Christopher Deane is a young New York fashion design duo comprised of Christopher Crawford and Angela Deane. They started their studio in March of 2002.
They met as students at the University of Florida where he was majoring in philosophy, sculpture, and sociology and she was a double major in art and writing…an interesting combination that manifested itself in the formation of a fashion label.
Their Spring 08 collection uses bold blocks of color and maintains their focus on “graceful, flattering designs in beautiful fabrications.”
http://www.christopherdeane.com/page_collection_SP08.htm
Greenpix light facade by Simone Giostra & Partners demonstrates the future of exterior lighting and raises and interesting issue about the use of architecture as media. The carbon-neutral Greenpix media wall will surround the Xicui Entertainment Complex in Beijing, China.
Architecture Boston Magazine spoke with Dietrich Neumann and Susanne Shindler about the nocturnal life of buildings in the article Illuminating Ideas. Neumann says, “One could argue that these kinds of devices are fulfilling the 1920’s vision of Modern architecture, that eventually it would be entirely dissolved into light and air.”
The Xicui building is very boxy and commercial, but it became exciting when it gained the ability of communicating with surroundings through a new kind of digital transparency. Its intelligent skin interacts with the building interiors and outer public spaces using embedded, custom-designed software.
Greenpix absorbs solar energy during the day and then generates light from that power at night. With the support of leading German manufacturers Schueco and SunWays, Giostra and Arup developed a new technology for laminating photovoltaic cells in a glass curtain wall and oversaw the production of the first glass solar panels by Chinese manufacturer SunTech.
The polycrystalline photovoltaic cells are laminated within the glass of the curtain wall and placed with changing density on the entire building’s skin. The density pattern increases the building’s performance, allowing natural light when required by interior program, while reducing heat gain and transforming excessive solar radiation into energy for the media wall.
The display is made up of 2,292 color (RGB) LED’s light points creating a low-resolution medium for abstract art in contrast to commercial applications of high resolution screens in conventional media façades that seem to be popping up all over Asia.
The building will be open to the public in June, with a video installation and live performances by artists. “The Media Wall will provide the city of Beijing with its first venue dedicated to digital media art, while offering the most radical example of sustainable technology applied to an entire building’s envelope to date,” said Simone Giostra.
Photos from: http://www.dezeen.com/2008/05/07/greenpix-media-wall-by-simone-giostra-partners/