Содержание выпуска: May - June 2018 — Frame

ACCORDING TO Italian chef Alessandro Borghese, cooking is the new rock’n’roll. He believes an accomplished performance is essential to success in both the culinary and the music industries. In his line of work, moreover, he knows that an accomplished performance is not limited to the preparation of food. ‘The restaurant and what goes into it need to reflect the high standards of the cuisine,’ he says. His words underline the proportionate balance between the meticulous design of his restaurant and the exquisitely prepared dishes he serves. A good example of the harmony he creates is evident in Borghese’s latest restaurant, which opened its doors in Milan last year. The interior of Il Lusso della Semplicità (Italian for ‘the luxury of simplicity’) features a wide variety of sintered surfaces in marble,…

‘THE SHOWROOM is no longer an environment used only to display products, but a place that embodies a brand’s personality and values,’ says Francesco Scanu, architect and partner at Area-17. ‘It is a powerful means to engage clients in a long-term relationship – more personal than commercial.’ Tasked with the revamp of the Iris Ceramica and FMG Fabbrica Marmi e Graniti showroom in Fiorano Modenese, Italy, the Florence-based architecture and interior-design firm created a space that supports social interaction while showcasing the potential of both brands’ products. Scanu and fellow Area-17 partner Federico Gigetti offer an in-depth explanation of the project. What was Iris Ceramica Group looking for when you were asked to redesign its showroom? FRANCESCO SCANU: A space in which to house two of the company’s brands: Iris…

AT FIRST, it’s raining all around. The walls have darkened under a percussive rain that lashes the air, courses down windowpanes and forms puddles on a nearby table. Suddenly, the water hardens into an icy armature; you can hear the squeaking tug of the contraction as it freezes over glass, encloses you, cracks. As shards of ice fall away amid the tinkle of broken glass, windows turn back into walls and you find yourself inside the Roca Gallery in Barcelona, where the weather outside is fine. Barcelona was the first of six, soon to be seven, international Galleries opened by Spanish bathroom brand Roca since 2009. Roca Galleries are a fresh approach to the showroom format, combining culture with commerce in highly adaptable spaces made by celebrated local architects and…

WE FIRST ENCOUNTERED X+Living’s otherworldly interiors in 2016, when a spectacle of shape, colour and light appeared in the form of Zhongshuge bookstore in Hangzhou (Frame 112, p. 142). This was a place that screamed print is not dead! It turned the humble bookshop into a destination – a place you’d be eager to visit regardless of what it sells. Since then, X+Living – founded in Shanghai by Li Xiang – has delivered a string of similarly striking spaces; more whimsical bookstores for Frame Awards Client of the Year Zhongshuge (see p. 106), a female-focused department store, and a carnivalesque café where children play while parents dine are among them. Proving herself to be no one-trick pony, Xiang gives each project its own signature by approaching it from a consumer’s…

LONDON / TOKYO – The jury was deadlocked when faced with the nominees for Single-Brand Store of the Year. The only solution? A tie. The accolade is shared by India Mahdavi’s Red Valentino boutique in London’s Sloane Street and L’Officine Universelle Buly’s first Tokyo store, a project by owner Ramdane Touhami. Jury members praised Mahdavi’s ‘clarity of design’, as well as her store’s ‘timeless and fresh’ aesthetic. Velvet and other plush materials play a leading role in the Paris-based designer’s evocation of a dreamlike state of mind, complete with full-moon mirrors. Using softness and sweetness as keywords, Mahdavi paints a theatrical picture of the Red Valentino muse as romantic, feminine and eccentric. Surrealism led the way in Touhami’s winning project, noted for its ‘boldness, craftsmanship and community-creating approach’. To portray…

LONDON – YourStudio’s étalage for London’s Topshop marked the launch of the brand’s summer swimwear campaign. Providing what the jury called a ‘strong engaging experience’ and a ‘blend of showroom and window’, Topshop Splash responded to customer insights gathered by the designers prior to starting the project. Data revealed that more than ever before, Topshop’s clientele are prioritizing experiences over transactions. The journey began with a swimming-pool scene in the shop windows, an effect created with moulded resin sheets that, when teamed with lighting, appeared to sparkle like water on a sunny day. The theme continued in-store, with a 65-m-long water slide snaking its way through merchandise before terminating at the window display. Programmable LEDs along the tunnel’s length mimicked running water and simulated the slide in use, while the…

