Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2018 i AZURE

Do you prefer to work in solitude or surrounded by activity? DANNY SINOPOLI Azure’s Senior Editor Put me in the quiet camp. I’m easily distracted, so I need a certain degree of seclusion when I’m writing or editing. It may look nutty, but I would love to test drive the Helmfon (pictured) by Ukrainian design agency Hochu rayu. It’s a mobile cocoon concept that allows wearers to work, Skype and make or take calls free of outside noise and distractions – your own portable fortress of solitude. What was the best workspace you’ve experienced? MATTHEW SOULES Writer, “Welcome to the Jungle” (page 050) I sometimes bring my laptop cross-country skiing so that I can work in the lodge between runs. That is an amazingly stimulating environment to work in. When…

Kayne Horsham’s obsession with chain mail goes back more than two decades, to when he was working as an art director for the Lord of the Rings film trilogy and tasked with creating armour that didn’t render the actors immobile under its weight. Horsham’s solution was to use hand-assembled, silver-coated plastic rings – 80,000 of them per shirt. Dubbed “Kayne’s mail” by actor Viggo Mortensen, each shirt took six weeks to produce. After filming, Horsham carried on refining and improving the material, and, in the course of figuring out application possibilities beyond Middle-earth costumes, invented a liquid-state production process. He came up with Spacemaile, a chain-mail-like polycarbonate mesh curtain for interiors. It’s made using injection moulding to produce solid, interlinking rings with no joints or seams. Shown at Salone del…

Not everyone gets to say they work in one of their city’s most iconic buildings. But leading Dutch product design and innovation agency VanBerlo recently achieved these bragging rights by relocating its headquarters to Eindhoven’s Philips power plant, a massive manufacturing complex that had been shuttered since 1992. Originally built in 1955 and spread across three vast industrial parks, the engine room and boiler house known as Strijp-T used to power all the Philips factories. The building, which was converted and renovated by three practices – Rotterdam’s Atelier van Berlo, and Eugelink Architectuur and De Bever Architecten of Eindhoven – is now known as the Innovation Powerhouse. The seductive idea is that the fuel being produced here is no longer coal, gas or oil but – you guessed it –…

Expressive Graphics 1 Plastic Fantastic From lifelike foliage to bold op art and Memphis-inspired patterns, these vinyl floors from U.K. brand Atrafloor make a seamless statement. Available in in-house and custom print-to-order formats, these 1.4-metre strips are slip-resistant and reinforced with U.V. protection. atrafloor.com 2 Get the Message The writing’s on the floor with the latest innovation by Tarkett in collaboration with Philips Lighting. Luminous vinyl flooring embeds LED technology in light-translucent vinyl to animate commercial spaces with wayfinding, advertising or real-time social media activity. tarkett.com 3 Mix-and-Match Designed by architect Hadi Teherani, Parador’s Open Frameworks is made for creating distinctive custom compositions. Featuring desaturated oak planks and contrasting accent connector pieces, the engineered wood flooring series combines synchronized hues in terrazzo, travertine, wood and concrete looks. parador.eu 4 Bold…

One fascinating aspect of the digital revolution is how it affects the physical qualities of the built environment. The rise of online shopping, for instance, is changing the retail landscape of cities as many brick-and-mortar stores struggle to adapt. Since shopping activity is such a vital component of vibrant municipalities, this transformation is a real threat to urbanism as we know it. At the same time, the growing workforces of companies such as Amazon have created an increasing demand for office space. In that company’s hometown of Seattle, it has been building a three-tower complex (the third is still under construction) at the heart of its urban campus, where more than 40,000 employees work in over 30 buildings. The dramatic growth is helping drive a general construction boom throughout the…

A decade after Umbra’s flagship opened in Toronto, its iconic hot pink cladding wasn’t looking so hot anymore. Its colourful mojo, so different from the city’s regular toned-down palette, was meant not only to stand out but to hold its own against nearby buildings like Will Alsop’s OCAD University extension and Frank Gehry’s reboot of the Art Gallery of Ontario. But the distinctive polycarbonate panels had faded, especially on the southern, sun-exposed side of the facade facing Queen Street West. The store’s owners consulted Kohn Shnier Architects, the firm that originally helped them transform the building. Should they change out the panels? Maybe rethink the pink? John Shnier pitched them on keeping the fins and wrapping them in a dichroic film. The colour base would still be fuchsia, but now…

1 LIGHT AS A BRICK In recessed installations, structural Brick Lights from Simes integrate directly into traditional brick walls. Launched earlier this year at Light + Building, in Germany, the acid-etched glass modules can also be used as portable lamps. simes.com 2 PRESSED PATTERNS Both the embossed patterns and the paint finishes on these dimpled aluminum cladding panels, from Zahner, are fully customizable. Anodized finishes are also available. zahner.com 3 SCULPTED SURFACE Rieder developed a series of 60-by-60-centimetre concrete panels for the Tyrolean Landesmuseen, in Austria. The ductile nature of the fibreglass-reinforced concrete allowed a form, inspired by one of the museum’s artefacts, to be pressed into the 13-millimetre-thick tiles. rieder.com 4 PAPER WORK Wall & Deco’s Out System wallpapers for exteriors are a simple way to add graphic interest…

