A Delightful Form of Public Art: Aerial Sculptures by Janet Echelman

Janet Echelman is an artist currently working and living in Brookline, Massachusetts, United States. Her public art works left us speechless, which is why we decided to showcase them on Freshome. First off, here is a small description from the official website: “Janet Echelman builds living, breathing sculpture environments that respond to the forces of nature — wind, water and light— and become inviting focal points for civic life. Exploring the potential of unlikely materials, from fishing net to atomized water particles, Echelman combines ancient craft with cutting-edge technology to create her permanent sculpture at the scale of buildings. Experiential in nature, the result is sculpture that shifts from being an object you look at, to something you can get lost in“. Having traveled significantly, the idea to use fishing nets in her installations was inspired by her experience in India, where she learned tricks from local fisherman. Since then, she was commissioned to create fabulous displays of public art in Portugal, Phoenix, British Columbia, Madrid.

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Orange Cinemas by Robert Majkut architects

On request of Orange Sky Golden Harvest Entertainment Group – a legendary Asian cinema company - Robert Majkut created the project of Orange Cinemas in Beijing. Official opening of the cinema will take place on 28th March 2011.
Golden Harvest, being the power of Asian film industry, produced more than 600 films, and promoted two legends of action movies - Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.
Leading Asian cinema operator, Golden Harvest, is the owner of cinema chain of 28 multiplexes and 223 auditoriums. Over last few years Golden Harvest expanded its activities into Chinese and Taiwanese market, being the greatest cinema operator in Taiwan and Singapore.

Robert Majkut was invited to create the project for Orange Cinemas in Pacific Department Store in Beijing. Investors decided to choose Robert Majkut on the basis of his previous projects, especially Multikino Golden Terraces in Warsaw.
The process of creating such places is a great challenge. It is a creation of a total concept, which need to fulfil many requirements of future receivers, and encompass all aspects of the image and way of acting.
We created probably the most exclusive cinema in China.
Our project included some key elements like colour, form, kind of 'energy' shaped by the atmosphere, and multimedia solutions which were extremely important issue.
Black symbolises the murk from which the light appears - the essence of the cinema and its magic. Orange is a colour of a sunset, a symbol of an evening time for pleasant leisure and social meetings. Pink is the colour of fun and carefree happiness. These three colours and their meaning constitute the basis of this place.
Next element - form - is being realized in two ways. Through the shape of the sign between the rectangular screen and the shape of traditional Chinese lantern. It is a symbol of light and setting, held in one meaning, forming the magic of the cinema.
The second idea of form is smoothness of lines referring to the human body movements and traditional film tape which moves softly in the projector.
Multimedia are the third equally important element. Huge screens shape the pace and atmosphere of the interior. Films which are displayed in the cinema emphasize the smoothness and illusionary character of the cinema world.
All these elements create spectacular, and modern interior. Dark and black walls, colourful furniture, atmosphere of a living scenes, modern forms, softness of shapes... Our task was to create the most unique place in Beijing. I hope that we succeeded.

Project Description
Orange Cinemas interiors consist of Piano Bar zone, private VIP-rooms, Cigar Club, and three luxurious cameral auditoriums: Black Room, Orange Garden and Pink Sky. Lobby is a unique cameral club space with the collection of the latest works of art.
Robert Majkut, with his great experience, has created unique cinema interiors for many years. Also this project has a unique character. The designer tells a story about moving, turning forms, movement, sun, impressions, and illusion of the cinema. All these elements are expressed by colours, textures, and light. The space is created thanks to variable light of big screens, sounds from Piano Bar, and the intense play of colours.
Logo, inspired by manually painted Chinese symbols, was the basis for design of Orange Cinemas interior. The shape of the bar, carpeting patterns, shapes of door and table holders, openwork curtains, quilts, and wall patterns are the transformation of the sign form.
Smooth surfaces are the continuous game of escaping and overlapping colourful spots - starting with orange, through pink and dark chocolate hues, to dominating black. Big contrasts are on the one hand a background for multimedia performances, but on the other hand they are a perfect place for intimate meetings in the middle of the film scenes.
All furnishing elements - sofas, tables, bar stools and lighting - were individually designed by Robert Majkut. All is kept in consequent black, orange and pink colouring.
Material used in the concept are shiny stone, mahogany veneer, silk wallpapers, wool carpeting, leather, felt, and polished steel.
Total surface of the cinema constitutes 1000 sq meters. 3 auditoriums, of 30 seats each, are adjusted for 200 guests.

Moving Platforms by Priestmangoode

Industrial designers Priestmangoode have revealed a concept for high-speed trains that would transfer passengers to local services while still moving, instead of stopping at stations.

By avoiding time-consuming stops, the Moving Platforms concept would allow faster long-distance journey times.
Trams and local trains would dock alongside the high-speed trains while still in motion, allowing passengers to walk between the two services.
As part of a fully integrated network, passengers would be able to journey from a local stop to any international destination without disembarking.

