Tabla de contenidos para March - April 2020 en Frame

Museums preserve the past. I realized that as a child, when my parents took me to the Natural History Museum in my hometown of Maastricht. The bones of local dinosaur varieties, primitive flint tools and long lost plant species were all displayed in glass cabinets. Yawn. Although I found visiting our local contemporary art accommodation, the Bonnefanten Museum, much more engrossing, I unfortunately also found it daunting. The fact that I hardly met any other visitors in either museum therefore did not strike me as odd. Several decades later my outlook on museums has changed completely. In the Netherlands, museum visit numbers have been increasing by double digit percentages year after year. This can be attributed partly to the streams of tourists that mainly visit the big cities. But the…

With a client list that includes the likes of Hermès, Comme Des Garçons, Balenciaga, Kenzo and Moschino, set designer Gary Card would be expected to head a team of at least 20. But lose the zero and you’re closer to the truth. And that’s exactly how the Bournemouth-born and London-bred creative likes it. ‘As much as I enjoy working on big productions, I still love making that crazy headpiece for FKA Twigs once in a while.’ Over the last 12 years, Card has brought his vivid, psychedelic and explosive style to everything from editorial productions and advertising campaigns to window displays, catwalk shows and exhibition scenography. He even designed a collection of toys, a.k.a. the Breakfast Boys. Your style is quite recognizable and outspoken. How do you balance that with…

‘It’s a big challenge to develop the appearance of a MINI – which is so defining and familiar around the world – in such a way that you retain the iconic element but always take a step into the future,’ said Oliver Heilmer, head of MINI Design, back in Frame 124 (2018). ‘It’s a fine balancing act.’ A balancing act that requires a lot of foresight, since the car you see on the shop floor most likely took a few years of development to get there. Each unique design evolves, step by step, from the first idea and sketch through to clay and CAD modelling – and then, of course, the end result. For the updated MINI Clubman series, which launched last summer, Heilmer and team paid loving attention to…

AMRITSAR The real intention behind the gallery-like store seems to be about inviting consumers to browse at their absolute leisure instead of experiencing the retail equivalent of fast-food takeaways. In short, such spaces are asking their customers to slow down. But where art galleries have the advantage of content that usually leads to contemplation, stores are another kettle of fish. While galleries can be white open rooms, the various works of art indicating the route through the space, some retailers are employing other strategies to decelerate shoppers. One such strategy is labyrinthine. Rather than being able to take in the entire room from the front door and potentially about-turning without further exploration, visitors are (subconsciously?) nudged down a complex path. In the city of Amritsar in northwest India, Studio Renesa…

In December 2019, The New York Times published an extraordinary story about the mountain village of Nagoro in southern Japan. Population decline had struck Nagoro so hard that its residents – fewer than 30 adults – began making life-size dolls to make Nagoro feel livelier. Fake school children, construction workers, a teacher in front of a class and a father with his kids could all be found out and about in the village during an annual festival; the article reported the dolls outnumber the town’s living residents by more than ten to one. This particular story is unique, but the population changes affecting Nagoro are not. In Japan and across the developed world is a whole collage of stories and reports on the emotional impacts of how we live today…

Museums have gone through a renaissance in the past few decades. With the dawn of the digital age, many expected these once august institutions to lose their relevance, but what we’ve in fact seen is record attendance across age groups and demographics. The modern museum is far more than a mausoleum to the past: it’s a conversation about the present and a crucible for the future, too. Many of the world’s most famous cultural institutions have roots in the great European nation-building endeavours of the 18th century, such as the British Museum (1759) and the Louvre (1793), designed as marble edifices to the hard power of the state, enshrining the spoils of colonialism and war. The modern museum wields a much softer but no less potent form of power, rebranding…

FLOOR STORY GIOVANNI The work of London-based illustrator, ceramicist and artist John Booth is definitively bold and cartoonish. Floor Story captures that lively style with Giovanni, a floor rug knotted by hand in Nepal from wool and viscose yarns that depicts a colourful man brought to life by Booth. Giovanni was announced as the winner of the Best Studio Artist Design accolade for the Carpet Design Awards at Domotex. floorstory.co.uk STEFANIE EICHLER AND JUNI NEYENHUYS HYDROWEAVE Cellulose yarn is woven into square modules that are joined together to form a spatial membrane to create Hydroweave. Developed by Stefanie Eichler and Juni Neyenhuys, students at the Weißensee School of Art and Design Berlin, the responsive textile utilizes the principle of hygroscopic movement – the swelling and shrinking of natural fibres. When…

