Studio Ben Allen designs artichoke-shaped garden room

Green shingles cover the exterior of this octagonal, flatpack garden room in south west London, designed by Studio Ben Allen.

The design of A Room in the Garden was informed by the bizarre and playful 18th-century Dunmore Pineapple pavilion in Scotland, as well as the form and colour of an artichoke.

Inside, the space can be used as a study, lounge or bedroom, lit by a large window overlooking the garden and a central skylight.

Studio Ben Allen built it from flatpack kit of CNC-cut timber elements that are notched and pre-drilled.

The project is both easy to construct and deconstruct to re-build elsewhere, should the owners choose to move.

It took just 20 days to construct the project, with the only specialists required being an electrician and a spray insulation contractor.

Shades of green were chosen for the exterior to "surreally camouflage" the building, playing with the references to fruit and vegetables and picking up on the colours of the trees, grass and plants surrounding it.

"We were interested in trying to dematerialise the internal octagonal geometry on the outside with something more organic and visually complex, with the intent that at some point the surrounding planting would develop," said studio founder Ben Allen.

Double doors lead into the room, which can be pushed fully back to open the space into the garden during warmer months.

Inside, the space is defined by the timber columns of the structure, which meet at the top to create a latticed pattern around the skylight.

One side of the room is occupied by a desk and the other by a wooden bench, which can be opened out to create a bed in the centre of the space.

"The interior is designed to adapt with the seasons," said the studio.

"The exposed timber structure which rises to the ceiling converging and framing the skylight gives a central focal point and top-light, ideal when seeking a place to read or for quiet contemplation."

A datum of green-finished wood wraps around the lower half of the interior, with a two-tone tiled floor mirroring the angular geometry of the exterior.

Allen founded Studio Ben Allen in 2014, and has used similar methods of creating simple, geometric wooden forms for an office in Birmingham, as well as in the renovation of a flat in the Barbican Estate.

Architect Charles Holland also created a colourful pavilion inspired by historic follies. Polly is a nine-metre-high structure shaped with a parrot set in a National Trust garden in North Yorkshire.

Atelier SAD has designed a shingled pavilion that's shaped like a pinecone for children to use as a portable classroom.

Photography and film by Ben Tynegate.

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Project credits:

Architects: Studio Ben Allen
Team: Ben Allen, Omar Ghazal, Marco Nicastro, Arthur Wong, Massine Yallaoui
Client: Jonnie and Rachel Allen
Structural engineer: Format Engineers
Landscape design: Daniel Bell Landskip
Installer: Sullivan and Company
CNC cutting: Hub Workshop

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Four technologies tackling the problem of plastic pollution in rivers

Most ocean plastic starts off in rivers. From bubble curtains to googly-eyed trash wheels, here are four technologies designed to intercept river plastic before it gets to the sea.

Last month The Ocean Cleanup turned its attention to river plastic and launched the Interceptor, a floating device it claims can harvest up to 100,000 kilograms of plastic waste per day.

"To truly rid the oceans of plastic, we need to both clean up the legacy and close the tap, preventing more plastic from reaching the oceans in the first place," said Boyan Slat, founder of the organisation that has until now focused on trying to remove plastic already in the oceans.

However many experts believe that extracting plastic from the ocean is the wrong approach. "To be very honest, I don't believe that we're going to clean up the oceans," said Cyrill Gutsch, founder of Parley for the Oceans, in an interview with Dezeen earlier this year.

Of the 300 million tonnes of plastic produced every year, up to eight million tonnes ends up in the ocean.

A 2017 report published in the Environmental Science and Technology journal revealed that 88 to 95 per cent of the plastic waste transported to the ocean via rivers comes from just ten rivers. These include the Nile, the Yellow River and the Ganges.

An estimated 4.8 to 12.7 million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans each year. Circular-economy charity the Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimates that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans.

Here are four projects attempting to stop plastic from reaching the ocean:

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Interceptor, by The Ocean Cleanup

The Ocean Cleanup's attempt at cleaning up ocean plastic has gotten off to a rocky start. The floating barrier designed to catch plastic from the sea has suffered setbacks with damage from wind and waves. While the project is still going ahead, the organisation has also turned its attention to river plastic.