The following details are from Priestmangoode:

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Britain’s leading transport designer unveils the future for 21st Century train travel

Britain’s leading transport designer has unveiled his idea for the future of train travel. Moving Platforms is a completely inter-connected rail infrastructure where local trams connect to a network of non-stop high speed trains enabling passengers to travel from their local stop to a local address at their destination (even in another country) without getting off a train.

Paul Priestman of Priestmangoode is the designer of the Virgin Pendolino train and last year’s hugely successful Mercury high speed concept train. Moving Platforms is a totally joined-up network that allows passengers to transfer directly from one moving tram or high speed train to another. This new integrated infrastructure mimics the way the internet works, creating a system similar to the one that allows your home PC to connect to a computer on the other side of the world via a series of connected networks.

Moving Platforms involves a network of high speed trains that run non-stop between two ends of a continent, New York to San Francisco for instance. The high speed trains run on a line that passes outside towns and cities with a network of local feeder trams that carry passengers from local stops out to meet them. As they near each other, the high speed train slows down slightly and the tram speeds up alongside it, at which point the trains physically connect via a docking system allowing passengers to transfer directly across from the tram to the high speed train and vice versa. Once transfers are complete, the trains separate, with the high speed train speeding up again along its route, and the tram slowing down and going back into the town or city centre with the newly disembarked passengers. The tram, in effect, acts as a moving station. The same system could also be used by passengers transferring from one high speed train to another.

This idea is not as crazy as it sounds. There are plenty of examples in every day life where we step onto a moving vehicle: escalators, moving walkways, paternoster lifts, ski lifts and Ferris wheels like the London Eye.

We are trying to build a new 21st Century train service on a station-based infrastructure that was designed in the 19th century for steam trains. We should be re-thinking infrastructure and building an inter-connected local-to-global rail network.

Current plans for high speed rail will require a new network of major stations, taking up huge amounts of space and with a cost and environmental impact that is potentially vast. These stations function for the most part as large car parks that are packed during working hours and empty the rest of the time, and are only in use by passengers for short periods of the day.

The big problem with high speed trains is that they are not very fast. Slowing down and speeding up as they move between stations means they are only able to travel at their full speed for limited periods of time (wasting vast amounts of energy in the process). On long journeys, the non stop high speed train could save a vast proportion of any journey time.

We lose huge amounts of time in transit waiting at stations as we change trains. Moving Platforms would enable passengers to travel from their local stop to an address of their choice in another town or country without getting off a train.

Many rail passengers use cars to get to their main-line embarkation station, so being able to link up to the high speed train directly from a local tram or train service means we could reduce car usage in towns and cities.

Track infrastructure is already in place in many areas. On each train line, there are two tracks, one high speed and one local, next to one another. This means that potentially, Moving Platforms would not take up any more land.

Existing local stations would serve the feeder trams, enabling passengers from rural areas to access the high speed line easily.

Moving Platforms could also be used for local deliveries and freight. This will help get trucks off the road and ease congestion on motorways and in towns and cities.
A journey planner App would tell you what local tram or train to get on in Boston to go to a local address in San Francisco for instance, making travel simpler and easier.

“I can’t believe that across the world we are spending billions on high speed rail making it run on a network that was invented in the 19th Century. I’m under no illusion that Moving Platforms is a big idea, but if we really want high speed rail to be successful and change the way we travel, getting people off the roads and reducing the number of short haul flights, it is imperative that the infrastructure we use works with, not against, this new technology to enable a seamless passenger journey from start to destination. The days of the super-hub train station are over, connectivity is the way forward,” says Paul Priestman.

German Pavilion by Schmidhuber + Kaindl

The architects Schmidhuber + Kaindl has designed the German Pavilion for Shanghai Expo 2010 .

Central Idea
At the german pavilion in Shanghai, the Federal Republic of Germany is presenting itself as a multifaceted nation rich in ideas. As an innovative, forward-looking country that also places great value on the preservation of its roots and heritage. Diversity and balance, rather than ’sameness’, are vital to tomorrow’s cities. The interplay between the diversity and contrasts of German cities enables a very special quality of life and vitality to emerge. This is why we believe it is essential to preserve this diversity without forgoing innovation and technology.
The Federal Republic of Germany is intent on conveying this very personal German perspective credibly and memorably. Germany’s contribution to the EXPO 2010 ‘Better City, Better Life’ theme is called: balancity a city in balance between renewal and preservation, innovation and tradition, urbanity and nature, society and its individuals, work and recreation, and finally, between globalisation and national identity. This central idea can be directly experienced by visitors everywhere in the German pavilion. Balancity a marriage of the terms ‘balance’ and ‘city’ is Germany’s interpretation of the ‘Better City, Better Life’ Expo theme.

Balancity
The thinking behind balancity is clearly reflected in the pavilion architecture. A city symbolises the balance between diversity and density, and is composed of many different historical layers, spaces, functions and environments. In many cities, the industrial evolution from a production to a service orientation has led to large industrial spaces being transformed into attractive parks and residential environments.
Nature and natural landscapes re slowly but surely finding their way into the city. In contemporary European urban planning, the historically defined antipodes of city and country are now dovetailing towards a single cohesive organism. The resulting consciousness and commitment to sustainable, energy-efficient living concepts are leading to a definite integration of nature into urban spaces and architectural concepts. The architecture of the German pavilion is very much like a dynamic, urban organism, an accessible three-dimensional sculpture, mirroring the diversity of life in the city and the country in Germany.

