Florence Design Week 2012
Russian Design Pavilion
Lungarno Collection
22 May – 3 June 2012

Russian Federation will be a special guest of Florence Design Week for the first time.

Project aims to promote striking trends of russian contemporary design, introduce europen public to the talented colleagues from Russia whom exhibition and residence will be located in one of the most prestigious places in Florence «Lungarno Collection».

Russian design Pavilion is a part of Florence Design Week (22-27 May) which is one of the most interesting showcases in Europe reflecting technical innovations and bold experiments in design to favour the development of cultural and commercial exchanges of Tuscany with other countries. There will be organized an interective bridge between Florence Design Week and Saint-Petersburg Design Week being held in conjunction.

Lungarno Collection is an italian hospitality company of luxury and design hotels, villas and retreats owned by the Ferragamo family, famous for its own personality and for a role taken place in the history of contemporary design. Gallery Hotel Art was the first and more significant projects of Design Hotels inaugurated in the 90′s in Italy.

Russian talents in three events:
home accessories & lifestyle product collections from a well-rounded mix of emerging russian designers Dima Loginoff, Vadim Kibardin, Maxim Maximov, Anna Denisenko, SashaDashaDesign;

final exhibitions of Wine Label Design Contest 2012 organized by the tuscan brand "Paxa" and its further presentation at The International Festival of Packaging in Moscow "Packshow" (12-15 September, 2012);

photographic series “GaStar Project” and “Taste of The World” by Masha Knyazeva.

Official events:
Florence Design Week opening ceremony: 22 May – 12.00 pm – Palazzo Medici Riccardi
Russian Design Pavilion vernissage: 23 May – 19.30 pm – Lungarno Collection, Vicolo D’Oro 5, Lungarno Acciaiuoli 2p – 4d

Opening hours:
Tuesday, May 22, 16:00 – 23:00 p.m.
May 23 – June 3, 7:00 a.m. – 23:00 p.m.

Organizer:
CREATIVIRUS project: international project for art and design
Sette martiri st., 33 – 05018 Orvieto (TR), Italy
T. +39 334 1517040, +39 0763 393824 E-mail: creativirus.project@gmail.com
www.creativirus.it www.russiandesignpavilion.com

U27 Office Building, image courtesy Park Associati

In January 2012, Milanofiori 2000 srl began work on the building known as U27, that is due for completion and handover to Nestlé Italiana Spa in December 2013.

The architectural design by Park Associati is based on an analytical approach to the articulated system of access to the Milanofiori Nord area, the pedestrian walkways and roads, climatic factors relating to the context and the goal of properly integrating the building into the overall masterplan. Its position as a link to an area of forest towards the north led to the development of a complex that while being based on a closed courtyard layout, enables a visual permeability to be maintained in terms of the routes that surround the building. The building has been designed in such a way as to create a visual continuity between the natural landscape of the wood at the north and the designed landscape of the site itself. The courtyard, reserved for users of the building, relates to the external landscape and is conceived as a kind of "secret garden".

U27 Office Building, image courtesy Park Associati

The entrance, that faces onto a semi-urban piazza, has been conceived as a continuation of the main pedestrian access from the south-west of the site (directly connected to the metro station) while service vehicles are directed to the opposite end of the complex to an area that is completely hidden by ground. The main entrance hall is in direct visual contact with the internal courtyard and is flooded with natural light by a large, north-facing rooflight. The canteen area is a place for relaxing and an important area for social interaction that adds to the quality of the environment.

U27 Office Building, image courtesy Park Associati

While the building appears compact and rational in plan, the elevations are articulated in a series of blocks allowing for a lighter and more fragmented composition. This is achieved by dividing the whole building into a number of segments, 'suspended boxes' that vary in size and height and each with a slightly inclined facade. The elevations establish a link with the context through the nature of the surfaces, perceived from different angles, they are sometimes made neutral allowing light to filter through, other times compact and reflective giving continuity to the natural surroundings. At certain points the composition is enriched with the addition of vertical blades in coloured glass that further articulate the volumes without affecting the level of transparency.

