, which the prestigious Robert Parker has given a rating of 93 points.”

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Designed by Meeta Panesar | Country: United States

“The design is inspired by the colors and designs of Joseph Albers and the Op Art movement. The usage of the rectangular elements reflects Alber’s “Homage to the Square,” a series of paintings begun in 1949.”

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Designed by Marcel Buerkle | Country: South Africa

This elegant, copy driven packaging concept is the work of South African based designer Marcel Buerkle. The shape and cleanliness of the design almost gives it a bit of a high end perfume look and feel.

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Designed by Mongkol Praneenit | Country: United States

“This is a redesigned for General Electric high-end light bulbs. The package is designed with recycled material to promote sustainability. Information is cleanly organized into a label system to reduce printing over the whole package.”

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Designed by P&W | Country: United Kingdom

“The brief: Packaging for a company producing high end, handmade fresh pasta. The solution: We created fine art style prints of the pasta shapes, each one signed by ‘the artist’. The result: Improved sales and increased listings with no advertising support.”
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Designed by Oi Design Studio | Country: Israel

“The Brief: When The Strauss group fixed the intention of launching a series of consumer products aimed at men, they requested that we devise a marketing concept for the new products of ‘MUST’, starting with the packaging that will project a strong difference from competitors products on the shelf.

The Solution: ‘Must - Men Collection’ - chewing gum for men only. We chose a collection of illustrated Presenters: male types that we all know and admire - go-getters, women love these men and boys copy them. We put them on metal containers which are especially masculine and gave to each presenter a stage for his male life philosophies.”
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all via lovelypackage.com

Coal Furniture

2010-01-29T13:19:00.000-07:00

For the past decade, Jim Zivic’s medium has been coal, which he sculptures, hones and polishes into massive tables for clients like Lou Reed and Salma Hayek. “It’s a little romance with the muck,” the designer says of the anthracite chunks, which he buys 14 tons at a time from a mine in Pennsylvania and stores in the backyard of his upstate New York house.

The coal’s earthiness appeals to Zivic, but the irony of his situation doesn’t escape him. “The same stuff my neighbors are burning for heat, Ralph is selling for thousands of dollars,” he says, referring to Ralph Pucci, the owner of Ralph Pucci International, the company that is known for its fashion mannequins and its furniture by cutting-edge designers.

Jim Zivic's Coal Tables are carved from anthracite coal (100% pure carbon, not to be confused with charcoal). Each piece of raw coal is unique in shape, and the designer allows this to dictate the final silhouette of the table. The piece maybe shaped organically, or cut into more geometric linear lines.

Dot. Dot. Polka dot.

2010-01-24T08:43:00.003-07:00

Polka dots are back in 'fashion'. Not that they were ever out. While polka dots are ancient, they first became common on clothing in the late nineteenth century in Britain. At the same time polka music was extremely popular and the name was also applied to the pattern, despite no real connection between them. The polka dot also appears in popular music. Remember "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" by Brian Hyland? Before that however, "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" was Frank Sinatra's first hit recorded with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, published in 1940.

Polka dots have been also the 'thing' that marked the life and work by Yayoi Kusama, japanese avantgarde artist that suffered since childhood from hallucinations and started to cover surfaces with the polka dots. There was a time when she was as well-known as Andy Warhol among admirers of Pop Art. Acknowledged as a progenitor of Minimalism, Kusama made headlines for street performances in which she painted polka dots on nude men and women. But Kusama was largely forgotten by the art world after she returned to Japan in 1973, suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder. She was committed to a mental institution, where she remains to this day.

Kusama’s neglect by art history has been redressed in a traveling retrospective of her seminal 1960s work. When the retrospective was on view in New York’s Museum of Modern Art, shock waves of recognition went through the art world. Lately, her work has been traveling around the world and you can see her work here: Matsumoto City Museum of Art, Nagano, Japan; CITY GALLERY WELLINGTON, New Zealand; Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Milan; Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Miami; and The National Museum of Art, Osaka.

She also collaborated with Japanese mobile provider iida and created a limited art edition mobile phone.

First Spring; a movie by Prada + Yang Fudong

2010-01-18T10:23:00.005-07:00

Inspired by the Chinese adage that "the whole year's work depends on a good start in spring", this bold and beautiful film (9,17 mins) represents an exciting new direction for Prada's visual communications at the start of this decade.

Featuring young men gathered in Shanghai, dressed in Prada menswear, the black and white film portrays a timeless, dreamlike realm where anything is possible.

"First Spring" is Prada's latest collaboration with pioneering Chinese artist Yang Fudong.

Picture in the movie is subtle and sublime, quiet but meaningful:

Wallpaper* Design Awards 2010

2010-01-16T14:59:00.003-07:00

Wallpaper* just published the winners of their 2010 Design Awards. Entries come from every possible part of the design field, from architecture to fashion design to industrial design, and were awarded in 66 respective categories. A panel of judges, including icons like architect Steven Holl, fashion designer John Galliano, and interior designer Kelly Wearstler, then picked the winners for eleven key awards.

In the category “Best New Private House”, Marcio Kogan’s Paraty House in Costa Verde, Brazil was awarded as winner, and “Best New Public Building” is Koncerthuset in Copenhagen, Denmark by Atelier Jean Nouvel, as also in the Best New Hotel category the award was for Habita MTY by Joseph Dirand and Landa Arquitectos (shown above).

“Best City” this year is - surprise, surprise! - New York whose High Line project was also awarded “Best Life-Enhancer of the Year”.

Here’s a selection of lucky 2010 Design Awards winners (for the complete list of winners please go to Wallpaper.com):

Best City: New York (Video: “City short: New York” by David Usui)

Life-enhancer of the year: The High Line, by Friends of the High Line, James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofido + Renfro

Best new private house: Paraty House, Costa Verde, Brazil, by Marcio Kogan

Best new restaurant: Kaa, Sao Paulo, Brazil, by Studio Arthur Casas

as seen on BUSTLER

Cosa Nostra: Juergen and Missoni

2010-01-13T12:46:00.001-07:00

The fashion buzz of today seems to be around the new campaign for Missoni, photographed by Juergen Teller. Opposite to expectations (by some), Missonis have kept this one for the family. Feels as if we had been invited to an Italian home with all the cheese, pasta & vino that comes with it. And we like it.

The ads were shot at the family home in Sumirago, Italy, near the company’s headquarters and feature three generations of Missonis mugging for the camera. Not that it was hard to coax any of them to say “formaggio.” “For us home and factory have always been very close,” explains the label’s designer Angela Missoni. “It just felt like the right moment to propose something real.” And an even better time to cut back on modeling fees. (via T Magazine blog)

The Future of Reading: Printed Media (part 2)

2010-01-11T11:51:00.000-07:00

At the end of December we started a conversation about the future of reading. Yes, reading is going digital, “most def”: on Christmas day Amazon for the first time sold more e-books than printed ones. With abundance of e-readers as Kindle, Sony Reader, hardly awaited iTablet and other exciting new reading devices, many of them presented at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas, the future of reading is definitely changing.

But what’s in it for printed media?

