Studio Sain uses traditional hand-turning process to create products incorporating wooden ball joints

Studio Sain worked with one of Austria's last remaining woodturners to develop this collection of hand-turned wooden products that feature moving parts or modular components.

Designers Martijn Rigters and Namuun Zimmermann, who began working together as Studio Sain in 2018, developed the Bulbous project as part of Vienna Design Week's Passionswege 2019 programme, which pairs design studios with local craftsmen.

Studio Sain was invited to collaborate with Viennese woodturner Hermann Viehauser on a collection of products that highlight the contemporary potential of this traditional craft.

The project allowed the designers to learn about and celebrate the hand-turning process, which they claimed is steadily being replaced by faster, automated manufacturing methods.

"With Hermann Viehauser being one of the last woodturners in Vienna, it is clear this craft is slowly disappearing – probably because of the typical cliche of being time consuming and costly," Rigters and Zimmermann told Dezeen.

"We wanted to embrace the incredible high level of precision of the handmade pieces, and to end this collaboration with a collection of unconventional pieces."

The Bulbous collection comprises a movable light, mirror and modular shelving system made from linden wood that was chosen for its softness and light colour.

Rather than being purely decorative, the products highlight the functional potential of hand-turned forms.

"We decided to approach woodturning as a form of joinery, with movable, seamlessly fitting components," the designers added. "We were hoping to find an interesting approach to this ancient craft by creating these more mechanical, functional objects."

The smooth, rounded forms of the objects were inspired by the curvaceous features of a paleolithic sculpture known as the Venus of Willendorf, which was discovered in 1908 near the Lower Austrian town of Krems.

The forms also contribute to each product's specific function, with the mirror and desk light featuring ball joints based on joints found in the human body.

The angle of the wall-mounted mirror can be changed by rotating the top section over its spherical base, while the position of the desk lamp's bubble-like glass diffuser can be adjusted thanks to a ball joint that mimics the human knee.

The hanging light's familiar lathe-turned profile creates ridges that hold the cord used to suspend it from the ceiling in place. The form can be repeated to create longer lights if required.

The wall-mounted shelves are made from two turned spheres that are quartered to produce four sets of shelves. These can be used individually or combined modularly to form longer compositions.

The products were presented at Viehauser's workshop during the Passionswege event, which took place from 27 September  to 5 October 2019.

The choice of location meant that visitors were able to witness the tools and processes used to make the products, as well as the project's final outcomes.

Studio Sain has continued to develop the objects so they can be produced in small numbers. They can also be adapted for special commissions.

Rigters and Zimmermann met while studying at the Royal College of Art and established Studio Sain after moving from London to Vienna.

Their multidisciplinary practice combines conceptual thinking with material research and experimental processes in order to create outcomes that are original in their aesthetics and functionality.

Rigters' previous projects include a rippled sofa made by forcing a block of foam between hot wires, and a group of aluminium stools patterned with human hair, which he developed in collaboration with Fabio Henry.

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Bathhouse spa with sensory deprivation tank opens in old Williamsburg soda factory

A 1930s soda factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn has been transformed into bathhouse with a subterranean spa influenced by Scandinavian saunas, Russian banyas and Turkish hammams.

Founders Jason Goodman and Travis Talmadge collaborated with Manhattan firm Verona Carpenter Architects to reinvigorate the space to be a unique venue for social bathing called Bathhouse.

The 600-square-metre underground spa is lined with original brickwork and geometric matte-black tiles. A custom aqua and white tile mural by illustrator Amit Greenberg displays an Ancient Roman-inspired bathing scene as a focal point on the back wall.

Among the globally influenced therapies are two red cedar saunas: one "tropical" with more humidity and the other with less moisture that is more typically Finnish-style.

There is also a steam room, a trio of thermal pools – including a traditionally Russian cold plunge – and multiple heated marble slabs adapted from a Turkish hammam.

The pools are surrounded by 10 private treatment rooms with original vaulted ceilings.

Programming incorporates ancient wellness rituals and modern recovery techniques developed by sports professionals, such as athletic massages, stretching, head-to-toe scrubs and cryotherapy.

