Tabla de contenidos para October 2017 en AZURE

YOU CAN’T ACTUALLY GET A SENSE of the new photography pavilion at Château La Coste near Aix-en- Provence until you’re practically inside it. Entered via a gently sloped concrete path, the white triangular gallery – intended for displaying photographs – is exquisitely spare, featuring a polished concrete floor and handsome open grid of white track lighting. At the rear, wall-size sliding glass doors lead to a pristine outdoor sculpture court and a reflecting pool. Seen from above, however, the building looks like a gently bobbing sailboat moored among grapevines. Its 11 rooftop sails, made of tensile fabric attached to white steel arches, cover a 285-square-metre glass box set six metres deep in the hillside. They hover among canes of Syrah and Sauvignon Blanc, softening the Provençal sunlight in the gallery…

PROFESSIONAL STANDARD Spanning 48 inches, this dual fuel powerhouse brings a complete range of industrygrade functions to the home kitchen. Mercury by AGA has three ovens and a total of six cubic feet of cooking space; a five-burner cooktop; and multiple functions that include defrosting, convection grilling, fan-assisted baking, convection and conventional ovens, and slow cooking. Part of a suite that includes a dishwasher and a refrigerator, the stove has a zero-clearance facade that is available in glossy or matte black, white, scarlet, or ivory and in stainless steel. From $12,500, agamarvel.com FOOLPROOF For those who may not be naturals when it comes to cooking, the Flex induction cooktop by Gaggenau helps eliminate the guesswork. Its intuitive surface will automatically adjust the heat zone to the size of pot placed…

LAUNCHED IN 2012 AS A FOOD TRUCK BUSINESS that brings premium, Neapolitan-style pizzas to music festivals and outdoor events, Old Scuola has become one of Rotterdam’s trendiest hot spots since opening its first permanent location in May. When it came to planning the flagship, the owners wanted something different from a traditional pizza joint and turned to Bastiaan Kalmeyer and Chantal Schoenmakers of local studio Instability We Trust. The framework IWT began with was Het Industriegebouw – one of the city’s most iconic modernist buildings and home to many creative businesses, including architects’ offices and the design shop Groos. The studio developed a vision for a “spatial machine” that would combine a comfortable dining experience with a high-volume production kitchen, which would double as home base for the mobile business.…

A few minutes past 10 p.m., Kengo Kuma enters the rooftop conference room of his four-storey headquarters in central Tokyo. Just back from a working trip to France and China, he is wearing a black blazer and camouflage-patterned loafers. It’s another late evening for the indefatigable 63-year-old. A professor at the University of Tokyo, Kuma is currently at work on projects in Turkey, the U.K. and Indonesia, among other countries. Across the Pacific, he has also been generating buzz with a handful of new projects in two West Coast cities: Vancouver and Portland. The highest-profile project of his career, however, has just broken ground a mere three blocks from where we sit. Kuma secured the commission for Tokyo’s new National Stadium after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reversed the results of…

In 1968, it was wrong to like Las Vegas. The strip was a trashy sprawl of motels and casinos lit like an underworld theme park, where marquees and neon signs faded off into desert parking lots. Contemporary architectural aesthetics declared it undisciplined, uncouth; it was the opposite of modernism. But Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi asserted a revolutionary idea: that Las Vegas mattered because it was real. In its garish hedonism punctuated with waste and abandonment, they saw a visual syncopation that expressed the discordant forces at work in the lives of ordinary people. They gave names to the minimovements that generated the strip’s inventive forms: “Yamasaki Bernini cum Roman Orgiastic” and “Bauhaus Hawaiian.” When Scott Brown and Venturi published their 1972 book, Learning from Las Vegas (written with…

Dear reader, In 2005, British athlete Ellen MacArthur broke the speed record for sailing around the world solo. She retired in 2010, at age 34, and moved on to her next passion: establishing a foundation for promoting circular economies. Circular economy is not a term MacArthur coined. Its origin isn’t known, but the expression has become a catch-all for the many ways sustainability has been described and understood over the years. It embraces everything from cradle to cradle and biomimicry to the blue economy and degenerative design – essentially, all the terminology that says we should be doing things differently than what we are doing now. Rather than make stuff and throw it all back into our already-polluted oceans and burning landfills, we should be building businesses that reduce and…

ZERO WASTE TURNING TEXTILE DUST INTO USABLE AND DURABLE MATERIALS FOR WALLS AND FURNITURE Necessity may be the mother of invention, but for the Danish company Really – makers of a new type of panel board composed of end-oflife textiles – invention was the result of overabundance. According to Really co-founder and long-time sustainability advocate Wickie Meier Engstrom, only 25 per cent of recyclable fabrics ever see a second life, and there is zero market for used industrial laundry – think hospital bed sheets and hotel towels. “We thought there must another option,” says Meier Engstrom. The initial plan Meier Engstrom shared with co-founders Klaus Samsoe and Ole Smedegaard was to make furniture out of reconstituted offcuts. That was followed by the idea of a composite that could also work…

As you entered a darkened and atmospheric theatre at this year’s Milan Design Week, you were handed a single fabric glove. Inside the dim room was an illuminated white tree with curved branches producing lightly scented bubbles every eight seconds. If you tried to catch them on your bare skin, they popped instantly, but if you were careful, you could hold one on a gloved hand for a few memorable moments. Alluringly simple yet deceptively rich and layered, New Spring – a poetic and sculptural collaboration by London-based Studio Swine and minimalist Scandi fashion brand COS – delighted young and old for what, in the social media age, felt like an eternity. Founded by Japanese architect Azusa Murakami and British artist Alexander Groves, Studio Swine has made waves with its…

