Jennifer Tipton is lighting up the night in Troy, NY. RPI is hosting an event called “Light Above the Hudson.” This commissioned work will use recent innovations in lighting to illuminate the EMPAC building. It will be both a celebration of the building’s elegant architecture, now in its final stage of construction, and an invitation for the public to experience EMPAC’s adventurous integration of art and technology.
Jennifer Tipton is renowned for her work in dance and theatre. Her interest in lighting began with a course in the subject at the American Dance Festival, Connecticut College and has been evolving ever since.
http://www.empac.rpi.edu/events/2008/tipton.html
University of Oregon is raising the bar on design with a sleek, zen, sporty Athletic Medical Center. Designers Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects began by selecting a natural palette of clear finished wood and sandblasted glass. They layered punchy graphics such as silhouettes of sports figures and etched glass with words that students free-associated in describing the ultimate training room like, Totally wicked, Boombastic, and Futurama. The light levels and furnishings help the athlete relax and in creating socializing zones among the treatment rooms and staff offices, the pain and lonliness of serious injury are soothed.
Healing spaces may sometimes be thought of as dull, thoughtless, and clinical. Not so for this space. Clever detailing and space planning pleasantly camouflage the more serious aspects. You might not even notice the seven medical examination spaces, including ones for a dentist and an ophthalmologist, as well as the pharmacy, X-ray facility, and conference room. Such a logical application of evidence-based design to holistic health care is long overdue.
Not everything growing under your bed has the potential to make positive planet change.
But, for Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute graduates and co-founders of Ecovative Design, the bio-matter growing under their beds became known as Greensulate, and won the 2007 Oxford
Patented Greensulate is a sustainable, environmental friendly insulator. This organic, fire-retardant board is made of water, flour, oyster mushroom spores, and perlite - a mineral found in potting soil.
Greensulate, has cross-industry application. The material can be tailored for maximum performance from home insulation and packaging, to boat hull insulator and surfboard core. Recent tests at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have shown it to be competitive with most insulation.
Unlike polystyrene insulators, Greensulate doesn’t overstay its welcome. It breaks down rapidly, enriching the soil around it, and aids the breakdown of other nearby waste.
According to the innovators; “Greensulate isn’t forever, it’s for just as long as you need it.”
The Seattle based firm Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects signed on to design 8 distinct sustainable “Signature Series” home plans for buyers of the Semiahmoo luxury community, Horizon.
Horizon means to redefine West Coast lifestyle and what it means to live in a sustainable community. The community has environmentally sensitive amenities such as a boutique organic grocery store and select retailers, as well as a spa, marina, and golf club.
All home plans will be built to meet (or exceed) LEED gold standard.
Some of the guidelines include:
*100% of soil will be kept on site
*California-Strip driveways and open-grid paving; used to eliminate storm water run-off
*34,000 non-invasive plants will be planted.
http://www.liveathorizon.com/oska.html
If you are looking to be truely sustainable in your building project, visit the Material ConneXion library on New York’s West 25th Street. You’ll find yourself surrounded wall to wall with cradle-to-cradle materials. The experienced research team brings materials from all over the world to the disciplines of product, packaging, architectural, interior, and apparel design.
Typically, manufacturers produce “cradle-to-grave” products – those that end up in landfills or severely diminished after the recycling process. But chemist Michael Braungart and architect William McDonough, inventors of the cradle-to-cradle concept, say it’s possible—and necessary—to engineer products for reuse to withstand many cycles of recycling without losing their value and move continually from cradle to cradle.
http://www.materialconnexion.com/
Faurecia, a French supplier of car components since the dawn of the motor industry, has applied new innovations in car interior design to create the Premium Attitude Concept.
This car boasts ultra-light curved wood, seats, and cushions inspired by high-end furniture. It has an instrument panel with integrated structure that frees it from the car’s chassis, giving designers far greater flexibility for new shapes and forms. The design team chose to revive the form of the iconic Tatra T603, a Czech icon of the mid 50s that survived in production until 1975.
Integrating high-tech components with familiar forms seems to be a popular design trend and this fun concept is right on the pulse.
Lama is a design house out of Netherlands lead by product designers, Yvonne Laurysen and Erik Mantel. Lama develops and produces the complete collection with great care to quality and detail. ‘Industrial with a human touch.’
Their Holoknit design is a 3 layered knitted fabric. It has a very transparent black front layer, a monofiliment white inlay, and a colored back layer. The inlay will shift when the fabric is cut. When changing the pattern, the movement of the inlay changes, creating a moire effect. The monofiliment, Trevira, comes in the colors of white, black and orange.
This fabric can be used as curtains or room dividers, but is also available as cushion or bedspread. Backlighting the fabric will create a beautiful holographic effect.
http://www.lamaconcept.nl/textiles.html
The Diamond Ring Hotel in Abu Dhabi is the latest wild creation in the amusement park of architecture that is the United Arab Emirates. The city, 90 miles north of Dubai, is competing for glamour and glitz and is attracting the world’s attention.
The Diamond Ring was designed by London based architects, M3 Architects who call their style “uncompromisingly modern” and their designs stretch the imagination.
While some clients hesitate to simply embrace a new color choice for walls, I look to this example of architectural freedom and sigh. Clients should not limit imagination or design possibilities. It’s the designer’s vision which creates the Diamond from the rough.