RIO DE JANEIRO – ‘Local’ is the word on everyone’s lips when it comes to today’s trailblazing hospitality venues, so it’s no surprise that the winning hotel – Emiliano by Studio Arthur Casas with Oppenheim Architecture in Rio de Janeiro – plays to its Brazilian backdrop. What the jury described as a ‘strong Brazilian identity’ shines both outside and in, from the façade’s customized skinlike surface – a perforated motif that’s typical of the nation’s architecture – to an interior steeped in Brazilian modernism. Jury members also complimented the ‘integration of architecture, interiors and furniture’. Studio Arthur Casas based Emiliano Hotel’s spaces on a work of art by Roberto Burle Marx that hangs in the lobby and furnished them with pieces by notable Brazilian designers from past and present; a…

VERBANIA – Cooking classes are rarely found in elementary schools, but cooking is a subject that’s taken quite seriously at the Maria Peron School in Verbania, a village at the foot of the Italian Alps, northwest of Milan. Francesco Bombardi’s ‘cooking lab’ for kids is equipped with every safety measure imaginable, because open fire and many kitchen appliances pose a danger to small children. The Italian architect provided LABolla with an electric mill, a thermoformer, fermentation cells, a hydroponic garden, a distiller and digital devices – all of which can be used to teach pupils everything they need to know about cultivating vegetables and using them in the preparation of food. Bombardi believes it’s important to teach children to grow and cook vegetables. ‘Kitchens are amazing labs, suitable for every…

MEXICO CITY – Annual Arca was originally on show at Expo CIHAC in Mexico City, the Latin American construction industry’s largest fair. The project saw ten prominent Mexican architects and designers – Héctor Esrawe, Manuel Cervantes, Mauricio Rocha, Javier Sánchez, Javier Claverie, Rafael Rivera, Jorge Arvizu, Ignacio Del Río, Emmanuel Ramírez and Diego Ricalde – unite to explore the origins of marble. At the beginning of 2017, the team travelled to central Italy to visit Carrara, a city known for its white and blue-grey marble. The aim was to learn about the heritage and processes surrounding the ubiquitous material before translating that knowledge into a trade-fair stand for the group’s clients, Mármoles Arca and The Woodshop. ‘The clients gave us complete freedom in developing the stand,’ says Esrawe, director of…

DORNBIRN – The Dornbirn exhibition centre rose to the west of the small Austrian city in the mid-1970s. When the time came to give the buildings a makeover, Dietrich Untertrifaller Architects began by designing a master plan. The next step was a competition for the renovation of four exhibition halls on the west side of the central axis. The proposal selected was submitted by Marte. Marte Architects. In their design, brothers Bernhard and Stefan Marte united the four buildings by filling the open spaces between them with new reception areas and circulation systems. The result was a single huge building 170 m long and nearly 70 m wide – covered in black corrugated panelling. New entrances between the existing halls are marked by enormous elliptical openings that reveal a monochromatic…

TOKYO – ‘Great storytelling and excellent use of technology’, the jury said of Tabegami Sama, a temporary exhibition about Japan’s food culture that occupied an abandoned building in Tokyo business district Nihonbashi. Together with Sony Music Communications Japan, Moment Factory designed and executed four installations that told the story of washoku, which means ‘food of Japan’. The Valley invited visitors to explore the environment where rice grows. In this exhibition space, visitors interacted with natural elements while searching for Uka, a fox hiding within the landscape. The 4 Ways installation focused on four ways to prepare food: boiling, grilling, steaming and frying. Each method was represented by a geometric shape that responded to visitors’ body movements. Sanctuary highlighted the essential ingredients of Japanese cuisine, such as sake, dashi and fermented…

