B3 Designers

02/09

Lisl du Toit

Vacant NL by Rietveld Landscape

Vacant NL is the Dutch contribution to the Venice Architecture Beinnale 2010. The installation, commissioned by the Netherlands Architecture Institute and curated by Rietveld Landscape, is interestingly executed and features a cityscape suspended overhead and a drawing made of threads and pins. It aims to draw attention to government spaces that are often temporarily vacant and have huge potential for creative use, marrying architecture with ideals it sparks thinking around the intelligent reuse of these spaces. Along with the installation, visitors experience space left intentionally empty to highlight that it is unoccupied nine months of the year.

(images via designboom)

Tags: Rietveld Landscape, Vacant NL, Venice Architecture Biennale
Posted in Exhibitions, International, spaces | No Comments »

01/09

Lisl du Toit

Let’s Colour Campaign by Euro RSCG London

Its always nice to see campaigns that are fun and get people involved. Dulux Walls is a film for the Let’s Colour Campaign by Euro RSCG London for Dulux. The exciting initiative set out to transform dull grey areas into vibrant spaces with 120 different bright coloured paints and the help of members of the community. Everything was beautifully documented by award winning director Adam Berg who captured the colour in Brazil, France, London and India over a four week period.

Tags: colour, community, Dulux, RSCG London
Posted in Campaigns, Public Spaces | No Comments »

27/08

Riya

RK Apothecary by The Los Angeles Design Group

“Outré fruit” is a new retail display solution deployed by Los Angeles Design Group for the interior design of RK Apothecary, a bath and body product shop. The bizarre looking pods are a response the limitations of square or rectilinear tables in a restricted space, compromising the way customers are able to navigate through the space.

The pods have anatomic similarities to the humble strawberry, whose “exterior gives little clue to the structural nature of its interior.” The amorphous white, ridged objects are teasingly sliced at certain points to reveal their blood-red, exotic interiors, lit by a single bulb. LADG also experimented with the idea by using water filled ice bags, intrigued by the way they “slumped, folded and wallowed around obstacles.” The pods’ fluid forms are a stark contrast to the sharp angles and hard concrete surfaces of the existing store.

Designers Andrew Holder and Benajmin Freyinger drew inspiration from still-life paintings by Caravaggio and Rubens. They say“ these artists used fruit as sumptuous, scene-setting devices in exactly the way we hoped to deploy our to present product in the store. In that sense, the outré fruit is set afloat inside the environment and piled with tempting objects to browse.”

Images via The Contemporist

Tags: display, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Design Group, pods, retail interior, RK Apothecary
Posted in International, Retail Spaces | No Comments »

26/08

Shoot the Stylist!

Bus-Tops by Alfie Dennen and Paula Ledieu

Bus-Tops will be a public art installation on the roofs of bus shelters across London, inspiring wonder and creativity in unexpected places. LED panels will become canvases showcasing digital commissions by a range of established artists, as well as allowing Londoners to display their creativity, play games and express what is special about their London.

People will be able to submit and view artwork through a number of mediums including website and mobile applications. Using drawing toolkits, people can create images, text or animations for display on the panels. For those unable to view the roofs of bus shelters, the website will provide live updates of the artwork and the opportunity to construct personal ‘routes’ through the works.

Cutting edge technology will also allow the bus shelters to develop individual personalities, becoming ‘Viziters’ to the city in their own right in the run up to the Games. Over their period of stay, each Bus-Top shelter will develop a unique character through their relationships with each other, members of the public and participating artists.

The canvases will appear on the roofs of bus shelters across London from July 2011.

London from Artists Taking the Lead on Vimeo.

Tags: Alfie Dennen, Bus-Tops, london, Olympics, Paula Ledieu, Public Art Project
Posted in COmpetition, Exhibitions, International, Public Spaces, Uncategorized | No Comments »

25/08

Shoot the Stylist!

Beetle’s House by Terunobu Fujimori

This raised smoky doll house is a truly intriguing new creation of Japanese Architect Terunobu Fujimori. Having recently had the pleasure of climbing up the ladder into the Beetle’s House and sitting in it for a while, I very much want to share this opportunity with you! It is currently on display as part of 1:1 – Architects Build Small Spaces exhibition at the V&A in London, so if you have the opportunity to go and see it, do it -I can highly recommend it! The small dwelling sits in the museum’s medieval & renaissance room, high atop its pillared structure.

The design is clad in rich black charred pine beams that no doubt reference the colour of the beetle. This type of wood creates a unique texture that preserves the wood and extends the building’s lifespan. The structure, like Fujimori’s other works, is intended to by-pass all architectural styles that have developed since the bronze age, returning the act of living to a more primitive state. This home is designed to host an english version of the traditional Japanese tea ceremony.

