non Parametric Flowers

Black Narcissus highlights the importance of encompassing all methods of fabrication; digital and analog in terms of technology, management efficiency and time towards the production the project. The piece is constituted of 1,000 pieces including the 644 pieces of CNC routed syntra, 50 large flowers with jewel like crowns and 100 small flowers. The idea was to produce a structure that combines a parametrically designed large form ornamented and gardened with nonparametric flowers.

Through this gardening process of aggregation, the flowers produce a sensation of excess in a garden of delight.
The precedent came from looking at contemporary fashion sensibilities and techniques thinking of it as an “haute couture” surface. We also took a look at the 1947 Michael Powell film Black Narcissus, where a group of nuns travel to a remote location in the Himalayas to set up a school and hospital and “domesticate” the local people and environment, by conversion and gardening, only to find themselves increasingly seduced by the sensuality of their surroundings. The location, the culture and the mountain air all begin to have a strange affect on the nuns. What was important about the film is understanding the power “sensual”, the way the recognition of your desires to the point of self-contemplation; an aesthetic displacement, you see your sensual self in the work as an act of narcissism. You become as beautiful as what surrounds you. Narcissism as a natural condition of self-admiration and a distorted self from reality, which it is more about the absurdity of the “cultural” concept in a pursuit for an argument of beauty.

Black Narcissus is a garden of contemplation where the surface of reflection is the piece itself. The piece is joyous and ominous, it attracts and repels because it sense of superficial ornamentation. It climbs up the wall caressing it. This piece does not operate within the notion of effect (literal reflection) but through affect, a true moment of qualia.

Design: Gabriel Esquivel & David Hernandez
Team: Erin Templeton, Dylan Weiser, Arnold Ghil, Miaomiao Xiao, Catlan Fearon, Hugo Ochoa, Megan Arrington, Le Phuc

Merry Merry Christmas

Wishes and Love to be!

into Ottoman's Empire

The main purpose is to design a multifunctional complex for people with an interest in knowing about Islam during the time of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was the last big Islamic Empire and one of the most powerful during the Islamic era up until recent times. The building will serve as a hub for social activities and will portray the Ottoman Empire, especially, in an artistic sense.

The building conceived by Yusuf Onder will have a library, museum, lecture rooms, workshop level and a rooftop garden/cafe. Another goal is to offer people a place to learn and understand about this unique, hybrid of, culture and religion and it’s place in the Ottoman Empire in a hope to diffuse the sense of xenophobia towards the religion and culture. This thesis expounds on the, long old, idea of constant integration of religion and culture from history.

Users of the facility will comprise, the numerous tourists in the Bay Area San Francisco, especially those with a curiousity about the diversity of San Francisco and then the Islamic World. Another category of Users are tourists visiting San Francisco and the Site with the Contemporary Jewish Museum or the St. Patricks Church. This new architectural edifice complete the triangle of the major religions and becomes a beacon for unity.

San Francisco is deal for this kind of Center, because San Francisco as a multicultureal metrepolitan city is iconic for it’s integration of many sorts of people and socio-cultural ideas. Already exists in the city is a strong presence of other major religions eg. Christianity and Judaism amongst others: this last piece of the pseudo-puzzle would complete the already begging polity for a complete and balance hybrid society. It would be examplary for San Francisco to have or to show the World how open minded they are and with a Topic as sensitive as an Islamic Culture Center it would win the Hearts Muslims around the World.

a Linen Collar of the 1600's

The award winning lighting design is based on the effects of the Dutch ruff, a decorative linen collar considered fashionable in the 1600′s. The collars required several yards worth of linen, and had to be starched and ironed into pleats, or even supported on wires, in order to achieve their voluminous appearance. Inspired by the way Flemish baroque painter Cornelis de Vos illuminated these items, Andrew Saunders created the similarly shaped Luminescent Limacon. The design integrates historical referencing to the contemporary fabrication techniques, transforming the traditional piece of garment into a vehicle for manipulating light.

