Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined – review | Art and design | The Observer. There's a terrible misconception about architecture, which is that it is a visual art. Yes, you can see buildings and photograph and film them, but a great deal of your experience of a given space has to do with its temperature and acoustic, its odour or lack of it, the feel of the floor under your feet or a seat under your backside, the ease or difficulty of ascending a staircase, the effects on your and other people's bodies of being somewhere and moving in it. As to the "art" part of "visual art", this is also questionable, given that architecture is a thing of use.
To the extent that you do indeed see architecture, it is still not a purely visual experience. You look at something and you interpret it. Sensing Spaces is a heroic project to put these subtle qualities at the centre of attention. Its installations are designed by a multi-continental posse of architects, from Burkina Faso, Chile, China, Japan, Ireland and Portugal, who share a sensibility. There are paradoxes. AirBnB's 60Ft Wall Represents Team's Shared Experiences. New York City-based artist Timothy Goodman was recently commissioned to help AirBnB develop a creative space in their new office.
The company, a trusted community marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique accommodations around the world, wanted a concept that would fit and function well within their team culture. Goodman was handed a blank canvas and left to his own devices to create something spectacular. So, the designer, illustrator, and art director spent two months planning and 2 weeks on site developing the 60-foot wall installation in the company's San Francisco office. Using 115 pieces of plywood leftover from the building's construction, Goodman cut out square and rectangular shapes and covered them with white paint. He then worked with a team to securely fasten the wood in an organized pattern across the wall.
Incredible Timelapse Videos Illustrate Birds in Motion. Through amazing digital editing techniques, American artist and professor Dennis Hlynsky turns an average video of flying birds into a surreal experience of shapes forming overhead. The Rhode Island-based artist first films the movements of various animals that swim, crawl, and fly in spectacular formations. He then selectively stacks frames together to visually convey the long trails of motion. Black streaks across the sky show the flowing curls and curved motions of starlings, vultures, swallows, and pigeons. Viewers are invited to not only witness the rapidly moving flocks, but also to appreciate the natural patterns in which animals travel. Starlings Vultures Swallows Pigeons Dennis Hlynsky via [Colossal] Lone Photographer Climbs Canadian Rockies At Night, Documents Hike In Stunning Photos. Paul Zizka got the idea for his epic photo series from early-morning mountaineering trips he took as a kid.
"I was amazed by the quiet and beauty of a night spent high in the mountains," he told the Daily Mail. "Eventually, I ended up shooting more at night than during the day. " The photographer's latest was shot at night around the Canadian Rockies (sites include Banff, Yoho and Kootenay National Parks). Zizka took his photos at long exposure for sweeping views of the ice and stars, and he plants himself in each frame so viewers can more easily imagine their own selves perched alone on a quiet mountain in a place they've never been. Paul Zizka/Caters HAFFNER CREEK, KOOTENAY NATIONAL PARK (JAN 5, 2013) Russian Mother Takes Magical Portraits of Her Two Boys and their Animal Friends. Russian photographer Elena Shumilova only got into photography in early 2012, when she acquired her first camera.
But if you were to look through her Flickr and 500px profiles, you would swear she had been doing it for much, much longer. Her stunning photography revolves almost exclusively around photographs of her children and their animal friends on the family’s farm. Adorable children, animals and surroundings that already offer so much beauty to Shumilova’s lens combine into an enchanted world that is equal parts cozy and magical.
Speaking with Bored Panda, she explains that her photos are part intuition, part inspiration: I largely trust my intuition and inspiration when I compose photos. I get inspired mainly by my desire to express something I feel, though I usually cannot tell exactly what that is. Here’s a selection of Shumilova’s photography: (via Bored Panda) Image credits: Photographs by Elena Shumilova and used with permission. Spectacular Bioluminescent Beaches Look Like Starry Skies. Taiwanese photographer Will Ho (aka hala065) captures stunning images of bioluminescence at the Dusit Thani Maldives in Mudhdhoo that transforms the beaches into a magical, glowing coastline.
The blue speckled sands provide a beautifully surreal accent to the landscape at night as the waves crash onto the shore, making it look like a spectacular reflection of a starry sky on the ground. Like on the coastlines of Australia, these beaches are populated by tiny phytoplankton that radiate vibrant sapphire luminesce as a defensive reaction to a disturbance in their environment. The natural response of the microorganisms could be to anything from the presence of a predator to nothing more than the moving of the tides.