Back in 1995, Patrick Stewart became the first-ever Indigenous architect in British Columbia. It was a hard road. The Canadian government had stolen his mother from her Nisga’a Nation, putting her into a residential school. Then they stole Stewart, as part of the Sixties Scoop, when Indigenous children were placed in foster care and given to white families across North America. Stewart plans to tell the world this story in a new way as a co-creator of Unceded, the Canadian contribution to the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. Architecture has been a tool of colonialism in Canada. Settlers arrived and knocked down the wigwams, teepees, longhouses, sloped-roof sheds and other architecture of people indigenous to what became Canada. In their place now stands a 150-year legacy of built erasure: abandoned residential…

One of the latest interventions by 100architects of Shanghai has its users seeing red – in a good way. An open-air crimson swath covering 245 square metres of an otherwise grey retail plaza, the Red Planet playground, as the architects have called it, is located in one of their home city’s biggest shopping centres. Designed to attract customers to the mall and to foster interaction among those who use it, the permanent installation features organized spaces for a variety of activities atop a vibrant patch of PVC sport flooring. One end of the playground is defined by a running track. The other side contains a “bubbling” basketball court dotted with mounds that even the smallest children can climb, sit on and slide down. According to the architects, who specialize in…

Super-Thin Steel Scheduled for completion in 2020, Harvard’s new Science and Engineering Complex in Boston will feature a unique, energy-conscious folded steel facade. The local branch of Behnisch Architekten collaborated with German fabricator Josef Gartner of Permasteelisa Group to develop a finely calculated cloaking system that incorporates hoods to shade the building from direct sunlight at every angle. Architect Matt Noblett of Behnisch notes that the team referenced the operable exterior screens that have long been used in Europe, but created a fixed version that does not rely on mechanisms that could eventually break down. Gartner proposed hydro-forming to achieve ultra-thin panels that could be folded in at the corners to shield from heat gain and then perforated to mitigate glare, thereby alleviating heating and cooling loads. A total of…

Córdoba, Spain, is steeped in ancient Arabic architecture, and the city’s new Palace of Justice courthouse manages to both reference its historic surroundings and add a contemporary vernacular to the landscape. The complex’s outward appearance was informed by a need for security and privacy – the 48,000-square-metre building contains courtrooms, judges’ chambers, private offices and a prison – but, as a public centre, it also needed to be open and inviting. To address the dual interests, Dutch firm Mecanoo worked with engineers at Ayesa to devise a cladding system of matte white, glass-reinforced concrete distinguished by perforations and embossments. “A lot of design tricks went into these,” says associate partner Nuno Fontarra of the seemingly random motifs. Forty patterns, influenced by those found on historic mosques in the city, are…

Since 2011, Shanghai design studio X+Living has provided its clients with some of the boldest immersive retail environments one can dream up. There have been bookstores with mirrored ceilings that give visitors the feeling they’re floating in a universe of books, and fashion emporiums where clothes hang from frames shaped like birdcages. Founded by architect and designer Li Xiang, the young firm’s latest office and retail hybrid is just as dramatic, so much so that it’s hard to discern what it is exactly. Submarine-like tanks are suspended from the ceiling, rosy-hued spiral stairs lead to a semi-open second floor, and a giant pipe set on its side functions as an illuminated walkway. Called Ideas Lab, the 1,100-square-metre space serves as a dynamic communal hub where research and development staff connect…

Indoor 1 Hoop For this oversized pendant, Swedish studio Front used a painted metal cage to cleverly conceal the wires, which power an LED source inside a matte glass shade. Materials Painted aluminum and metal, glass Dimensions 65 cm wide Designer Front Manufacturer Zero, zerolighting.com 2 Lita A versatile family of wall, ceiling, floor and table lamps, Lita’s blown-glass diffusers are striped with slight vertical folds that recede as the softened forms curve toward the top and bottom. Materials Solid ash or painted aluminum Dimensions 14, 18, 30 and 42 cm in diameter Designer David Dolcini Manufacturer Luceplan, luceplan.com 3 Lipstick A playful twist on a floor lamp, Lipstick, which debuted at Light + Building in Frankfurt this past March, can lie flat or lean against a wall. Dimensions 190…

My LEGO was kept in a grey bin shaped like a giant 2x2 round brick. I dumped pieces on my bedroom floor and mangled the colourful plastic pieces into flying cars, canoes, castles. But landscapes were always my favourite. In a box brimming with cubes, rectangles and cylinders, the oddly shaped shrubs were…different. Different they remain. Just 2 years after establishing its Sustainable Materials Centre to investigate ethically sourced green materials, Lego has unveiled “new” botanical elements – instantly recognizable leaves, bushes and trees whose chemical foundations represent a radical departure for the Danish brand. Plant-based polyethylene sourced from sugarcane will be used to make about 2 per cent of all Lego parts before the year’s end. It sounds statistically miniscule, but scale is crucial. That 2 per cent is…