ORU KAYAK

A dreamy design. A foldable kayak to take anywhere without knocking ppeople over or being blown away when on your way to a windy lake... Take a look:

PRODUCT

THE STORY...

Our story started when designer and founder Anton Willis moved into a small San Francisco apartment, and had to put his fiberglass kayak into storage. Inspired by an article on recent advances in origami, he started sketching ideas for a folding kayak. A few sketches turned into countless paper models, and eventually—over 25 full-scale prototypes that were tested on waterways in the Bay Area and beyond.

In 2012, over 700 amazing Kickstarter supporters helped us launch Oru Kayak. We quickly set up an assembly facility right here in California, and have now shipped thousands of kayaks all over the world.

As our team grows, we stay guided by our passion for the outdoors, the simplicity of great design, and the community that has made our company possible. We’re excited to be part of an incredible movement of making and local manufacturing; we’re out on the water testing our products almost weekly. If you see an Oru Kayak around the Bay Area, say hello: it may well be one of us.

FILMS: the official video

Or make one yourself... unofficial.

PHILIPS' LITTLE HELPER

Are you an innovator?

Everyone has great ideas. Do you think yours could make a meaningful difference in people's lives? If so, we invite you to collaborate with Philips to bring your ideas to the market.

Begin collaborating with Philips

• What are we looking for?
• Why work with Philips?

How does it work?

First, we will ask you a few questions to help us understand your idea. The quality and accuracy of the information you provide is crucial for us to successfully evaluate your idea. Please submit only NON-confidential information. Your idea may be similar to others that Philips has already developed independently, and we want to avoid any misunderstanding around its ownership. For that reason, we recommend that you first protect your idea with a patent (application) or other intellectual property right. You can seek advice from a patent counsel on how to do this.

After your idea is submitted, you'll receive an email confirmation right away. If we need to know more to help us to assess your idea, we may contact you for additional non-confidential information.

Within four weeks, we will email you the outcome of our evaluation. If your idea is a good candidate for inclusion in our product plans, we will contact you directly. Thank you for sharing your idea with us.

More to be found here

INSPIRATION PAD

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 Buy here: The Inspiration Pad

PENIQUE FOR MARTIN MARGIELA

Maison Martin Margiela as amazing as ever, surprised us with their Spring-Summer 2013 Decor Installation at Hotel Salomon de Rothschild, Paris. Look at this film.

What the men of Penique Productions are preparing is for a long time unclear, until... 

Making-of Maison Martin Margiela's Spring-Summer 2013 Decor Installation at Hotel Salomon de Rothschild, September 28th 2012.

Decor Installation: Penique Productions
Production: Eyesight 
Music: Michel Gaubert
© Maison Martin Margiela / Videopolis - September 2012
One of the projects they did, El Claustro can be found here.
Norte Centro Histórico, 
Querétaro, México
Art Direction: Maison Martin Margiela

Penique Production
Penique Productions seems to have a lot of experience is doing "Internal Blow-ups". On their website are several examples. Look here.

CutOutFest 2011 Size: 10m x 10m x 11m

Museo de la Ciudad

The film of the making of El Claustro

GARDENING [4] WIRTZ

The Belgian landscape architects Jacques and his sons Martin and Peter have designed some of the most beautiful gardens in Europe. I love their dramatic command of space and strong sculptural forms, their work combines a modernist aesthetic with a respect for tradition and the spirit of place. At the family home in Schoten, near Antwerp, a former gardener's cottage attached to an eighteenth-century estate, they have created in their private garden a laboratory for experiment on an intimate scale. 

I came across them because of the work they did for the gardens of the Louvre around the Arc Du Petit Carrousel. The use of hedges and the playfull walks you can make, enjoying the height differences and views, make it worth a visit. Well everybody visiting passes through anyway.

It's hard to find good photos of what I'm talking about. Behind the Maillols you can see the garden, but you cannot look inside. But once you are there you should walk through. 


