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Factorua Joven

November 3, 2011 in Design, Materials with 0 Comments

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The funky Factoria Joven (“youth factory”) skate park in Merida, Spain opened this past March. Since then, energetic teens have been biking, skating, climbing on and around the undulating curves and brightly-colored structures of the inviting and inventive complex, designed by Madrid-based SelgasCano Architects
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The concept was first introduced in 2006 by Carlos Javier Rodríguez Jiménez, a physical education teacher  who studied the humanization of urban spaces, and four collaborators. Architects José Selgas and Lucía Cano were inspired by the forms and construction of Chinese dragons, and specified inexpensive building materials, including lightweight polycarbonate. The building was completed in just 13 months. In addition to the outdoor features, the building houses a computer lab and a dance studio, as well as meeting rooms and spaces used for for street theater, video and electronic music, and even graffiti.

Get Chris Lefteri’s magazine Ingredients NOW one week before 100% Design Launch

September 16, 2011 in Events, Materials with 0 Comments


Chris Lefteri and Despoke have teamed up to offer you the chance to download the PDF version of Ingredients, Chris Lefteri’s magazine on design and materials one week before it’s being launched at 100% Materials.

In line with the theme of this years 100% Materials feature at 100% Design, designed and curated by Chris, this edition of Ingredients is dedicated to smart materials and technologies. Inside you will find an in-depth guide to the world of smart materials, an appraisal of the potential environmental benefits of smart technologies and interviews with Suzanne Lee and Helen Storey – two designers whose passion for materials has lead to their developing amazing new technologies.

For this and much, much more, head on over to www.moreingredients.com to download your copy.

Also, make sure that you follow Chris on Twitter and the KTN Smart Materials Beacon blog

Ben van Berkel of UNStudio answers Despoke’s Questions

September 13, 2011 in Design, Events, Interviews, Materials with 0 Comments


Image:PCT stand at 100% Design 2011

1. What has been your favourite project this year ?
I don’t have one specific favourite project, but we particularly enjoy designing exhibitions and pavilions because they afford us the opportunity to try out new ideas. These designs can work as prototypes for spatial, organisational and material possibilities in our larger
projects. But exhibitions and pavilions also generate really nice moments for public communication and interaction over a short period of time, as so many people visit these events.

Sometimes you can design a building that you are very proud of but often – especially if this is not a public building – not so many people will truly get to experience it. So pavilions provide a wonderful opportunity for the design to truly be consumed.

2. UNStudio has been producing chairs/ furniture do you think its important for architects to investigate other creative disciplines?

We have always liked to test and investigate other areas of the discipline, but I never actually think in terms of scale. We like the idea of the non-existence of a proper scale and this is very much related to the way we combine ideas. I have never considered architecture and design to be mutually exclusive. In the same way as I sometimes like to think that art and architecture are not so different from one another.

Sometimes I will see a piece of furniture as architecture; as containing a variety of cultural references. Conversely a building can be seen as a product. We like to test these boundaries.
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Tattoo Electronics

August 16, 2011 in Design, Materials, Product with 1 Comment

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A few years ago we produced a marketing campaign for a company that grew artificial skin, a brilliant product that was created from a sample of your own cells and cultivated in the lab to help patients with severe burns and skin ulcers that wouldn’t heal. Ever since then I have a had a fascination with integrating design and technology into the human body.

This particular product caught my eye, Ultra-thin electronic circuitry that can be applied as a process of tattooing to the human body.
John Rogers of the university of Illinois and yonggang huang of northwestern university in America have headed up an R&D team to develop this product that could be used in application of human-machine interfaces and gaming, medical diagnostics and communications.
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Armourcoat at 100percent Design 2011

August 8, 2011 in Events, Materials with 0 Comments

lille museum of modern art (c) vincent fillon rd
Image:Lille museum of modern art (c) Vincent Fillon

Ground-breaking new products and finishes will be presented by Armourcoat at 100% Design London. Armourcoat will introduce Ductal® Ultra-High Performance Concrete (UHPC) – a first for the show.
Developed by Lafarge, Ductal® presents a genuine revolution in the concrete sector. The material possesses a unique combination of superior properties including strength, ductility, durability and enhanced aesthetics. This enables designers to develop and realize new sculptural approaches to concrete forms.
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UNStudio to collaborate with Premier Composite Technologies at 100% Design London 2011

July 26, 2011 in Design, Events, Materials with 0 Comments

PCT Standat100Design
Following last year’s launch at 100% Design London with a Snohetta-designed stand, Premier Composites Technologies (PCT) is pleased to confirm this year’s collaboration with UNStudio.

Award winning architects UNStudio will design the PCT stand at 100% Design London (Stand No. E130). The collaboration will highlight the growing trend for the use of advanced composites in architecture today and will demonstrate the benefits of working with composites over conventional structural materials.
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Chris Lefteri Meets Bare Conductive for 100% Design

July 18, 2011 in Materials with 0 Comments

Chris Lefteri from 100% Materials meets with Bibi Nelson from Bare Conductive to find out all about their smart paint, whether skin-safe conductive or interactive. Bibi also demonstrates paint that detects proximity.

Website:www.100percentdesign.co.uk/

LED-embedded wall panels will emit light and absorb sound

July 14, 2011 in Design, Materials with 0 Comments


Dutch Royal Philips Electronics last week announced a partnership with Danish Kvadrat Soft Cells to create wall coverings that not only absorb sound but emit light as well.

Kvadrat Soft Cells is already known for its acoustic panels that control sound absorption, but the new partnership will use Philips’ expertise in ambient lighting to take such efforts even further. By integrating Philips’ addressable and multicolored LEDs into Kvadrat’s panels — which are constructed from fabric stretched over an aluminum frame — the two will give architects, interior designers and lighting specialists a world of new plug-and-play capabilities. Targeted particularly at retail and hospitality providers, the resulting “luminous textiles” will create a “mood wall” or series of panels that can not only absorb sound but enhance any ambiance through the display of light and dynamic visual content. Soft, diffused light will create an almost “dreamlike” quality suitable for settings ranging from reception areas and restaurants to hotels and airport lounges, Philips says, and users can either draw from the technology’s standard content portfolio or choose branded or other content of their own.
Website: www.philips.com/luminous-textile
Website:www.soft-cells.com/

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