The photographer, who has been asked on multiple occasions whether the shots are real or not, insists his images are absolutely real though you'd have to be lucky enough to catch as great an occurrence as he experienced just outside of a Thai restaurant in the Maldives. Miguel Cardona's Coffee Cups for Charity. By Eva Glettner Miguel Cardona is a professor of design and an illustrator with an unusual canvas: the paper coffee cup. No subject is off limits for Cardona—in fact, the more obscure, the better; be it Breaking Bad's Walter White, aliens or sea creatures. But it's what Cardona does with his myriad coffee cups that is even more special. He sells them and donates all of the proceeds to Project Night Night to help donate baby blankets, children's books and stuffed animals to children in homeless shelters.
The artist's interesting hobby began last year when he visited a cafe close to where he was doing on-site design contract work. Cardona tells CH, "Mostly I like robots and skulls. He loves the challenge of drawing on cups and the respect it earns him as an artist. Original coffee cup artworks are available online.
Images courtesy of Miguel Cardona. Emptied Gestures: Physical Movement Translated into Symmetrical Charcoal Drawings by Heather Hansen. Photo by Bryan Tarnowski Photo by Spencer Hansen at Ochi Gallery Splayed across a giant paper canvas with pieces of charcoal firmly grasped in each hand, Heather Hansen begins a grueling physical routine atop a sizeable paper canvas. Her body contorts into carefully choreographed gestures as her writing implements grate across the floor, the long trails resulting in a permanent recording of her physical movements. Part dance and part performance art, the kinetic drawings are a way for Hansen to merge her love for visual art and dance into a unified artform.
The final symmetrical patterns that emerge in each pieces are reminiscent of a Rorschach test, or perhaps cycles found in nature. Hansen most recently had a group exhibition, The Value of a Line, at Ochi Gallery in Ketchum, Idaho which runs through March 31, 2014. Synesthetic Artist Suspends 20 Miles Of Ribbon Inside Grace Cathedral. It’s hard to improve on the interior design of a building as hallowed and grandiose as Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, famed for its stained-glass windows, two labyrinths, and mosaics by Jan Henryk De Rosen. But New York-based artist Anne Patterson managed to make the space even more magical with her installation “Graced With Light,” made from 20 miles of silk ribbons suspended from the cathedral’s vaulted ceiling arches.
In blue, green, red, and maroon, the ribbons reflect light from the windows like shimmering celestial curtains. Hundreds of community members were invited to write their prayers, hopes, and wishes on the red ribbons, sending them toward heaven. Patterson has synesthesia, a neurological condition that, in her case, makes her see sounds and music as shapes and colors. “I sat in the pews, watching him and sketching, and I heard his notes traveling upward, which lent itself to the whole idea of verticality in these pieces,” the artist tells Co.Design.
[via SFGate] Aidlin Darling Design Takes Over the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art. The Sonoma Valley Museum of Art in Sonoma, California, is giving over its entire 5,000-square-foot exhibition space to Aidlin Darling Design, an award-winning San Francisco firm that has cultivated an unconventional, multidisciplinary approach to architecture. “Site & Senses: The Architecture of Aidlin Darling Design” opens December 21, 2013, and runs through March 2, 2014. It is the first solo exhibition for the firm, which Joshua Aidlin and David Darling founded in 1998. They say the museum approached them with the idea of building an exhibition that focused on the design process as much as, or more so than, the finish product. The pitch made sense to Darling in light of his firm’s collaborative, somewhat unorthodox approach, which emphasizes designing for all the senses. It’s a philosophy that has helped Aidlin Darling win numerous prestigious awards, including a 2013 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for interior design.
Our Favorite Modern Design Shops from 2013. Our second year of our column, Design Store(y), sent us around the world spending time inside design-focused shops, interviewing shop owners to hear about what goes on behind the doors. Let’s take a look back at all the stores we toured throughout the year in 2013: A Visit to Original in Berlin We started the year by heading to Berlin to visit Lars Triesch’s Original in Berlin, the biggest mid-century modern store in town.
