Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Nearly Every Top 100 Interior Design Giant Specifies Green

Interior Design magazine surveyed the Top 100 Giants in 2003 and found that 95% specified green products. Virtually all Giants are involved in sustainable design or think it's important to specify environmentally minded products.

The below survey shows how the percentage of actual green products used also has been rising each year.

Friday, June 20, 2008

MOMA Exhibition

Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling
July 20–October 20, 2008

Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling is both a survey of the past, present and future of the prefabricated home and a building project on the Museum's vacant west lot. Not since the mid-century House in the Garden series has MoMA built occupiable model buildings to demonstrate contemporary issues to the public. The fives homes erected on the vacant west lot are designed by Kieran Timberlake Associates (Philadelphia); Jeremy Edmiston and Douglas Gauthier (New York); Horden Cherry Lee Architects / Haack + Höpfner Architects (London/Munich); Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Architecture and Planning / Associate Professor Lawrence Sass (Cambridge); and Oskar Leo Kaufmann (Dornbirn, Austria).


The exhibition, and its accompanying Web site (www.momahomedelivery.org), display the process of architectural design and production in equal measure with the actual end result. Within the gallery, eighty-four architectural projects spanning 180 years are presented by means of film, architectural models, original drawings and blueprints, fragments, photographs, patents, games, sales materials and propaganda, toys, and partial reconstructions. This diverse collection of material illustrates how the prefabricated house has been, and continues to be, not only a reflection on the house as a replicable object of design but also a critical agent in the discourse of sustainability, architectural invention, and new material and formal research.

SOLD for $86.3 Million!


New York City - A 1976 triptych by Francis Bacon brought $86.3 million at Sotheby’s, becoming the most expensive work of contemporary art ever sold at auction and a retort to doomsayers who had predicted that the art market would falter seriously this season because of broad economic anxieties. “Recession? What recession?” Barbara Gladstone, a Chelsea dealer, said jokingly.

NYC Waterfalls



NEW YORK CITY - The New York City Waterfalls, a major new work of public art by internationally acclaimed artist Olafur Eliasson, will be on view in New York's East River from late June through mid-October 2008. Commissioned by Public Art Fund, the project consists of four monumental, man-made waterfalls temporarily installed at sites along the waterfront in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Governors Island: one on the Brooklyn anchorage of the Brooklyn Bridge, one between Piers 4 and 5 below the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, one in Lower Manhattan at Pier 35 north of the Manhattan Bridge, and one on the north shore of Governors Island. The 90- to 120-foot-tall Waterfalls are erected on the shoreline and have been designed to protect water quality and aquatic life. They will operate from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week, and will be lit after sunset.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Websites Trends of 2008!

Can a web site designer really learn anything from upcoming trends in the world of physical product packaging? Contrary to popular belief about the two different branches of design, packaging trends and web site design trends are actually derived from the same complex combination of fashion, evolving design philosophies, shifts in cultural value, and technology.So what’s going on in packaging that the web site designer should be aware of?

The most popular these days:

Go Green

The phrase is so overused that it has gone beyond cliché; but overuse of the term should not blind smart marketers to how much environmental concerns and the desire to slow the runaway pace of pollution has impacted our culture. So if you want to jump on this, when it comes to your site, capitalize on the growing concern for the environment by installing electronic bill pay systems, emphasizing the reduced environmental impact of a digital rather than brick-and-morter storefront, and using the copy-oriented culture of internet selling to explain all of the “green” initiatives your company has created.

Make it personal

By adding a blog or some other form of personal interaction will make more customers come to see what you or others have posted. Also adding mission statement and personal saying help customer feel more in turned to your product or services. Bold Bright colors may seem as old fashioned as Captain Crunch cereal packaging, but when incorporated into smart design in an abstract way, bright colors take on a trendy, artsy tenor.

Graphic Images

The generation of 18-34 year-olds has been casually labeled the ADD generation for its total inability to concentrate on anything for more than approximately 30 seconds. That might be a slight exaggeration, but the truth remains that imaging with a clear, concise illustration of product use beats out good copy on the shelf. People want to look at a product, know instantly if it is something they like, then take the time to peruse the copy for more information.

Minimalism: Less is More

The overarching trend in much of product design, packaging, and even digital graphics is that subtle touches and minimal composition are preferable to busy design. This is perfect for the web site designer because it reduces the need for distracting patterns in favor of a focus on the product or service being sold. Look at your pages as total work of art, with its own composition, and path for the eye. Guide the visitor’s eye the images of your product and use concise copy that treats each word as a strategic decision. Avoid as much as possible, distracting banner ads or excessive copy, especially on index pages. If customers are interested enough to click and read more, then you can provide more details about the product.

Artistic and Free

Break away from carefully stylized images and let loose the artistic creativity of counter-cultural design. Experiment with the shapes, style, and shading of everything on your site from the tabs to the windows. Remember, though, that just as artistic design should never detract from the utility of product packaging, so artistic design on your sight should never detract from ease of use, intuitive set-up, or well laid-out navigation. Artistic design should wrap around, not manipulate, the basic structure of your web site.

