New writing Summer 2010
"Norwegian Designer Daniel Rybakken Designs Daylight", Mark, August/September 2010
“Even this year, every light in Milan is about the lampshade, and not the light” says Daniel Rybakken as we tour his studio in Gothenburg Sweden. “Designers have had it so easy, you just do something crazy, a sculpture or material experiment or whatever and put a light source in the middle.” Rybakken´s work is about trying something different and actually designing the experience and quality of artificial light. “I´ve only really had like three or four really inspired ideas, and each of these I have tried to bring to the essence. I don´t need to do ten different things a year, I´d rather edit, be critical, and do something with really strong quality” he says. “People say that everything has been done but for me I think new things are still possible. “ he says. He tries to look at the world in a curious but critical way, examining why things are the way they are. Most people have noticed a patch of light on the wall, but few people have tried to think about what feelings that it evokes, or why we like it. Read more in Mark, Aug/Sept 2010 and see PDF below.
| daniel_rybakken_mark.pdf |
Radical housing renovation in London by Make, ArchitectureWeek, 7 July 2010
In central London, a renovation by Make Architects offers a radical new aesthetic and improved energy efficiency to an unremarkable 1960s housing block. At first glance, the project at 10 Weymouth Street does not seem particularly glamorous — the upgrading of concrete-framed postwar housing stock, with an addition overlooking the mews — but the results have been golden. Facing the busy street, in a conservation area that includes the nearby RIBA Headquarters, 10 Weymouth Street's minimal brown-brick facade has changed only slightly, with new aluminum-framed, double-glazed windows, a refurbished entrance with improved access, and a set-back rooftop addition barely visible from the street. But as a visitor discovers upon entering through a gap in the street front, the alley facade has been transformed with dramatic, gold-colored brass cladding and new balconies protruding as perforated, cantilevering rooms. From this secret view in the shared mews, the building looks like it has been dipped in gold. Read more here.
Profile of ecoLogicStudio in Territory Beyond Environment, Architectural Design, John Wiley & Sons Ltd Press, May/June 2010
From a series of radical renovations to a "facebook for architecture" Pasquero and Poletto are mapping territories between theory and practice, proposing a new approach to sustainability. From their office in Hackney, in London´s East End, Italian duo Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto have established an international reputation as ecoLogicStudio, an innovative practice that fuses digital technologies with environmental design. The ethos and approach of the studio extends beyond that of finding technical solutions to ecological design projects…Read more in Architectural Design, Territory Beyond Environment, Issue 205, edited by David Gissen. Buy the book here.
Interview with interactive designer Ruairi Glynn, Mark, April/May 2010
Designer Ruairi Glynn builds machines that force him to give up control. ‘Everything I have ever built, moves’ says 28-year-old Ruairi Glynn from his studio in central London at the Bartlett School of Architecture. The former student turned instructor combines his training in architecture and digital arts with expertise in computation and digital design, to create hybrid spatial experiences that challenge conventional notions of interactive design. ‘I think true interactivity is about an exchange of messages that you build into a design,’ says Glynn. ‘Using kinetics and through engaging with the body – rather than looking at a screen – it can become an ongoing exchange towards a truly interactive architecture.’ Read more in Mark April/May 2010
| ruairiglynn_mark.pdf |
Interview with Spanish designer Hector Serrano, Azure, March/April 2010
An interview with London based Hector Serrano about the playful inspiration behind is designs, and his biggest inflatable design yet – an interactive blimp. “One of my first projects at the Royal College of Art was inspired by a flour-filled balloon I found at a Paris market – a simple and cheap toy that changes shape as you play with it. At first, I didn’t know what my design was going to be. I tried filling balloons with glass beads, like those used for sandpaper, as well as other things; then I experimented with table salt. It diffuses the heat, so it’s warm but not too hot to touch. And it provides a translucent glow. The result of my experiments was Superpatata, a soft, colourful latex lamp that can be used as a pillow or hot water bottle. Droog exhibited it in 2000 in its Milan showroom during the furniture fair; and the lamp also won the Peugeot design prize of £15,000. This gave me the freedom to start my own studio – albeit from my bedroom, but at least I could start entering design competitions and making things. In 2002, I did the Clothes Hanger Lamp, also for Droog, and got a real studio space in London.” Read more in Azure Magazine March/April 2010, see the PDF below and read an excerpt online here.
| hector_serrano_identikit.jpg |
R&Sie´s Parisian courtyard renovation is both a family home and "hydroponic green cloak", Mark, March 2010
Bizarre and otherworldly, French architecture firm R&Sie(n) has designed and realized an experimental new home in a courtyard in central Paris. Known as ‘I’m Lost in Paris’, it suggests new ways of thinking about ecology, cybernetics and wilderness. R&Sie(n) cofounder François Roche may not want to talk about this project as ‘sustainable’ – "I hate that word and how it is has become the new high priest of moralism" – but his project can be seen as an alternative reading of urban sustainability, in which a personal relationship with nature and site allows for multiple readings, a notion that is radical beyond aesthetics. Disinterested in carbon counting and in energy-saving appliances; his work is subversive, both repulsing and intriguing with its glass and green façade – its ‘lost’ appearance…Read more in Mark Magazine 24, Feburary 2010 and see PDF below.
| rsie_mark_magazine.pdf |