CAPE TOWN – Innovation can be manifested spatially, technically, visually, socially – and the list goes on. The Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town, South Africa, exhibits several types of innovation. Housed in a former silo, the museum is the result of a collaboration between German entrepreneur Jochen Zeitz and the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, a private company that redeveloped Cape Town’s harbour area into the commercially successful destination it is today. The nearly 80-year-old grain silo that dominates the area had been in disuse since 2001, but a clear-cut occasion for repurposing the building was a long time coming, owing to its enormous size and complex construction. The situation changed when Zeitz – an ardent collector of African art – and V&A joined forces…

Why did you decide to focus on the topic of co-living at Ikea’s future-living lab, Space10? CARLA CAMMILLA HJORT: Research shows that that by 2030 nearly 70 per cent of the global population will live in urban areas, while almost two billion people won’t have access to adequate and affordable housing. Ikea could play a key role in the design of high-quality, sustainable, affordable homes. Co-living spaces are a potential solution to today’s rapid urbanization. For Ikea’s One Shared House 2030 project, we set out to gain an insight into people’s ideas on co-living. Do they want to live together? What are they willing to share – and what not? Ultimately, such information can help us make better design decisions when it comes to creating the shared living spaces of…

JULICA MORLOK VIRTUAL MATERIALITY Julica Morlok’s anthropomorphic Virtual Materiality series confronts the thoughtless relationship we’ve adopted with the chairs and sofas we use every day. To achieve a skinlike feel, the designer covered foam structures with a translucent stretch latex. Responding with anything from fascination to repulsion, visitors are invited to reconsider their interactions with the seating objects – and with chairs in general. julicamorlok.com MIRJAM DE BRUIJN ASANA Many people are drawn to the flexibility and facilities offered by co-working spaces. Such environments, however, rarely address the health issues caused by sedentary office jobs. Asana, a series of tools developed by Mirjam de Bruijn, is designed to prevent and alleviate these problems by improving posture, strengthening muscles and stimulating blood flow. mirjamdebruijn.com HAWORTHFERN Understanding that no two bodies are…

For professionals with a poor balance between ‘at work’ and ‘at home’, leisure time is becoming a luxury. As a result, more and more business hotels are wearing the trappings of domesticity, while private residences – and the occasional office – are starting to adopt the amenities of a hotel. In response to such developments, furniture manufacturers are integrating ideas borrowed from the hospitality scene into seating based on the kind of comfort provided by posh hotel lobbies.…

Originally from the UK, JANE SZITA is a journalist, writer and editor who has lived in Amsterdam since arriving in the city to work for Electric Word magazine, the forerunner of Wired. Focusing on the world of culture in its broadest sense, she covers design, art, architecture, travel, science, technology and more – for a wide variety of media, with credits in such prestigious publications as The Sunday Times, Vogue UK, Conde Nast Traveller, Wired, Dwell and Travel & Leisure. Szita has written and edited several books, among which Malkit Shoshan’s award-winning Atlas of the Conflict. She is the cofounder of creative collective Creatures of Content. For this issue, she interviewed Muuto's CEO and head of design (see page 188). Based in Amsterdam, DAVID KEUNING obtained an MSc in architecture…

FASHION – The worlds of fashion and (interior) architecture regularly collide on the pages of Frame. From retail environments and catwalk configurations to the occasional branded exhibition, today’s spatial designs are often the work of established designers and architects. The clothes that form the focal point of such settings are rarely ‘touched’, however, by anyone other than the high-fashion couturiers who are, in turn, increasingly applying building techniques and industrial materials to the garments they ‘construct’. Iris van Herpen, for example, uses a 3D printer to make dresses, while aerospace materials currently inform performance wear. Perhaps the biggest advocate of a more cross-disciplinary approach to fashion is Italian label PRADA, whose go-to guy is none other than architect REM KOOLHAAS, cofounder of OMA. Previous commissions by Koolhaas and OMA for…