The spa also has a sensory deprivation chamber with an isolation tank designed by Float Labs, which is saturated with Epsom salts to create a feeling of weightlessness.

"Float Labs makes the only tanks that are UL-certified (a global safety certification), and ours is the only one on the East Coast," Goodman added.

In the women's locker area is a "ritual room" with a single cast iron bathtub that sits underneath a preserved 30-metre-tall brick smokestack that's been illuminated.

Bathhouse's facilities also include a restaurant. Two separate street-level entrances were created to access the two, but the interior space is free flowing.

"The original entrance had a ladder leading straight down to the basement level," Goodman told Dezeen. "There was no real ceiling because of the height of the smokestacks, so we had to construct an entirely new ground floor."

A handmade cement-tiled desk sits in the spa's reception, leading into a custom concrete walkway flanked by plant-filled infinity mirrored boxes.

New York restaurateur Akiva Elstein designed Bathhouse's street-level eatery with waxed canvas banquettes, pine wood accents and industrial ironwork.

"Our guests can just put on a robe after enjoying the baths and head up to the restaurant for a seasonal meal," said Goodman. "It's all meant to be a very social experience."

Bathhouse joins a number of contemporary facilities tapping into the benefits of the communal bathing culture, as explored in a 2016 exhibition curated by Jane Withers. Examples include Peter Zumthor's Therme Vals in Switzerland and a sauna in Gothenburg, Sweden, designed by Raumlabor.

Photography is by Adrian Gaut.

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Circular rooflight illuminates meditation room in Mexican beach house

A serene meditation room overlooking the Pacific Ocean is lit by a large round skylight in this seaside retreat designed by Mexico City studio Colectivo Lateral de Arquitectura.

The project is located in Playa Blanca, in the Mexican beach town Zihuatanejo. Perched above the Pacific, the area has long been a popular vacation destination, due to its sandy beaches and warm climate.

Colectivo Lateral de Arquitectura designed the home around a courtyard wrapped by a colonnade, to give the owners the most green space possible. The studio said the clients envisioned the home as a getaway for meditation.

"Beyond satisfying an architectural function, the programme of this residence responds to a superior need: the holistic quest of full communion and interaction with the enveloping and traversing nature," said Colectivo Lateral de Arquitectura.

The colonnade culminates at the meditation room, a shaded space covered by a roof, and enclosed only by sliding glass walls. "Due to a remarkable circular opening in the deck of this room, the rain, the wind, the light and the natural habitat are freely and fluidly integrated in this space."

A pool runs from inside this space to outdoors, framing the room and its sweeping views of the ocean.

"A swimming lane integrates into the pool and operates as an alternative access to this area while it dilutes the limits between interior and exterior spaces: there are no borders, the inside is the outside."

Another key feature of the property is its pale pastel hue tone, which the studio created by adding Tepetate, a type of clay commonly found in the area, to the concrete mix.

"Naturally Tepetate has a reddish colour, so when you add grey concrete you get this characteristic tone that makes the volumes  an imperceptible element within its natural environment," the architects said.

All of the home's spaces open out to the courtyard via the shaded walkway that snakes through the property. An overhanging roof slab with angled edges covers all of the rooms, which the architects laid out in separate volumes according to their function.

The communal areas are located at the back of the home, near the main entrance. They are organised as an open-plan living and dining room, next to the kitchen. A rooftop patio above this space acts as a perch from which residents can enjoy the scenic surroundings.

"The stairs head to a gazebo where it is possible to contemplate the sky, the stars and the immenseness of the ocean," the studio added.

Towards the centre of the 750-square-metre home, two bedrooms are each contained within their own structure, and separated by a breezeway.

To further integrate the owner's quarters with nature, the bathrooms are partially open to the sky. The openings allow for semi-interior gardens that the architects filled with potted plants.

The climate of Mexico's West Coast allows for open, breezy spaces that are practically outdoors.

Other projects that make the most of these conditions include a home enclosed by wooden slats by Magaldi Studio, and a minimalist residence by Zozaya Arquitectos fronted by knotty bamboo stalks, also in Zihuatanejo.