"Combining our ocean cleanup technology with the Interceptor, the solutions now exist to address both sides of the equation," said Slat, the organisation's founder.

The Interceptor is an autonomous solar-powered device that uses a barrier stretching across a river to collect plastic. Rubbish is funnelled towards a floating processing plant that resembles a barge. The trash is passed up a conveyor belt and deposited into bins, which signal to the system when they are full so that a boat can come and pick them up for recycling.

Currently there are Interceptors operating in Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, with more planned for the Dominican Republic and the USA.

Read more about the Interceptor ›

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The Bubble Barrier, by The Great Bubble Barrier and Waternet

Waternet, which manages Amsterdam's waterways, deploys five garbage boats that fish out 42,000 kilograms of plastic every year. Earlier this year Waternet also deployed a barrier of bubbles to tackle plastic waste in the city's canals.

"Plastic in our water is becoming an increasing problem," said Sander Mage, executive member of Amsterdam's water board. "It has profound effects on the quality of our water and therefore on everything that lives in or near the water."

The Bubble Barrier is a perforated tube laid across the bottom of the canal with compressed air pushed through it. It runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, forming a screen that catches floating debris.

Plastic pieces are caught by the bubbles and pushed to the surface, where they are carried by the current to a catchment pool.

Waste collected by the Bubble Barrier will be tested by the Plastic Soup Foundation to measure how much plastic is caught, what kind of objects they are, and what the most common brands are.

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Mr Trash Wheel, by Clearwater Mills and the Waterfront Partnership

Mr Trash Wheel, an anthropomorphic trash interceptor with googly eyes and his own Twitter account, has been scooping rubbish out of the Jones Fall River in Baltimore since 2014.

In 2016 he was joined by the female-gendered Professor Trash Wheel, with the gender neutral Captain Trash Wheel launched in 2018. The fleet of trash-collecting vessels has collected a total 907 tonnes of rubbish.

The vessels are powered by waterwheels and the river's current, with solar panels for backup on slower days. Debris is collected by floating barriers and the wheels power a conveyor belt that transfers the rubbish out of the water and into a bin.

As well as stopping plastic reaching the ocean, the wheels are contributing to the goal of making the harbour swimmable by 2020.

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Floating boom, by CLAIM and New Naval

As one of the five Cleaning Litter by Developing and Applying Innovative Methods in European Seas (CLAIM) projects run by the EU, a floating boom has been installed at the mouth of the Kifissos River in Athens, Greece.

The floating boom is called the Tactical Recovery System Hellas, or TRASH, and was manufactured by New Naval.

Using technology New Naval developed for responding to oil spills, the mesh barriers collect river plastic and channels it towards a floating cage. This is used to lift the plastic up to the level of the harbour wall so it can be removed.

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ET comes home for Christmas in Sky’s festive ad

There’s no explanation of why the extraterrestrial has returned, but suddenly there he is, hiding behind a snowman. He’s been gone for nearly 40 years, so it’s no surprise that Elliott now has his own family to introduce to ET, and they don’t waste any time catching up.

There’s plenty of new earth technology to be explained and the product placements come thick and fast – VR headsets, tablets, smartphones, the internet, and streaming TV. But it doesn’t take long before ET is dreaming of home again, perhaps because that’s the only place he’ll be able to escape the deluge of screen-based entertainment.

To give the ad its due, it picks up on some of the best bits of the original film, with flying bikes, ET’s mournful cry of ‘home’, and John Williams’ instantly recognisable soundtrack. But even so, it’s curiously devoid of emotion.

Despite its best efforts, it feels like Sky missed the opportunity to really develop the narrative in a meaningful way, and the ‘Reconnect this Christmas’ tagline sits strangely with an ad so focused on spending time with our devices.

It also raises questions around how much control brands like Sky should have over our much-loved characters and their stories. Is a two-minute advert really the ‘sequel’ we all wanted?

According to Drew Barrymore, who starred in the original film, Spielberg told her: “Nope, we’re never going to make a sequel, it’s just as it is”, and there’s something deeply satisfying about the thought of that book simply remaining closed.