While I am a big technology fan, when reading, I still love to hold the magazine or book in my hands, flip through it, touch the paper, see the brightness of colors, smell the fresh print, admire the cover…

_Superyacht, L.E. book by Swedish designer Henrik Persson of Become.

Umair Haque in his Harvard Business Review ideacast "Can Good Journalism also be Profitable?" talks about the future of journalism and what it would need to be (remain) profitable (again). He talks about “turning soda into wine”, thus giving journalism (back) a substance and credibility which will make it stand out of other written word / information found on-line. Some of the things Umair mentions are that 1) publishers should focus on people, not product (media). They’ve changed formats, sizes, design, prices, … What they should try is focus on people, find ways to connect journalists and readers, so they could connect, communicate and see what really matters. Social media here helps a lot (check out how Nicholas D. Kristof of NYTimes is doing it).

The second thing Umair states as a means to reach the goal, is for media to focus on outcomes, not incomes (although 20^th century might have had it the other way around) . This (to me) seems logical, although many media publishers don’t seem to get it: if I as a reader feel I am better informed, educated, more engaged in the content, if I get better info from the newspaper or a magazine, I will buy another issue, have confidence in what they ‘preach’, trust their advertisers more,… which at the end means income…

_Packaging for book New York by Henrik Persson of Become. “The book weighs 16 kgs (half meter high when standing on floor) and comes in a vertical standing packaging/display stand made in perspex that literally looks like a building/skyscraper.”

Content is important. But, design matters as well.

Innovative approaches to it, collectibles, limited editions, subtle design details, thoughtful and engaging process of wrapping the content into an outlet a reader would pick up and hopefully even save and behold as a precious book.

The other day I got to know a story behind McSweeney’s, got excited about what they do and how they do it, and wanted to share it with you. “At McSweeney’s – where writers design books, construction workers edit them, and people seemingly pursue projects willy-nilly – the way a reader experiences a book on the outside is taken as seriously as the way they experience it on the inside.

Staff and collaborators dream up elaborate and whimsical packaging approaches that seduce before you even crack the cover. Issue 17 of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern looked like a pile of mail, Issue 23 boasted an elegant “Z binding” that opened from both sides, and Issue 28 saw eight mini-books (containing one fable apiece) banded together with interlocking cover illustrations. Supported by McSweeney’s unique creative process, in which the same set of people typically see a book through from editing to design to publishing, the physical look of the books is always deeply connected to the text inside. And yet, the people responsible for them are “not really designers.” So what gives?

_McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, San Francisco Panorama

According to Horowitz, who has done time in nearly every position within the company, what is seen on the shiny surface of things like McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern is largely a result of dreaming up things they’re not qualified to do, and don’t have the manpower for. What’s more, this no-holds-barred mentality, driven by a bootstrappy enthusiasm and bountiful, if not officially trained, creative talent, has earned them recognition by the National Book Critics Circle Awards, as well as design awards including the AIGA 50 Books Award, AIGA 365 Illustration Award, and the Print Design Regional Award.

While traditional publishers have more resources, McSweeney’s small size – just 10 full-time employees – and perpetual willingness to take risk, allows them to be more nimble and infinitely more innovative. Take, for instance, the latest issue of the Quarterly Concern, the San Francisco Panorama, which brazenly took the form of a Sunday paper. Conceived as a form of rebellion against the news industry’s rumored demise, the gorgeous, 320-page issue sold out in moments, and garnered press coverage all the way from the Bay to the New York Times." One of McSweeney's mantras is: Never having done something before is a bad reason not to do it.

And what matters to you? Content, design, both? Why? How do you read? Would love to hear your opinion!

ARCHITECTURE OF DENSITY

2010-01-07T10:45:00.002-07:00

Today while having a beer after closing the studio, i was watching Paul McCartney’s “Band on the Run” video, and i started to realize how much cities have grown and changed in the last 30 to 40 years. Those early images of Singapore or Sidney that are shown in the video made me mentally juxtapose them to the photography of Michael Wolf, and here we present you his work. Wolf is a photographer born in Munich, Germany. He grew up in the USA and studied at UC Berkley and at the University of Essen in Germany.

 Wolf views ordinary things in extraordinary ways. Culturally astute, Wolf’s artistic inspiration comes from the local culture in which he immerses himself. Michael Wolf has been fascinated by China’s complex urban dynamics since moving to Asia as a contract photographer in 1995 and his photography focuses on the idiosyncrasies of the Asian way of life. Insightful and absorbing, for example, his book “Hong Kong, The Front Door/The Back Door” deals with the SAR’s cultural identity through depictions of the city’s architecture.

 “I love the visual chaos of China. It is a photographers dream,” says the photographer. Wolf’s poignant portrayals of the lives and living conditions of his cultural environment are subjective and personal and have earned him international acclaim. As described by Art Critic Kenneth Baker, “By their formal intelligence and acuity of observation, Wolf’s Hong Kong pictures easily earn the status of art works.”

 “…Buildings that begin as monoliths are slowly humanized by their inhabitants; architecture becomes a framework upon which people can hang their personal personalities…” -Douglas Young about the work by Michael Wolf

Wolf stands by his motto: “If you are a vision and real conviction, you will find success.”

*this blog contains a text extract by Rebecca Walker

Desert Sessions: View from the Space

2010-01-04T09:45:00.003-07:00

What a better way to start the year than with compliments to the nature. We saw this on Wired, got amazed and just wanted to share it with you.

"Deserts are known for being desolate and lifeless, but they are also quite striking and beautiful, especially when seen from above. Different types of sand, topography, wind and climate combine to form a tremendous variety of landscapes. Shifting dunes are carved into an endless number of constantly changing shapes.

The images in this gallery, taken by orbiting astronauts and satellites, show some of the most beautiful, most haunting, biggest, rarest and most stunning desert vistas on Earth."

Images by NASA.

Amazing, isn't it?

Stay True in 2010

2010-01-03T16:21:00.001-07:00

New year, new decade, new wishes, new goals, new visions, new desires...

In 2010 LA76 wishes you:

Big thoughts translated in small actions that make a difference, every day.

Commitment, care, contribution, cooperation, confidence. Knowledge.

A bunch of creativity anywhere and everywhere.

Good stuff to feed your mind.

Excellence without exceptions.

Generosity, dignity and fearlessness.

True meanings. Honesty and authenticity.

Great contexts and great expectations.

Steady, but consistent growth; and lots of patience with it...

Steady communication & relationships in online and the real world.

To share, heart, focus and simplify on what really matters.

Lots of true love, passion and obsession, enthusiasm and fascination.

Time to take it easy, at least once in a while.

Above all, we wish you to stay TRUE. To yourself, your loved ones, your business partners and clients, the world. Because that’s what really matters and makes a difference.

Romana & Onairam

Save your kisses for 2010

2009-12-28T10:17:00.004-07:00

It's that time of the year again, where you share love and best wishes with people in your life. Today I received a video-card greeting from my friends Uros and Vali. Uros is a fashion designer and creative mind behind Plein Sud, and Vali (Valerija Kelava), well, you have probably seen her in many catwalks this fashion season (Prada, Rodarte, Margiela, Dries Van Noten, Kenzo, Alexander McQueen, Miu Miu, Missoni, Wunderkind, Christopher Kane, Celine, Gaspard Yurkievich, and so many more...).