Photography is by Claudio Napolitano.

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FREAKS wraps French warehouse conversion in corrugated steel

Architecture studio FREAKS has clad an old printing warehouse in France shiny corrugated metal cladding and converted it into a research centre for lighting company Sammode.

Located in Lamotte-Beuvron close to Orléans, the converted offices combine highly controlled testing areas and well lit work spaces.

To achieve this, four wooden boxes clad with spruce house testing areas, spread across the warehouse like buildings-within-buildings.

These rooms are connected by a series of open spaces and corridors.

Closed-off rooms are designed to be airtight and light-proof to allow Sammode to test the resistance of their technical light fittings.

There are also zones for prototyping and assembling the lights.

The external walls of the timber boxes hold shelves and kitchen areas.

FREAKS also built large metal shelving units and wall-mounted grids, from which light fittings can be hung.

In the open spaces, meeting rooms are in three greenhouse-like structures with glass panels in black frames.

While the people inside can be seen by the colleagues, the acoustic properties of the glazing mean that conversations are kept private.

FREAKS left the steel supports of the existing warehouse exposed, along with ventilation ducts and electrical cables, to create an industrial-feeling space.

As well as keeping existing small openings in the existing structure, additional windows and skylights have been inserted to provide ample natural light inside.

Externally, the entirety of the former warehouse has been clad with corrugated steel panels.

FREAK used a mix solid panels and perforated panels, placed front of windows to allow light through and give views outside.

"The alternation of solid and perforated sheets allows a transparency that lets you guess volumes in the background," said the studio.

"This transparency allows a qualitative highlighting of the facade that refers to the activity of Sammode itself."

At one end of the building, the corrugated metal cladding continues and wraps around a garden space.

An area of decking has seating overlooked by a run of windows in the warehouse elevation.

From the roof protrudes a space housing a 5 metre-high photogoniometer, a device which is used to calculate light intensity.

Previous projects by FREAKS include a collaboration with Danish studio BIG for a new cultural centre in Bordeaux, and the refurbishment of an apartment in Paris centred around an arched storage unit.

Photography is by David Foessel.

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Lorenz relaunches self righting clock that kickstarted Richard Sapper's career

Italian timepiece manufacturer Lorenz has relaunched a clock that was designed by Richard Sapper in 1960 to utilise mechanisms salvaged from second-world-war torpedoes.

The German-born designer created the Static clock when he was just 28 years old. It won the prestigious Compasso d'Oro design award in 1960.

The founder of Milanese company Lorenz, Tullio Bolletta, commissioned Sapper to design the timepiece using electro-mechanical movements taken from torpedoes that were discarded at the end of the second world war.

Bolletta had purchased a railway car containing around 1,000 of the mechanisms, and asked the designer to develop a clock around these large, battery-powered movements.

Tullio's grandson, Pietro, is behind the relaunch of the updated version, which he said was prompted by regular inquiries from customers around the world who wanted to know where they could buy it.

"Static is an iconic product for our brand and its special design helps to distinguish us in today's timepiece market," Bolletta told Dezeen. "We are convinced that a person with a Static on their table declares a passion for good design and unique products."

The unusual table clock features a cylindrical housing with a counterweight and a flattened section at one end that enables the clock to right itself if it is tipped over.

The playful design appears imbalanced, with the dial seemingly floating a long way from the small contact point that rests on the table surface. The angled dial and glass protrude from the body so the clock seems to reach out towards the user.

In a book about his career published by Phaidon in 2016, Sapper described the Static clock as "difficult to make", because the internal mechanism could only be accessed from the front of the single piece of turned metal.

"Then it has this flat spot, which is cut into the volume for the clock to rest on the table," he added. "When you tip the clock over, it would roll on the table until it found the flat part, and then it would stand upright again. So that was 'the game' of that clock."

The Static clock was the first significant commission Sapper undertook on his own. He developed it at home in his apartment, while also working at at the office of renowned Italian architect, Marco Zanuso.

The clock helped establish Sapper's reputation, leading to further commissions from the likes of Siemens, Brionvega, Artemide, Knoll and IBM.