Credits:
Agency: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
Director: Lance Acord

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Artist Hannah Baker Paints Her Sisters’ Bedroom Walls To Look Like A Scene From Legend Of Zelda (10 Pics)

Hanna Baker is an artist from High Point, NC, who runs Platypus Murals. She has been designing and hand-painting incredibly detailed murals for homes and businesses since 2007 but has recently tackled a person project – painting her little sisters’ room.

“I love painting, and I’m always looking for new projects! I especially love doing full room transformations,” said the artist. “So when my little sisters asked me to paint their room, I wanted to create something they would love.” Hannah said they’re all fans of The Legend of Zelda and the beautiful open-world scenery of the Breath of the Wild seemed like the perfect idea for the room. Her sisters helped her prepare the walls and ceiling and the artist spent the next few weeks painting. “I even included glow in the dark elements!” added the artist.

Hannah says her sisters love her new room and we’re sure you will too – check out the whole process and the end result in the gallery below!

More info: hannahbakercreatio.wixsite.com | Facebook

“The sheets match the color palette, too!”

In progress

“I printed out screenshots that I took from my own file on the game to use as a reference. I spent a lot of time researching locations in the game by exploring Hyrule with Link.”

Link and Epona in front of Dueling Peaks

Painting up high

“Even the ceiling was painted for this mural! I love the way it transforms the whole room, but it can be challenging!”

Voilà!

“There’s a secret door in this picture, can you find it?”

Here’s what the outside of that door looks like

“I made the door look like you are coming out of the Shrine of Resurrection.”

Some fun minor details…

… Little critters…

… Giant creatures!

“A loot-crate as a suggestion of where to keep things that are most precious to my sisters.”

Check out the tour of the room in the video below

The post Artist Hannah Baker Paints Her Sisters’ Bedroom Walls To Look Like A Scene From Legend Of Zelda (10 Pics) appeared first on DeMilked.

Related posts:

1. Artist Paints Rooms With Murals That Glow Under Blacklight
2. This Artist Paints Creepy Realistic Eyes On Rocks And Leaves Them For People To Find (10 Pics)
3. This Graffiti Artist Makes Walls Appear Transparent Using Nothing But Spray Paint (32 Pics)
4. What It’s Like To Live With Cats In 10 Comics By Hannah Hillam
5. Artist Paints Fantastic Dragons Onto Agate Stones To Create Beautiful Necklaces

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Renzo Piano's Kansai airport has a mile-long high-tech terminal

Next in our high-tech architecture series is Renzo Piano's Kansai International Airport, which was built on an artificial island in Osaka Bay.

The high-tech architecture movement, of which the Italian architect Piano was a key proponent, was defined by buildings that utilised the latest developments in technology and industrial design.

Japan's Kansai International Airport, with its asymmetrical clear-span roof and visible structure, demonstrates many of the movement's qualities.

Writing for the New York Times when it opened in 1994, Paul Goldberger called Kansai International Airport "perhaps the most spectacular airport yet built, a mature work by one of the world's most intriguing architects and a dramatic work of engineering."

It was built on an artificial island three miles offshore so that it can run 24 hours a day, without disturbing the residents of Osaka.

Since it opened in 1994, the 1.1 mile long terminal has held the title of the longest airport in the world.

Renzo Piano Building Workshop won an international competition for the airport in 1988, with a design that resembles a glider plane in plan.

A total of 42 gates run along its wingspan, with the main body of the airport placed behind it like a fuselage. The building was arranged to be simple to navigate and had a light structure in order to deal with the risk of earthquakes.

Photo is by Shinkenchiku-sha

The long terminal building gently curves, lifting in the middle and decreasing at either end, so that it doesn't interfere with lines of sight for the control tower.

Together with Ove Arup and Partners, the design team calculated a way of maximising the number of standardised components uses to create the geometric roof.

In total the roof is clad with 82,000 steel panels that are exactly the same shape and size supported on a steel structure that is visible inside the terminal.

Instead of having air conditioners hanging from the ceiling, giant ducts blow air up one side of the airfoil-shaped building, circulating it in a relatively low-energy way.