A cute film on the Maillol statues, with more Wirtz in the background


Finally the Wirtz website

MOLLINO

tabletop

Domus had a wonderfull article on Carlo Mollino's Casa Miller. I'm not going to cite, but to invite: Have a look HERE.

No idea who Carlo Mollino is? Well an intriguing Italian designer. A bit dark, very elegant, something of an erotic photographer, independant. I guess much looked at and, no worry,  inimmitable.

Ok then, some examples:

table

living room

DONALD JUDD

I Always liked the work of Donald Judd, but exept for exhibitions or assignments from Dutch intitutions, his work never seemed available to us. Now there is a chance to get Judd. In Eindhoven, at Piet Hein Eek's winkel... His website states:

Medio oktober 2011 Donald Judd

Vanaf medio september 2011 presenteren we permanent het werk van Donald Judd en in het bijzonder zijn meubel ontwerpen. Donald Judd geldt internationaal als een van de belangrijkste na -oorlogse kunstenaars en een van de grondleggers van het zogenaamde'Minimalisme'.  Met de Donald Judd Foundation, gevestigd in Marfa & amp; New York, hebben we, met gepaste trots, afspraken gemaakt om zijn werk in Nederland te vertegenwoordigen. ...


Where? Here at Piet Hein Eek 


More if not all of Donald Judd at his Foundation's website, here.

ALDO VAN DEN NIEUWELAAR

Kunst + Interieur, a modern antique shop in the centre of The Hague houses some designs by Aldo van den Nieuwelaar. Probably they were his on the moment of his death. Most objects were lamps from the mid seventies.

Last time I visited, I was stopped by this large B/W picture. But that's ...

And I took this iPhone picture. This is how we got to know him in The KABK [Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, in The Hague]

I always state he was one of my 'greatest' teachers. His approach to teaching was new then and is still interesting today. 

Aldo died 23 september 2010 [wiki] still rather young, being born in 1944.

His circular tube lamp, which I bought some time in the late seventies is a iconic classic now.

LOUBOUTIN WINDOWS SELFRIDGES

We see London getting ready for their Olympiade. Not into sports? No problem. Walking around a completely brushed up city, visiting Tate Modern or The Design Museum. The latter organizes an exhibition of French shoe designer Christian Louboutin. In the meanwhile you can see his windows at Selfridges...

As the former Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent designer celebrates his own ubiquitous brand’s 20 years of shiny red soles and outrageous designs; Christian Louboutin’s is a name that’s hard to escape right now. The brilliant StudioXAG once again have their indubitable talents on display in London’s most iconic shop windows – their spellbinding kaleidoscopic displays mesmerising fashionistas and cynics alike. Whilst inside, Selfridges and StudioXAG have collaborated on an exquisite World of Louboutin concept space – a whole host of his lavish designs to splurge your pennies upon.

Watch the films.

ANISH KAPOOR / PARSIFAL / AMSTERDAM

The Dutch Opera [DNO / De Nederlandse Opera] has brought out a new production of Wagners Parsifal. It went on show in June 2012. Interesting because of the scenography, which is by Anish Kapoor. 

A huge mirror used back and above the singers Had a huge effect on the scenes, as seen above.
Some other examples can be found in the links below.

Kensington Gardens / Smile for London / Turning the world Upside Down

Leviathan / Grand Palais / Paris

And watch this delightful film about a building in New York, yet to be built.

Herzog & de Meuron / Tribeca Plans

In Holland we can always collect our share of visual pleasures in De Pont in Tilburg.

Next a link [maybe only for dutch viewers] showing an interviewing with Kapoor and Audi.

CLOCHARDS BIEN OUTILLé / IKEA

The making of the assembling of IKEA flats in Paris subway! The apartment in the Paris metro station Auber, set to present solutionsto small areas of development proposed IKEA will be from 9 to 14 January 2012 the site of a single operation.For 6 days, 5 housemates will live in this apartment of 54m2 in the eyes of all users of Auber. A daily videosummary of their adventures will be posted on Youtube.