The German pavilion as a sculpture
Four large exhibition structures stand as symbols for the interplay between carrying and being carried, between leaning on and supporting. Each individual structure, on its own, is in a somewhat precarious state of balance. It is only in interaction with the other structures that a stable balance is found. This is the concept behind balancity from an architectural perspective.
The four structures together create a large roof over the pavilion landscape, offering visitors shade and protecting them from rain. An exciting interplay of interior and exterior space, of buildings and nature, of urban and rural landscapes. The journey through the exhibition structures is set up like a promenade.
The visitors move along pathways, at times on moving walkways, as they are led through the various urban spaces. Double storeys merge with single storeys, and the slops and turns in the different spaces moderate the visitor flow.

At the end of the path, the visitor reaches a twelve-metre high, vertical amphitheatre-like room the Energy Source. Following he show in the Energy Source, the visitor is gradually led downwards in a spiral consisting of three staircases, where he finally reaches the pavilion’s event area.


Project: EXPO 2010 Shanghai Deutscher Pabilion “balancity”
Overall responsibility: German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, Bonn
Organisation and Operation: Koelnmesse International GmbH, Cologne
Design, planning and realisation: Consortium German Pavilion Shanghai
Architecture: Schmidhuber + Kaindl GmbH, Munich
Exhibition: Milla and Partner GmbH, Stuttgart
Construction: NUSSLI (Germany), Roth
Local architect: he playze, Shanghai
Project management: BS Engineering Consulting Shanghai Co., Ltd.
Design/Construction Service: Shanghai Xiandai Architectural Design (Group) Co., Ltd.

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Tiny Apartment With 25,000 Ping Pong Balls On Its Walls

This apartment placed in 90 square feet in Brooklyn is designed Snarkitecture Daniel Arsham. This private retreat and is part of a larger work space 2500 square feet for cooperation. It is very minimalist and monochrome still very unusual. Her wall hangings made his feature. They are covered with 25,000 ping pong balls. Thank you for these large screens that fade from gray to white grainy. Since the apartment is one of the offices of the company, he only sleeping, dressing, storage and study areas.

The apartment was built in two months for less than $ 100 per square foot. Thats $ 50 cheaper than the average of the attic in this area.

Colorful Apartment Design With Interior In Organized Chaos

Manu large manufacturers of furniture and home accessories create clubs for regular customers. Members of such clubs usually have some privileges in various promotions and events. Ikea Family is one of those clubs. Here is an apartment designed by one of the members of this club filled with different stuff from IKEA stores. It belongs to an artist, Gitte, who used a lot of paint to change the look of ordinary objects. She likes to try new things so there is some chaos in the apartment. In the same time everything is organized thanks to different storage systems. If you want to make your living space more fun and happy you definitely have some things to learn from Gitte’s apartment.

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Monochrome Duplex Apartment With Complex Interior Geometry

Monochrome duplex apartments of about 280m ² with a large terrace designed by Paris-based studio architecture Architecture Pascal Grasso. It lies at the heart of Paris and is equipped with a complex wall geometry. There are many boxes plaster on walls and floors. Some of them are just decorative elements while some other hidden functions such as lighting, air conditioning system, sound and ventilation. Even some of the furniture object consists of the box. Thanks to their living space looks dynamic and highly unusual.

Lightning system, hidden behind the boxes, providing a spread, indirect light and scalable.

Pascal Grasso

Small Space Living Design Inspiration

We have a thing for small spaces. It features a small space solutions for the home (remember the 344 & 480 sqft who sqft?) Which can hardly boast of any field to play with, we are back again with a new jewel of Portugal’s 474 sqft spacious place to use the maximum. Designed by architect Consexto, this house (titled Houses Closet) was chosen as one of the winners of the Daily Arch Building of the Year in 2010.

Architect’s note:

The Closet house rises from the need to transform 44m2 in a house thoroughly useful and livable. Has five spaces, two of them completely flexible and transformable by result of a displacement of a cabinet/wall, in wood with natural finish, that grants spaces from the living and room areas different sizes and uses. Likewise, all the associated automation technology makes possible that joint space, framed in various activities and daily routines. On one hand, the cabinet/wall serves as bedroom wardrobe, on the other side rises an extendable dining table, a mini bar and an integrated home cinema. However, there is a passage whenever the living area become greatest, be able to access to a higher niche where the bed is. This option allowed a whole perimeter area gain for storage and placement of a built-in LCD.

The profitability of space coupled with technology was the dominant concern throughout the project; the kitchen and toilet equipped with cabinets that blend and automatically glide into the wall, mirrors with monitored exhaustion, ideal for small wetlands and no natural ventilation. All electronic devices, as well as natural and artificial lighting, are fully controlled by a home automation system applied. Energy efficiency guarantee was one of the main concerns.