The answer to the age old question, ‘is there anything to eat?’ now depends on your choice of high level design and technology products.
While a food processor and espresso maker are staples on most kitchen counters, serious foodies and those with industrial sized kitchens will make room for these high performing gadgets and appliances.
Take International Cooking Concept’s Gastrovac, for example, available at Le-Sanctuaire. The Gastrovac works as a crock pot, vacuum pump, and heating plate in one device; reducing cooking and frying temperatures while maintaining color, texture, and nutrients. The Gastrovac creates a sponge effect when pressure pulls air from the food. After cooking, food absorbs the surrounding liquid, filling the compressed cells and infusing the food with flavor from the broth. The process creates infinite combinations of foods and flavors. The price: $3800.
(image source: popsci.com)
How does Frozen Lobster Bisque sound? Or ice cream and sorbets? The Pacojet is a processor which freezes all ingredients and its 4.2 inch blade turns at 2,000 rpm slicing food into layers less than two microns thick. Air trapped between ice crystals means food volume is 20% greater. The effect is a sorbet like texture. About that Lobster Bisque, did I mention you can use the whole lobster, shell and all! The Pacojet sells for $3450.
(image source: popscicom)
Or, perhaps you prefer the taste of smoky hardwood. The PolyScience Smoking Gun adds culinary interest to your meats and vegetables. Hardwood dust is distributed in the device pipe. Light it up and presto – instant smoke flavor added to your fish, beef, or potatoes and carrots. Costs about $50.
(image source: popsci.com)
And just one more; although there are many. MyFountain XL is a robo-bartender! Available through Digital Beverages, MyFountain XL is touted as the first fully automated drink slinger. The countertop dispenser is connected to a small refrigerator, holding up to 12 types of alcohol and mixers. A water-line and carbon-dioxide cartridege are also attached. An Internet-linked Windows XP computer sits above the fridge, enabling users to enter drink recipes on a touchscreen or personalized Web page, as well as share favorite recipes with a community of friends.
Tap the screen to initiate the process; drink ingredients move up a tube and through a nozzle, which then mixes and pours the cocktail. For clean up, MyFountain XL will shoot hot water through the nozzle. The services of this bartender are available for $2575.
(image source: popsci.com)
When next asked, ‘what’s to eat?’ Respond, ’which flavor and texture do you prefer?’
Philadelphia jewelry designer, Vincenzo Taormina, puts an unexpected twist on materials and construction. For example, Murano crystals and stainless steel in a tension setting demonstrate his purely modern Italian sensibilities.
He says of his inspiration, “The eyes of an Asian woman gave me the Inspiration of the Okki collection, from my daughter’s big Hugs I created the Abbracci collection. When I travel to Italy (my home country) for fashion shows or pleasure, is mostly where I capture trends and inspirations from the upcoming jewelry design’s ideas.”
His atelier is located in the heart of South Philadelphia, the oldest and largest Italian-American community in the United States. The state-of-the-art studio reflects the designer’s standards, ensuring that every piece is guaranteed for a lifetime of enjoyment.
http://www.vincenzotaormina.net/
BCAM Phase 1 opened this month at the Los Angeles Contemporary Art Museum (LACMA). The Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) was designed by world renowned museum architect, Renzo Piano and three years in the making.
Piano’s changes to the sprawling museum campus also include a new entry pavilion and covered pedestrian walkway set back from Wilshire Boulevard, along with a reconfiguration of the ground floor of the 1965 Ahmanson Building to the east. Billionaire, Eli Broad donated the money for the new pavillion.
To hold Broad’s art, Piano has produced a crisp travertine-clad box with galleries on three levels. Its dramatic, high-ceilinged top floor bathes the art of Richard Serra, Jeff Koons, Ed Ruscha, Cy Twombly, and others in natural light. The galleries are vanilla boxes that are meant to be a pure background for the dynamic art.
Piano adds color and a sense of energy to the exterior of the box with a scaffold of escalators and stairs. Collectively called “the spider,” it suggests he is looking back to his professional youth, specifically to the Pompidou Center in Paris, which he designed with Richard Rogers in 1977.
The spider succeeds in lending some playfulness to a building that is otherwise rather formally dressed. Framed in steel beams painted a bright shade of red, the spider’s various cantilevered platforms offer broad views toward the Hollywood Hills.
On the other side of BCAM, facing Wilshire, John Baldessari’s twin, oversize banners, each measuring roughly 52 by 55 feet, also give the building an informal, graphic nature. The building’s saw-tooth roof line, created by a high-tech collection of fins and screens designed to keep harsh southern light from hitting the top-floor art.
In the ”piazza” (as Piano calls it), LACMA installed an a piece by artist Chris Burden comprised of 202 vintage lampposts by Titled “Urban Light.” The installation is a kind of pop temple, crossing the lines between art and architecture and between seriousness and irony.
http://www.lacma.org/transformflash/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/arts/20080215_BROAD_FEATURE/index.html
FXFowle International won a competition for the world’s tallest and largest spanning arch bridge. The winning design was selected by Dubai’s Roads & Transport Authority. Their proposal for the 1.7km and 205m bridge further advances the infrastructure and transportation initiatives in Dubai. Sudhir Jambhekar, Senior Partner, FXFowle International stated, “The bridge’s design was inspired by multiple sources, each evoking similar imagery – the rhythmic grace of Dubai Creek’s current, the elegant splendor of the sand dunes adjacent to the City, the lighting patterns of the lunar cycle and the design of the future Opera House. We believe that our bridge design is not merely to link the City’s cultural and commercial developments or ease congestion, but an opportunity to connect people both physically and emotionally by creating an iconic landmark, destination, and gateway between the old, the new and the future Dubai.”
