Man, where have we been? Not updating the blog, that’s for sure. Well what have we been doing? Mostly working. We’ve got a lot of exciting new projects coming up and some really great new interns starting soon! Additionally, we funded Art Not Arrests and we’re at a really amazing point with the project! Check out the project website for more about the project.
In the meantime, here’s a video of the installation going up and a couple pictures of Kristen and I constructing the deck. YAY!
Ground Up Designers is looking for a part-time intern to help with design, development, fabrication, and construction of a number of interactive community oriented installations this Spring and Summer. Our current work focuses very heavily on incorporating active participation from the public and community interaction. The ideal candidate should be extremely self motivated and interested in taking charge of their work. We are are not looking for someone to ‘do our bidding’ — we are looking for someone excited about design and it’s impact on society. We are looking for someone with a sharp eye for design and an all around passion for creating interesting interactive environments.
Kristen and I have been working on this project since September and are finally ready to release it to the world! Here are some renderings (thanks Brian Walbridge for all your modeling and rendering help) and the official press release text. We’ll be submitting the project for competitions and grants over the next month and will be launching to raise money on Kickstarter starting January 16th! Fingers Crossed! Also, check out a short video about the project here.
Last night Kristen and I committed ourselves to an intense evening of weaving hundreds of neon handcuffs together for a large-scale prototype of the installation we are working on for the CHCA’s Crow Hill Community Garden. It was a lovely evening — we laughed, we cried (not really… but we did curse quite a bit), we got into super weird positions on the floor tangled in brightly colored plastic cuffs, and when we were finished weaving, we stared at it… long and hard. We stared at it like we’ve never stared at anything before — contemplating and discussing every detail of what we had just built. The prototype was interesting, but for some reason it just wasn’t right. We decided to sleep on it and we went our separate ways for the night, undoubtedly running the same thoughts through our minds as we tossed around in bed.
Belgian artist and illustrator Stefaan De Croock aka Strook pressure washed this awesome piece on a mossy wall outside of theSTUK art center in Leuven. I thought it was just beautiful! I bet it will be even more interesting as it grows a new layer of moss on top again.
This morning on the subway (which was packed) I noticed an interesting moment between two people – a very attractive Asian woman and an boring looking blond guy with a rather large mole on his face, both in their early 30′s.
The ‘Swarm Light‘ is an experimental light installation with a real ‚collective consciousness’ that subtly reacts to the viewer’s audible presence. The installation is a contemporary example of how the arbitrary boundaries of fine and decorative art, design and utility are no longer
of immediate aesthetic relevance. An apparently inanimate object, ‘Swarm‘ unites crucial aspects of rAndom international‘s continued experimentation with light, behavioural responses and interactive spatial environments. – RAndom International
Today I found this interesting complex surface project by Studio Mode/modeLab while jumping around the internet. Studio Mode/ modeLab is a Brooklyn-based design studio and research collective founded by Ronnie Parsons and Gil Akos. (perhaps some people we should be trying to grab drinks with someday in the future!) I thought it was really interesting in the way it uses no additional fastening materials or structural members. Also, it is quite lovely in the way it combines material simplicity and architectural complexity.
My heart nearly melted when I stumbled across this amazing project by Tom Price today. It is absolutely BEAUTIFUL and made entirely from plastic pipes and zip-ties. I will never again doubt Kristen when she say’s that PVC has the potential to be cool. Never.
Light Play, is an urban art installation brought forward by international set designer Michael Levine and KPMB , for Luminato 2008, Toronto’s annual Festival of Arts and Creativity. It played on the concept of a 1950’s dance hall by suspending over 200 illuminated PVC balloons over the Square. The balloons were suspended by a web of nautical rope and fitted with lights that changed color to the sound of the audience and live music below. I thought it was just lovely and highly effective considering it’s relative simplicity.
I stumbled across this gorgeous wedding dress put together by, French designer, Emmanuelle Moureaux on Dezeen today. I thought the self supporting structure was relevant to some research Kristen and I have been doing. The dress made from 500 thorny bubbles and was exhibited at this year’s DesignTide Tokyo. The structure is somewhat genius in it’s simplicity – similar to a sea urchin the Toge (Japanese for thorn) cling together and climb on top of each other, creating a beautiful self supporting pile of themselves. They could be formed into almost anything, but Emmanuelle has opted for a Wedding Dress, and a lovely one at that!
I’m going to freak everyone out here by admitting that I read body building websites in my free time but, I recently read this article on setting goals. Sorry, I am a fitness nut, and weirdly obsessed with challenging myself…leave me alone. If you can look past the weird weight lifting aspects of the article however, it can be applied to pretty much anything. So, I thought I would copy it, paste it, and adapt it for a more design oriented focus to share with all you designer type folk. The adapted sentences are in italics – everything else is exactly as their author wrote it. Basically, I just changed “athlete” to “designer”… amazing right?