U27 Office Building - Facade detail, drawing courtesy Park Associati

The raised part of the building is embedded into the ground in a natural way to create a secluded internal space on top of which sit volumes at different levels that house the building's main facilities. The articulation of the building envelope and the rhythm of the structure relate to the open-planned interior spaces and act as a grid for generating different configurations for the internal circulation, enabling a high degree of flexibility.

U27 Office Building - Site plan, drawing courtesy Park Associati

Considerable importance has been given to energy issues and levels of energy consumption. The building is expected to receive a LEED certificate (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) "Core and Shell" in Gold class.

U27 Office Building - Section, drawing courtesy Park Associati

+ Project facts

U27 Office building
Milanofiori Nord, Assago (MI), Italy

Floor area: 22.100 mq
Year: start of work January 2012
Status: under construction
Client: Milanofiori 2000 Srl
Leaseholder: Nestlé Italiana Spa
Architectural design, art direction: Park Associati, Milano
Overall and detailed civil, structural and services design : General Planning, Milano
Site supervision and safety: General Planning, Milano
General Contractor: ZH General Construction Company Spa, Campo Tures (Bz)
Facades: Focchi Spa, Poggio Berni (Rn)
LEED certification: General Planning, Milano – Greenwich Srl, Medolago (BG)

Design team Park Associati: Filippo Pagliani, Michele Rossi
Marco Siciliano (project leader), Marinella Ferrari, Stefano Lanotte, Marco Panzeri, Davide Pojaga, Alessandro Rossi, Elisa Taddei, Paolo Uboldi, Fabio Calciati (renderings)
Design team General Planning: Giovanni Bonini (RL, DL)
Paolo Varenna (project leader), Loris Colombo, Laura Barat, Matteo Molteni, Luca Dagrada, Paolo Rossanigo, Alberto Villa, Claudio Bertolini, Luigi Zinco, Walter Cola, Andrea Cristaldi, Vittorio Vigano' (CS), Claudio Bertagnolli, Manuel Schieder, Mario Pinoli, Giuseppe Zaffino.

+ All images and drawings courtesy Park Associati

Designers and Artists in New York City Team up to Develop Projects Addressing Currents Global Issues

• Wednesday, May 10 – Friday, June 15, 2012
• Opening reception and book launch: Wednesday, May 15, 6 – 8pm

The Korean Cultural Service New York and the Institute of Multidisciplinarity for Art, Architecture and Design (I:M) are pleased to present an exhibition, Desired Sync: Global Crisis & Design ver.1.5. Desired Sync is the second of a series of exhibitions honorable selected from official '2012 Call for Artists' program organized by the Korean Cultural Service New York. The exhibition enlists twenty-two New York-based artists and designers of I:M.

Changhak Choi, Reciprocal Architecture II, Courtesy of I:M

I:M is an independent non-profit organization that promotes advanced interaction in art, architecture, design, technology and other related disciplines in New York City. Founded in 2011, I:M is dedicated to the speculative research and presentation of contemporary design practice, socio-cultural issues, as well as to identify emerging talents in arts and the diverse design disciplines.

The Exhibition commissioner and curator Changhak Choi, architect and founding director of I:M, indicates that Desired Sync is an experimental of people's desire and efforts to resolve current global concerns, which then would be able to surmount when social systems, public realm and design professionals are synchronized together. K-Chan Zoh, architect and co-curator of the exhibition, said that each work offers a unique perspective on issues of global crisis and furthers debates on it with a profound insight.

Dongil Kim + Seojoo Lee, Less House, Courtesy of IM

Desired Sync features works of twenty-two designers from various professionals: architects (Jeeyong An, Sang Hwa Lee, Changhak Choi, Gyu Jin Hwang, Da Yeon Kim, Dongil Kim, Seojoo Lee, Keunhyung Yook, Hangman Zo, Jiyoung Seo), landscape architects (Taewook Cha, Biyoung Heo), interior designer (Sang Hee An), fashion designers (Hyojin Choi, Gahee Ha, Jeewon Kim), graphic designers (Yuyeon Cho, Jiwon Park), visual artists (Yiji Hong, Hyeyon Park) and interactive media artists (Hwayong Jung, Sue Gyeong Syn), and it offers fourteen interdisciplinary projects, including one collaborating project by thirteen designers, envisioning people's desire to overcome various crises confronting current events: Environmental crisis, energy crisis, economical and financial crisis, housing crisis etc.. These projects as a collection of ideas and provocations aim to create a network of idea exchange and new models of interactive, synergistic thinking beyond the initial multiplicities of profession.