What were your first thoughts when given the theme Design for Future Tourism? GIACOMO ARDESIO: The sharing economy has impacted the tourism industry radically. Airbnb, the most popular home-sharing platform, is present in more than 200 cities worldwide and has roughly 150 million users. Since it began in 2008, during the financial crisis, the platform has disrupted the hospitality industry, transforming underused apartments into global – somewhat diffused – hotels. So what do you and your team suggest? We’re proposing a strategy to enhance tourism on home-sharing platforms by inserting a series of one-of-a-kind artefacts. These elements would counteract the homogenization of interiors – a phenomenon defined by journalist Kyle Chayka as ‘AirSpace’ – that’s being fostered by the sharing economy. Our interventions are not merely functional. They provide infrastructure…

NAOTO NAOTO FUKASAWA: ‘In 1989 I left Japan for the United States, after working as an in-house designer for Seiko Epson. I was attracted by the working environment of ID TWO (now IDEO), a design company in San Francisco that I first read about in a magazine. The firm was very progressive. In the 1980s, it was already involved in interaction design and had engineers and designers working hand in hand. Their office was really impressive. I’m convinced that good working environments play a significant role in producing beautiful items. Nowadays, many companies embrace this approach and make sure their offices are attractive, but in the ’80s that was rare.’ ‘Back then, it was a revelation to discover that the project comes first and that a staff of designers would…

IT MAY SOUND CONTRADICTORY, but Amsterdam-based architecture firm Space Encounters first caught Frame’s attention with the Boring Collection, presented at Milan Design Week 2016. Developed for furniture brand Lensvelt, the archetypal pieces that make up Boring are intended to claim no attention at all, but to ‘draw the eye to the thing that actually matters: office life itself’. Since the confrontation in Milan, the outfit’s portfolio has continued to grow – as evidenced by both residential and commercial interiors – but it’s still Space Encounters’ office designs that keep us coming back for more. Rethinking the workplace landscape in a myriad of ways, partners Gijs Baks, Stijn de Weerd, Joost Baks and Remi Versteeg have churned out awe-inspiring projects such as a plant-infused office-cum-showroom for pushchair brand Joolz (Frame 117,…

GENEVA – It may be an overused term, but ‘innovative’ does describe a forward-thinking approach – which is why it was one of the criteria for the Frame Award nominees. The Hospitality jury found what they were looking for in Shelter, an inflatable bar by Daniel Zamarbide of Bureau, together with Leopold Banchini. ‘Fresh and new’, remarked the panel. The pop-up (or in this case ‘blow-up’) phenomenon is nothing new, of course, as proved by a spate of temporary restaurants, shops and the like that have cropped up across the globe in recent years. Creating a temporary environment to house an event – which is already an ephemeral occasion – is almost a no-brainer. Not only does it fit the concept; in some cases it can actually heighten it. Through…

MONTREAL – Lightspeed’s Montreal workspace marries old and new – a reference to both its location in a 19th-century railway hotel and its inhabitants, a thriving tech business. After designing the first phase of the software company’s headquarters, ACDF Architecture was called in to realize a new home for the product-development teams. The jury remarked that ‘the concept is crystal clear and applied well throughout the project’. That concept involves the definition of team zones within an open-plan layout by means of shadow-like shards of colour that spread over walls and floor. Within its designated area, a group has its own desks, meeting room and socializing space. The designers refer to the result as an ‘archipelago that encourages gatherings to take place in between spaces, while the surrounding pastel walls…

OLDHAM – Architect Alex de Rijke of DRMM lost his girlfriend, Lucy Steed-Fassett, to cancer. Her death is one reason why his design for Maggie’s Centre in Oldham, a town in Greater Manchester, England, is near to his heart. ‘In hospital architecture, where clinical, institutionalized environments and management procedures can make patients feel dispirited and disempowered,’ he says, ‘cancer patients feel desperate and therefore hand over control of their lives too easily to medical processes. Their time is precious, yet huge amounts are wasted waiting hours in hospitals, on steel and plastic furniture in rooms without daylight, contemplating vending machines and mortality.’ De Rijke took a radically different approach to Maggie’s Centre Oldham. The homelike building, which resembles a modernist villa, is an ‘engineered timber and glass construction’ that features…