We just love them, and nothing really beets their greeting card.

See the full video here:

Untitled from vali uki on Vimeo.

web services covers therapy

2009-12-26T16:53:00.006-07:00

French Illustrator Stéphane Massa-Bidal aka Rétrofuturs has released a series of printed posters called "WEBSITE COLLECTION | web services covers therapy" where he evidences his graphical philosophy: "mix the past, the present, the future and shake it!"

The posters resemble "old school" magazine covers or "affiches" talking about today's online services like MySpace, FLICKR, Tumblr, etc. very fun actually

There is posters available in 50x70 cms., A3 & A4 size thru his website, clicking here

To see more of Stéphane's work, got to ---> http://www.retrofuturs.com/

Garden of Eden

2009-12-22T10:53:00.004-07:00

December in Cabo is warm, we're enjoying our sunny days at minimum 24°C / 75 F, and no one is complaining (although we do miss snow from time to time, i have to admit). As the countdown to the year's end is approaching, my list of to-do things is growing. One of the many desires i have is to decorate our home & garden. Style and decor wise, Baja doesn't have too many things to offer, therefore internet is the best solution to get your senses full and ideas afloat.

Today i found this beautiful collection Garden of Eden, by Dutch design duo Ontwerpduo. It was a love at first sight. Simple and elegant, romantic and lovely. Perfect for my garden!

Here is how designers describe their project: Garden of eden is a set of furniture for the garden. The hanging chair can be placed in a tree or veranda, like a big birdcage. It gives you the feeling to sit in your own space. At the same time you can have contact with the surrounding because of the open structure. The chairs and table have a laser cut pattern from different items you find in the garden. The same pattern is embroidered at the pillows. The furniture can be placed in the garden as a piece of jewelry, and when you want to use it, simply add the pillows.

Garden of eden was presented first at the Dutch Design Week Eindhoven 2009.

Some bits about Ontwerpduo from their website: "Designers Nathan Wierink and Tineke Beunders, "a dreamer and a mathematician", complement each other well. The wild fantasy is created, and is then surreptitiously grounded by the mathlete; It's a philosophy that seems to keep things going a bit over eccentric, and tends to generate an alluring, yet graspable charm." I agree.

Beautiful Photography of the Garden of Eden by: Lisa Klappe

The Future of Reading: Mag+

2009-12-20T13:28:00.002-07:00

Digital Magazines: Bonnier Mag+ Prototype

This conceptual video is a corporate collaborative research project initiated by Bonnier R&D into the experience of reading magazines on handheld digital devices. It illustrates one possible vision for digital magazines in the near future, presented by their design partners at BERG.

The concept aims to capture the essence of magazine reading, which people have been enjoying for decades: an engaging and unique reading experience in which high-quality writing and stunning imagery build up immersive stories.

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

The concept uses the power of digital media to create a rich and meaningful experience, while maintaining the relaxed and curated features of printed magazines. It has been designed for a world in which interactivity, abundant information and unlimited options could be perceived as intrusive and overwhelming.

The purpose of publishing this concept video is first and foremost to spark a discussion around the digital reading experience in general, and digital reading platforms in particular. Bonnier is inviting all interested in the topic to hear what you have to say regarding the concept and ideas expressed in the video: the magazine reading experience, digital browsing, text versus images, as well as hear about your own digital reading experiences and thoughts. You can follow the discussion in their blog and on their Twitter.

I'd personally be very pleased to see the magazine ESCAPES i'm doing in this format.

Ai WeiWei does Barcelona in a pool full of milk

2009-12-18T10:10:00.007-07:00

The Mies van der Rohe Pavilion is the object of an intervention that reflects upon the use of buildings and how we perceive them as unique and inalterable spaces.
Artist Ai Weiwei, one of the most distinguished figures of Chinese modern art and also one of the most controversial, has filled the swimming pools of the Pavilion with two very habitual elements of our daily life, but totally alien to architecture: milk for the outside swimming pool and coffee for the indoor pool. The intervention is a part of a series of installations by several artists and architects from around the world.
The performances are short and propose a new approach to the pavilion's architecture. The installations programme adds a new type of activity in the city based on the exceptional spaces of buildings. Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, from the SANAA studio, and Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue have carried out installations in the pavilions Antoni Muntadas, Jeff Wall and Dennis Adams among others.

To see more photos of the artist in action @ the pavilion click here.

For LIVE images from the pavilion (via webcam), click here.

Like birds on the wire

2009-12-10T14:12:00.003-07:00

Birds... They can be scary, dirty, big, small, cute, colorful, cheerful, chatty... but they can also be a big source of inspiration... Shanghai furniture and product designer Zhili Liu has designed a series of ligthing inspired by birds. The bone China sockets, called Bird, hold each bulb at an angle. They can be hung in clusters, attached to a perch or displayed with a shade that represent bird's cage.

The cheap bakelite bulb sockets have been widely used in China for over 4 decades without any change. The bird lamps were designed to inherit the simplicity of the bakelite sockets but at the same time offer the user some more room for imagination.

Birds were source of musical inspiration to Jarbas Agnelli, who once saw a photo of birds sitting on the electric wires. He decided to make song, using the notes on the exact locations as the birds were sitting. And you'll have to admit, it sounds pretty cool, too.

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

And to me, i could say it was the opposite. I wasn't inspired by birds firsthand, but when i took the pictures below, i thought of brids as well.

thank you for all that jazz

2009-12-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

Saw this book today, The Jazz Loft Project, and just had to post this powerful image of Miles Davis.

innovation

2009-12-03T12:56:00.000-07:00

"innovation is an emergent phenomenon that happens when a person or organization fosters interaction between different kinds of people and disparate forms of knowledge"

- murray gell-mann

via byassociation

photoshop magnet

2009-12-02T08:56:00.002-07:00

If you are one of those who thinks no photo is complete without going through Photoshop, then this magnets are for you, you can easily place any photo or postcard your friends send you onto your fridge with the confidence you would be able to support it properly with Photoshop.

:)

Whats your perception of urban space?

2009-11-26T09:45:00.004-07:00

MY PLAYGROUND - PREVIEW from KASPARWORKS on Vimeo.

MY PLAYGROUND

A documentary film by Kaspar Astrup Schröder about movement in urban space.
The film explores the way Parkour and Freerunning is changing the perception of urban space and how the space is changing the traceurs and freerunners.

Mainly set in Copenhagen the film follows the making of the first dedicated parkour park in the world. Designed by the danish team, Team JiYo. The film also travels around the world to Japan, United States, United Kingdom, and China to explore the common understanding of exploring the urban space seen from a traceur and freerunners perspective.

Founding architect of B.I.G. Architects, Bjarke Ingels in participating in exploring a untraditional path in perceiving a new approach to urban architecture and together with Team Jiyo he travels to Shanghai and Shenzhen to meet with a different people and culture. Does travelling to the other end of the world change our understanding of movement in the urban space that surrounds us?

