Books: Alexander Girard by Oldham & Coffee

Renowned designer Todd Oldham and writer Kiera Coffee have created this massive monograph on seminal designer Alexander Girard as the ultimate tribute to this design icon.

This 672-page book covers virtually every aspect of Girard’s distinctive career. As one of the most prolific and versatile mid-20th century designers, Girard’s work spanned many disciplines, including textile design, graphic design, typography, illustration, furniture design, interior design, product design, exhibit design, and architecture. Exhaustively researched and lovingly assembled by designer Todd Oldham, this tome is the definitive must-have book on Girard’s oeuvre.

Girard’s repertoire includes an incredible list of projects, including his bold, colorful, and iconic textile designs for Herman Miller (1952- 1975), his typographic designs for La Fonda del Sol restaurant (1960), his celebrated retail store Textiles and Objects (1961), his own Girard Foundation (1962) that houses his own extensive, personal collection of folk art from around the world, and his complete branding and environmental design for Braniff International Airways (1965).

Alexander Girard, by Todd Oldham & Kiera Coffee, Published by Ammo Books, ISBN: 9781934429846, 16 x 12 inches, 672 pages.
Buy it here: Amazon

The Zoo by Jaime Hayon for Baccarat

“The Baccarat Zoo reinvents the art of collecting animals while giving them a real function. Receptacle or Art Toy, every character exudes its optimistic narrative strength, full of magic and imagination.”
– Jaime Hayon

The Zoo , by Jaime Hayon, for Baccarat

Alvar Aalto: In the Master’s Home

NOWNESS invited Finland’s top contemporary design talent to showcase their work in the home of the country’s greatest most celebrated aesthete, Alvar Aalto. Today preserved as an atmospheric museum, the Alvar Aalto house, which was the architect’s domicile and studio from 1936 until his death, is an intimate memorial to the modernist master. The clean lines, functionality and unpretentious nature of classic Finnish design pioneered by Aalto, Ilmari Tapiovaara and Kaj Franck still permeates much of the work by the discipline’s current stars. Here we select our top Finnish designers for further scrutiny.

Jussi Takkinen “Untitled” folding chair and “Osio” wall clock, Matti Syrjälä “Riuku” stool and “Loiste” storm lantern, Hannu Kähönen “Kapeneva” bench, Ville Kokkonen “White 4″ table lamp, Ilkka Suppanen “Kaasa” lantern, Klaus Haapaniemi “Rabbit Throw”, Marko Nenonen “Lounge Chair”, Harri Koskinen “Remain in Light”

Alvar Aalto: In the Master’s Home, via: NOWNESS

BE Light by QisDesign

The BE Light, is an LED desk lamp that folds and sports a unique articulated design. With its clever hinge design, it can be fully extended to a height of 33.4 cm, and an angle of up to 135 degrees. It also provides adequate task lighting with white LED. When not in use, it can be folded down flat to a minimum height of 1.8 cm, taking up the least amount of space on a desk.

BE Light, LED Task Lamp, by QisDesign

Pitched Roof House by Chenchow Little

The Pitched Roof House evolved from a strict interpretation of planning codes that require new houses to have pitched roofs. The new house reinterprets the traditional pitched room. Unlike a traditional pitched roof, the triangles not only pitch up, but also invert to form a faceted roof plane. The triangular geometry of the roof is continued down onto the facades of the house, and became the basis for articulating openings. The variability of the triangular geometry gave us the freedom to push and pull the building form as required to suit the brief of the client, the local town planning codes, the scale of the neighbouring roofs, and the requirement for solar access to the living rooms. The living rooms are located on the top floor to take advantage of the sculptural roof plane, the views across Sydney harbour, and sunlight. Bedrooms are located on the lower levels were outlook and solar access are compromised by neighbouring houses.

Pitched Roof House by Chenchow Little, Sydney, Australia, Photography by John Gollings, Via: archdaily

Primer V2 by Masahiko Yamaguchi

Japanese roboticist Masahiko Yamaguchi has designed a robot capable of riding a fixed gear bicycle without brakes.