This occurs at two levels, both as an ephemeral reflective source and as a figural volume with a material presence. This dense accumulation of light is achieved through a combination of the chiaroscuro painting technique, which uses dramatic contrast of light to build volume, and by trapping light through a process of periodic folding that creates a deep translucent ruffle. The geometry of the structure is determined through use of the polar equation-based Limacon curve. Rolling of the curve at different speeds generates self-similar profiles. Two levels of geometry appear simultaneously: the primary one is combined vertically, while the secondary, following similar geometric progression, creates folds that are nested diagonally and can be interconnected when they meet flush. For fabrication and assembly, these surfaces are embedded with a number of parameters including placement of apertures for connection points, material thickness, tabbing and indexing. Each individual unrolled developable surface contains a unique and specific location and assembly instruction.

geometric Ornaments

The basic idea of the project is rooted in the notion of flows. It strongly references historical, environmental and even biological diversification and friction that shaped the contemporary city of Istanbul. The geometric form dominating the building is combined with typical Turkish patterns and ornaments, displaying both European and Asian cultural influences.

Located at the boundary between continents, the city of Istanbul is experiencing geophysical friction generated by the shifts of continental plates. The friction between two forces generates dramatic reaction of the elements; it can be transferred to all four basic elements in nature, with an impact determined by the level of energy. The same rule is applied to the urban environment. The layout of the structure reveals an atrium building, organized around the central square. The central area symbolizes aether, the 5th element in nature. Aether is also called, from Latin, ‘quinta essentia’ which stands for the element that unites the other four.

The entire building is divided into three sections: conference, educational and infrastructure. A shelter with a capacity of 150 people, divided into 2 parts, contains places to sleep, to sit, toilets and a place to prepare meals. It’s the last room to be visited during the trip around the Centre. The long corridor that leads to it demonstrates and recalls anxiety or even fear connected with situations in which it needs to be used.

Barcelona 40 years later...

The project was developed by IAAC students Carolina Aguirre, Xiomara Armijo and Carlo Caltabiano during the MAA Emergent Territories Studio directed by Willy Müller. FlexHubDock envisions Barcelona city 40 years later, with the Port Area as new Hub not only for commerce/logistics but for people and the city, rethinking it as a new social layer.

The FlexHubDock is the best example of how Port and City can coexist in harmony. A smart-shared surface will enable the Port area as both a Dock for ships and public Plaza. Depending on the needs for public space and activity as dock, it can be totally managed in real-time, by embedded sensors and network system that receives information of space requirements to begin its transition. In a single day the function and shape of the FlexHubDock can change several times and even share functions.

The solution is based on a new concept of shared space. Flexible enough to respond to the demands of the Port as Dock and as new Social/Mobility Hub; able to transform as the users interact as Agents, optimizing space in different time scales, receiving and processing parameters in real-time.

A Dock is usually associated as in the limits between the city and the water. But the FHD is able to somehow use the water as land, and transform this land into water, giving the city a whole new layer. Spaces can appear and disappear.

The FHD modular/parametric system, provides an adaptable additive structure open for future applications in other ports and cities around the world. The FlexHubDock Project aims to offer new possibilities, some perhaps still unimaginable today.
 

composed of Blades

Dominique Jakob and Brendan MacFarlane have created a light sculpture composed of blades and LEDs, a luminaire specially designed for Moaroom, a Paris-based furniture and art gallery. Since 2004 Moaroom works with designers and artists from New Zealand and presents a selection of creations from the world of design and visual arts. Aimed to explore design beyond the usual scope of trends and patterns, these works are inspired by nature and its needs, and are created in order to respect the environment.

“Both transparent and opaque, this fixture is conceived as a creature from the depths of the sea newly discovered, both unknown and unnamed. It belongs to a dark world, where new sounds, new experiences can be imagined and lived, “say the architects.

The suspended sculpture, composed of thin strips of aluminum and powered by LEDs, alternates between light and shadow. It is a 160x80x45 cm snake-shaped light source that flows organically through space, creating an impression of a moving organism. Hovering above the visitors to the gallery, this item brings the Studio’s continuous exploration of patterns and color into the realm of interior design.

a Tree in Andersen`s Mind

Out in the woods stood a nice little Fir-tree. The place he had was a very good one; the sun shone on him; as to fresh air, there was enough of that, and round him grew many large-sized comrades, pines as well as firs. But the little Fir wanted so very much to be a grown-up tree.

He did not think of the warm sun and of the fresh air; he did not care for the little cottage children that ran about and prattled when they were in the woods looking for wild strawberries. The children often came with a whole pitcher full of berries, or a long row of them threaded on a straw, and sat down near the young tree and said, "Oh,
how pretty he is! what a nice little fir!" But this was what the Tree could not bear to hear.

At the end of a year he had shot up a good deal, and after another year he was another long bit taller; for with fir-trees one can always tell by the shoots how many years old they are.