ALKMAAR – ‘Simple dramatic theatre’ is what the jury had to say about Master of Light, a temporary exhibition of Emanuel de Witte’s work at Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar in the Netherlands. Studio OTW conceptualized the space around De Witte’s passion for painting church interiors and his focus on the warmth and animation of light. Crafting an abstract chapel inside the museum gallery, Studio OTW gave illumination the principal role. Grouped together on walls, De Witte’s works were displayed beneath light projections masquerading as church windows. Theatermachine brought the illusion to life, producing a 30-minute projection loop that played out across the gallery floor. Tree branches appeared to sway in an imaginary wind, and clouds momentarily obscured ‘daylight’. As time passed, shadows stretched out as if the sun was beginning to…

SHANGHAI – Jian Li Ju Theatre is not your everyday playhouse. Visitors to the Shanghai venue are also the performers. Prior to the show, they’re given a time, a location and a number. After entering the building, they descend a dark stairwell to the basement and take a seat in a white waiting room lined with benches. When numbers appear on the floor in front of the dressing rooms facing them, each ‘actor’ goes into the room indicated by his or her number, dons the costume hanging there, and proceeds to a blue antechamber for stage instructions. After the performance, the actors depart through a hall of mirrors. More Design Office took the cinematographic expression of film noir as its point of departure. The sequence of monochromatic spaces features a…

TAIPEI – Taiwanese property developer Jut Group asked MVRDV to design the interior of the auditorium that serves its head office in Taipei. It was not the first collaboration between the two parties. Some ten years ago, the architects realized a temporary Museum of Tomorrow for the Jut Foundation for Arts and Architecture, a cultural institute affiliated with the property developer. The 2017 project saw Argentinian textile artist Alexandra Kehayoglou cover the walls and floors of the 240-m2 auditorium with a work made from green yarn. The piece is the result of a laborious hand-tufting process that successfully mimics elements of nature, such as grass and moss. It took Kehayoglou over a year to complete. She used remnants from her family’s carpet factory in Buenos Aires. MVRDV cofounder Winy Maas…

TORONTO – Homeless youth are a vulnerable group, especially in big cities. In Toronto, youth organization Eva’s set up a housing project for people from 16 to 24 years of age. Called Eva’s Phoenix, it offers homeless youngsters a place to live for a year. The project at 60 Brant Street is the work of LGA Architectural Partners, which renovated two listed buildings from the 1930s. The architects lined both sides of an interior street – covered in a glazed roof that provides the space with daylight – with ten townhouses that accommodate a total of 50 residents. Each townhouse consists of a communal living and kitchen area on the ground floor and five brightly coloured private bedrooms on the floor above, as well as two shared bathrooms. The interior…

INTERFACE HUMAN CONNECTIONS COLLECTION Biophilia – an innate love for the natural world – can be hard to grasp within an urban environment filled with technology and industrial architecture. Carpet-tile brand Interface harnesses this fundamental relationship through sustainable flooring inspired by the outdoors. David Oakey’s Human Connections Collection, for example, resembles urban meeting places. interface.com THE NEW RAW XXX BENCH The New Raw employs 3D printing to shorten material cycles, creating sustainable and locally produced public furniture. The XXX bench is generated from plastic waste sourced from households in the Dutch city of Amsterdam. According to the studio, 125 kg of CO2 emissions and 100 litres of oil are saved by using recycled rather than new plastic. thenewraw.org WILKHAHN PRINTSTOOL ONE Delving into both sustainability and wellbeing, Wilkhahn manufactures furniture…

As an artist, you use audiovisual installations to investigate human behaviour and perception. What’s the backstory? NICK VERSTAND: I’ve moved in a variety of scenes. I was trained as a musician before getting into art and design. Currently, I’m creating environments in which people get together and forget for a moment that they normally inhabit other worlds. It’s all about breaking social boundaries. That’s the ‘human behaviour’ side of my work. The perception side has to do with a personal exploration of my senses and how they work. How do I perceive light, space and sound? I want to make others aware of sensory experiences. Light is a medium found in much of your work. Why are you so interested in light? Because light has a quality that’s both immaterial…

