looks like music

Sound artist Yuri Suzuki designed this delightful interactive installation in which a miniature vehicle - the color chaser - detects and follows a black line and translates crossing coloured lines as RGB data into sound. In an interview with Dezeen, Yuri said, “I am dyslexic and I cannot read musical scores. However, I have a passion to play and create new music and I always dream to create new notation of music.”

via Dezeen

watertower by tom fruin

Located in Dumbo, Brooklyn, Watertower is composed of 1,000 scraps of plexiglas and reclaimed steel. The iconic tower is illuminated by the sun during the day and by Ardunio-controlled light sequences designed by Ryan Holsopple at night. Created by Tom Fruin.

via My Modern Met

hermès exhibition

Hermès recently unveiled its new collection of furniture, fabrics and wallpapers, as well as some bespoke pieces at Milan Salone del Mobile in April. The exhibit composed the new collections within stacked, symbolic houses, which provided a frame for viewing and appreciating the furniture and products.

Hermès is enriching the home with a host of new creations: “Les Nécessaires d’Hermès,” a range of cleverly designed, comfortable and multi-functional pieces of furniture imagined by French designer Philippe Nigro; a collection of furnishing fabrics and wallpapers, each with its own story to tell; and bespoke furniture creations designed to enhance exceptional interiors.

via designboom

the little free library

The Architectural League of New York partnered with Pen World Voices Festival and asked ten design agencies to come up with new types of Little Free Libraries.

Stereotank's design created an 'inhabitable' library, where users could immerse themselves and take the time to browse through books and borrow or exchange them. The structure is built out of an upside down plastic tank and a wooden frame. Perforations around the tank allow visitors to peek inside and preview the interior, which invites them to duck under and discover the book collection while still having a connection with the exterior. Wonderful!

via Pop Up City

IBM's smarter cities

Ogilvy & Mather France designed a series of slarge-scale, dual-purpose ads for IBM's Smarter Cities campaign. The billboards embody the company's mission, transforming static advertisements into useful urban tools. The critical part of my brain thinks the ramp is a bit misleading since it probably doesn't meet ADA standards for slope, but it's creative nonetheless!

via 2Modern

the chroma bench

Once again, I've disappeared, and perhaps you're wondering where I've been. Well, my friends and I entered an international design competition and we were selected as one of twenty finalists for the Street Seats Design Challenge. The next week and a half will be very, very busy, because we are building a full-scale bench to be installed on the Fort Point Channel of Boston!

If you would like to see the bench in person, the opening day is Saturday, 4/27, from 1-3pm. You can vote on your favorite bench, enjoy tasty food trucks, and mingle with the benches' designers. I hope to see you there!

Here is our full bench description:
"The Chroma Bench was inspired by colors, patterns and materiality of the maritime environment. The seating surface is a contemporary interpretation of linear decking found on classic wooden runabout boats. The rear “billboard” of the bench was influenced by the vibrant water hues observed underneath the Evelyn Moakley Bridge.

Triangular colored panels create an optical effect on the back of the bench. As walkers pass by, their direction determines what color is visible. This element of discovery will intrigue visitors and foster conversation about the piece.

The Chroma Bench is intentionally high-backed to protect from noise and wind, to make a “billboard” for the rear color feature, and to create an intimate sitting experience."

kvadrat exhibit

So many delightful details in this exhibit space designed by Raw Edges for the Danish textile manufacturer Kvadrat for Stockholm Design Week. ‘The Picnic’ features a massive wooden construction of Dinesen Douglas Fir and a textile installation consisting of 1,500 straps made out of a selection of twenty different Kvadrat textiles. If you look closely, not only will you see clever product displays, but you'll also see a log cabin nestled under a giant weeping willow.

via Dezeen

friday inspiration

I was blown away as soon as I laid eyes on this clever project by Mie Frey Damgaard and Peter Ørntoft. Paint color preference by room was visualized as physical pie charts, cleverly painted in a dimensional scene to appear 2d, but accompanied by the subtle depth of natural shadows. This data visualization is the result of colour statistics extracted from Pinterest, a content sharing platform effecting millions of consumers' decoration decisions. Created for the paint brand Jotun.