I often wonder why Indonesia isn’t leading the way in sustainable design. I think about this as I wear a face mask to protect myself from the thick black smoke spewing out of scooters, cars and buses, as I pass a load of rubbish dumped into the island’s irrigative waterways, or when I pick up takeaway food contained in plastic packaging. Bali – and the extensive archipelago it belongs to – is rife with opportunities for improving tomorrow, both for its own residents and the global population. But in an era of vocational nomads, serious design professionals seem to be overlooking the chance to leave their desks behind for a first-hand lesson in what are all too mistakenly shrugged off as third-world concerns. There are plenty of ecoactivists to be…

MASAMICHI KATAYAMA: I grew up in the west of Japan, in the Okayama area – approximately three hours’ ride by Shinkansen [bullet train] from Tokyo. As a boy, I didn’t have much interest in furniture or spatial design; like everybody else, I was keen on becoming a baseball player. My father ran a furniture retail store, which we lived above. We were always surrounded by customers. I remember my father constantly rearranging furniture to make the place pleasant and fresh, and I was excited to see how vibrant a shop can become when filled with customers. That experience probably subconsciously shaped my definition of a good store. As I grew older and entered high school, I got into rock music and fashion, so naturally musicians and fashion designers were my…

BANGKOK The majority of today’s students are digital natives, but that doesn’t mean they source their information solely in the virtual sphere from the comfort of their couch. As our research into the renaissance of the library for Frame 127 brought forward, younger generations actually make up a significant part of library visitors today. So, the fear that the emergence of e-books and other digital media would render the typology obsolete proved unfounded. Today’s physical libraries are, however, adapting to the present. They do so by becoming more community-oriented and by strengthening their role in modern education. Desktops are thus complemented with 3D printers, and literacy lessons supplemented with Google sponsored coding courses. The university library, too, is safeguarding its role on campus through the expansion of its functions. And…

In the early months of a new decade, emerging constellations of signs and signifiers point to the hopes and fears of a new age. The nascent vectors of networked, digital technology in the early part of the 21st century have, at the start of the 2020s, become less of a novelty and more the central starting point for any serious appraisal of our cultural and economic moment. So, too, in spatial design, do we see the prevailing orthodoxy of post-industrialism informed by a reverie for 20th-century mechanized manual labour (cavernous warehouse spaces decorated with exposed pipework and rusting patinas of metal) give way to an aesthetic shaped instead by techno-scientific synthesis and automation. Increasingly complex and global information flows accelerate and transform the tools and procedures by which we manufacture…

*For locations outside the EU, a shipping surcharge applies. OUT NOW MOMENT Redefining the Brand Experience Tokyo-based design firm MOMENT’s book of the same name highlights a versatile and skillful visual approach, focusing on detail-oriented spatial branding and lighting design for interior solutions that are both functionally and emotionally driven. €39 HYBRID FOOD RETAIL Rethinking Design for the Experiential Turn This handbook prescribes hybridization – a fusion of, gastronomy, co-working, hospitality and performative formats – as a powerful remedy against digital disruption. €29 THE THEATRE OF WORK Clive Wilkinson This book proposes six humanistic principles that will inform a holistic and collaborative workplace design – each demonstrated by the award-winning work of Clive Wilkinson Architects. €39 WE BUILD DRAWINGS Mikkel Frost | CEBRA architecture In an age of computer-generated images,…

01 CONNECT TO THE ELEMENTS Institutions that are in synergy with nature are a powerful draw. With cultural flashpoints from Greta Thunberg to the Australian wildfires keeping the environment high on the agenda, it’s something that institutions need to start taking seriously. 02 THINK CROSS-CULTURALLY The idea of ‘soft power’ has gained momentum in the 21st century, looking at the ways in which countries can forge bonds or compete through cultural projects. Museums have become key players in this world, with each new project encoding complex geopolitical relations. 03 PRIORITIZE INCLUSIVITY There’s a delicate balance to strike between facilitating the artistic vision of an exhibition and ensuring that it’s accessible to as wide a range of the population as possible. Where there’s an irresolvable conflict between the creativity of a…