Manifesto Architecture, Bike Hanger, Courtesy of IM

Hwayong Jung, Voyage, Courtesy of IM

Jeeyong An and Sang Hwa Lee of Manifesto Architecture present the <Bike Hanger> project, a sustainable re-interpretation of the traditional bike rack typology, in an abandoned urban plot. Taewook Cha of Supermass Studio expounds landscape design tactics in <Mapping the Crisis: Perception & Reality> derived from local ecological and socio-cultural issues. Yuyeon Cho's <Pitcairn Language> reveals a process book project which preserves a native language of a little-known tribe in New Zealand that is gradually disappearing due to introduction of English. Changhak Choi of Xenogenesis revisits a temporary residential project to provide new housing design paradigm between home ownership and economic crisis in high density city of Manhattan in <Reciprocal Architecture?>. Gahee Ha's <Flower for Old Woman> discovers losing humanities, apathy and anonymity in the city. Hwayong Jung presents an interactive kinetic object <Voyage>, exploring environmental issue in the contemporary city. Dongil Kim and Seojoo Lee's <Less House> experiment with new housing type to investigate the relationship between land, housing, infrastructures, urban form with respect to the nature. Jiwon Park offers <1/2 Project>, a social venture that aims to help consumers perception of giving to charity, and also proposes a new way of communication with visually handicapped person in <Please Touch>. Sue Gyeong Syn offers solace to the present generation living in the sluggish development of mankind caused by the suppressed freedom of dreams in an interactive media project <Immortal Dreams 2>. Hangman Zo and Jiyoung Seo of TAAL address the unforeseen future by redesigning nuclear shelters in <Fear40-D.I.Y. Fallout Shelter>, <Fear4,000,000-Five Star Fallout Shelter>.

6+13+21, Courtesy of IM

The exhibition furthermore significantly features <6+13+21>, a pavilion of collaboration project experimenting the six crises which is the expressive result of 3 month interdisciplinary discussion of 13 designers and artists. A creative director Hangman Zo and a project coordinator Dongil Kim explain the meaning of the collaboration project.

The work presented by young design professionals, who are sensitive to their own identity as well as painful social issues, is not only a result of significant research on fundamental inquiries of the human nature with facing matter of crises squarely what we are confronting these days but also worthy achievement of full-time employed designers beyond the boundary between the professions and limitation of time and space through the interdisciplinary collaboration.

The preview and opening reception of Desired Sync will be on May 15th from 6pm to 8pm with twenty-two contributed artists, designers and invited personages at Gallery Korea of the Korean Cultural Service New York (460 Park Avenue 6th Floor, New York, NY 10022).

Organized by Korean Cultural Service NY
Presented by I:M, The Institute of Multidisciplinarity for Art, Architecture and Design
Commissioning Curator: Changhak Choi / Project Curator: K-Chan Zoh
Creative Director: Hangman Zo
Team Project Coordinator: Dongil Kim

+ All images courtesy I:M, The Institute of Multidisciplinarity for Art, Architecture and Design

3form produced a 30-second teaser of what's new for 2013. The 30-sec. video gives a first peek at Hint, a collection of panels embossed in Varia Ecoresin that can be compromised of a single-sided texture or mixed-and-matched for a two-sided texture. Thousands of color options are possible, giving designers incredible flexibility and creative options.

The "trailer" also gives a few glimpses of Onyx, the newest addition to the Stone collection. Onyx provides a natural appearance that is lighter in weight than real stone and much easier to fabricate. And we can't forget about the brand new NYC showroom, which also makes its debut.