Primer V2, by Masahiko Yamaguchi

Cascading Creek House by Bercy Chen Studio

Cascading Creek House was conceived less as a house and more as an outgrowth of the limestone aquifers of the Central Texas geography. The roof is configured so as to create a natural basin for the collection of rainwater, not unlike the vernal pools found in the outcroppings of the Texas Hill Country. These basins harness additional natural flows through the use of photovoltaic and solar hot-water panels. The water,electricity and heat which are harvested on the roof tie into an extensive climate conditioning system which utilizes water source heat pumps and radiant loops to supply both the heating and cooling for the residence. The climate system is connected to geothermal ground loops as well as pools and water features thereby establishing a system of heat exchange which minimizes reliance on electricity or gas.

Beyond the technological, the form and siting of the house subtly addresses the social issues of American suburbia. The surprisingly low profile of the house in relation to the street offers a critical alternative to the morphology of massive suburban homes in Texas–one looks down upon the water-collecting roofs of the house upon entering from the street. In contrast to the unassuming face towards the street, the residence presents itself generously towards the wilderness below, embracing nature without overwhelming it.

The primary formal gesture of the project inserts two long native limestone walls to the sloping site, serving as spines for the public wing and private wing of the house. The walls and the wings they delineate shelter a domesticated landscape that serves as an extended living space oriented towards the creek below and protected from the torrents of water draining from the street above during sudden downpours characteristic of the area. The siting of the boundary walls and building elements was informed by the presence and preservation of three mature native oaks.

Against the constant datum of the imperceptibly sloping roof, the floor terraces along the contour of the land to define the interior into discrete spaces increasing in volume height away from the relative compression of the entry hall. Each wing of the house terminates with the roof cantilevered from a single column that frees up the exterior walls to be fully glazed, flooding the tall and open volume of the living room with daylight and offering generous views of the pool deck and the wooded silhouettes of the Texas Hill Country beyond.

Cascading Creek House, Texas, by Bercy Chen Studio

Fold Wall Lamp by Odoardo Fioravanti for Foscarini

“Reflecting on the concept of a screen, we devised devised Fold, a wall lamp of extreme formal simplicity that is so adaptable it can be inserted into a vast array of environments of different styles and functions. The design has been developed from a basic gesture: turning a two dimensional sheet of paper into three-dimensions by simply folding it in the middle. This search for simplicity has an almost abstract graphic result that conceals its careful research into design and technology– research that is clearly perceptible but not flaunted. Fold is a thin, softly concave sheet slightly protruding from the wall to hide and screen the light source without compromising its function. When switched off the graphic outline of the diffuser takes center stage. When Fold is switched on the opaque, polycarbonate diffuser fully screens the light source and the large glow projected onto the back wall emphasizes its soft shape.”

Fold Wall Lamp, by Odoardo Fioravanti, for Foscarini

Mews 03 by Andy Martin Studio

Mews 03 is a single residence set in fashionable Notting Hill Gate. Andy Martin wanted this existing 2 levels modest mews house to be redeveloped into a 4 levels family home, and to be a private cocoon but open to the elements. An important aspect of this building is the way AMA have managed to capture the available light creatively, using glazed and wooden screens, and even natural vegetation screens giving all the spaces a unique atmosphere throughout the day and night.

One of the abutting walls is clad throughout with Douglas Fir giving one the impression that the building is some fixed back to neatly constructed barn. Andy Martin Studio are architects of strong powerful contrasts. The architecture not only lives with but is positively by its contradictions: elegance and texture, weight and weightlessness and, above all, light and dark.

Mews 03, London, by Andy Martin Studio, via: mocoloco.

Ceramics by Harumi Nakashima

Japanese ceramic artist Harumi Nakashima is most well-known for his free-form sculptures with spotted polka-dots. At once both stoic as well as tortured, the organic forms are reminiscent of some type of odd plant this claims it’s home in a science fiction novel. Nakashima is a member of the modern Japanese ceramics movement Sōdeisha. As is apparent from his own work, the movement was a reaction against the hegemony of folk-craft style and philosophy that claimed dominance in Japan.

L’exposition Ceramics by Harumi Nakashima, Gallery Nilsson and Chiglien, Paris, October 14 – November 26. via: Spoon & Tamago