Like many cities, Tel Aviv is captive to its historical legacy. In 2003, UNESCO declared a part of the inner city, the White City, as a Unique World Heritage Site of the Modern Movement for its unparalleled concentration of International Style buildings. Curved balconies, raised pilotis and a lack of ornament characterized this construction style, which was very much style-less. Functionalist and optimistic, it brought to the Mediterranean a dose of European idealism. Imported to Palestine by immigrants who fled Nazi Germany in 1933 (many of them from the Bauhaus school in Dessau, which closed that year), the so-called White City was built, literally, with means salvaged from Germany: not currency, but actual construction materials such as tiles and brick, transported to Palestine as part of a vast property exchange…

Trained at the Autonomous University of Yucatán in Mexico, Mariana Ordóñez Grajales started Comunal in 2015, but it wasn’t until 2017 that her current partner Jesica Amescua Carrera joined. They met while teaching as part of a workshop on Regenerative Architecture at the Universidad Iberoamericana, led by colleague and mutual friend Juan Casillas. During their first joint project – the Rural Productive School, a prime example of the studio’s participatory design approach – they hit it off and have been allies ever since. ‘It was pure magic!’ says Ordóñez Grajales. ‘I had previously tried to find an associate, but was never able to find someone with the same visions and goals. I believe much of the success of our alliance is the horizontal relationship. That would never have been possible…

Cosmetics with the allure of candy DAMIEN ZHONG: When I first considered entering the cosmetics industry, I was certain that I didn’t want to give my brand a name that was too predictable or had anything to do with makeup. I love eating prune-flavoured gumdrops, a traditional snack that’s really popular in China. We call them hua mei tang – they’re tangy, sour and sweet all at the same time. I thought it would be a fitting name for my brand because makeup products are slightly reminiscent of candy, both in the way they’re packaged as well as in the way we savour them – a little bit at a time. Harmay is just a loose English phoneticization of hua mei. I hope that when customers visit one of our…

SHENZHEN Windowless retail is on the rise as storefronts are losing their role as a key merchandising tool. Traditionally used to communicate brand identity, enable product discovery and draw in passing customers, window displays now have to compete with a myriad of handheld and wearable devices. That doesn’t mean retailers are surrendering to the screen. They are well aware of the fact that social media drives sales, and to benefit from that, their stores should facilitate online sharing. With retailers adopting inward facing strategies, the battle for customer attention is moving from the street side to the inside. Here, shopkeepers are creating engaging environments that not only offer visitors an exciting offline experience, but also fill the role of Instagram bait. In these retail theatres, the fitting room, to an…

Recognizing that banks not only provide a public service but are also a place of work, architects and designers are challenging their impenetrable roots and instead prioritizing openness, community and wellness. ING, the Netherlands’ largest bank, recently gave 2,800 of its employees a new home in Amsterdam. Known as Cedar, the five-storey building was designed by Benthem Crouwel Architects and Hofman-Dujardin as more than a bank – or even an office. Instead, it is a manifestation of the brand’s purpose to ‘empower people in a building that opens itself up to society’. Cedar’s glazed, curved form connects with its surroundings to become part of the urban space within Cumulus Park, a so-called ‘innovation district’ initiated by ING that has now gained support from the Municipality of Amsterdam and a number…

BEIJING They’ve created a buzz in a way that no other brand has done before – a reason for people to get off the couch and visit a sunglasses store. So said Tim Rupp, design director of retail environments for Nike, during last year’s Frame Awards deliberations. The London outpost was up for Single-Brand Store of the Year, an award it eventually took home. Eventually being the operative word, since there was a crumb of criticism prior to the final decision. Namely, that this store wasn’t quite as extreme or immersive as ome of its predecessors. Basically, Gentle Monster’s biggest competition was its existing portfolio. The brand is no longer just one to watch – it’s a force to be reckoned with. Glasses aside, it’s amassed a string of destination…

Your proposal for ‘The Challenge’ is a continuation of your graduation project from DAE… LC: Yes. Through the Emoji Looking Glass developed from the realization that although emoji and museum collections seem to exist in different worlds, they’re actually very similar in some ways. Think about who gets to decide what is included and excluded, for instance, and how these decisions shape our broader culture. I decided to develop an augmented tour that merges classical art and objects with the contemporary symbolism of emojis – imagine it as an extension of a traditional audio tour, but instead of an audio guide you use your smartphone to obtain an audio-visual reading of the work. Bringing these seemingly disparate things into conversation highlights hidden or unacknowledged narratives, and reveals how visual symbols…