From Berlin Germany, Metrofarm Studio has produced a number of stunning, custom built DJ Desks. Having released a concrete DJ table a couple of years back, the new desks, in folded stainless steel and wood painted black and neon orange demand attention. But they're not just for finely tuned vinyl slingers looking for the perfect ergonomic ratios to heighten their musical flow. They're for anybody with a musical mind and an eye for detail, looking to add spark to a lounge room, club or gallery. It's art for the DJ's sake. By Nick Christie
Brooklyn quartet Yeasayer’s music is a concoction of indie rock and worldbeat that should probably come off as stilted and manufactured but the band instead, like a pack of hip-shooting alchemists, mesh these genres together in experiments that pay off brilliantly.
Guitars, sitars, mandolins, bongos, cowbells, and fretless bass are all run through with driving synthesisers, while ceaselessly harmonising vocals tend to stay deep in the mixes, adding to the ethereal quality of their music.
Obvious touchstones David Byrne and Peter Gabriel would be proud to turn out music as brilliant and thoroughly engaging as this.
Mergers, acquisitions, transfer of power and takeovers are happening all around us nearly on a daily basis. The approach many companies take in a time of transition when figuring out how to seamlessly integrate a new vision into an old work environment, can present a challenge.
The Virgin Media Group brought in Household Designs to re-brand over 50 buildings from Head Office to call centres throughout the UK – 150 of which had active employees. Because the average age of the Virgin Call Centre employee was 23, the design team named the new work environment ‘Our Neighbourhood’ in attempt to shift workers’ thinking from ‘them’ to ‘us.’
Primary consideration was directed at the staff’s behaviour in the space. No longer can it be acceptable to just pick a colour or a theme and apply it haphazardly into a space, which is why the Virgin Call Centres are not overly branded with oversized Vs and bright red walls. That’s not to say the spaces are boring – on the contrary, Household strived to integrate humour into the design – and they focused on underused areas of the former office – communal spaces including reception, canteen, break rooms, meeting rooms and spaces in between such as lifts, corridors and stairs. All these spaces were designed with the intention of maximising the staff’s life at work and to encourage workers to feel comfortable interacting with one another through the use of animal silhouette wallpaper, chalkboards, ‘dating car park spaces’ and more.
And across the pond at the Virgin Mobile USA (pictured above) the design team at Gensler brought similar whimsical elements to the work environments. Environmental graphics, bold textures and patterns combine to create a youthful and vibrant work environment characteristic of the Virgin brand. By Andrew J Wiener
Home Made Delicate Food Delivery
on Milan’s via Tortona is homey in a supremely stylish way. And it
should be, being as it is located right at the epicenter of Salone del
Mobile. Owner Monica Bangari with architects Riccardo Salvi and Luca
Rossire envisioned a real home and created a cozy flow from the living
room to a little garden (by landscape architect Carlo Callari of
Milan’s ARePA studios). The fabulous AGAPE bathtub on the patio is an
example of the clever partnership deals that the architects made with
several prominent suppliers – all of whom are keen to be present where
the world of design mingles. The suppliers, including the architects,
are listed as “sponsors” on the restaurant’s website, which perhaps is
an indication of their home-grown version of “let’s all work together
for a common good and forget being so greedy.” Salvi and Rossire have
collaborated since 1998 and completed many innovative projects
including the design of furniture and accessories for various
manufacturers. The food at Home Made is healthy and fresh — slow food
at its Italian finest — and take out is delivered in swanky and lean
50s retro baggies. Handy and simple menus are published online for easy
online ordering. By Tuija Seipell
In 1877, Antonio Fluxá went all the way from the island of Majorca to
England to learn about shoemaking. Whatever he learned there, he put
into action immediately and founded a shoe company that his grandson
Lorenzo turned into Camper Shoes
in 1975. Today, the family's fourth generation is at the helm, the
company is still based in Majorca and its shoes are sold worldwide. If
you were lucky, you received an invite to this fun-and-games Campy
party held in Germany recently, to celebrate the launch of the
Spring/Summer 08 collection. AstroTurf, retro gear, great music and
sand in your sandals. We're in. By Tuija Seipell
To many of us it seems like advancements in technology are moving at an
extremely accelerated pace, but to those who are following in our
footsteps, the rate of change could not be fast enough. For some school
children in Camden outside of London, Gollifer Langston’s
prototype transportable Classrooms of the Future will deliver
information and communication technology (ICT) on a flatbed truck in
the form of an oblong gray pod capable of providing a sufficient ICT
facility that many schools are unable to install within their own
environments.