Mobile sculptures by Susumu Shingu hang from the roof, their constant mobility making the flow of air detectable to the 100,000 passengers that pass through its doors each day. Blade-shaped deflectors help channel the air and reflect sunlight from the skylights.

Photo is by Susumu Shingu

Attached to the long building containing the gates is a building that contains check-in gates and security.

This building is covered by an undulating, wave-like roof that is supported by 80-metre-span beams held up by angled columns. Again the structure holding up the roof is completely visible in line with the high-tech architecture movement's ideals.

Kansai International Airport was designed to function as a vast machine, transporting people from train or hydrofoil to planes and back again.

Inside, the airport has a layout that is raised at the runway end to create a visual guide through the gates to departures. The asymmetry of the building is designed to make it easier for passengers to orientate themselves.

The ticket hall overlooks departures, and a glass partition had to be added after it opened to stop people throwing things to people below.

Piano designed the building for a site that was just coming into existence while he was at the drawing board. Work on the island, which is 2.5 miles long and 1.6 miles wide, began in 1987 – only a year before he won the competition.

As a base, 48,000 concrete tetrahedrons were laid down and covered with 178 million cubic tons of earth that was dredged from the bay, quarried from local mountains, and shipped over from South Korea and China.

Finally, 900 columns on hydraulic jacks were driven into the compacted soil to support the foundations. All this is protected by a seawall of 480,000 concrete blocks anchored in steel containers.

Photo is by Sky Front

The island was supposed to keep the airport almost four metres above sea level for 50 years. However, it began sinking before work began on the terminal in 1991.

A certain amount of subsidence was planned, however by 1990 the island had sunk over eight metres when it had been predicted to subside just under six.

Engineers have managed to stabilise the rate of sinking from 50 centimetres a year to just six, but now climate change and the more powerful storms it is bringing pose an additional threat to Piano's high-tech airport.

In September 2014 Typhoon Hebei struck Kanai International Airport. Piano's original terminal, now just a metre or two above sea level, was swamped with seawater. During the storm a tanker crashed into the bridge connecting it to the mainland, stranding 3,000 people on the island.

Dezeen's high-tech architecture series explores the style

Led by architects Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, Nicholas Grimshaw, Michael and Patty Hopkins and Piano, high-tech architecture was the last major style of the 20th century and one of its most influential.

High-tech is an architectural style that emerged in the UK in the late 1960s, which saw the expression of structural elements and building services usually hidden within buildings.

Our high-tech series celebrates its architects and buildings ›

Photography is by Shunji Ishida, unless stated. Main image is by Yoshio Hata. Illustration is by Jack Bedford.

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Project credits:

Client: Kansai International Airport
Design: Renzo Piano Building Workshop
Architects: N Okabe, senior partner in charge in collaboration with Nikken Sekkei, Aéroports de Paris, Japan Airport Consultants
Consultants: Ove Arup & Partners (structure and services); Peutz & Associés (acoustics); R. J. Van Santen (facades); David Langdon & Everest, Futaba Quantity Surveying Co. Ltd. (cost control); K. Nyunt (landscaping)
Construction Phase:
Design team: Ikegami, T Kimura, T Tomuro, Y Ueno with S Kano, A Shimizu
Facade consultant: RFR
Canyon consultant: Toshi Keikan Sekkei Inc

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Reshaping perceptions of the hoodie

The history of the hoodie is undoubtedly a colourful one. Its origins date as far back as medieval times, when hooded garments were worn by everyone from monks to outdoor workers. The hoodie as we know it today was popularised in the 30s by the now cult sportswear brand Champion, which produced them as a practical solution for warehouse workers.

Today, perceptions of the hoodie are both myriad and complex. Thanks to streetwear’s cooption by haute couture, it’s become a status symbol for any self-respecting hypebeast, but the act of wearing a hoodie is also highly politicised, often stereotyped by the media as a symbol of social inequality and criminality.

Adut Akech wears Balenciaga in i-D’s The Earthwise Issue, Fall 2018. Photo: Campbell Addy. Styling: Alastair McKimm

A new show at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam is taking a deep dive into the story of the hoodie, as seen through photography, film, installation, fashion, social media and other cultural artefacts. Curator Lou Stoppard is no stranger to a fashion-focused exhibition; she also co-curated Open Eye Gallery’s hugely popular show North: Identity, Fashion, Photography, which explored the impact of northern style on the wider world.