"Oh, were I but such a high tree as the others are!" sighed he. "Then I should be able to spread out my branches, and with the tops to look into the wide world! Then would the birds build nests among my branches; and when there was a breeze, I could bend with as much stateliness as the others!"

Neither the sunbeams, nor the birds, nor the red clouds, which morning and evening sailed above them, gave the little Tree any pleasure.

In winter, when the snow lay glittering on the ground, a hare would often come leaping along, and jump right over the little Tree. Oh, that made him so angry! But two winters were past, and in the third the tree was so large that the hare was obliged to go round it. "To grow and grow, to get older and be tall," thought the Tree "that, after all, is the most delightful thing in the world!"

In autumn the wood cutters always came and felled some of the largest trees. This happened every year; and the young Fir tree, that had now grown to a very comely size, trembled at the sight; for the magnificent
great trees fell to the earth with noise and cracking, the branches were lopped off, and the trees looked long and bare; they were hardly to be recognized; and then they were laid in carts, and the horses dragged them out of the woods.

Where did they go to? What became of them?

In spring, when the Swallows and the Storks came, the Tree asked them, "Don't you know where they have been taken? Have you not met them anywhere?"

The Swallows did not know anything about it; but the Stork looked musing, nodded his head, and said: "Yes, I think I know; I met many ships as I was flying hither from Egypt; on the ships were magnificent masts, and I venture to assert that it was they that smelt so of fir. I may congratulate you, for they lifted themselves on high most majestically!"

"Oh, were I but old enough to fly across the sea! But how does the sea look in reality? What is it like?"
.....................................

anodized Aluminum

This piece of public art was chosen as the winning proposal among three finalists for the new transit center being built in North Redondo this year. Located at the entry plaza location at Kingsdale Avenue, designed by Marc Fornes/THEVERYMANY in cooperation with Volkan Alkanoglu, the project is a piece of urban furniture, announcing the city of Redondo Beach to arriving visitors.

“Gate Wave” is designed to serve as a communication device, allowing the public to interact and engage with the variety of moiré effects within the colorful pattern and ephemeral qualities of light and shadows.  The design is 13.5 feet at its highest and almost 50 feet wide at its base. It will be constructed using concrete footings, a timber frame structure, and anodized aluminum in four total layers, with cyan and lime colorations on the interior aluminum and white on the outside.

The project had to overcome two major objections: the possibility of misusing the structure as a skateboarding ramp, as well as the fact that the project lapped beyond the constraints set forth in the Request for Proposals. Despite these issues, along with concerns regarding the effects of the ocean air’s on the anodized aluminum shapes near the top of the sculpture, the artwork will be built later this year.

 

Ο Πυγμάχος, το Λιοντάρι και η Σκόνη

Όλη η ζωή είναι ένα πείραμα

Η κοινωνία προετοιμάζει το έγκλημα. Ο εγκληματίας το διαπράττει

Αν ένα λιοντάρι μπορούσε να μιλήσει, δεν θα το καταλαβαίναμε

Σκέφτομαι άρα υπάρχω

Η πιο μεγάλη τέχνη είναι να ξέρεις να αποχωρείς

Δεν μπορώ να πάω πίσω στο χθες γιατί ήμουν κάποιος άλλος

«Πω, πω, σκόνη που σήκωσα!», είπε η μύγα που καθόταν στο πίσω μέρος του άρματος

Η ύπαρξη προηγείται της ουσίας

Ένας φιλόσοφος που δεν θέλει να παίρνει μέρος σε συζητήσεις είναι σαν έναν πυγμάχο που δεν θέλει να μπαίνει στο ρινγκ

Ένα ποίημα δεν τελειώνει ποτέ, μόνο εγκαταλείπεται

Δεν υπάρχει πιο ταπεινωτική απάντηση από την περιφρονητική σιωπή

Οποιοσδήποτε ανόητος μπορεί να πει την αλήθεια. Χρειάζονται προσόντα για να πεις ψέματα

Οι ιδέες είναι σαν τα καρφιά. Όσο τις χτυπάς, τόσο βαθύτερα μπαίνουν

Αληθινοί επαναστάτες είναι εκείνοι που δεν έχουν να χάσουν τίποτα

Εκείνο που η κάμπια το ονομάζει τέλος του κόσμου, η ζωή το ονομάζει πεταλούδα....

από το βιβλίο του Θ.Πελεγρίνη