INTERVIEWS Air does as it likes10/25/2013Be it appealing street paintings, opulent façade décor or surrealist staircases, for Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann public space is one large playground. The Swiss artist duo chats to Özlem Özdemir.
ART Thawing the ice of the Inca City10/23/2013Mars, the Red Planet and the Earth’s neighbor in the Solar System, has long inspired human imagination. Now, for the first time, a fascinating book of incredibly high quality photographs gives us the chance to see its barren surface in detail.
ART Stillness in the real world10/20/2013Hitherto creative types have tended to consider self-help books a waste of time. But that is about to change. Frank Berzbach has written a small book about the “Kunst ein kreatives Leben zu führen” (The art of living a creative life), which looks at how a creative person might achieve a state of Zen in their everyday life.
ARCHITECTURE Making German cities a better place10/18/2013The book “Wir bauen Deutschland” paints the portraits of 40 urban planners in public or political offices. An unusual and long-awaited glance behind the scenes of urban planning institutions.
FAIRS & EVENTS Architects are now @Work in Berlin, too10/17/2013The successful “Architect@Work” event format originally devised by the trade-fair company in Kortrijk, Belgium, has now made it to the German capital. Following the very well received versions held in Rotterdam, Paris, London, Zurich, Düsseldorf and Stuttgart, can the convention make a splash in Berlin, a city notoriously saturated by events?
FAIRS & EVENTS Pink Panther on the Spree10/17/2013If you take the Berlin LRT from Bahnhof Zoo in the direction of Alexanderplatz then his best-known edifice is hard to miss: the “Umlauftank” for Berlin’s “Versuchsanstalt für Wasserbau und Schiffbau”. But there’s much more to the oeuvre of architect Ludwig Leo. As the current small but insightful show and catalog demonstrate.
ARCHITECTURE Rigid pins10/16/2013An office high-rise, built only of wood and glass, no steel used. It was designed by Shigeru Ban for the Tamedia media group in Zurich – and is exemplary, not just in ecological terms.
FAIRS & EVENTS Seeing the light10/13/2013Let there be light! “Vitra Design Museum” is exploring different shades of lighting design with “Lightopia”, its major exhibition currently on show in Weil am Rhein.
ARCHITECTURE Divine sense of detail10/11/2013Carsten Krohn’s photographic study of Peter Behrens’ architectural efforts provides a complete overview of his built output as is still in existence today. And bears witness to the photographer’s extraordinary passion for detail. An illustrated book for Behrens enthusiasts. But be advised: Prior knowledge is a must.
FAIRS & EVENTS Driving, light10/9/2013Technology, safety, design – there’s a lot happening in the field of automotive lighting. Lighting technology is advancing in leaps and bounds. While the designers aren’t always creating new currents, the complex forms of automotive lighting will definitely impact on other products.
FAIRS & EVENTS Digitally pimped10/6/2013The next stopovers on our “London Design Festival” recce include the “100% Design” fair in Kensington, “Designjunction” on New Oxford Street, “Designersblock” at the Southbank Centre as well as “Superbrands” and “Tent London” in Spitalfields, where we purchased a 3D-self-portrait, tasted the milk of human kindness and were delighted by digital up-cycling.
DESIGN Atmospheres created from water vapor10/4/2013The bathroom – a little world of wonder made up of technology, light and water. As one of the leading trade shows in the area of ceramics, “Cersaie” in Bologna once again revealed just what can be achieved in the wellness zone.
ARCHITECTURE Onwards and upwards10/2/2013No “London Design Festival” without a highlight: And this year, an “Endless Stair” was erected outside the Tate Modern, a walk-on, walk-off stair sculpture à la M.C. Escher.
FEATURED Colorful islands in the office10/1/2013With its spacious atrium, espresso bar and lounge furniture by Arper, Eneco’s headquarters looks like a high-class hotel lobby. It is, however, a workplace.
FAIRS & EVENTS 28.280 coloured glassbowls10/1/2013Our recce of the London Design Festival scouts six of the core venues to discover the current design tendencies. On this 16 mile whistle-stop tour from the west to the east of London, we start at the Victoria & Albert Museum, the self-proclaimed design hub of the LDF.
FEATURED The flexible office9/30/2013BP have relocated their headquarters. Now the staff are enjoying a flexible office space tailor-made precisely to the company’s requirements, with König and Neurath going so far as to develop customized office furniture for their client.