The mobile classroom will move from school to
school, and is designed to hold 15 students at a time. Once the pod is
delivered, a set of hydraulics expands the unit wider, and creates an
entrance as well as a stage and a small-cinema-sized screen for
presentations and performances. The work space will provide mainly
high school students a place to explore music and filmmaking. The
Classroom of the Future will have capabilities of adapting for
additional needs as technology races beyond what even the next
generation can predict. By Andrew J Wiener
Humlegård House is the stark-looking, year-round residence of a former Finnish TV documentary producer. He moved to this house, located in the town
of Fiskars, 78 kilometers west of Helsinki, from a central-Helsinki
heritage apartment. Many aspects of Humlegård, especially its placement
to respond to the forces of nature, resemble the owner’s childhood
home, a large country manor in central Finland.
Designed by Kimmo Friman of Friman Laaksonen Architects
of Helsinki, Humlegård House is situated on a small, flat hill so that
the north-south line runs diagonally through the building. This is the
traditional way of placing a building so that it functions optimally as
an energy efficient and comfortable dwelling in the harsh, Finnish
climate. Protection from the wind and maximum use of sunlight are
primary considerations, and the placement of rooms is as much dependent
on how much the room needs heat and daylight as it is on how the
residents use each space.
The floor plan resembles the layout of a traditional peasant farmhouse,
split lengthwise into two. The house consists of three multi-function
areas: two large living rooms linked by a loft with a bathroom and
walk-in closet below.
In a typically Finnish fashion, the building appears simple, stark and
utilitarian yet exudes a harmonious and stylish form & function
sensibility. The owner and architect selected each building material
carefully, opting for traditional, natural materials. “I did not want
materials of which we did not have decades of experience,” said the
owner. Horizontal spruce board – left untreated for maximum structure
breathability -- is the main feature of the interior.
The spruce-clad outer facade weathers into a beautiful gray color that
matches the stark surroundings. The east-facing facade is clad with
galvanized corrugated-steel that protects the wall from rain and sun
and also reflects excessive sun away in the summer. The placement of
windows was determined by the requirements of the interior spaces. A
separate, tiny log sauna, also designed by Friman, was built later east
of the main building. By Tuija Seipell
Great interior design isn't just limited to private homes, the retail
world, hotels and public spaces such as art galleries. Smart employers
are realizing that a creative workspace inspires greater productivity
and...you guessed it, creativity. Since we first identified this trend
last year, we've seen many more great examples - so much so that we've
decided to launch a whole new
section on creative work environments around the globe. Like this great
space designed for KULT offices,
located
in a former school atop Mount Sophia in Singapore, the inspiration for
this PR and advertising agency was to return to the uncertainty and
excitement of the classroom laboratory. Remember the fascinating hours
spent in the school lab - setting fire to stuff, cutting slimy things,
peering into microscopes, sniffing foul liquids, adding just a little
bit more of that to this to see what happens? Kult staff step into
their office through a large cut in the wall, which creates an
other-worldly effect as they leave reality behind every morning. A
central island work-space is illuminated by a spectacular, suspended
light ceiling. This techno element is balanced by the ubiquitous views
of nature, delivered by windows situated above each desktop along the
entire length of the office's walls. A contrasting color scheme of
black and white brings it all together creating a modern space that
blends harmoniously with the natural environment.