What tendencies do you see in the outdoor-furniture sector? ANTONIO NAVARRO: A few years ago, outdoor furniture was synonymous with camping equipment or urban street furniture. It had few similarities with the more sophisticated furniture designed for indoor use. Today, differences between the two are decreasing. Clients ask for comfort and good looks in both indoor and outdoor furniture. Manufacturers, including Kettal, need to address their requests by developing new products and fabrics suitable for the outdoors but reminiscent of home furnishings. How does your Cala range reflect the current market demand? It’s a clear example. The classic 1970s Emmanuelle armchair, which inspired Doshi Levien’s design for the first Cala product, was initially made of natural fibres [rattan], which are beautiful but not resistant to all weather conditions. In developing…

SURFACES – From fake leather with the look and feel of real animal skin to laminates that resemble hardwood and quarried stone, man-made simulations of natural materials are everywhere. Scarcity, moral issues and costs are behind the production of sustainable and convincing alternatives that are used for a plethora of purposes. Most counterfeits are out to mimic an original material in detail, but – in the same way that many people question the paradoxical concept of ‘vegetarian meat’ – it’s fair to ask why newly developed synthetic substitutes aimed at product and interior design would want to mock what’s already on the market. A new generation of designers is playing with consumers’ perceptions and expectations of materials whose surfaces have the visual features of one thing and the physical characteristics…

What motivated your approach to the topic of future tourism? BAS VAN DE POEL: I wanted to spark a conversation about the large-scale surveillance and data collection practised by corporations and governments today, and about how such activities could soon involve a Global Citizen Score – a universal system that rates an individual’s worthiness – which could affect everything from getting a loan to crossing a country’s border. Can you describe what a visitor will experience when passing through Border Control 2030? I’ve collaborated with Studio Brasch to design a beautiful and welcoming spatial experience. Currently, entering a foreign country is often an unwelcoming process. After a tiring journey, travellers need to stand in line for a long time at the border – usually in a poorly designed environment –…

What do you think future tourists will be looking for? ERIKA MARTHINS: They’ll want new types of experiences. Today we store most of our lives in the cloud as digital memories. We no longer choose which memories to save; we save everything, simply because it’s possible. In the future we’ll store not only images and sounds but also flavours and smells. What if we could feel and taste our past as well? Which is where your concept comes in … Yes, I propose the idea of eating our memories. Memory Pearl is an immersive multisensorial experience that engages all of the user’s senses. Can you describe an encounter with Memory Pearl? Imagine a personalized restaurant that serves up your own memories. It would be an individualized interactive event that allows…

IT WAS 2013. Online shopping was still launching an attack on bricks-and-mortar retail. Priorities were changing. With an endless stream of social media in the palm of your hand, who had time to read an e-book, let alone a physical one? Despite this shaky scenario, teacher-turned-publisher Jin Hao decided to replace his 20 small outlets in Shanghai with a pièce de résistance. He opened the first spectacular Zhongshuge bookstore in 2013. Yes, the new establishment sold books, but Hao wanted it to be so much more. Together with Frame Awards Designer of the Year X+Living (see p. 102), he envisioned the emporium as an art gallery – one in which the atmosphere is as exhilarating as the content. Overturning stereotypes critical of bookstores, Zhongshuge – now a chain of destinations…

AMSTERDAM – Noman Studio’s candy-coloured pop-up shop took the top spot in its retail category. Introduced in the Dutch city of Amsterdam, the project for Esprit x Opening Ceremony offers a new spin on flat-packed furniture. The Dutch designers folded sheets of Pyrasied Xtreme Acrylic – think origami – and cut out strips, squares and rectangles to make displays that provide a variety of presentation options. The jury first commented on the project’s ‘cleanness’, an attribute bolstered largely by the use of one main material. Other high points included its ‘modularity’, the fact that it’s ‘easy to mount’ (a definite bonus for a pop-up shop) and the design’s production process, which generated little waste. The store was described as ‘subtle yet present’, a quality the designers had in mind during…