Featuring
Freerunners and traceurs from Japan, China, United States, United Kingdom and Denmark
Architects
Urban Planners
Politicians
Philosophers

Premiere at Shenzhen & Hong Kong Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture on the 6th of december 2009

Released on dvd in the end of january 2010, The film will be approximately 30 minutes long.

Visit kasparworks.com for more information

Marble Pavillion

2009-11-19T10:01:00.005-07:00

Our friend Dimitri Tsigos from TDC send us this images of the "construction" of their "MARBLE PAVILLION" which will be displayed this next weekend at the Interior Design show in Greece.

Its a nice piece of CNC marble ribs, TDC always doing nice work in greece, if you are around dont hesitate to experience it live!

http://www.interiordesignshow.gr/

check some of the work by Dimitri and TDC clicking here

FRAGMENTS OF 'CITY'

2009-11-18T10:13:00.007-07:00

Evgeny Kiselev is a freelance illustrator based in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

The diverse work of Evgeny Kiselev oscillates between the rigors of symmetry and prolific excess.

Several compositions begin with vivid tiled patterns that are mirrored again and again until they can no longer be contained and are forced to push beyond the confines of their logic. Others, emerge from a single outline that manifests the controlled lawlessness of the work. Each piece achieves a complexity of color and layer that continues to build infinitely into the space of the page creating a warping spatial depth.

this images belong to his "CITY" series.

check Evgeny's website <<-----

Pictures for Photographs, Miles Aldridge

2009-11-10T15:27:00.011-07:00

Miles Aldridge is famous for his decadent colour-saturated fashion photography in magazines such as Vogue and Numéro, but the sensual sketches that inform his photographic work are scarcely known.

Book Pictures for Photographs addresses this discrepancy by exploring the delectable relationship between the sketches and photographs. The book opens with the manic drawings with which Aldridge fills sketchbooks in preparation for fashion shoots. Scrawled in pen or pencil, these black-and-white sketches generate ideas for potential photographs and map out series of pictures like a film storyboard. Sometimes dotted with raunchy hand-written notes such as “green/yellow bra” or “painting nipples with lipstick”, Aldridge’s sketches are crucial to his photographs.

The second half of the book presents Aldridge’s photographs, which are often as much about sex as they are about fashion. Here we experience the opulent onslaught for which Aldridge is known: a blonde woman eating lobster and caviar with an exposed breast, an erotic couple in a darkened limousine, a school girl surrounded by her teddy bears, and even crying Madonnas. By setting Aldridge’s monotone drawings and the amplified, Pop-inspired colour of the photographs against each other, Pictures for Photographs offers an as yet unseen insight into Aldridge’s imagination and working processes.

Miles Aldridge will be signing copies of Pictures for Photographs at Colette on the 19th November.The signing will take place between 6-7pm. Colette / 213 RUE SAINT-HONORÉ / 75001 PARIS

Book is published by Steidl and you can buy it online here.

Visual Fix of the Day: Troyt Coburn, photographer

2009-11-09T10:16:00.005-07:00

Starting the week with visual fix, today provided and inspired by photographer Troyt Coburn.

SINDEY'S RED DUST

2009-10-29T11:53:00.005-06:00

September 23, 2009. Sidney, Australia:

*images by FLICKR users: MEZZA, HIGHRANGER, +Minas, Eddy, africadunc, MarchingAnts

LA76 photography in new issue of ESCAPES magazine

2009-10-27T15:52:00.004-06:00

This time we'd like to showcase some work we did in the field of photography. We are happy to say that ESCAPES magazine chose us as their main photography contributor for their current edition, which is going to be out all around Baja California Sur from November 2009 to February 2010 in 15,000 pieces, as well as on-line.

What we did? As the magazine is focusing on the promotion of Baja California Sur, living, culture, traditions and places all around, we created for them: the cover, which is an illustration, based on Pineda Covalin artwork; the cover for real estate section, taken in a beautiful modernist home in Los Barriles. Then we participated with some images in 10 Top Escapes section... We gladly did a reportage from an exotic garden in Todos Santos, and toured an organic coffee roasting factory of Cabo Coffee Company in Cabo San Lucas. It was addictive to be there, believe us... And if we weren't their fans before (but we are from very beginning), we'd become ones.

We're showing our work for the cover here, and for other work we did for ESCAPES we invite you to flip through this digital magazine or send an email to escapes@pedregal.com, they can send you a printed copy.

If interested, you can contact us for any photo-purchase inquiries.

Architecture folds into the landscape

2009-10-11T19:54:00.008-06:00

Is not yet a "tendency", and not even yet a "trend", but it seems that to this years' jury of the architectural FAD prize (Promotion of the Decorative Arts) a door opens towards an architecture more respectful with the landscape. Mainly two of the winner works (Architecture and City and Landscape) would be, each of them in its own way, a reflection of this switch in mentality. In the first case, the prize for Architecture has been given to the young Portuguese architect Joao Maria Trinidade for his Garducho Biological Station (Mourao, Portugal). As Arcadi Pla (president of the jury) tells us, the huge mass of the building stands out in the middle of the natural reserve where is located. "But the interesting part is that the building lifts itself from the ground, allowing the free pass of nature both flora and fauna", Says Pla. "This way it becomes in some kind of tree from where to observe and at the same time welcome the nature of the site".
*Garducho Biological Station by VenturaTrinidade architects, photos by Andre Carvalho/Jose Manuel Silva

The project winner of the City and Landscape category, aims to minimize the presence of the construction and chooses to work mainly with the water fluxes and the variation of the flora. We are talking about the Park of the Waters in Zaragoza, from architects Iñaki Alday and Margarita Jover. The Jury mentions that is an "emblematic project because of the sustainable landscape-solution used". It is the recovery of an abandoned and derelict meander of the Ebro River which has been transformed into a recreational and educational area.
*images of the Park of the Waters in Zaragoza

The prizes which where given on Friday at Barcelona, had also recognized in the Ephemeral Interventions chapter, in the work "Miramiralls", a ludic installation with deforming mirrors that the team of Dani Freixas did in the Tibidabo Park (Barcelona).
*detail of the miramiralls installation by Dani Freixas

To this 51st edition of the FAD prize, which has no economical prize, 522 works applied. In june where selected as finalists just 27 of them. "It has been a very small selection, but we feel it represents what is happening in the present. We start to see where is the architecture of the future going to", said also Arcadi Pla. "More than the sustainability of buildings itself, there is a switch of philosophy in the way of understanding where the architecture places in the landscape. Its footprint is becoming more and more subtle".
*Garducho Biological Station by VenturaTrinidade architects, photos by Andre Carvalho/Jose Manuel Silva

You can't Sing a Blog

2009-10-09T11:38:00.003-06:00

Although we like the internet, and we like the reach we get of the stuff we like and like to share, we also like a lot this text and we wanted to share it (i kind of repeated everything all over, sorry im confused since i found out Obama is peace Nobel Prize.... WTF¿?) anyway, this excerpt taken from James Murphy's (LCD soundsystem) myspace site, referring about the internet:

"THE INTERNET...

