If you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything.
-Thich Nhat Hanh
Over the years, we have created mood boards, conceptual packages and idea books for clients in architecture, interior design, fashion and the entertainment business.
We eventually realized that the most interesting and gratifying aspect of our work was the world we were creating outside of all of the research. It was the things that would inspire us along the way that had made a lasting impact in our lives.
Our Blog is collection of images that have made us pause, reflect and appreciate art that reinforces our belief that each and every day there is a endless flow of beauty being manifested in the universe by people who are capable of providing a glimpse into a world of infinite possibilities, beauty and excellence. Enjoy!
Marjetica Potrc has made some important art: she’s built dry toilets for Latin American slums and promoted a water jug for Africa that can also absorb the force of land mines. She’s taken the idea that art can change the world and made it come true. Sure, her art-world actions don’t do that much actual good. Instead, they do what art does best: they talk about how the world might be better.
“I believe in art. People need art to negotiate their world,” Potrc says. And the depth of that belief may be this artist’s true contribution.
Potrc (pronounced “PO-turtch,” with Marjetica sounding close to “Mari-EH-tee-tza”) was born in 1953 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where she still lives. She got her start in architecture, but began making building-themed art about 15 years ago.
A typical Potrc begins with a structure or situation she finds in a distant place—say, Venezuela or Rajasthan, India—then tweaks to make more livable. “We should respect people in favelas, and learn from them, and their living conditions.” Other work comes closer to sculpture, as she mashes up constructions: in a big installation at MIT called Hybrid House, Potrc set down a wild building that hybridized features of buildings from Caracas, the West Bank, and West Palm Beach. By colliding three such different visions, Potrc achieves a surrealist edge that also embraces the real.
Marc Newson’s latest creation for Ikepod sees the Australian designer interpret the most iconic timepiece of all: The Hourglass. Director Philip Andelman traveled to Basel, Switzerland, to document the designer’s modern take of the classic hourglass inside the Glaskeller factory. Each hand made hourglass comprises highly durable borosilicate glass and millions of stainless steel nanoballs, and is available in a 10 or 60 minute timer.
Marc Newson is the most acclaimed and influential designer of his generation. He has worked across a wide range of disciplines, creating everything from furniture and household objects, to bicycles and cars, private and commercial aircraft, yachts, various architectural commissions, and signature sculptural pieces for clients across the globe.
Born in Sydney, Newson spent much of his childhood travelling in Europe and Asia. He started experimenting with furniture design as a student and, after graduation, was awarded a grant from the Australian Crafts Council with which he staged his first exhibition – featuring the Lockheed Lounge – a piece that has now, twenty years later, set three consecutive world records at auction.
Newson has lived and worked in Tokyo, Paris, and London where he is now based, and he continues to travel widely. His clients include a broad range of the best known and most prestigious brands in the world – from manufacturing and technology to transportation, fashion and the luxury goods sector. Many of his designs have been a runaway success for his clients and have achieved the status of modern design icons. In addition to his core business, he has also founded and run a number of successful companies, including a fine watch brand and an aerospace design consultancy, and has also held senior management positions at client companies; including currently being the Creative Director of Qantas Airways.
Marc Newson was included in Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and has received numerous awards and distinctions: he was appointed The Royal Designer for Industry in the UK, received an honorary doctorate from Sydney University, holds Adjunct Professorships at Sydney College of the Arts and Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and most recently was awarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) by Her Majesty the Queen.
His work is present in many major museum collections, including the MoMA in New York, London’s Design Museum and V&A, the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Vitra Design Museum. Having set numerous records at auction, Newson’s work now accounts for almost 25% of the total contemporary design market.
Newson has been the focus of on-going and intense interest in the media, generating significant editorial value for his clients, and has been the subject of a number of books and documentary films.