He also created several iconic products for Italian brand Alessi, including a harmonic whistling kettle and a set of espresso makers that Alberto Alessi discussed in a series of films made by Dezeen.

In order to achieve the same high standards of materials and manufacturing embodied in the clock's original design, Lorenz sourced a new movement from Germany and commissioned local producers to develop the other parts.

"It took almost two years to identify small manufacturers in the surroundings of Milano that could satisfy our needs in terms of quality, flexibility and production capacity," Bolletta pointed out. "All 13 of the new components used to make the Static clock are made in Italy."

In addition to spending several years re-engineering the product, Lorenz developed a dedicated online shop where customers can learn about the history of the clock and purchase it.

The relaunch of the Static clock reflects the enduring popularity of Sapper's work and his influence within the industry.

Following his death in 2015, leading contemporary designers posted tributes on social media featuring objects such as the Tizio lamp he designed for Artemide, and the nipple-like TrackPoints from his iconic ThinkPad computers.

A website dedicated to Sapper's work and design legacy was launched in 2013. In an interview with Dezeen at the time, the designer described how he turned down a chance to work at Apple, and gave his opinion on how commercialism has negatively impacted design's evolution.

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This week, people reacted to Elon Musk's Cybertruck

This week on Dezeen, Tesla's futuristic Cybertruck polarised opinions and we continued  our high-tech architecture series.

The Cybertruck is a bulletproof electric pickup truck made from cold-rolled stainless steel that has armoured glass windows.

The vehicle's unconventional, sci-fi-style design divided opinions on social media, as some praised Musk for his "courage" in creating such a "fascinating" vehicle, and others labelled it as "ridiculous".

Lego also responded to the launch by mocking Tesla with a "guaranteed shatterproof" brick model of the Cybertruck.

Foster's HSBC building in Hong Kong is a revolutionary high-tech skyscraper

We continued our high-tech architecture series this week with a profile of Italian architect Renzo Piano and his mile-long Kansai International Airport.

We also took a look at Foster's high-tech high-rise building designed for HSBC – the forty-four-storey headquarters for the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, which established the architect as a global brand.

Crystal Palace was "birth of modern architecture" says Norman Foster

Foster also revealed to Dezeen that if he could visit any building from history, it would be the Crystal Palace, designed by Joseph Paxton to house the 1851 Great Exhibition in London.He cited this building as a major influence on high-tech architecture and branded it "the birth of modern architecture".

Foster + Partners completes luxury Principal Tower in London

Foster's firm completed its first residential skyscraper in London this week, which takes the form of three different-sized volumes arranged in a cruciform.

Named Principal Tower, the 50-storey building contains 299 luxury apartments and marks the completion of Principal Place – a mixed-use development located between Shoreditch and the city's financial district.

Frank Gehry crowns Louis Vuitton Maison Seoul with glass sails

Also in architecture news, Frank Gehry topped the white stone building of Louis Vuitton Maison Seoul with a stack of sweeping glass sails as a nod to traditional Korean architecture.

Designed to "give an impression of flight", the glass panels help to filter light throughout the building's interiors, which were designed by architect Peter Marino.

Snøhetta aims to make all its buildings carbon negative within 20 years

This week Snøhetta announced that it will aim to make all its buildings carbon negative within the next 20 years.

The move will mean that all their buildings will generate more energy than they consume over their lifetime, which includes the carbon emitted during the production of building materials, construction, operation and decommissioning.

Plastic bubbles incorporated into high-rise to reduce concrete usage by 35 per cent

Also popular with Dezeen readers was a German construction project that saved an estimated 136 tonnes of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere by building with concrete slabs that include air pockets made of recycled plastic.

The inclusion of these air pockets mean that the slabs comprise up to 35 per cent less material than solid reinforced concrete.

TBA adds cedar-clad extension to white farmhouse in Quebec

Other stories that Dezeen readers enjoyed this week included a cedar-clad extension to a white farmhouse in Quebec, a brightly coloured logo for the Eurovision Song Contest 2020, and IKEA's redesign of the Mars Desert Research Station.

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