Swisstouches Hotel, image courtesy Hirsch Bedner Associates

HBA, one of the leading global hospitality design firms, created a brand defining design for the new luxury hospitality nameplate. The hotel marks the first Swisstouches property in China bringing contemporary Swiss style to the city of Xi’an.

HBA's inspiration for the property was the Swisstouches brand concept. They were required to implement what the brand would mean to visiting guests by encompassing many iconic Swiss elements into the design. HBA's use of modern architectural elements, furnishings and materials helped to create a chic and luxurious environment that even the most discerning guests would appreciate.

THE LOCATION

Xi'an is an ancient, inland Chinese city with a history stretching back more than 3,000 years. The city is an important industrial and cultural hub in inner China with abundant tourist attractions including the renowned Terracotta Warriors of Emperor Qin. In 2010 alone, some 50 million international, domestic and business travelers visited Xi'an making it the ideal location to open the first flagship Swisstouches property in China.

Swisstouches Hotel, image courtesy Hirsch Bedner Associates

THE DESIGN

To begin the design process, HBA traveled to Switzerland to research and learn Swiss contemporary design elements. The knowledge they gathered inspired them to conceptualize a concept and design aesthetic that would be unique to Xi'an. HBA successfully integrated traditional Swiss elements into contemporary design and this is the first time that such a unique, modern and focal driven hotel has been designed outside of a modern city in China

Swisstouches Hotel, image courtesy Hirsch Bedner Associates

THE HOTEL

The Lobby

From the moment of entry, guests are taken to an innovative, contemporary and luxurious space. The expansive floor and rectangular columns are clad in white stone and custom blue rugs define seating areas. A pod replaces the traditional, long wooden reception desk with a stone and glass piece. The staircase itself is open, as if suspended by steel cables. It leads to the mezzanine, where the ceiling makes a bold statement. Parallel stainless steel panels of varying widths are striped with red light, representing Switzerland.

Swisstouches Hotel, image courtesy Hirsch Bedner Associates

The Guestrooms

The 318 Swisstouches guestrooms are clean and precise. The uniform light gray wood tone of the walls increases the sense of space. The custom carpet becomes a piece of art itself, its intricate design of red lines carry forward the theme created in the mezzanine ceiling.

Swisstouches Hotel, image courtesy Hirsch Bedner Associates

Swisstouches Hotel, image courtesy Hirsch Bedner Associates

The Spa

The two-story Swisstouches Spa is simple, chic and highly sophisticated, including several private rooms and a variety of hot and cold dip pools in addition to the usual functions of a pool area. Similar to spas in Switzerland, the atmosphere is very mineral finished with a variety of textured beige and gray stone. The main pool is a sleek black rectangle, while the hot and cold circular dip pools are brilliant turquoise.

Swisstouches Hotel, image courtesy Hirsch Bedner Associates

Food and Beverage

There are several food and beverage outlets, all carrying the themes of unexpected Swiss touches. Perhaps the most dramatic is the Chinese restaurant, the Lord's Home. Here traditional Chinese dishes are served in the atmosphere of a stately Swiss home, complete with many different rooms, including a study, a parlor, and a butler's room.

The Swisstouches Café, for all day dining, features a wall of European beers and wines. The Noodle Bar serves more than 150 different types of noodles, at a long, clean white counter surrounding a light, stone rectangular preparation area.

A bar is located on the top floor of the hotel. This impressive double volume space features massive-scale wall art installations in bold splashes of red, drawing out red elements in the custom carpet.

+ All images courtesy HBA

South Korean studio MONOCOMPLEX recently has created the Cactus chair.

‘Cactus‘ is a single sofa which looks similar to a cactus. Its round form without angular forms gives a cozy feeling of a sofa and follows a simple and modern trend. It gives its entire looks very neat by using a bright colored canvas and it shows more pleasant feeling with stylistic elements.

+ Project facts

Project : Cactus / Single Sofa (April 2012)
Studio : monocomplex design studio (located in Seoul, South Korea) | www.monocomplex.com
Material : Fabric, Wood
Size : Table : 1000(H) x 663(W) x 670(D)

Cactus, image courtesy monocomplex design studio

Cactus, image courtesy monocomplex design studio

Claesson Koivisto Rune have recently completed the Widlund House in Sandvik, Öland, Sweden.