Currently Isermann divides his practice between producing labor-intensive studio work for gallery and museum exhibitions and designing and overseeing commissioned projects that involve industrial manufacturing processes. Most recently Isermann has mounted solo exhibitions at Deitch Projects, New York in 2007, Corvi-Mora, London in 2008 and Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles in 2009. Commissioned projects were completed in 2006 for the UCLA Hammer Museum, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, in 2007 for Yale University Art Museum, in 2008 for Princeton University and in 2009 for Stanford University and UCR.
Another great video from Theo Jansen. Directed and Produced by Salazar for Red Bull Media House. Theo Jansen is a Dutch artist. In 1990, he began what he is known for today: building large mechanical animals out of PVC that are able to live on their own, known as Strandbeest. His animated works are a fusion of art and engineering; in a car company (BMW) television commercial Jansen says: “The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds.” He strives to equip his creations with their own artificial intelligence so they can avoid obstacles by changing course when one is detected, such as the sea itself. see more here Previous post
Agustin ravaged by Polio has set out to over come his poverty and disease by building a helicopter.
Please help Tyler Bastian & the crew in their efforts to tell this amazing story. Click Here
If you would like to see more you can download “Rise”
Short intro to “Everything is incredible” and a quick explanation of Agustin’s story. Enjoy.
After briefly studying art at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Lyon, and Mandarin Chinese at the Université of Lyon III, Coron experienced life with a series of odd jobs. She has been, among others, a shepherdess, truck driver, factory worker, cleaning lady and a New York City tour guide. Coron has lived in France (her native country) , Egypt and Mexico for one year, each and China for two years. She moved to New York in 1985 where she reinvented herself as an artist.
Coron’s oeuvre includes illustration, book arts, fine art and public art. She cuts her characteristic silhouette designs in paper and Tyvek. She also creates works in stone, glass, metal, rubber, stained glass and digital media.
Her work has been purchased by major museum collections, such as the Metropolitan Museum, The Walker Art center and The Getty. Her public art can be seen in subways, airport and sports facilities among others.
After organizing their bookshelf almost a year ago, the Ohlenkamps decided to take it to the next level. They spent many sleepless nights moving, stacking, and animating books at Type bookstore in Toronto. Everything you see here can be purchased at Type Books.
Dutch minimalist architect and designer Gerrit Rietveld was a member of the De Stijl movement. Significant for his work is how he pared his design down to basic cubist elements and often used primary colours to emphasise the different planes. Most of his furniture was designed and manufactured to accompany his architectural commissions.
His lengthy career began already as a young boy in his father’s carpentry shop in Utrecht. The shop, catering to the bourgeois taste of the local clientele, produced quality period pieces of furniture. He left the shop in 1917 to set up an establishment of his own. This move marked a definite break with the traditions of his father’s work.
His first attempts in search of his own artistic line, were influenced by the Amsterdam School. Rietveld re-invented the structure of chairs and other objects and built them as constructivist sculptures. In 1918 he designed an early version of his legendary Red and Blue Chair. It was published in the De Stijl Magazine, the magazine of the movement of which he became a member in 1919. In this way Rietveld came in contact with various architects associated with the modern Dutch movement. They were all looking for a way to purify their work, to remove all remnants of past styles and influences. As the fame of De Stijl rapidly spread, Rietveld’s reputation grew from that of a local craftsman to an architect recognized in avant-garde circles across Europe. While working on the Schröder House, built in 1925, he left his furniture workshop with his long-time assistant, Gerhard van der Groenekan. Most of Rietveld’s furniture designs were sold at Metz & Co, a Dutch department store.
Rietveld’s career proceeded uninterrupted until 1943. He then was subsequently barred from practising as an architect, due to his refusal to join the Nazi-controlled Kulturkammer. After the war, the country and Rietveld gradually returned to normality, and Rietveld continued his work until he died at an age of 76.
Among his numerous furniture models, The Zig Zag chair, The Red and Blue Chair, the Schelling and Military series remain as eternal design icons. Gerrit Rietveld’s designs are to be found in the most important museum collections over the world.
