71 Above by Tag Front Architects

71 Above, Los Angeles, California, by Tag Front Architects

IN 3 by Jean Verville

IN 3, Domestic architectural installation, Montréal, Canada Jean Verville
Photography by Maxime Brouillet

Joint Chopsticks by Yuma Kano for Katsuhisa Toda

This design applies the art of “tsugite” joints traditionally used by carpenters in Japan to attach pieces of wood together without nails or screws. Rather than placing the joints at the end as a bit of decoration, they are placed at the point that takes the most strain.The techniques used to join the chopsticks are the same as those used by “sashimonoshi”, masters of craft to make Buddhist altars, bureaus, and other furniture. This project is a collaboration between Katsuhisa Toda, a traditional carpenter in Shizuoka JAPAN, and studio yumakano. These designs were developed to help solve the problems around traditional crafts through the concept of “everyday crafts”, extending the breadth of ordinary work, rather than struggling to develop something entirely new.

Joint Chopsticks, by Yuma Kano
Photography by Satoru Ikegami & Yuichi Yamaguchi

Typewriter Guns by Éric Nado

The material world was built, first and foremost: one of the roles art can take is of reinterpreting its forms and functions. Through sculpture-assemblage, Éric Nado transforms and reorganizes certain objects to reveal other possibilities through their forms or intended functions. Using iconic metal objects such as typewriters and sewing machines, Nado materializes concepts such as labor and memory. Filled with nostalgia, the objects transformed into sculptures tell compelling stories.

Typewriter Guns, by Éric Nado, at Galerie C.O.A

Hotel Mono by Spacedge Designs

Hotel Mono is a chic hideaway set in six historical shop houses of modern design. The beautifully rejuvenated buildings retain original charm with characteristic airwells and Rococo-era windows; slipping into traditional Singapore and interweaving with the city’s urban bustle.

Hotel Mono, Singapore, by Spacedge Designs

Photography: Stone Heroes by Léo Caillard

Stone Heroes, by Léo Caillard

Copper in Motion by Larose Guyon

Larose Guyon developed a design for New York-based Rockwell Group’s brand new EMC2 Hotel in Chicago and came up with an interactive sculpture that combines ingenuity, art and science.

An Old Technology Born Anew
In revisiting the zoetrope, a forerunner to cinema invented in 1834 by William George Horner and Simon von Stampfer, Larose Guyon were inspired to create their own new way to animate objects. Forty-four pairs of laser-cut copper wings are arranged inside a large wheel which is cranked by hand. Looking inside while turning the hand crank will give life to the otherwise motionless display.

The usually cold and inert materials suddenly become light and alive. The crank handle, itself a lacework flower, brims with femininity and romanticism. The wings move in three dimensions, leaving the onlooker in awe of such a captivating sight. This work is a mere reminder that inventions of old are still something to marvel at, if you only let your inner child take over for a little while.

Copper in Motion, by Larose Guyon

Exhibition: Jonathan Muecke & Juliaan Lampens

For its seventh furniture series, MANIERA invited the American designer Jonathan Muecke to a residency in Belgium. The one-week stay was to take place in specific architectural surroundings with the aiming of being an inspiring source for the designer, as Henry Van de Velde’s Wolfers House was for Richard Venlet’s MANIERA 03. From a number of possibilities that MANIERA offered Muecke, the designer almost immediately chose the Van Wassenhove House by the Belgian architect Juliaan Lampens.

Jonathan Muecke & Juliaan Lampens, Maniera Gallery

Exhibition: Spring by Mathieu Lehanneur

In his ‘Spring’ exhibition at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in London, Mathieu Lehanneur takes us into a world of flux. As if the cycle of the seasons and nature’s forces have specially looked at the fate of objects… Here, the artist-designer with a passion for science, grapples with ancestral materials in order to suffuse them with plasticity, fluidity and tone.

The works in the ‘Spring’ exhibition seem to hesitate between solid, liquid and gaseous. They appear to be suspended mid-transformation in a poetic state of metamorphosis. Marble and aluminium become liquid, onyx becomes air and glass softens as in a return to its original state.

Mathieu Lehanneur: ‘Spring’ exhibition, (17 – 25 September 2016), at Carpenters Workshop Gallery, London

Architecture Model Museum: Archi-Depot

Japan is getting its first museum dedicated to miniature architecture models. On June 18, 2016, Archi-Depot will open on Tennozu Isle in Tokyo’s Shinagawa district. Boasting a 450 sq m (4840 sq ft) space with 5.2 m (17 ft) ceilings, Archi-Depot will be lined with over 100 shelves all dedicated to the permanent display of architecture models. According to Fashionsnap, the organization has already secured models made by architectural luminaries like Kengo Kuma, Jun Aoki and Shigeru Ban, as well as a younger generation of architects like Wonderwall and Torafu. And they’ll continue to add to their collection.

Each model will be accompanied by a QR code that you can scan with your smartphone to bring up more information like photos of the completed work. The space itself is operated by Terada Warehouse, a company that specializes in the storage of valuables like art and wine. Tennozu Isle, where Archi-Depot is located, was previously an industrial hub for airlines and freight companies because of its proximity to the water and Haneda Airport. But the area has undergone significant redevelopment in recent years in an attempt to rebrand itself as an isle with “art & heart.”

Archi-Depot, 2-6-10 Higashi Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, Japan, via: Spoon & Tamago