With the hoodie being in and out of the news for a significant proportion of her teenage years and adult life, Stoppard says she was surprised that an exhibition of this kind hadn’t been done before, and jumped at the chance to help bring the show to life.

Refuge Wear Intervention, London East End, 1998 by Lucy + Jorge Orta. Photograph by John Akehurst

“In the UK in the mid 2000s, there was a period of moral panic around the hoodie – young men were getting ASBOs stating that they couldn’t wear them during certain hours or in certain places, shopping centres were banning them, and politicians even started a much-mocked Hug a Hoodie campaign. Later, in the US, coverage and agitation around the hoodie continued with horrific events like the murder of Trayvon Martin,” she says.

“At the same time, the hoodie was emerging as a key new part of high fashion – a sign of the influence of streetwear and sportswear on luxury brands. So, while the hoodie was being maligned by some media as an emblem of deviancy or crime or rebellion, it was also being heralded as a trend in some glossy magazines. It felt like there were so many stories being told that, in turn, reflected broader societal issues.”

Untitled (Hood 13), 2018, archival pigment photograph by John Edmonds

Given the complexity of the topic, the process of narrowing down what items would make it into the exhibition was a lengthy one. “For me, it was important to look at many different angles, and acknowledge that we couldn’t, for example, show every designer hoodie that had ever been made, or every great photograph of someone in a hoodie,” says Stoppard.

Instead, she decided to focus on key themes, including the emergence of the modern hoodie, debates around racial profiling and police brutality, the sustainability of clothing production, and the uniforms of specific subcultures and music movements. Alongside designs by high-end streetwear brands like Off-White and Vetements and fashion photography by the likes of Campbell Addy, are artworks which directly respond to the social issues surrounding the hoodie, such as Devan Shimoyama’s floral hoodie piece that pays tribute to Trayvon Martin.

EUnify – Berlin 2019 by Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek, Exactitudes 168

The show also cleverly brings a number of relevant social media posts into the real world, specifically the hashtag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, which went viral among young people of colour following the shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer in 2014, and was typically accompanied by juxtaposed imagery of the participants at work or at a wedding alongside another image of them wearing hoodies, gold chains and baseball caps.

While one exhibition clearly isn’t going to undo several decades worth of stereotypes, Stoppard says she hopes The Hoodie will at least shine a light on overly simplistic perceptions of the issue at hand. “There is a lot going on – the show is loosely ordered around topic, but many overlap and many objects are juxtaposed – historical pieces with contemporary garments, photographs alongside ephemera and printed matter, digital pieces alongside artworks. In a way it all serves to show how intense and, often, contradictory existing coverage and discussion of the hoodie has been.”

The Hoodie is at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam from 1 December – 12 April; hetnieuweinstituut.nl

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UCL jumps on the disruptor bandwagon in new campaign

We’ve seen a flurry of educational establishments rethinking their brands in recent years, including Kingston reclaiming the title ‘School of Art’ in 2017, and Johnson Banks’ snappy identity for TeachFirst earlier this year.

One of the UK’s top research universities, University College London, is the latest example, having just unveiled its new brand positioning: ‘The home of brave thinkers’.

Jack Renwick Studio was commissioned to work on the new positioning ahead of the opening of UCL’s new campus at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in 2022, where it will join other cultural institutions including the BBC, Smithsonian Institute and the V&A.

To help promote the new positioning to a wider audience, the studio has also created an accompanying campaign that focuses on the university’s longstanding reputation for ‘disruptive thinking’.

Highlighting some of UCL’s key research areas – such as climate change, plastic solutions, driverless vehicles, AI and Alzheimer’s – the campaign uses distorted visuals to show how the university is, quite literally, disrupting thinking around some of the biggest challenges we face today.

The campaign has been brought to life on the hoardings where the UCL East campus is being built and on screens around Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, as well as rolling out across UCL’s website, social media and printed communications.

jackrenwickstudio.com

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