A Visit to Rua Confettora 17 We stayed in Europe, but headed down to Italy to visit with Daniela Bettoni, proprietor of Rua Confettora 17, a shop dedicated to international design. Housed in a former artisan’s restoration workshop, the store still shows signs of its past throughout the space. A Visit to Poketo We headed stateside, the the West Coast, to tour Poketo, a design store in the Downtown Los Angeles Design District. A Visit to Nannie Inez A trip to Austin, Texas, landed us at a cute little boutique called Nannie Inez. Inuit Families Photographed At The End Of The Earth. Imagine a world far far away from the bright lights and hustle and bustle of the world's major cities, a place so harsh and isolated that only a few would ever dare face to make the journey. That's where travel photographer Sasha Leahovcenco ventured on his incredible mission to photograph the nomadic reindeer herding families of Chukotka, Russia. A community who survived against a backdrop some of the harshest elements and conditions in the world.
Their way of life has been largely undisturbed for over century, teachings & techniques passed from one generation to another whilst the modern world was seemingly kept at bay. To that extent they'd never had their photograph taken nor seen a camera before. The experience was just as new to them, as the environment was to Leahovcenco “It was me who was most deeply touched by the experience. Below are a few heart-warming photographs from his journey that capture the very spirit of family, survival and community. Via Sasha Leahovcenco. 10 Ancient Archaeological Sites for Your World Travel Bucket List. My Son Sanctuary, photo by AJ Oswald via Creative Commons Typically, when ancient archaeological sites get some form of development, it’s a benefit.
With development comes better controlled access and funds for excavation, preservation and restoration. But it also means a lot more visitors. There’s nothing more satisfying than arriving at an ancient treasure to find few, if any other visitors there. For that sort of exclusive experience, you have to go the extra mile. My Son (Mỹ Sơn) Sanctuary (Vietnam) This UNESCO World Heritage Site has been hammered by looting, vegetation growth, irresponsible visitors and, most tragically, the U.S.
Caral (Peru) Around 120 miles north of Lima, in the Supe Valley, lies one of the oldest cities in the Americas. Coba Pyramid, photo by Green Global Travel Cobá (Mexico) The Mayan civilization at Cobá reaches back at least 2100 years. Rakhigarhi (India) Bet Giyorgis Church in Lalibela, photo by Giustino via Creative Commons Lalibela (Ethiopia) La Bastida (Spain) A Giant Twisting Serpent Skeleton Emerges from the Loire River in France. Emmanuel Le Guellec Philippe Cabaret Nantes Tourisme Kamel Mennour, photo by Gino Maccarinelli via Flickr Completed in 2012, Serpent d’océan is a giant aluminum sea serpent skeleton by artist Huang Yong Ping (previously) situated off the shore of the Loire River where it empties into the Bay of Biscay just outside of Nantes, France.
By having a major figure from Chinese mythology appear on European shores, Huang Yong Ping examines, the notions of identity and cultural hybridity, as is often the case in his work. Depending on weather conditions, tide levels, or the perspective of a photographer, Serpent d’océan appears dramatically different from day to day, a phenomenon you can witness over on Flickr. Look Inside the U.S. Capitol Dome Reveals a Desperately Needed Repair Job.
Just as the last remnants of scaffolding covering the Washington Monument are coming down, workers are preparing to obscure another of the gems on the National Monument -- the Dome atop the U.S. Capitol building. The Capitol was last renovated in 1960 and is badly in need of new repairs, as weather and water damage have broken several of the ornaments along the exterior of the dome and stained many of the fixtures within the rotunda. The restoration process, which will soon get underway, is expected to last two years -- covering the exterior of the dome in scaffolding that will be lit at night and temporarily closing parts of the inner rotunda. There are 394 steps from the ground floor of the Capitol Building to the top of the Dome. Pictured: An interior view of the Capitol Dome. In 1855, Philadelphia architect Thomas U.
The Dome, which was completed in 1865, leaks. Some of the water damage is visible on these columns in the upper levels of the rotunda. (Architect of the Capitol) Ancient Egyptian Brewer's Beautiful Tomb Discovered. Infos de dernière minute et opinions sur Le Huffington Post. Metmuseum : Enjoy works of art, digital... Amazing Photos by the Department of the Interior | Photos.
Spectacular Photos of Bubbles Frozen in Frigid Temperatures. A Christmas Ice Storm - In Focus. Exercise. Old Belgian Water Tower Converted into a Modern Home. Hog Island Shoal Lighthouse by Frank Grace. Hog Island Shoal Lighthouse by Frank Grace.