Happy Friday!

via Plenty of Colour

fire shelter

Designed by Simon Hjermind Jensen, Fire Shelter is a temporary public space located in Sydhavnstippen, an inactive landfill that since 1973 has become overgrown with wild vegetation and animals. The shelter takes inspiration from architecture of ethnic and nomadic people. Inside, benches surround a fire pit, offering shelter from wind and a warm hearth. At night, light permeates the white polycarbonate roofing material and the shelter glows like a beacon. Beautiful.

via Contemporist

ring installation

Ring installation by Arnaud Lapierre distorts and reconstructs reality through the layering of reflections and voids. The cylindrical environment warps visitors' perception of space into a simultaneously reconstructed and deconstructed reality.

via ArchDaily

thread installation by faig ahmed

This lovely Thread Installation by Faig Ahmed reimagines traditional textile skills, giving a two-dimensional art form three dimensions in space. The installation also gives a dynamic movement to an otherwise static material.

via It's Nice That

reverse of volume

In his installation, reverse of volume RG, Yasuaki Onishi uses the simplest materials — plastic sheeting and black hot glue — to create a monumental, mountainous form that appears to float in space. The process that he calls “casting the invisible” involves draping the plastic sheeting over stacked cardboard boxes, which are then removed to leave only their impressions. This process of “reversing” sculpture is Onishi’s meditation on the nature of the negative space, or void, left behind.

via Frame

penelopiad

Breathtaking set design by Lightning & Kinglyface. Penelopiad is part of their mythology series, representing "the shrouds we weave around us, the lies we tell and the trouble or effort that is associated with them all in order to avoid entanglement." And yes, those are hands!

via It's Nice That

amager ark

Alio Bonanno is a site-specific, outdoor installation artist who has been creating large-scale sculptures within selected, natural environments for the past 35 years. Amager Ark, an installation and sculptural playground located in the marshy landscape of Himmelhøj, was inspired by the rainwater that had collected in the flat area of the site. The artist envisioned a very large, organic, Ark-like structure stranded in this flat borderland landscape. During the rainy season, the Ark reflects itself in the surrounding waters.

via Playgroundology

all by maurizio cattelan

Hailed simultaneously as a provocateur, prankster, and tragic poet of our times, Maurizio Cattelan has created some of the most unforgettable images in recent contemporary art. His source materials range widely, from popular culture, history, and organized religion to a meditation on the self that is at once humorous and profound. Working in a vein that can be described as hyperrealist, Cattelan creates unsettlingly veristic sculptures that reveal contradictions at the core of today’s society. While bold and irreverent, the work is also deadly serious in its scathing critique of authority and the abuse of power.

Watch a video of the incredible installation set up at the Guggenheim in New York City here.

via designboom

loom hyperbolic

Loom Hyperbolic, an installation in Marrakech, was influenced by local handcraft culture, such as Morrocan weaving on a wood frame loom. Barkow Leibinger combined this indigenous process with algorithm software programming to create the tent-like installation out of pine poles and yarn.

via designboom

thread drawings by anne lindberg

Hundreds of strands of cotton thread combine to create these beautifully blurred installations by Anne Lindberg. Watch the video above to appreciate the time it takes to make one installation!

via ArchDaily

installations by janet echelman

Janet Echelman transforms open air with her glowing, lacy installations made from polyester fiber. Her volumetric work is monumental and overwhelming. The permanent and temporary projects draw inspiration from ancient craft and modern technology.

via ArchDaily

set design by es devlin

Fantastic set design by Es Devlin for the Kanye West and Jay Z Watch the Throne Arena Tour.

via It's Nice That

friday inspiration

Street view is an animation made ​​by Pao during "Street View Lecco 2011" in Italy. Four days of paintings and 700 photographs transform the wall into a work of real and virtual together.

via urbanshit