Design 21: Social Design Network

Architect: Manuel Ocaña Arquitectos Location: Calle Pelayo, Madrid, Spain Collaborators: Roberto González García, Maja Frackowiack, Michael Rabold y Sebastian Camacho (ground painting) Project year: 2005-2006 Promotor: Benedicta Uría Contractor: Manuel Ocaña Constructed Area: 67 sqm Budget: $75,000 EURO (US $104,775) Photographs: Miguel de Guzman

This is a project where one cannot dismiss the personal dimension of the commission: the refurbishment of an attic for my mother-in-law, Canadian, my daughters’ grandmother. It is a project that detects traces, records them, and leaves new prints for the ‘next one’ that may wish to search. And the idea is to build it following a different protocol. This new construction protocol, its agents and that sort of mystique of the traces will be the ‘Project’.

An oak wood dais of 140 millimeters over furried boards seems to be the appropriate canvas to register the levels of the traces and then build the dwelling on top in order to silence them. The work starts at floor level after the usual procedures of spatial and structural cleansing. That floor, that wood surface, shall unveil the encountered traces. On the one hand detecting the traces, discovering a network of concealed geometries that are outlined when laying the floors through a precise detailing of the boards; on the other, the new traces are stamped by drawing on top of the discovered geometries the portrait of the beautiful woman that will live in the house. This...

Architects: JM Architecture - Jacopo Mascheroni Location: Dolomite Mountains, Italy Construction year: 2005-2006 Collaborator: Pietro Borzini Contractor: Hobag A.G., Campo Tures (BZ) Structure Engineering: Planungsbüro Dr.Ing. Aichner, Brunico (BZ) Mechanical Engineering: Thermostudio Bruneck, Brunico (BZ) Construction Site Supervisors: Oskar Gartner (Hobag A.G.), Rudi Viehweider (Metris GmbH) Landscape: Nippon Bonsai, Carate Brianza (MI) Curtain Wall: Coges, Padova Photographs: Hermann Gasser, Jacopo Mascheroni

The idea of remodelling this house in the Dolomite mountains at the border between Italy and Austria started because of an uncomfortable living situation. The existing building presented a very large and high entry hall with the rooms arranged around it, and it was always necessary to walk through it to move around the house. On the ground floor, the kitchen, dining room, living room and the stube were not proportioned to the size of the house and they couldn’t get enough light.

For this reason the entire ground floor has been demolished, and a new interior clear glass envelope with a gyp wall inserted is now the only separation among the different spaces. Few new volumes have been added around the house to extend the entry hall and the oversized family room, which include dining, relax and study areas.

To allow the maximum amount of light into the rooms, the façades have been replaced by a custom designed structural silicon curtain wall, with base and head mull...

SHH completed a new London office interiors scheme for a private company in London's west end, working closely with client-side design director Zeljko Popovic.

The Manchester Square offices are the result of a brief to create a "high impact, 21st century office interior with a strong personality" with more in common with a gentlemen's club than a traditional office space.

The requisite air of subtlety and elegance in the scheme is reflected in the complete lack of external branding at the company's front door.

Although the property was made up of a classic (and Grade II-listed) Georgian townhouse with a former stables and garage mews building to the rear, the client was very open to a sense of contrast for the scheme, favouring a highly contemporary treatment.

The inherited interior - also previously an office - was not particularly grand, but any standout details were to be retained.

The building has five storeys and the rear mews has two storeys, with the upper ground mews floor corresponding to the ground floor of the main space.

http://www.dexigner.com/design_news/manchester-square-by-shh.html

http://www.shh.co.uk/

SUP.SOG, new lighting by Jungmo Kwon, evokes the forest through imagery and the use of cardboard. The designer extends the life of the humble packing material by using the poetry of light to convey a sense of peace and nature. The intention is twofold: to be more aware of the materials we throw away and to remember the natural chaos found within nature.

• jungmokwon.blogspot.com

• Marc Sadler's Phalène by Robots chair will be presented at the next Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan. The bearing structure is made of 10mm folded and welded iron rod with 5mm folded and electro welded ribbing.

http://www.marcsadler.it/

Jessika Källeskog's Cut table is a great play on plane. Källeskog uses architectural lines to challenge the traditional function of a table. Set upon the table are pieces from her Kubal glassware collection where the focus is on the contrasts and relationships between negative and positive space. Åsa Agerstam of Beckmans showed a chair and side table made up of various pieces of wood, for an uneven, striped effect, and the Mock & Mimic collection by Atsuko Hamanaka showed how manga can inspire three-dimensional form. As for Samo by Anders Askheim of Under Construction, this is a great example of form over function. The designer's intention is to get the viewer to engage with this chair, knowing full well that the reaction will be one of love or hate. Whatever the case may be, Samo cannot be ignored.

• stockholmfurniturefair.com
• contour.cc

• At Design.nl, "Dutch designers returned again this season to help shape the 2008/9 ICEHOTEL in Sweden."

http://www.design.nl/item/dutchdesignersattheicehotel

I29's latest project, the Recycled Office, was designed for Gummo an Amsterdam advertising agency that was renting a space for only two years. In order to spare the bottom line as well as the environment, i29 advised Gummo to reduce, reuse and recycle. All furniture comes from accessible sources like Marktplaats, the Dutch eBay, second-hand shops and anything left over from the previous office. What unifies the pieces is Hotspray, an environmentally friendly polyurea spray paint. The uncomplicated result is in keeping with the agency's white and grey theme and gives new life to old furniture.

• i29.nl

• Oki Sato (Nendo) shows off his works for the first time in New York as part of the "Ghost Stories" exhibition, running from February 27 until March 28 at the Friedman Benda Gallery.

http://www.friedmanbenda.com/

• Kathy Schicker's Transformative Textiles at Ponoko Blog, "Her glow textiles are constructed with yarns that glow in the dark, rendering the invisible patterns visible."