+ Architect: Claesson Koivisto Rune
+ Photographer: Åke E.son Lindman

Widlund House, image courtesy Claesson Koivisto Rune | Photo by Åke E.son Lindman

Widlund House, image courtesy Claesson Koivisto Rune | Photo by Åke E.son Lindman

Widlund House, image courtesy Claesson Koivisto Rune | Photo by Åke E.son Lindman

Widlund House, image courtesy Claesson Koivisto Rune | Photo by Åke E.son Lindman

Widlund House, image courtesy Claesson Koivisto Rune | Photo by Åke E.son Lindman

+ All images and drawings courtesy Claesson Koivisto Rune | Photo by Åke E.son Lindman

Edson Simeon of estudio e+d recently has created B-sofa.

The sofa B is a beautiful and mobile seat, the idea was to create a flexible and fresh design.

Edson Simeon

B-sofa, image courtesy estudio e+d

B-sofa, image courtesy estudio e+d

+ Also visit Maria Chairs by estudio e+d

Maria Chairs by estudio e+d

On the occasion of M2L's 20th anniversary, it's only fitting that the venerable furniture importer and distributor present an exhibition honoring another longstanding design icon: Patrick Norguet. Co-organized by Artifort and M2L, the ICFF booth (#2204) will feature a selection of furniture that the prolific French designer has created for the world-class Dutch furniture maker over the past 10 years. From colorful, sculptural seating to a lounge collection inspired by quantum physics, the exhibit reinforces M2L's reputation as a vital resource for fresh, contemporary furniture from Europe.

Patrick Norguet is one of France's most interesting contemporary designers. Pulling from his engineering background, he is passionate about materials, production tools and manufacturing processes as well as beautifully made things. After studying design at ENSCI in Paris, his career took off when he became responsible for the visual communication at Louis Vuitton. He has since designed over 60 products for 13 of the world's leading manufacturers and has won numerous awards including the Red Dot Design Award in 2010.

Courtesy M2L + Artifort

Apollo (2002) is Norguet's first collection for Artifort. Reminiscent of Pierre Paulin's sculptural seating for the company, the fauteuil is balanced, open and ergonomically designed. The frame is based on a foam-covered wooden shell while the swiveling trumpet-shaped base is made of cast aluminum. It also has a little brother: Little Apollo.

Courtesy M2L + Artifort

Boson (2005) is an ideal balance between synthetic material, visual substance and weightlessness. Named after the Higgs Boson – an elementary particle that shapes substance – the fauteuil, ottoman and table work in perfect equilibrium. The fauteuil and ottoman have a polyurethane shell with an aluminum-polished disk and chrome tube. The table is available in two diameters with a top in white laminate, veneered or black or white coated.

Courtesy M2L + Artifort

Lilla (2006) is a simple yet playful seating element whose color and material sets it apart. Ergonomically designed to benefit the body, it is an invitation to sit down reduced to its simplest form. It is available in a myriad of colors.

Courtesy M2L + Artifort

Manhattan (2009) is a modular seating unit inspired by urban architecture. It consists of entirely separate elements – a chaise lounge, a seat with or without a backrest, a corner seat and a pouffe – that provide limitless possibilities for work or relaxation.

+ About M2L

Founded in 1992, M2L has gained an internationally recognized reputation for presenting fresh iconic modern design solutions to the American A&D community. M2L has introduced a myriad of iconic designers that include: Josef Hoffmann, Eileen Grey, Alvar Aalto, Walter Gropius, Eero Aarnio and Pierre Paulin, as well as today’s design stars like Paolo Piva, Patrick Norguet, Norman Foster, Eoos, Pearson-Lloyd, Jeff Miller and more. M2L products can be seen on their website as well as their three showrooms: 135 Madison Ave., NYC 10016; 3334 Cady’s Alley, Washington DC 20007; and 104 Boylston Street Boston, MA 02116.

http://m2l.com/