WHEN FILMMAKER KASPAR ASTRUP SCHRÖDER began documenting the life and work of Bjarke Ingels, his subject’s phenom status was already beyond doubt. The charismatic namesake of BIG had realized more designs than professionals twice his age – more polemical ones, too. But if Ingels’ burgeoning fame convinced Schröder to invest years in trailing the architect, then celebrity also places the burden of persuasion on Schröder’s final product. Why should an audience, especially one composed of architecture buffs, root for so obvious a hero? Big Time was first released in Copenhagen this past spring, and overnight reviews described the film as a recounting of Ingels’ exhausting climb, and holding on, to fame. Some childhood reminiscences excepted, Schröder in fact offers little of the architect’s origin story, and scant explanation of his…

Nearly everything Konstantin Grcic touches becomes iconic. The German industrial designer’s collaborations with Magis, Vitra, Laufen and Mutina, among other leading brands, have yielded instant classics. His work with Rado is no exception. In 2016, he teamed up with the Swiss luxury watchmaker to redesign its classic Ceramica collection, infusing the minimalist timepieces with a contemporary edge, and garnering high praise; his signature Ceramica model, with a velvety matte finish and a limited 701-piece run, won a 2017 Red Dot Product Design Award. Here, Grcic talks time and why materials matter. What prompted you to accept Rado’s invitation for this project? Collaborations between designers and industry always work on different levels. When I first met the Rado team, there was a pleasant chemistry between us. A solid personal relationship is…

Air-Ink Graviky Labs of Bangalore in India has turned air pollution into a material for art and writing. Stripped of its heavy metals and carcinogens, vehicle exhaust is the same carbon powder used to make India ink. Using proprietary technology, Graviky captures carbon from tailpipes, treats it and turns it into five grades of ink (for screen printing, markers and more). One pen reuses 45 minutes’ worth of driving emissions. This process won’t offset global emissions, but, as company co-founder Nikhil Kaushik says, “It’s about unlearning the man-made concept of ‘waste’.” graviky.com Pollution Popsicles As a creative way to ensure the problem of pollution is never out of mind, a team of students at National Taiwan University of Arts collected polluted samples from rivers, lakes and ports around Taiwan, then…

EGO ERECTUS Spanish artist Mario Mankey’s gigantic installation Ego Erectus took over an entire room in a pop-up gallery this past spring. Mankey was just one of 165 creatives who filled a former Berlin bank with multidisciplinary works for a two-month show. mariomankey.com ICE CREAM Paintbrushes and multicoloured layers of paint are the subjects of a photography project in Portuguese artist José Lourenço’s series Ice Cream Paint Brushes. jose-lourenco.tumblr.com ODE TO INTUICIÓN This series of sculptural vessels by Costa Rican designer Juli Bolaños- Durman incorporates such recycled glass elements as old beer and perfume bottles. julibd.com ANZA ESPRESSO MAKER Available in brutalist concrete and sleek white Corian versions, the AnZa espresso machine from Berkeley, California, studio Montaag is fully programmable and connected for remote access. montaag.com…

The best view of the Cogeco Amphitheatre in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, is from across the St. Lawrence River. Its immense, 80- by-90-metre, thin-edged roof flies over a concrete-and-glass stage house, anchored by only eight thin columns. At night it looks as if a glamorous premiere is underway: artificial light theatrically rakes the underside of the roof, and the river glistens like a mirror, doubling the building’s image in the water. Like many post-industrial cities, Trois-Rivières has put its faith in culture and entertainment to revive its waterfront. The amphitheatre dominates a shoreline that only 20 years ago was studded with the cranes and smokestacks of a pulp and paper mill. The artistic programming is a crucial part of this plan – this past summer’s lineup featured Cirque du Soleil, Styx, and…

“Architecture is not an end; it’s a means by which we can ask questions,” says Susana Herrera. The Chilean architect is explaining the intellectual framework for the Yepun Astronomical Observatory, a tower for stargazing in Arauco province in the country’s south. As Herrera talks, she sweeps an arm in the direction of the forested hills that surround this new addition to the Quelén Centro Turístico, an evolving hotel project that her firm, Factoría, has been involved with for nearly 15 years. The question she was asking here was not about the heavenly bodies above, but about how to bring together the Indigenous Mapuche and settler populations in the region. “There was no way I could do this project without acknowledging and incorporating the Mapuche culture, wisdom and view of the…

ACOUSTIC CONTROL 1. CURTAIN BY VESCOM Ultra-lightweight and available in an array of translucent hues, these curtains instill a soft counterpoint in environments heavy on concrete, glass and steel. vescom.com 2. ONDO BY CASALIS Dutch designer Aleksandra Gaca’s 3-D fabric is offered as finished panels and by the bolt for on-site installations or upholstery. The woven blend of elasthane and Trevira CS polyester comes in 14 colourways and can be backed with foam for extra acoustic absorption. casalis.be 3. ENTRADA BY CREATION BAUMANN FOR CARNEGIE Part privacy panel, part noise control, this polyester weave feels like wool to the touch. It can also be used as window covering. In six colours. carnegiefabrics.com 4. GLACE BY DESIGNTEX One of three patterns that combines sound absorption with light transmission, this drapery is…