GARDENING [3] OUDOLF

Over three decades, the Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf’s sometimes unconventional ideas about what looks good have helped make him a star in Europe and have also begun to win him fans and jobs in the United States.

To start of, his ability to create a winter garden:

Nowadays Piet Oudolf's claim to fame is the creation of The High Line: http://www.thehighline.org/

 

Serpentine pavillion 2011: 'I hope people relax here'

 

New York Times slideshow: www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/01/30/style/0131-PIET_index.html

Piet Oudolf's own site

TETRA SHED

I want a Tetra Shed

VILLA VOLPI

Accidentally found; Villa Volpi is for sale. For a mere €33.000.000 one could be the owner of this operaticly designed neo-roman villa, situated near Sabaudia in Lazio. This being an area south of Rome. At the beginning of the 20th century, Lazio was marshland, inhabited by poor farmers and musquitos.

Mussolini made it into a huge project to get the swamps dry and new cities build. This is how Latina, Pontinia, Sabaudia came into existance. Designed in what we now call Rationalism. The term fascistic seems no longer applyable, since the tenth Biennale dell'architettura.

Latin modernisme one might call it. Or "una metafisica construita" as the catalogue of the ehibition of the same name calls it.

Villa Volpi for sale and Villa Volpi in Casa Vogue attachment

Casa Vogue Attachment

Casa Vogue Attachment

Catalogue Metafisica Costruita

SORI YANAGI

Sori Yanagi, the Japanese designer famous for his Butterfly Stool made from two identical plywood mouldings, has died in Tokyo aged 96. [Yanagi was born in Tokyo in 1915] His career spanned a period which saw the birth of post-war Japan's industrialisation.

Both pictures and the news were found on DomusWeb

IT DAZZLES

British artist Norman Wilkinson Nature thought of how in evolution camouflage helped to hide from predators. 

He proposed to apply this 'technique' to warships at sea. 

In the seventies a small book appeared in which these boats and the designs were shown.

[at the bottom of this article there's also a film on this subject]

Lately I saw some designs that reminded me of Dazzle Painting. Here some examples...

First there is the classic first appearance. To see more look at Dazzle Painting 

Then, all of a sudden there is Tobias Rehberger.

This picture comes from Ventilate and shows Rehbergers work for the Setouchi Art Festival / Japan
























Finally there is Boris Banozic. He designed the Stuttgart Flight Simulation Centre.

Boris Banozic is an architect and a scenographer [which is sort of obvious] 

Browsing through his work, I noticed quite some work we know now as quite iconic.

Here is a design for a stage in Berlin's Jewish Museum

For desert a cute film on the exhibition of Dazzle Painting in Glasgow's Riverside Museum

THINGS ORGANIZED NEATLY

Jan Heijnen* tipped me about Things Organized Neatly. A site you can visit to see daily uploads of little collections people took pictures of. You can look at it randomly or just follow the stream...

Either it be a holiday collection of souvenirs....

Or a nicely made drawing of your travel kit...

 

Keep us posted if you post an entry! 

Jan Heijnen is a Dutch / The Hague graphic designer doing some neat organizing on his website too...

GARDENING [2] COSMIC SPECULATION / JENCKS

   

 

Charles Jencks Garden Of Cosmic Speculation.