We're so inspired by cool creative office design that we're going to
make the
subject of our next book: The World's Coolest Creatives Offices; the
second in a
series which kicked off on The World's Coolest Hotel Rooms, this week.
If you know of such a cool creative environment please send us a tip. By Lisa Evans.
Celebrate the winter solistice Sydney–style by taking a dawn yoga class on top of Sydney’s highest building, Sydney Tower. From Sydney Tower’s Observation Deck, yoga devotees will see the sun rise over the glittering Harbour city. If you have an aversion to early mornings don’t panic – dawn on this shortest day of the year – which last for nine hours and 53 minutes - breaks at 7am. If sunsets are more your thing head to the Tower for the 4.54pm sunset and watch the shortest day of the year disappear before your very eyes. By Lisa Evans.
The World's
Coolest Hotel Rooms - the first in a series of the cool hunter-branded books has just been
published by Harper Collins Publishers (US). Next in the line will be The World's Coolest Houses, The World's Most
Creative Work Environments, The World's Most Innovate Retail Stores and The
World's Most Creative Guerilla Campaigns in 2009. The World's Coolest Hotel Rooms has been
designed by Sydney-based
design studio, War Design.
Our new hotel booking service - Sleeping Around will also be launched at the end of June along with our online store, cStore - Shop Cool, Shop Global.
These Oxford boys "fly
balloons on this fuel called love". So they own my favourite
lyric so far this year. They also sport snaky, crystal
guitar lines and a gurgling brass section - what else can you do but
sit back and lap it up? Encore.
These young
Ontarions, do it straight up. The drum beat makes my neck snap,
the guitars make me want to jump and the whole thing, in all its raw,
snotty glory makes me feel like I did when I discovered punk for the
first time.
Snoop
can do anything he likes, basically. He could ditch the blunts and
8-Balls for a harmonica and some overalls and get all country and
western on us and he'd still drop a hot record.
Perfect pop. Without borders, without barriers. The best song from
hands down the best indie-reggae rock-hop album, ever.
4 - The Presets - 'This Boy's In Love'
Like some forgotten gem from Depeche Mode's bombed out basement, This Boy's In Love
thunders into the list. It's equal parts new romantic fey-pop and pure
dancefloor dynamite. Brilliant.
3 - Vampire Weekend - 'A Punk'
Every time lead
vocalist Ezra Koenig sings that hook: "Look outside, the raincoats
gone" he dangles just one, excruciatingly good 'Say Oh!' off the end of
it. I wish he would have given me a more traditional 'Say Oh, oh,
oh', but the fact he didn't is probably the reason I keep coming back
for more.
Week
old pepperoni pizza, Showgirls, broken English and blatant hipster
narcissism. Yes, the Teenagers have it all. And this Delorean
remix somehow manages to make them even better. Superb.
Oh man. The little
rising synth, warbling like a bird to the sound of children
playing. Is there are more uplifting intro to a song anywhere in
the world right now? MGMT make you pump fists in the air, sing at
the top of your voice, dance like a fool and smile until you
hurt. Thank you MGMT.
Rumor has it that Bangalore Express,
opened a few months ago across Waterloo Station in London, is the first
of many to come. Both menu and decor of this modern, Indian fresh-food
place have received mixed reviews, but we like the inventiveness of the
“scaffolding” used to build the booths and the upper level. Some have
called it a recipe for disaster and other thought it looked like bunk
beds. Both may be true as you do need to climb step ladders to reach
the second level and much of the exposed structure is, indeed, made of
FastClamp, a construction-site scaffolding system.
The interior colour scheme is organic in muted greens and browns. We
love the peacefulness this creates. Bangalore Express is the newest
venture of proprietors Charles Hill and head chef Yogesh Datta who also
run the Painted Heron in Chelsea. By Tuija Seipell
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