Younique Health Club in Milan has the mantra “you are unique” in the name. The interior design, by fashion duo Dolce & Gabanna is also unique for a health club, enhancing the introspective, serene experience. Younique is located in a space that used to be a bar (suprisingly), just around the corner from the piazza del Duomo. The Milanese interior architect Matteo Nunziati imagined the space as a peaceful internal courtyard, a cloistered retreat from the harried pace of downtown Milan just on the other side of the wall. Earthy materials like leather, stone and sweet smelling Palisander rosewood are used throughout the space to enhance the sense of serenity.
In the main salon, a series of black stoned pools seem to float over banks of light. To the side are huge modular sofas by Poliform for guests to have a quiet moment before hitting the gym. All fitness rooms are designed for a single client and personal trainer and each changing room is lined with wenge and outfitted with its own locker, shower, sink and an LCD screen.
On the lower floor is a lava-stone sauna whose ceiling is studded with Swarovski crystals, a Turkish bath, swimming pool and a labyrinth of treatment rooms dispensing massages and Thalasso therapies.
By the end of the day, you are ready to rejuevenate at the juice bar and face the world again!
Mingo Design, LLC specializes in small city gardens to rejuvenate the hectic urbanite. Kari Elwell Katzander, owner and principal designer, creates outdoor environments which transport the inhabitant to private outdoor rooms, including hideaways and secret recesses. Fluid atmospheres, bold colors, minimal maintenance, and progressive solutions are signature elements in a Mingo garden. The use of diverse materials create one of a kind lighting, furniture, and outdoor flooring.
Mingo Design is based in Manhattan and integrates green roof technology and “living” walls into their designs as a benefit not only for the homeowner to lower heat gain and insulating, but as a benefit to the city as a whole.
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Starting today, a tropical breeze is blowing through London. The Tate Modern, the Design Museum and hotelier Andre Balazs have transported one of visionary French modernist Jean Prouvé’s La Maison Tropicale prototype houses from its former home in Congo’s Brazzaville, to the Tate Modern’s front lawn!
The lightweight structure is made out of folded sheet steel and aluminium, and stands on concrete stilts. In impeccable industrial style, the house is constructed to work perfectly with the local climate; featuring a veranda and an adjustable aluminium sunscreen, while the blue glass portholes protect against UV rays, and the double roof increases ventilation.
The house was one of three prefab modular prototypes that Prouvé (1901-1984) designed and manufactured for West Africa between 1949-1951, as an attempt to address the housing shortage in France’s African colonies.
In 2000, the houses were found in a less than perfect condition, were dismantled, and shipped to France for a full restoration.
Andre Balazs recently became the proud owner of this Maison Tropicale following its auction in New York last year. In support of the Design Museum’s major Jean Prouvé exhibition, and before he finds it a new home in a warmer climate, Balazs loaned it for the upcoming exhibition at the Tate.
La Maison Tropicale by Jean Prouvé, beside Queensboro Bridge, NYC, in 2007
http://www.designmuseum.org/exhibitions/2007/jeanprouve
http://www.designmuseum.org/exhibitions/2008/prouvehouse
Photos from: http://www.treehugger.com/design_architecture/
Now practicing in Barcelona, Spain light sculptor, Raquel Cohen, a Chicago native, created a magical line of “light vessels.” Her view of the glittering lights of Barcelona by night became the inspriation for her work.
She works primarily with copper because of its conductivity, malleability, and durability outdoors. Armatures built with copper rods are covered with metal mesh, onto which she sews strips of patinated copper foil. She then adds translucent, lightweight embellishments such as latex or plastic tubing.
Inside each fixture, she secures halogen bulbs in a silicone base. ”My pieces possess two distinct personalities,” she explains. “The nocturnal is the protagonist, but the diurnal reveals materials and intricate surface handiwork.”
OHNE TITEL is the luxury women’s collection designed by Flora Gill and Alexa Adams. Both graduates of Parson’s School of Design, they shared similar influences and style. They both worked for established designers such as Helmut Lang and Karl Lagerfeld. Afterward, they decided to form their own label.
The pairing of primitive and organic elements with a techno-modern sensibility is what makes these garments so unique. Flora and Alexa were inspired by the tensions created by the juxtaposition of disparate elements. The inspiration resulted in a line for a strong and modern woman. Stretch and an appreciation of the body are important for creating a utilitarian silhouette.
The color palette combines shades of grey and black with purple and gold accents. They are not afraid of experimenting with unique materials like rip-stop nylon and neoprene paired with soft cashmere, wool, and gold. A few items incorporate plastic raffia, crocheted to appear like feathers. Or other pairings such as, fur finely crafted with athletic backpack elements. Tops, jackets, and coats are taken from ski jackets and wool jersey is dipped in shiny silicone water-proofing.
