'Corian Super Surface' by Amanda Levete Architects

The ‘Digital Architecture London’ Conference will take place at the Building Centre on 21st September 2009. Presenting a selection of London’s leading architects, artists, designers and engineers, the conference will examine how London is shaping the digital future of the built environment.  

Introducing the latest developments in digital design practice, the conference will explore new spaces, social interactions, design and fabrication processes, and speculate on architecture’s post-digital futures.

Speakers include Patrik Schumacher, Director and Partner, Zaha Hadid Architects, Alvin Huang, a director of Amanda Levete Architects, Tony Dunne, Professor and Head of the Design Interactions Department at the Royal College of Art and many more.

to the Digital Architecture London website

'Garden House' by Tham & Videgård Hansson

The Swedish architects Tham & Videgård Hansson recently unveiled one of their newest projects, the ‘Garden House’, based in Södermanland, Sweden. The triangular, two storey core of the house is completely covered by a wooden trellis, which serves as a fence for the roof terrace and will be covered by greenery sometime.

'Garden House' by Tham & Videgård Hansson

Depending on each room’s function even some windows are covered by this lozenged wooden structure. The acute angle of house has a glass facade and seems to be a wintergarden which spans both storeys.

Inside the winter garden

Model

to the Tham & Videgård Hansson website

Tham & Videgård Hansson products @ Architonic

'Cage sans Frontières', the exhibition structure by Ron Arad, Photo by Jason Mandella

Recently New York’s MoMA opened ‘No Discipline’, an exhinition dedicated to the comprehensive work of Ron Arad. 

‘No Discipline’ celebrates the designer’s interdisciplinary and “no-disciplinary” spirit. Physical concepts are traced through works in different materials and scales, and objects are grouped in families based on a shared form, material, technique, or structural idea. The exhibition culminates in Arad’s structure ‘Cage sans Frontières’, a giant twisted shelf that cradles all the other works.

The exhibition is on view from 2 August to October 19, 2009. Find more information on the informative exhibition’s website.

to the MoMA website

'Dayboard' by StokkeAustad

First presented at last year’s Stockholm fair the playful calender designed by StokkeAustad is now in production, thanks to the Spanish manufacturer ABR. 

The starting point for this design is idea that the way in which year goes by is characterised by highly personal and subjective events. The Norwegian designers broke up the  strict chronological order, that calenders usually has in order to enable the user to shape his own timing of the year.

'Dayboard' by StokkeAustad

“We wanted to design a calendar which would allow people to arrange their days more freely – does a year always move in a straight line? Does your summer feel more dominant than your winter, or the other way round?” the designers say. 

The calendar is put together from 365 coloured, magnetic metal plates, each of which contains a date. The winter days are coloured a cool blue, but then in spring change to green before shining an intense yellow in the summer, until in autumn they change to a warm orange, then red, and then an intense violet. 

'Dayboard' by StokkeAustad

more ABR products @ Architonic

Photos by Eduardo Hernàndez

This extension, designed by the very young – non of the partners has reached the age of 30 yet – mexican architecture pactice stación-ARquitectura Arquitectosdesign, is a small showroom and a design center for a company specialized in office furniture.

Showroom designed by stación-ARquitectura Arquitectos, Photos by Eduardo Hernàndez

What the architect say:

In this space both the first and the last steps of the manufacturing process of the furniture should be unified: the design stage as well as their exhibition and sale.

It was chosen to make an intervention that will put in manifest each program of the building, making a constructive operation that transcends the site’s structure, composed by one side of the manufacture building (factory) and by the other a loading and parking area for trucks, both already existing in the terrain.

Showroom by stación-ARquitectura Arquitectos, Photos by Eduardo Hernàndez

So the building is formed by two parts, one heading to the front yard of the terrain and the other that is embedded in the factory. Each part is separated one from the other by a different ground level and by a basic services core. The exterior part of the building was built over a former parking lot, as a condition that the same program will be respected in the intervention. This way the volume rise over the vehicles of directives and clients and its connected with the interior part of the building, built over a former storage space of the factory that is now used for the design and monitoring of what takes place inside the warehouse were the furniture is manufactured, so it requires a high degree of acoustic insulation between both activities.

This way half the interior part of the building (inside the manufacture area) is closed and opaque meanwhile the other half in the exterior (front yard) is open and almost transparent, because is there where the access and exhibition zone of the finished furniture takes place, making its function of a big shelter.

Inside the showroom

Project name: Showroom Ofimodul.

Architects: stación-ARquitectura Arquitectos + Armando Cantú

Associated Architect: Armando Cantú.

Location: Monterrey, México
Project team: César Augusto Guerrero Rodríguez, Armando Cantú, Ana Cecilia Garza Villarreal, Carlos Raúl Flores Leal, María Sevilla Gómez. 

Size of the project : 272 m2.

Project year: 2008

Construction: 2008 - 2009

Materials: Concrete, Steel and Glass.

to the stación-ARquitectura Arquitectos website