The internet is funny. i avoided all of it for a long time because it seemed gross and lame. i mean, i fought with my label not to have a myspace page at all in the beginning because, well, because i'm old and weird and buy vinyl records and do things like write letters, and it all seemed too strange. so they made one anyway, and i avoided it.

When i came back from the last tour, i found something insane like 13,000 messages in the lcd inbox (after wrangling the access passwords and crap from capitol) and felt pretty badly that there was so much personal mail from people that went totally unanswered, then set out to answer as much of it as i could without giving up my life completely, and did.

Anyway, i've noticed lately that almost all my myspace messages come from other things promoting themselves, and less and less from people reaching out, so it's less interesting, for sure. but then i found out that the label had started a facebook (and, of all things, "twitter") account "on my behalf", and i grabbed the access to them, as well. i mean, if people are going to think stuff is coming from you, then it might as well be coming from you, you know? so there.

This is still the better place to write these longer things, for sure, but i noticed that the facebook page is more idiotic and hilarious. twitter... well, i don't quite get it.

Anyway, i'm making a record, as previously blathered about, and this means that my horrible, useless website is getting redone by my friend sonya. i mean, it sucks, which was my choice. i was like "can this look more horrible?" i wish i was kidding, but i happen to like crap. i just do. but she's promised to work with me to make sure it's still unwieldy and awkward, which is good preparation for everything else lcdish, and i promise to be less grumpy about things actually being “useful”. it’s just that things that are too “useful”... well, i don’t entirely trust them. i kind of like useless things. for instance—and this is a pretty facile and simplified metaphor here—art is useless, and nazis made lots of useful things. i like dumb meandering things that make me happy and confused, and don’t particularly like “effective marketing tools designed for maximum accurate data capture” blah blah blah. it all sounds so sad and functional. i don’t like the idea of people sitting in a room talking about the best way to word things to get the right reaction from a base of “users” etc. i don’t like thinking that those people used to love to do something, or wanted to be something, and would up measuring the best way to manipulate other people. i honestly don’t judge them, but i feel weird, and sort of sad—not FOR them, in a pitying way, as i have no idea how they fell, for fuck’s sake, and i’m a ridiculous person by the measure of a pretty deep cut of the population—but ABOUT them.

Anyway, marcus (shit robot), my friend and dfa artist, is coming over to have an espresso and a shot of tequila (not mixed) before he goes to santos to dj with the holy ghost guys. marcus has a kid, which i think is totally amazing. he’s a great dj and here to get his album done with me. lives in germany now, so just visiting. and here, on this weird thing, i can just say “marcus is coming over for an espresso” and it goes from simple, personal fact that i might tell nick from holy ghost in a text (in fact, just did) to a weird other-meaning thing that exists here... or everywhere. i’m not so used to this personal as media shit. but, on the other hand, what’s the difference really between this and a song about something personal?

oh, right. you can’t sing a blog."

And after this a classic from LCD Soundsystem:

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM - Daft Punk Is Playing At My House

rUmPeLsTiLtSkIn|MySpace Videos

Graphic Designer vs Client

2009-10-08T20:31:00.001-06:00

we can stop laughing with this video....!!!!

Mini Karl

2009-10-05T09:33:00.004-06:00

Do you remember our entry about "Designer Dolls" we did months ago??, well seems is not a fading trend, now we bring you the latest of the "design stars" toys:

the Mini Karl:

No doubt Karl Lagerfeld is also a design icon. This mini replica of the Kaiser its signed by Tokidoki. Hope nobody gets surprised if in a couple of years Lagerfeld becomes some kind of a designer-version hello-kitty-like phenomenon. The problem is how to start, and Karl has already done it. Here's his first step into "playful immortality", a vinyl sculpture by the Italian artist Simone Legno that under full japanese influence signs its works as "Tokidoki".

Mini Karl is a limited edition of 1000 units, and they are for sale (129 Euros) at K Karl Lagerfeld stores and also at Tokidoki. There is also a t-shirt version you might carry around in your next walk through the city.

24 Hours: The Starck Mix

2009-09-24T12:46:00.004-06:00

Seems Wallpaper has a new creative team (good!), their ideas and activities lately are very likeable and engaging. They introduced different guest editors for wallpaper.com: Selectism (17-23 Sept), Coolhunting (24-30 Sept) and Archinect (1-7 October); appointed guest editors for printed editions and do some other interesting stuff as well. This printed edition's guest editors are Karl Lagerfeld and Philippe Starck. Couple of days ago we already shared with you an interview with Philippe Starck, and today we would like to share with you another cooperation by Starck & W.

As Wallpaper puts it: "Not content with pushing the boundaries of publishing, Philippe Starck has given us this unique soundtrack, exclusive to http://www.wallpaper.com/, www.starck.com and www.soundwalk.com, available for one month only.

24 Hours : The Starck Mix is a unique 24 hour soundtrack, selected, arranged, composed and mixed by Soundwalk for Philippe Starck. Whenever you press play, the mix will start from the exact time it is in his current time zone, no matter where in the world he is that day.
The mix can also be listened to through an iPhone application (works better on WiFi) specially created by Clicmobile available from the app store, or you can also stream the soundtrack here.

Enjoy!

New Urban Architects

2009-09-21T10:00:00.006-06:00

Nope, is not the name of your latest favorite pop band, i mean architecture office; the New Urban Architects are people who are reshaping our cities faster than any urban plan has ever before:

Our cities today are relics from a time before the Internet. Services and infrastructure, created and operated by the government, are centrally managed, non-participatory and closed. And while this was once the best (and only) way for cities to operate, today it leads to a system that is inefficient, increasingly expensive to maintain, and slow to change.

Jack Dorsey, who came up with the initial idea for Twitter and co-founded the company often talks about his fascination with cities, mass transit, and bike messengers. He says it was this fascination that led to the inspiration for Twitter.

Dennis Crowley, the founder of Dodgeball and Foursquare, shares that fascination. When I first talked to him about Foursquare, he told me that he "tries to build things that make cities easier to use".

What is needed right now is a new type of city: a city that is like the Internet in its openness, participation, distributed nature and rapid, organic evolution - a city that is not centrally operated, but that is created, operated and improved upon by all - a DIY City.

Steven Johnson's co-founder of Outside.in is John Geraci. John is now running an incubator for entrepreneurs that want to reinvent how cities and urban governments work called DIYCity.

These and many others are our new urban architects. People who resembles me to parkour practicants, they make the city easier to navigate with new tools and based on the old expired structure we know as "cities". I must say unfortunately traditional roles of urban planning and architecture are still important to our cities. They are and will continue to be. But there is something new afoot in urban life. And it starts with the mobile phone, a computer in our pocket or purse, that is with us at all times.

Services like Twitter, Foursquare, DIYCity and Outside.in are changing the way we use cities.

And we are just at the very beginning. Think about what happens when we get true augmented reality services on our phones. Think about what happens when we get real social networking services on our phones. Think about what happens when we get new interfaces on our phones that don't require us to be looking down and typing when we we are out and about...

