AZUREの September 2018 の目次

This is turning out to be a significant year for Azure. The beginning of 2018 saw the launch of a redesigned print edition. A dynamic reimagining of the Azure website is in the works. And this issue marks my first as editor-in-chief, making me only the third person to hold that role in Azure’s 33-year history. Needless to say, I am honoured and thrilled to be shepherding this valuable resource at a time when architecture and design are more important than ever to the well-being of our communities and especially our cities, the main focus of this issue. As more and more people make their homes in dense urban clusters, seemingly intractable problems such as exorbitant housing costs and disappearing public spaces are making many metropolises forbidding to a growing…

Bee Hospital The worldwide decline in the bee population prompted New York designer Shau Heng Li to develop a futuristic concept to help bees survive our increasingly unfavourable environment. His “hospital” includes a variety of modules, including supplement centres (shown), where bees can collect probiotics and essential nutrients that enable them to digest pesticides. Mite guard dispensers attach to trees, drawing the bees in with syrup and dusting them with a chemical solution that kills Varroa mites, a parasite known to attack honeybees. The third proposed module type collects data to monitor the health of not only the bee population, but the environment as a whole. shaudesign.com Marlène Huissoud Since finishing her M.A. in Material Futures at Central Saint Martins’ School of Art and Design in London four years ago,…

To most urban dwellers, a New York City loft within a former factory is a covetable piece of real estate: Think high ceilings, an open space, character that comes from an industrial, potentially storied past. But in the case of one Brooklyn loft, previous architectural interventions – from sheetrock walls to an awkward crawlspace – resulted in a cramped and dark environment. “Everything was heavy and the ceiling had been dropped by several feet in some places,” says Jaffer Kolb, one half of local practice New Affiliates. Together with partner Ivi Diamantopoulou, he transformed the 70-square-metre space into a bright setting with a unique kitchen at its centre. Since the client, who works in fashion, shared the firm’s philosophy for balancing natural materials with moments of saturated colour, she granted…

In late 2015, task forces charged with housing an unprecedented influx of refugees into Germany were knocking on doors all over Berlin – at former town halls, at the former headquarters of the East German secret police, at school gyms, army barracks, sports complexes and office buildings. Occupants of these government-owned buildings sometimes protested that they had conferences or meetings planned for the next day and couldn’t possibly accommodate the newcomers. “It was, ‘I’m sorry, sir, not tomorrow – definitely not tomorrow,’” says Sascha Langenbach, a spokesperson for Berlin’s State Office of Refugee Affairs (LAF). In fact, the task forces told the occupants, the army would be coming within the hour to start installing thousands of beds. “So please hand over all the keys.” Worldwide, the past few years have…

What was most memorable about your assignment for this issue? KENDRA JACKSON Azure’s Managing Editor During the three whirlwind days I spent in Chicago for NeoCon (page 042), I made time to wander along the Riverwalk (above), which was completed last year. It’s an amazing amenity, and it’s great to see it being used by locals as well as tourists now that it’s had time to integrate into the fabric of the city. What design initiatives do you think cities can take to be more livable for all? AMRIT PHULL Writer/Researcher, “Exterior Textiles” (page 109) I live in an Indian province with over 2,000 slums. Some hold tens of thousands of migrant workers with no access to water or sanitation. This is the most violated human right today and is…

Whether it’s hundreds of angled reflectors casting shifting shadows in the Sonoran Desert or glassy-surfaced panels merging earth and sky on the grounds of an Italian palazzo, Phillip K. Smith’s installations betray his background as an architect: They’re all meticulously planned, precisely executed and explicitly site-specific. After the 2008 recession, the California native decided to turn from designing homes to creating “memorable experiences,” which he has been doing – via the media of light and reflective surfaces, in settings both urban and remote – to growing acclaim. Azure spoke with Smith, who’s based in Palm Desert, last spring in Milan, where his palazzo project, created with the fashion brand COS and pictured at bottom left, was a Design Week hit. In Smith’s view, architects can learn much from artists –…

In the 19th-century shipyard where the studio of Tokyo designer Yuma Kano is located, rust is a ubiquitous nuisance. But looking around at the oxidized metal piers and half-built tankers that line the shore, Kano saw the substance’s inherent beauty. “My job as a designer is to pick up on things that others would overlook,” he says. With his Rust Harvest furniture series, Kano makes this blight the star of the material palette, capturing layers of decay inside acrylic panels. Born of a failed experiment, his process began with an attempt to encase rusted metal within translucent acrylic resin. It was Kano’s first time working with both materials, he says, and a gap in the formwork led to much of the acrylic escaping the mould. As he peeled away the…

Since he founded SITE in 1970, the American artist and architect James Wines has been upending visual and programmatic expectations on every scale imaginable. His most acclaimed projects are commercial and landscape projects cum witty public art: his PoMo reimagining of big-box retail for Best Products in various U.S. locations, his Ghost Parking Lot in Connecticut (featuring cars buried in asphalt) and his wacky, over-the-top Ross’s Landing Park and Plaza in Chattanooga, Tennessee. With his limited-edition Light Bulb Series for Foscarini, Wines pays homage to another original: the incandescent bulb, which endures as an archetype even in our LED-powered world. His explorations in blown Venetian glass are beautiful subversions of the shape. The Plant Light plays up our terrarium-obsessed moment, while Black Light, with a glowing socket and opaque black…