MILAN – ‘It takes the ideas beyond the typical gym,’ expressed the jury when justifying the choice of Ceresio 7 as Health Club of the Year. Indeed, the project – which includes a spa and treatment rooms – is not your average sweat centre. No tired exercise equipment crammed together like cans on a supermarket shelf. No mirror-clad walls to please the iron-pumping parade. Storage Associati’s pared-back approach to the space – an addition to fashion brand Dsquared2’s Milanese headquarters – produced an alliance of brutalism and luxury. Concealing all mechanical systems, the designers removed non-loadbearing walls to achieve a sense of spaciousness. Into this cavern they introduced materials such as Ceppo Lombardo stone, black rubber flooring and teal-tinted glass. All furniture – lamps, desks, chairs, benches – is custom-made,…

PITTSBURGH – Assembly Design Studio cottoned on to a growing trend in office design – and jury members tasked with the work category approved: ‘There’s transparency between departments. You sit at your desk and see the product. It’s visually inclusive.’ The project is Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group (ATG) Center in Pittsburgh, a lab-like environment in which the transportation network company researches and develops its ideas. The jury was drawn to both the idea of transparency and the realization of the concept, emphasizing that ‘the lamination of views plays well with the art’. Also highlighted was the ‘choice of materials’, as well as the ‘combination of warmth and high-end design’. Using the location – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, aka Steel City – as inspiration, Assembly complemented the stark white showroom space with industrial-look…

SHANGHAI – Built in the 1930s, the Shanghai Theatre became state property in 1958, when it was placed under the cultural administration of the city’s Xuhui district. The building went on to fulfil various functions, including that of a supermarket, before closing its doors in 2011. Last year Chinese architecture firm Neri&Hu converted it once again, returning the building – still in the hands of the government – to its original role. The architects left the large auditorium intact but gave the entrance area a brand-new appearance. Lyndon Neri and Rosanna Hu’s dramatic design begins with a façade that folds inward, contributing to a public area that connects the street with the foyer. Overhead is a massive stone-clad volume that offers shelter to visitors entering the foyer – a high,…

LONDON – Ugly Lies the Bone, a play by Lindsey Ferrentino shown at the National Theatre’s Lyttelton in London, was current in both content and execution. The play centres on a US war veteran who returns from Afghanistan with debilitating burns and undergoes virtual-reality therapy. Set-design extraordinaire Es Devlin transformed the tale into a bowl-shaped stage, which served as both the protagonist’s escape and her prison. Scenes switched between the epic imagery unfolding within her headset and the claustrophobic reality of domestic life. The jury complimented Devlin’s ‘combination of real and virtual sets to create a holistic seamless performance’. Members called the concept ‘smart and innovative: a contemporary vision with layers of narrative’. esdevlin.com…

SINGAPORE – After Singaporean studio Produce designed a shop-in-shop for furniture manufacturer Herman Miller in 2012 – an outlet in interior-concept store Xtra – both Xtra and the Herman Miller shop moved to a new location. Once more, Produce stepped in to create a new interior for the latter, this time on Singapore’s Marina Square. Here, too, Produce dipped into the archives of the American maker of office furniture and home furnishings. The search revealed two core elements: Eames moulded-plywood chairs and ergonomic office chairs that adapt to the form of the human body. With these pieces in mind, Produce studied how tailors use tapered tucks – or darts – to shape a garment to the curves of their clients. The designers applied the technique to the perforated plywood framework…

What led to the establishment of research lab Forces for Architecture? JÓLAN VAN DER WIEL: We got to talking at an exhibition where I was presenting my magnetically formed stools. In the Gravity Series, I ‘manipulate’ the phenomenon of gravity. MARTEN WASSMANN (Benthem Crouwel Architects): Together we set up a lab and called it Forces for Architecture. We wanted to explore the feasibility of having natural forces contribute to buildings ordinarily designed to protect us from the forces of nature. Instead of resisting such forces, would it be possible to use them to our advantage in interactive architecture? What goes on in your lab? JW: We began by studying nature’s forces very analytically. We used our findings to create materials. We took a very interdisciplinary approach, collaborating with a scientist,…

Modularity has become a buzzword of modern design. Today’s spaces have to respond and adapt to the needs of their users, while accommodating a variety of activities. Furnishings are an important tool in achieving this goal. Easy to move and to assemble, changeable in shape, today’s multipurpose furniture is the epitome of functionality and flexibility.…