*images by Lluis Gerard, used under a CC license

Philippe Starck on Life and Design

2009-09-21T00:31:00.001-06:00

Concluding this weekend of video posts, we cannot avoid sharing with you this short interview with Philippe Starck on life and design, by Wallpaper. It is amuzing, straight to the point and very true. We like it.

DIGITAL WALLPAPER

2009-09-20T11:37:00.004-06:00

Another video for this weekend, this time a small visual intervention by the people of Strukt Design Studio:

Hirzberger Events - Digital Wallpaper from Gregor Hofbauer on Vimeo.

We've been lately fascinated by the great low budget visual installations coming from the Austria/Germany area (realities:united included of course), seems Vienna is becoming also an epicenter of the animated/illuminated facades and interiors...

hope you guys enjoy this as much as we do.

check the rest of Strukt works, here

TOKYOYKOT

2009-09-18T11:51:00.004-06:00

"Reality is the contrast between what we have inside, and what exists out there."

A beautiful visual trip of Tokyo by Joan Jimenez that we could not avoid sharing it... enjoy.

check also Joan's website social branding

Kitchen delight: Gorenje designed by Karim Rashid

2009-09-17T15:49:00.016-06:00

Our apologies for a very straightforward title, but how better to describe a collection of luxury kitchen appliances when two of our favorite names unite to produce this colorful kitchen collection, which makes your kitchen become a favorite living space in your home (if that's not yet the case).

After very successful cooperation with Ora Ïto couple of years ago (we blogged about this here) , our favorite kitchen appliances provider Gorenje has presented a Brand New Star design collection at this year’s IFA, Berlin, signed by the king of color himself, Karim Rashid.

As Gorenje puts it, Gorenje collection designed by Karim Rashid is a minimal fusion of functionality, technology, interactivity, and purity. The full length handle is both the visual and the interaction focal point of the collection.The vertical LED light stripe allows several colour versions, providing the option to adjust the appearance of the appliance to one’s current mood, or indeed one’s lifestyle.

"I have wanted to design appliances for ages. It was a great exercise in rethinking the banal. Too often we are relegated to tired archetypes. Design is about shaping contemporaneity. Design is critical to our environments, to our daily experiences, our products, our everything,” comments Karim Rashid who has designed products ranging from vacuum cleaners to furniture, children’s toys to luggage, to television, to perfume bottles, to lighting. He also designs spaces – hotels, clubs etc. and – from now on – Gorenje household appliances which, incidentally, he is using himself.

“Over the past years Gorenje has proven to be a company that has a strong interest in contemporary design. I have been following and appreciating their successful collections. When they contacted me to design the new Gorenje collection it took very little discussion to get the project started. I knew the company also because I do a lot of work in Eastern Europe and have an apartment in Belgrade with Gorenje appliances.” Check out how he re-designed traditional Majik restaurant in Belgrade.

Majik restaurant in Belgrade by Karim

Switch Restaurant by Karim

World Lounge by Karim

With additional new collections Gorenje Simplicity and Gorenje Retro (about this one some other time), effectively combining smart technology, excellent design & style, care for the environment, high quality and great value, Gorenje really does inspire. We are shure that Gorenje designed by Karim Rashid will be a success, and we are looking forward to what their future step will be.

ON_A Station

2009-09-10T11:59:00.007-06:00

And seems we continue with our 'Barcelona' feeling these days, well who into design wouldn't love Barcelona? This time we are bringing you a project we knew about long ago, but didn't had the chance to saw it finished until now:

The remodeling of the (Barcelona) metro station of Drassanes by ON_A studio (Eduardo Gutiérrez Munné + Jordi Fernández Río)

Originally built in 1968 the project for the remodeling had two big constraints: the restrictions of the space and the conditions of all the existing components. ON_A Arquitectura accepted the challenge and made the best of it by covering the old station with new surfaces. Since the size of the station cannot be changed, the project can only refer to the finish of the interior skin.

*before and after image

The large quantity of existing installations makes the project to have a very high complexity, where the new skin has to be adjustable and generous to the new components of the station.

In order to resolve these issues ON_A chose as an image-concept the interior vision of an existing train wagon, supposing that in itself it already contains all the elements passengers need. ON_A took this as an inspiration to create a new skin for the station.

“We referred with regard to the material to white GRC (Glass Reinforced Concrete) which provides us with the same qualities as concrete with steel, but having a weight which is a fifth of it making an installation within a given space a lot easier. At the same time we also dispose of a continuous white floor composed by resins which allows us to prevent likelycracks provoked by the vibrations of the train.” say ON_A about the project.

for more about ON_A click here

Body of Work, Catalina Bartolome

2009-09-08T10:11:00.005-06:00

We love the work of Catalina Bartolome, the work of this Argentinian born photographer always plays in between a bizarre beauty concept, making "simple complex images" that makes us re-consider the notion of beauty.

Her "head-less" portraits also, challenge the typical notion as also our mental image of what a portrait should be. Her images are strangely alluring for their surreal scenes.

Catalina is a worldly woman who when asked about her work replies: "My work is about the body. My body is about my work".

She continues "My work comes out of my head, intuitive mental images which emerge from my context and then are absorbed into a space of rationality turning bodies into unprejudiced scenery."

Here @ LA76 we just found her work beautiful and inspiring and wanted to share it with you guys.

Don't forget to visit her website clicking here

The Argentinian touch of Barcelona

2009-09-03T19:21:00.008-06:00

If you have visited, lived, or loved the city of Barcelona in the last 30 years, you surely know Mario Eskenazi... or at least by sight ;)

Mario Eskenazi is a designer who has designed a generous amount of the graphic identity of the city, images that you see everyday when you walk around Barcelona.
*Forum and CCIB Buildings Signalization, archs. Herzog & deMeuron, Josep Lluis Mateo/MAP, 2004

Eskenazi born in Buenos Aires (Argentina) is an Architect by formation, he was part of the design team for the TV station Canal 10 TV (Argentina). In 1971 moves to Spain, where he has been teacher at the School of Architecture of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (1973-1974) and from 1975 until 1999 gave design classes at the EINA.
*Visual, Blur Editions, Corporate Image, 2005-2006

Mario likes to say that he will never retire and that he prefers to work with friends than big corporate clients. But to be honest his fidelity to some brands falls into the anthological; is the case of his works for Paidos editorial, Tragaluz Group the Sabadell Bank or Evax with whom he has been collaborating for couple of decades.
*Visual Identity of "El Japones" restaurant for Grupo Tragaluz, 2001

Eskenazi arrived to Barcelona by casualty, more than 30 years ago when he finished his architecture studies in Cordoba (Argentina), started to work in the University TV station, then the military governments arrived and he had to choose: move to Buenos Aires or to Europe. While he admired the european art and creativity he also hated "porteños" (people from Buenos Aires), so he has "no other chance" than move to London (city that he declares himself a big fan).
*Visual Identity of "Cuinas de Santa Caterina" restaurant for Grupo Tragaluz, 2006

But before arriving to London he stopped in Madrid, and the money he carried with him didn't lasted long there, then he took a job in the Architecture studio of Juan Manuel Ruiz de la Prada (Canary Islands), where they were looking for a "south american architect"; after 2 years he wanted to get back in track on his way to London, visiting previously Paris and Milano but he never felt comfortable in any of this cities, ad then in a visit to Barcelona, he got a job at the studio of America Sanchez.
*Collections Design for Paidos Editorial, 2000 - 2006