So here are some helpful hints on trends of website design for 2008.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008


Find out at www.greeniq.com

Michael Corbin Helps "Everyday Joes" Become Art Collectors

Many people think that they have to be rich or highly cultured to be art collectors, but that's not true. Michael K. Corbin proves it with his brand new, color-illustrated book, The Art of Everyday Joe: A Collector's Journal.
"This book is my way of saying 'hello' and 'welcome' to people who are afraid of even walking into an art gallery," says Corbin.
He proves that people can afford to collect art on even modest incomes. "But more than that," says Corbin, "it shows readers the role that art plays in their everyday lives and they may not even know it."

Monday, June 16, 2008

The Water Cube



Designed by PTW Architects of Australia, the completely compelling "Water Cube" (Beijing National Aquatics Center) has a shell that's a mere 0.008 inch thick made from ETFE, a material that both insulates and transmits light. The design invokes the bubbles that form in sea foam.

• The Water Cube is the world's only public building fully made of a membrane structure and is the most complicated membrane system in any single project globally.

• The building uses solar energy to heat the pools and the interior area. All backwash water is filtered and returned to the swimming pools.

• The Water Cube is designed to act as a greenhouse. This allows high levels of natural daylight into the building and enables it to harness the power of the sun to passively heat the building and pool water.

• It is estimated that the sustainable design has the power to reduce the energy consumption of the leisure pool hall by 30 per cent.

• Twenty per cent of the solar energy falling on the building is trapped within the building and used to heat the pools and interior.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Simply enjoying design



The two lowest steps of this staircase are used as shoe drawers. Found at

Dispatchwork




...there is enough machine within our eyesto fill a thousand junkyards fullto make the stone break into plastic cloudsof colored dustand happy play
...there are enough straight lines that bound a shapeto make us speak right to the pointto get us thinking we are right or wrongbeneath the clouds
See more of Jan Vormann's Dispatchwork here http://www.janvormann.com/dispatchwork.php

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

LEED Friendly Parking Garage


Although an environmentally sensitive garage might seem an oxymoron, Moore Ruble Yudell Architects has built a stunner for the Santa Monica Civic Center that is actually LEED-certified. Pre-cast ribbed concrete panels and multicolored glass bays conceal the cars and create a light, luminous quality for the viewer. On the roof, photovoltaic panels accentuate the skyline and provide all of the building's energy needs.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Redefining Las Vegas as an Artistic Destination

MGM Mirage has unveiled initial plans for CityCenter's $40 million Fine Art Program. Opening in late 2009, CityCenter will feature works by acclaimed artists, including Maya Lin, Jenny Holzer, Nancy Rubins, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Frank Stella, Henry Moore, among others.
The CityCenter Fine Art Program will feature numerous scultures and fine-art installations in both interior and exterior octaions to create a dynamic and enriching collection. The program is designed to become a benchmark for enlightened corporate involvement in the arts and on a global level and will be one of the world's largest and most ambitious corporate art programs. Additional pieces will be announced at a later date.
The CityCenter Fine Art Program will encompass a multitude of styles and media to engage visitors on both a visual and intellectual level. Some will be exitsing pieces, carefully chosen for their artistic value and cultural significance; others will be site-specific installations for which the artist has been invited to command his or her vision over the space. The comtemporary masterpieces will transform CityCenter into a living, breathing museum of iconic works of art. The artwork has been paired with CityCenter's unique architecture to create a sensory journey that presents the works in a never-before-seen fashion.
For more info visit www.citycenter.com

Just Another Green Concept in Design




I was surfing around online, looking for some kind of art show or event to attend this weekend and stumbled upon this company! And with all the buzz about how design companies are consciously becoming more green, I could not pass up the opportunity to share this company with you!




RESTORATION TIMBER

"Restoration Timber provides reclaimed wood with an unmatched beauty to professionals like you. With an unparalleled level of service. Our wood: quality and uniquenessWe warehouse an inventory of gorgeous recovered woods that have aged naturally for a century or more. They come from sources like old barns, abandoned schools and mills, warehouses and factories that fell into disrepair.They also come with a history, and they invite your clients to bring their own stories and create a new heritage together.Naturally weathered by a century or more of use, our woods are rich in grain, beautiful in color, and rock solid with age. As first or second growth timber, now unavailable for environmental reasons, our wood provides a strength, stability, integrity and beauty unavailable in fast-grown new wood."


And to give you a little more insight on their environmental impact here is what they say,



"As responsible citizens, we need to do what we can to protect our environment. Using reclaimed timber is a contribution we can make today.Aficionados of great wood know that the best quality of timber comes from old growth trees. Left to age naturally, these antique woods are rich in grain and color, with a structural integrity and beauty often lacking in wood from young fast growth trees.But old growth timber typically comes from ancient forests, an endangered and precious resource. Using reclaimed timber helps to maintain and preserve our forests, especially old growth forests.Also, unsustainable forest management causes massive soil erosion and loss of biodiversity. This hurts the economic future of communities around the world. Markets for new timber strain our forests, but using reclaimed wood offers compelling social and economic benefits."

Wednesday, June 4, 2008