HERITAGE COLLECTION Large 36-cm grates arranged as a continuous platform let heavy, full pots slide (rather than needing to be lifted) along the entire surface. Cooking accessories, which can be seamlessly swapped in, include a wok ring, a searing grill and a griddle. dacor.com TWOINONE An integrated downdraft extractor combines with an induction cooktop for a clean, interruption-free surface. Reflecting the minimal look, touch controls eliminate the need for dials and knobs. miele.ca LIBERTY INDUCTION The five cooking elements of this induction surface can be combined to form larger zones to accommodate round pots, rectangular roasting pans or square griddles – and the heat source will follow a utensil shifted across the surface. thermador.ca PROFESSIONAL SERIES The 90-cm-wide gas hob in this collection offers flexibility through variously sized brass burners…

1 PROLIFIC This 25-cm-deep stainless steel basin has three built-in ledges that accommodate racks, a colander, a washbin and a bamboo cutting board, seamlessly transforming it from a simple wash station into a multi-functional work zone. kohler.com 2 PEKOE APRON FRONT A traditional farmhouse sink with industrial edge. Rubber padding on the sides and bottom absorbs sound and vibration. Available in 30- and 33-inch lengths. americanstandard.ca 3 WORKSTATION Intended for small kitchens, this sink comes in two sizes: 38 x 38 and 38 x 51 cm. Accessories that sit along an inner ledge to create a prep station include a basket strainer, wooden cutting board and more. ruvati.com 4 CHEF CENTRE XL An integrated ledge and interchangeable containers and work surfaces turn this system into a customized command centre. franke.com…

The Sea World Culture and Arts Center in Shenzhen stands out, not because it’s flashy, but because it’s subtle – or at least subtler than the buildings around it. It’s situated in Shekou, an entertainment district popular with the many expats who live in the city, which sits across Shenzhen Bay from Hong Kong. The surrounding buildings include glass-and-steel towers, a sprawling Hilton hotel and a landlocked passenger ship containing pubs, a dance hall and a 250-room resort. The architect for the Sea World Center, Fumihiko Maki, principal of the Tokyo firm Maki and Associates, didn’t pay much attention to the jumbled regional aesthetic. “It wasn’t our aim to reflect the styles of the surrounding buildings,” says Tatsutomo Hasegawa, an associate at the firm and the project manager for Sea…

Spanning almost a full city block in Vancouver’s Gastown, the latest Avenue Road location occupies a two-storey, 1,115-square-metre heritage building that elegantly follows the contour of its gently sloping site. Inside, the high-end furniture retailer’s first foothold on the West Coast (the company has two other showrooms, in Toronto and New York) is decidedly more dramatic. Less a store than a series of stage sets, the space invites visitors to move through a progression of shifting vignettes, each composed of tightly curated pieces that exude a distinct atmosphere. “Finding the right space was vital,” says Stephan Weishaupt, who co-founded Avenue Road with design superstars Glenn Pushelberg and George Yabu 11 years ago and assumed full ownership in 2016. “It had to match a certain retail experience that I had in…

Shaw Contract + Form Us With Love While many carpet tiles have become artworks in their own right in recent years, the collection presented jointly by Shaw Contract and Stockholm’s Form Us With Love stands out for both its dreamy colour palette and its inventive patterning approach. The result of a two-year collaboration between the Swedish studio and the Georgia-based flooring manufacturer, Inside Shapes is a cohesive system of 24-by-24-inch tiles that gives designers the freedom to create thousands of expressions using only four shapes: a conventional square, a semi-circle and two sizes of triangle. What really makes the tiles sing is their 12 colourways. “We looked at building materials and finishes in our own region for influence,” says Jonas Pettersson of Form Us With Love. One example: beautiful blues…

Given that all the best parties eventually spill into the kitchen, it’s welcome news that Belgian architect Vincent Van Duysen is out to rethink the room as a bona fide gathering place. “The kitchen’s not only a functional, working area anymore – it’s becoming the true epicentre of the home,” he says. “So now it’s about integrating social and cultural values into that space.” The Antwerp-based designer is well known for envisioning residences that skew toward the spare and sophisticated while still maintaining an overarching sense of warmth. Since being appointed creative director of Molteni&C and its Dada kitchen division in 2016, he has introduced VVD and Ratio – two modular kitchens that are as dedicated to what he terms “the art of living” as they are to cooking. With…

There’s architecture in Venice – momentous and iconic architecture that includes everything from St. Mark’s Basilica and the 15th- and 16th-century palazzi lining the Grand Canal to Carlo Scarpa’s masterful interventions and the immense former shipyards of the Arsenale. Venice is an open-air architectural extravaganza to which the world flocks unceasingly – a double-edged situation that both sustains and imperils this watery city. Every two years, the world’s biggest architecture show takes place here, mounted by La Biennale di Venezia, the landmark cultural organization founded in 1895. The architecture exhibition, which alternates with the more famous art exhibition, fills the halls of the Arsenale and the national pavilions in the Giardini (a park-like space in the eastern part of the city) from May until near the end of November. This…

Metal Mesh 1 Twist Action Haver & Boecker’s Largo-Twist screen provides sun protection while maintaining visibility and ventilation. A robust weaving of flat, stainless steel profiles, the screen has slightly tilted horizontal members that deflect light at the sun’s angle of incidence, reducing energy transmission by over 90 per cent. weavingarchitecture.com 2 Net Worth Jakob adds new dimensions to metal mesh with RopeLab, a series of complex wire creations. The line includes Webnet3D, which provides lace-like support structures for vegetation, and WebnetID (shown), offering a flexible framework for custom patterning and graphics. jakob.com, ropeandcable.ca Synthetic Solutions 3 Experimental Installation SelgasCano’s floating Bruges Triennial pavilion is made of a brilliant pink PVC membrane from Novatex International. The architects worked with architectural textile specialists Lastra & Zorrilla on this experimental application of…