INTERVIEWS The main criteria is good work9/29/2013At the London Design Festival Sebastian Wrong presented his new collection “Wrong For Hay” in a stylish Georgian house at St James’s Park. Uta Abendroth spoke to him about the direction the portfolio takes, London as a location and working with the Danes.
INTERVIEWS People should design computers that cool down, instead of heating up9/28/2013How are changed work processes influencing the architecture of office buildings? Adeline Seidel spoke to Tom Geister, Associate at Sauerbruch Hutton Architects, about developers’ desire for flexibility and spaces that knowledge workers see as tailored to their needs.
ARCHITECTURE Close, Closer - to what?9/27/2013An architecture triennale in a time of crisis shows how architecture itself is in a time of crisis. In the face of surging financial and social problems in Portugal, the third Lisbon Architecture Triennale under the theme “Close, Closer” aptly proposes to rethink the role of architecture and architects.
INTERVIEWS Curator with heart9/26/2013Luminaires, chairs, cutting boards. Sebastian Bergne’s portfolio is diverse and his designs are often persuasively clever. Daniel von Bernstorff spoke with the multi-talented designer about his new role as design curator and about his love of traditional crafts workshops.
DESIGN And the winner is…9/25/2013Following plenty of sketch-making and puzzle-solving activity, we are now happy to announce the winner of our “Drawing by Numbers” competition marking the 300th edition of our newsletter. Click here to find out…
DESIGN Stefan Wewerka 1928 – 20139/24/2013Always provocative, Stefan Wewerka initially became famous for his distorted reproductions of architectural monuments, before setting his mind to asymmetrical furniture. On September 14, 2013, the architect, sculptor and product designer died in Berlin at the age of 85. An obituary by Jörg Stürzebecher.
ART Right in the heart of strings9/22/2013Not only a treat for lovers of music, the newly opened “Museo del Violino” in Stradivari’s birth town Cremona is also an architectural delight: a valuable collection of historic instruments housed in a beautifully converted 1940s palazzo.
ARCHITECTURE Inside the cube can be fun9/20/2013At long last there’s a bit of life in the “Sanaa Cube” in Essen. In the fall, the newly established course offered by Folkwang University will start - there. Entitled “Heterotopia – Summer Workshop 2013”, the designers and students have developed prototypes for the interior – and the results are astonishing.
FAIRS & EVENTS Hope alone does not suffice9/19/2013In the middle of the election campaigns and nonetheless in political nirvana, the “Designpreis der Bundesrepublik Deutschland” has been awarded in Berlin. An accolade with far greater potential than it is showing.
FAIRS & EVENTS Pegasus with branded grille9/17/2013Automobile designers work in close connection with technology, marketing and sales. Even when they design a “show car”, they are not really free. So what do the studies at the IAA tell us about the design of tomorrow?
FAIRS & EVENTS Butterfly collectors drive longer9/17/2013E-mobility is giving birth to a new kind of motion: networked gliding. Any amount of assistance is required for this to work. How designers and engineers are getting us used to driving electric cars.
FAIRS & EVENTS The clean turbos of tomorrow9/17/2013It’s clear from the show cars at the Frankfurt Motor Show: Automobiles in the future will be smarter and cleaner. Yet design and dynamism won’t be left behind. A tour in photos.
FAIRS & EVENTS Sharing big time9/13/2013The growing number of sharing platforms make us more flexible: Instead of owning something, we use what we need. Which saves money, spares resources, and fits a lifestyle that has to be updated about as often as a smartphone. We have prepared a list of a few of the important sharing pages for a life with assistants at your side.
FEATURED LO Mindports – modular thinking cells9/12/2013Labels such as think tank, meeting point and work lounge put it in a nutshell: Lista Office LO’s Mindport space furniture make for flexible offices.
DESIGN Sense and sensibility in the networked home9/11/2013Drive cleverly, live smarter – at the IAA the symbiosis of electro-mobility and intelligent building automation is a key topic. Efforts have long been underway to develop the smart home. But the market is only slowly picking up pace.
FAIRS & EVENTS I’ll send you a Glympse9/9/2013Drivers like it mobile and thus there is an increasing number of Apps that make driving easier and more entertaining. Be it Glympse, Waze or Smiledrive – we present those that seem indispensable.