After some time he started working in marketing agencies but was the work he did for Banca Catalana that allowed him to get other clients and setup his own studio in 1979. He says the secret of this "marriages" is to always try to work with people he gets along previously, and not the other way around: "...This is the only way to have the freedom and trust that we like from the clients..."
*Packaging for EVAX, 2004 - 2006

Despite he never had the intention of living in Barcelona, he has been there for more than 3 decades now. As he says "an obvious proof of love". As he mentions, the city allows him a quality of life he could hardly get somewhere else, "...like going to the beach at least a bit every day!..." Thats because of the Mediterranean lifestyle that also influence the profession in Barcelona, and allows to create those personal bonds with the clientele and at the same time earn a decent living.
*Visual Identity, OMM Hotel for Grupo Tragaluz, 2003 - 2006

Among his various prizes, we can mention: LAUS (ADG FAD, Barcelona), Awards of Excellence (CA Magazine, San Francisco), Merits Award (A.D.C., New York), Merits Awards (D&AD, Londres), The Spanish National Design Prize 2000 (Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología and the Fundación BCD).
*Visual Identity, Serveis de Manteniment y Neteja, Government of Barcelona City 2000

Works: He had designed for editorial Paidos (1979-2007), Corporate Identities for the Group of Bank Sabadell (1997-2008), Tragaluz Group(1999-2008), and the Identity of the Maintenance and Public Cleaning Services of Barcelona "BCNeta!" (2000, Ajuntament de Barcelona), In colaboration with Diego Feijoo designed the Identity for the Cultural Center Blanquerna (2005, Generalitat de Catalunya), also the Identity of GISA(2005, Generalitat de Catalunya), the Identity of DDI (2005, State Society for the development of Design and Inovation, Ministerio de Industria y Comercio), Coprorate Identity for SEACEX (2006, State Society for the External Cultural Action, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores) ; and in a collaboration with Summa, the Identity for the chain of restaurants Pans & Company (1991), The Identity of the Port Vell (1993), and Identity and design of the mobile squad of the Mossos d’Esquadra / Catalan Police (1992, Generalitat de Catalunya) And the program for the Identity of the Cultural Department of the Catalunya Goverment (1992).

Mario is member of the AGI (International Graphic Aliance) since 1997.
*Parking in Guadalajara Mexico, 2004

for more visit Mario Eskenazi website

Sea Turtles Season coming to Los Cabos, Baja California Sur

2009-08-26T12:09:00.007-06:00

Sea turtles migrate the world's oceans and have come to Los Cabos beaches to lay their eggs for millions of years. Two of the world's eight sea turtle species nest in Los Cabos. The smallest, the Olive Ridley, also known as the golfina, nests June through to December. The golfina feeds on shrimp, jellyfish, snails and algae, and can grow to 26 inches long, weighing up to 90 pounds. The largest marine turtle, the Laud, or leatherback, nests on our beaches from November through February. Leatherbacks grow up to 70 inches long, weighing up to 1,300 pounds. Its favorite food is jellyfish, and it will dive up to one kilometer in search of food. Golfinas, and especially leatherbacks, are endangered species, suffering from the effects of long lines, fishing nets, development, and illegal poaching.

Turtle Release - Images by LA76

Most mature sea turtle females return to the beach of their birth, called a natal beach, to dig their nests and lay their eggs at night. Only about one in 1,000 of their offspring will survive the treacherous journey from the nest to maturity. After incubating for about two months, they hatch, and take several days to claw their way out of the nest, instinctively making their way to the sea, following the moon and the horizon. Many fall prey to birds and sand crabs as they struggle to reach the shore, others are led off track by deep grooves left from vehicular traffic and disorienting artificial lighting from beachfront hotels and residential areas. Once in the ocean, they face new predators or are victims of long line fishing nets, poaching and pollution.Sea turtle nursery programs greatly improve hatchling survival rates through the first critical stage of their lives. The tiny hatchlings are returned to their nesting area, and released close to the sea at sunrise or sunset.

(via Los Cabos Guide)

Learn more about Los Cabos Sea Turtles Conservation Programs: Grupo Tortugero and ProPeninsula.

Garden of unearthly delights

2009-07-28T15:43:00.006-06:00

DIESEL DENIM GALLERY ART EXHIBITION #9, Garden of Unearthly Delights, Timothy Saccenti from Caroline Celis on Vimeo.

THE DIESEL DENIM GALLERY AOYAMA is presenting the first solo exhibition of Timothy Saccenti: "Garden of unearthly delights".

Tim is a notable new talent making photography and videos for people like Battles, Erykah Badu and the Animal collective. In this exhibition he will create a new series of moving images and print exclusively for the DIESEL GALLERY AOYAMA.

Here is a description of the project:

"A genesis story of meaning, existence and purpose, "Garden of unearthly delights", follows a simple creature meandering through life in darkness, believing itself to be the only in existence. When the creature sees a mask lying in the darkness, it gains knowledge of time and space. Experiencing a moment that is different from the last sets one event apart from the next. Sensing a figure independent from its own movement allows the creature to understand its size in relation tothe world and to other things. Putting the mask on, the creature loses its blindness an sees a symbol in the sky representing purpose. The creature follows a path reminiscent of life toward the symbol in the sky. In a clearing below the light, a tree sits making an allusion to the tree of Life. In its branches hangs a starnge pod: a seed of life. A pregnant creature emerges from the darkness and performs a mating ritual with the first creature. A child is born from the creature's realization of a perfect counterpart and an affinity towards the tree and the fruit. The desire of the creatures and the need to fulfill a pirpose begets the image of new life. As the child is born, the creatures become immune to gravity representing a contented resolution to their life and purpose."

Some of Tim's work:

For this exhibition as for some previous works, Tim uses objects design and developed by our friends at commonwealth, check Tim's website clicking here

Marc Jacobs, through the lens by Juergen Teller

2009-07-17T10:47:00.008-06:00

You probably remember these low-fi style ads for Marc Jacobs, featuring many of movie, fashion or music 'icons'. Signed by Juergen Teller they have been collected and put together first time in a book, and published by Steidl.

Lisa Marie photographed by Juergen Teller for Marc Jacobs Shoes

As Wallpaper puts is: Starting out with a shoot featuring Sofia Coppola in a snowy Central Park - the Juergen Teller meets Marc Jacobs story, is one of pure fashion perfection. Teaming up in the late 1990s, Teller has gone on to produce campaigns for every facet of the Jacobs empire over the past decade - helping to affirm Marc Jacobs as one of the leading creative figures in fashion.

Chloe, Tasha, Valerie and Maria Carla, photographed by Juergen Teller.

With the ads featuring the likes of Charlotte Rampling, Cindy Sherman, William Eggleston and even an angular Victoria Beckham crawling out of a Marc Jacobs carrier – friends, family and followers of the pair were all conscripted to get involved.