“What is a massimal?” you ask? Well, according to D.O.T.S. (the creator of this intriguing object) –
Massimals are 1:1 design objects that serve as prototypes to examine how physical form can engage the public realm. These constructs are mass abstractions of animal forms fabricated in systematic fashion from one material. The suggestive forms and their specific arrangement imply docile behavior similar to animals in a petting zoo augmenting the way visitors approach and engage built form.
Loving these colorful tensegrity lighting structures! Not only are they visually amazing they are supported by nothing but themselves. The light tubes are used at compression members and the electrical cables are used for tensile support — a VERY clever way to hide the cord! Genius
I thought this tensile installation was just beautiful. I absolutely love that the public got involved and hand printed the fabric panels! Just a lovely lovely project by Foster + Partners.
Alistair Lenczner of Foster + Partners said:
“The day was a lot of fun for all involved and a real success. The London Festival of Architecture is a great opportunity to bring architecture to a wide audience. Our installation was designed as a celebration of the collaborations between people that create architecture, and in this case the public were very much part of that process. The handprints placed on the fabric symbolised the human input into the structure’s creation and Bill Fontana’s maritime-themed sound work complemented the nautical feel of the rigging-type ropes that formed the cable net structure.”
I just stumbled across this really beautiful project that is, (perhaps unfortunately) strikingly similar to the installation project Kristen and I have been working on over the past couple months. While I’m almost a little sad to see it so well executed by another firm, I am mostly excited to see how much potential this type of project has. It’s really great to find someone who has done this on a larger scale than most and who made it look so good! Seeing this gives me confidence in many of the issues we were worried about not working out — it also brings up a lot of questions! Anyway, I’m hope others find the project to be as exciting as I do.
We have been thinking, it might be time for ‘Tips for Tuesday’ to step it up a bit. Seriously right? we haven’t posted one in a LONG LONG time (Sorry, we got distracted having fun with other stuff). So, over the next couple months, we’re expanding our Tips for Tuesday blog series to become a bit more specific and helpful to you. What does that mean? Basically, we want to give you tips on your design issues – what can you do to improve your – restaurant, storefront, apartment, back-yard, bathroom, small design project, etc.?
Ground Up Designers is looking for a designer interested in collaborating on a Community Dependent Architecture Installation in the works for Franklin Ave. next summer. We are specifically looking for an architect or creative engineer with an interest and experience in parametric modeling and BIM (Grasshopper, Rhino, Catia, etc.) to help us design and develop the technical aspects of the project going forward. At this point a basic idea for the design and implementation of this project are in place, funding options are being worked out, and permission to use the site has been granted. We are in the very early phases of design, so you will likely be very involved in the design process. The installation will ideally begin construction in late February or early March, so we will be working from schematic design toward final construction documents over the next few months.
Kristen and I have been developing a suspension installation over the past few weeks, which we are hoping to install somewhere in Crown Heights next spring. After doing some research I found some really great inspiration photos and thought I would post them here. I absolutely love each of these for their own unique reasons.
Visitors to Dezeen Space last week could listen to the ambient sounds of their surroundings through a tangle of corrugated plastic tubes, courtesy of Polish studio mode:lina. I absolutely love the sensory interaction involved in this project. So tactile!
The BMW Welt in Munich is a mechatronic installation by ART+COM. I love the fluidity of motion!
I have been on a total pattern kick lately, so I thought I’d make a quick post with some of the patterns I have been admiring. Click the images for source info. Enjoy!
Filed under: $100k Ladies — Lana @ 6:09 PM 06/06/2011
Betsie Larkin is a singer/songwriter based out of Manhattan, currently creating quite a name for herself within the electronic dance music scene. Having already released “You Belong To Me,” with Producer Bobina, and being voted the future favorite on Armin van Buuren’s “A State of Trance,” there are no signs of her slowing down.
Jennifer Bolstad is a founding principal and Landscape Architect at Local Office Landscape & Urban Design, LLC. Local Office was founded in 2006 by Harvard Graduate School of Design classmates Jennifer Bolstad and Walter Meyer (who are now happily married). Operating between infrastructure, urbanism, and ecology, the firm works between the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, public policy, science and art. The partners have been engaged as speakers and visiting critics at Columbia University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Parsons New School, Pratt Institute, City College of New York, the University of Florida, Florida International University, and the University of Puerto Rico.
Logic Matter: Skylar Tibbits, MIT 2010 [Photo - SJet]
While tickets are sold out at this point, I just thought I would throw up a quick post about FABRICATE taking place this weekend at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London. Keynote Speakers include – Matthias Kohler, Neri Oxman (a personal role model of mine — for managing to be a total babe and insanely smart), Philip Beesley & Mark Burry. Additionally, my PhilaU classmate, current MIT lecturer, and all around awesome person, Skylar Tibbits will be lecturing! All-in-all it should prove to be an unbelievably interesting and exciting conference — So, if you happen to be in the area… maybe you can try to sneak in for me
View From Front of Garden