Charles Jencks has been making the most interesting postmodern garden in Britain. Jencks, as the leading theorist of postmodernism, has a strong theoretical base 
Apart from its striking visual character, the most interesting thing about Jencks Portrack garden is the way it carries forward the ancient project of making gardens which imitate (mimesis) the Nature of nature. Jencks seeks to understand the nature of the world, through science, and to embody the nature of the world in a garden design. The pharaohs, Plato, the emperors of China, Alberti, Capability Brown, William Robinson and Charles Prince of Wales  had the same intention. The results differ because their understandings of nature differ.
One criticism I have heard of Jencks’ Portrack Garden is that he is too literal in his ‘imitations’ of physical and chemical laws, principles and formulae. While not seeing this as a fault, I agree with the observation. The alternative would be to use the revelations of science as Jencks’ renaissance predecessors used optics and mechanics to produce remarkable visual effects and devices in gardens. Outside the garden realm, one of the most dazzling examples of what might be done, from the nineteenth century, is the Foucault Pendulum, demonstrating the rotation of the earth. “The direction along which the pendulum swings rotates with time because of Earth’s daily rotation. The first public exhibition of a Foucault pendulum took place in February 1851 in the Meridian Room of the Paris Observatory. A few weeks later, Foucault made his most famous pendulum when he suspended a 28-kg bob with a 67-metre wire from the dome of the Panthéon in Paris. The plane of the pendulum’s swing rotated clockwise 11° per hour, making a full circle in 32.7 hours.”  It is not too late to be making Foucault Gardens, Foucault-inspired gardens and other gardens inspired by a scientific understandings of Nature.

DRESS UP AUTOMATICALLY

Seriously, could one use this Ninja skirt to avoid street violence? It says the level of street crime in Japan is actually declining, but the local media is fanning hysteria about muggings and assaults. Designer Aya Tsukioka was prompted to create this piece of clothing for escaping from an attacker. And she's serious. It's yours for ¥80,000, with a kimono-to-vending-machine version available by special order.

I found this on Paul Hayes Blogue

ABOUT ARCHITECTURE WALK INTO A CLOUD

Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland - 2002

The Blur Building

The Blur Building was built for the Swiss Expo 2002 on Lake Neuchatel. It is an architecture of atmosphere. The lightweight tensegrity structure measures 300 feet wide by 200 feet deep by 75 feet high. The primary building material is indigenous to the site, water. Water is pumped from the lake, filtered, and shot as a fine mist through 31,500 high-pressure mist nozzles. A smart weather system reads the shifting climactic conditions of temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, and processes the data in a central computer that regulates water pressure.

Upon entering the fog mass, visual and acoustic references are erased, leaving only an optical "white-out" and the "white-noise" of pulsing nozzles. Blur is an anti-spectacle. Contrary to immersive environments that strive for high-definition visual fidelity with ever-greater technical virtuosity, Blur is decidedly low-definition: there is nothing to see but our dependence on vision itself.

Look: http://www.designboom.com/eng/funclub/dillerscofidio.html

How they obtained the blur effect the saturation of the air with moisture, which produces the visible mist effect, depends on a number of physical environmental conditions. these parameters include the speed and direction of the wind, the environmental temperature and the atmospheric humidity : - the higher the temperature, the greater the amount of moisture required to produce the necessary degree of saturation. - when the air has a moisture level of, for example, 75 percent, the desired effect can be achieved by the addition of only 25 percent. - the volume of the space determines the output quantity necessary for the saturation of the air with moisture. in calm (windless) conditions the volume corresponds to the size of the space. in windy conditions, however, the determining volume is proportionate to the amount of air moved by the wind through the specific space. thus it increases with increasing wind speed. - since mist hangs in the air, it moves in the direction of the wind. starting at the point where the water leaves the jet, a white stripe becomes visible. as soon as the air is no longer saturated with moisture, this white stripe disappears. at low temperatures with simultaneous high air moisture, the stripe is virtually always visible. when the conditions are reversed, it disappears almost immediately. - putting the cloud into operation under consideration of all these meteorological conditions is a highly complex technical proceeding. appropriate adjustments can be made on various levels, e.g. the placement of the spray mechanisms, the number of jets, planning of different spraying areas. the optimisation of these measures is carried out with the help of a computerised weather station that supplies the necessary nformation about the relevant parameters. this information is analysed by the computer and subsequently used to determine the adjustment of the spraying on the basis of conclusions reached in connection with tests carried out the year before.