Asia Argento and Anna Lou, photographed by Juergen Teller

Merging celebrity, reportage, fashion and art in a heady aesthetic mix, the combination of Tellers’s intimate, low-fi style with his contrastingly hi-brow subjects is undoubtedly the key to the success of the campaigns.

Michele Hicks (left) and Jarvis Cocker (right), photographed by Juergen Teller

Winona Ryder, photographed by Juergen Teller

Self portrait with Charlotte Rampling, by Juergen Teller

Collection of ads featuring Sofia Coppola, photographed by Juergen Teller.

Marc Jacobs Advertising 1998 – 2009 by Juergen Teller Book.

The World of 100

2009-07-13T09:54:00.007-06:00

The World of 100 is a project by Toby Ng Kwong To, based on the scenario – If the world were a village of 100 people. There are a few different versions of his text in circulation about the world’s statistics.

Toby mentions: "I found the data very striking and neatly summarises the world that we live in".

He used information graphics to re-tell the story in another creative way. Designing a set of 20 posters, which contain most of the information, using simple vector graphics that related to a statistic in order to present the information in the simplest and most accessible way.

Toby Ng Kwong To is a graduated in graphic design from Central St. Martins, (London, 2008). He has exhibited photography and illustration work in the National Portrait Gallery London (2008 & 2004). He is currently based in Hong Kong.

visit the project website clicking here

China censors Ai Weiwei

2009-07-12T22:12:00.003-06:00

Leading Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s activism has finally provoked the Chinese authorities to act against him. His studio is being staked out by plainclothes police, and last month the artist’s popular blog on Sina.com was deleted, as well as his commentaries on China’s version of Twitter.

Ai Weiwei has been running a campaign documenting the death of schoolchildren in the Sichuan earthquake of May 2008, alleging that the number of fatalities was due to local officials siphoning money from school building costs.

Ai Weiwei told The Art Newspaper that he was recently involved in two other worrying incidents: in the first, unknown persons visited his mother’s house; when Ai Weiwei asked them for identification they refused to provide any, nor would they leave, leading him to call the local police.

Ai Weiwei said: “Two days later an undercover guy was following me, I asked him, ‘Why are you following me?’ Another came, and I kicked his car door to get him to report it, but he wouldn’t. So I went to the police station to make a complaint.” There are people posted outside his studio every day, the artist claimed.

The artist has launched another blog (blog.aiweiwei.com), and will republish his investigations into the Sichuan disaster on this. “I don’t know how long it will last before it is blocked,” he said, “but the server is in the US, so the content will remain.” No-one from Sina.com would comment on the issue of the deletion of Ai Weiwei’s blog.

via the Art Newspaper

DingDong

2009-07-02T16:11:00.004-06:00

If you are bored of your old doorbell, here a couple of fun options from the chinese designer Li Jianye who is a product design consultant at Philips Design Hong Kong...

Advertising Tres Chic!

2009-06-29T16:37:00.015-06:00

Viva the days when advertising is not only about supersizing everything and anything, but when you actually enjoy seeing the ad or actually a short film. Where creativity has no limits and where the usual rule "make the logo bigger" doesn't apply.

This advertising creations came to me as a hint from my friend in Slovenia, and it made my day.
"Ah, le cinema! Remember the days when men were strong and silent, women were chic and sophistiqué, and the action was as smooth as our 4% triple filtered beer?" Asks Stella Artois at their website Smooth Originals.

At Stella Artois, they have gone back in time to rediscover these films – the originals, before Hollywood did to them what Hollywood, sadly, does (what a truth).

Vive le cinéma triple filter!

I hope you enjoy these as we did:

8 Kilomètres

See the movie here.

Dial Hard

See the movie here.

Vingt-Quatre Heures

See the movie here.

Genial!

Excuses to drink (more) wine

2009-06-28T13:15:00.005-06:00

For those needing an excuse to drink more wine....

what about to include kitchen renovation into your excuses for drinking wine?

R3 project by Petz Scholtus

your own collab with Joshua Davis

2009-06-25T20:55:00.009-06:00

Here at LA76 are big fans of Joshua Davis for several different reasons. His work as an early Flash pioneer with Praystation and he was a one of the first people to release their Flash code as open source so everyone could learn and grow from what he was doing. Some people say is great to see him speak live (we haven't got the chance) because of his energy and that fantastic fight between jet lag and Red Bull for control of his brain (here talking at OFFF Portugal).

We not only love the look but because of play between the left brain/right brain intersection that happen when you bring art, technology and interactive together like this.

This week he took his art into a new direction with the launch of the Reflect iPhone application.
You start in Designer mode where you can choose one of his six distinct visual systems and one of ten color palettes. Then it gets really interesting because you collaborate with the application to create the final work of art.You draw on the canvas to control where symbols are placed but the application uses dynamic abstraction to select the symbols and colors so each piece is always unique. This is the type of left brain/right brain intersection we love. When you are happy with you creation you can save it to your photo gallery for various uses or put in into the Kaleidoscope view within the application.

bye bye Kodak moments

2009-06-23T11:59:00.006-06:00

Eastman Kodak Company announced yesterday that it will stop manufacturing and marketing of the Kodachrome, the first color film of commercial success and one of the most appreciated by professional photographers.

At 74 years the Kodachrome succumbs to the advancement of digital photography and other advanced art film, which have brought down the sales of these slides and make the process of developing more expensive. "Kodachrome is an icon. It was a difficult decision, given their great history, but most photographers today's bid to take pictures with newer technologies, both digital and with other films," said president the division of Kodak film, Mary Jane Helly, in a statement.

At the current pace of sales, the manufacturer estimates that the rolls of Kodachrome will disappear from the shelves around the world at the beginning of autumn in the northern hemisphere. Some of the last reels will be donated to the International Museum of Photography and Film, George Eastman House in Rochester (New York), where the world's largest collection of cameras and related articles is.

Moreover, it is anticipated that the photographer Steve McCurry, known for his photograph of the Afghan girl (Sharbat Gula)with green eyes who in 1985 was front page of National Geographic magazine, shoot some of the last reels, after which the slides will be displayed in the New York museum. "The first stage of my career was dominated by films and with Kodachrome i did some of my most memorable photographs," McCurry said in a statement, which acknowledged that after 17 years, he returned to photograph the woman and no longer did it with this kind of film.

Kodak has also created a space on the internet to pay tribute to this type of film, the oldest in the market and one of the most recognized and valued by professionals among other reasons due to the sharpness and duration of its colors. Kodachrome has also been name of one of the popular songs by Paul Simon and also name to a spectacular national park in Utah.

However, it does not involve either a 1% of sales of Kodak film, which in recent years has undertaken a major restructuring of its business to focus on the digital world. This past January, the firm announced plans to cut between 3,500 and 4,500 jobs, although it closed 2008 with a profit of 339 million dollars (287.6 million euros).

70% of its revenue comes from the digital market and, according to Kodak, there is only one laboratory left in the world which develops this type of slides, the Parsons Dwayne's Photo in Kansas (United States), due to the complexity of the process. After this news and half session at the New York Stock Exchange, the securities fell by 7% and is trading at about $ 2.65, at a time when the major stock indicators lost more than 2%.