Via designboom

Pictures by Pasi Aalto

pasi aalto

Tags: 1:1, Beetle's House, london, Terunobu Fujimori, V&A
Posted in Exhibitions, International | No Comments »

20/08

Riya

Cielito Querido Cafe, Mexico

Esrawe Studio is a group of Mexican architects and designers, responsible for the distinct and vibrant design of Cielito Querido Cafe, a Latin-American eatery. In collaboration with Ignacio Cadena, the studio have come up with a concept that is bold and bright in its use of colour, typography and graphics. The concept is inspired by Mexican design heritage and Latin graphic design of the late 19th to early 20th century, particularly the product labels of old grocery stores.

The interior design alludes to the rich history of Latin American tradition and distinct visual landscape, while remaining unique and contemporary. The symbolism, pink and blue colour scheme, illustrations and materials speak instantly of a particular time and place that appeals globally as well as locally.

The café’s name was inspired by the song Cielito Lindo, which was written in 1882 by the Mexican composer Quirino Mendoza y Cortéz. The song contains the phrase ‘México lindo y querido’, which translates to ‘cherished and beautiful Mexico’ – a great source of inspiration for the project.

Pictures via We Heart:Essential Lifestyle Guide

Tags: cafe, Latin America, Mexico, product labels, signage, typography
Posted in International, Restaurants | No Comments »

12/08

Riya

Indoor Forest at The Architecture Foundation

Norwegian architects PUSHAK have made a striking installation of moss-covered arches in the entrance and gallery space of the Architecture Foundation, London. The project, named Moss Your City, is the outcome of the Foundation’s international exchange scheme which is aimed at promoting the work of emerging architects in Norway and the UK.

PUSHAK intended the installation to be a representation of Norwegian landscape but its haphazard and angular openings read more like an eccentric English maze that’s been allowed to overgrow in strange geometries. It’s fairy-tale like quality has been taking urban dwellers by surprise since the exhibition was set up in June for the London Festival of Architecture.

The work, designed by Sissil Morseth Gromholt, Camilla Langeland, Marthe Melbye and Gyda Drage Kleiva, has emerged from the Oslo-based practice’s research into the relationship between contemporary architecture, landscape and natural resources. It was inspired by the Bankside Urban Forest (a focus area of the London Festival of Architecture 2010) and by the work of green activists across South London. The aim of the project was to show that moss to be a ‘beautiful and versatile material that can work in harmony with contemporary design’.

The exhibition has been extended until the end of this week.

Images via Dezeen

Tags: Architecture Foundation, green walls, london, London Festival of Architecture, moss, Norway, PUSHAK
Posted in Exhibitions, Public Spaces | 1 Comment »

11/08

Lisl du Toit

Chin Chin Laboratorists by Shai Akram and Andrew Haythornthwaite

Chin Chin Laboratorists in Camden, North London is an ice cream shop with a twist. The shop has a different workstation for each stage of the ice cream making process and additional space for experimentation. Each workstation becomes a colour coded part of this ice cream making machine, held together at appropriate heights by scaffolding. The scaffolding, white coats and laboratory paraphernalia gives the shop the feeling of a mad scientist’s lab, and a theatrical one at that. Making the ice cream becomes a performance and customers can see each part of the process from the decanting to mixing, freezing with liquid nitrogen and topping. The concept is carried through effortlessly into the branding that borrows symbols and diagrams from chemistry.

(Images via Dezeen)

Tags: camden, chin chin laborists, ice cream, interior-design, london, scaffolding
Posted in spaces | No Comments »

06/08

Riya

Turned up tiles from Urbanproduct

Multi-disciplinary design studio Urbanproduct has launched ‘Dune’ – a tactile and sensuous wall treatment that invites people to engage with it. They believe that by the inherent charm of recycled and reclaimed materials can be repurposed to bring new meaning to modern spaces.

The Toronto-based studio is working with local manufacturers to develop the elegant tile in a variety of materials. Wooden and ceramic batches have been added to the range this year, which include concrete tiles naturally pigmented with a soya based finish. The tiles can be configured differently for a variety of patterns and effects, lending a playfulness to any wall or surface.

Tags: concrete tiles, Dune, recyclable, surfaces, sustainable, timber tiles, Urbanproduct
Posted in Products | No Comments »

05/08

Shoot the Stylist!

Insect Hotel by Arup Associates

The London based firm Arup Associates have won the top Golden Beetle Prize for their ‘insect hotel’. The ‘Beyond the Hive’ competition, hosted by British Land and The City of London, created a brief that called for a sustainable and creative insect habitat for the City of London parks.

The bio-mimetic design is constructed out of 25 layers of 20 mm-thick birch plywood. The irregular voids are cut out using a CNC machine and loosely bonded together on site with mechanical fixings. the 1500 mm x 1500 mm hotel’s facade is influenced from the voronoi pattern, an organic system of irregular shapes often found in nature, such as the wings of a dragonfly. the 500 mm-deep compartments provide an armature for the recycled waste materials, each compacted with different types of deadfall to cater to different types of insects: Stag beetles require rotting logs for their larvae to eat and grow in, while butterflies and moths prefer a series of vertical slots using dry wooden pieces and tree barks.

Via Designboom

Tags: beyond the hive, british land, city of london parks, insect hotel, sruo associates
Posted in COmpetition, Public Spaces | No Comments »