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Art Design

For the Birds: 33 Artists and Designers Reimagine Avian Architecture at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden

A bright blue bodega, clustered wooden complexes, and a classic design emblazoned with a Swiss flag occupy the lush landscape of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden this summer. Eclectic in style, concept, and technique, the collection establishes dozens of tiny homes for avians across the 52-acre site as part of For the Birds, a group exhibition exploring the disastrous effects of the climate crisis on the feathered creatures—researchers estimate that North American populations…

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Design

An Undulating Roof Made of Cedar and Steel Flows Out from a Pool House in Ontario

A steel slatted roof ripples across a property in southwestern Ontario, providing a meditative enclave under its gently sloping cover. Contrasting the stark black metal with softer strips of cedar, "Fold House" by Partisans features a two-story living quarter with a lengthy undulating structure that branches out from one side. It's bisected by a staircase leading to an upper walkway and covers a luxe in-ground pool. Partisans is an architecture studio based in Toronto that frequently works with organic shapes and textures, which you can see on its site and Instagram.…

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Art

Trees Burst from 100 Elementary Desks in Hugh Hayden’s Installation Addressing the Disparities of Public Education

Four lawns in New York's Madison Square Park are now sites of a sprawling and insightful public installation by artist Hugh Hayden. On view through April 24, "Brier Patch" is comprised of 100 small wraparound desks arranged in neat grids evocative of an elementary classroom. Each cedar sculpture is distinct with barren, bark-covered branches bursting from their seats or tabletops, creating a snarled explosion of limbs and twigs that's impossible to permeate. Similar to his thorny…

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Design

Recycled Building Materials Construct a Multi-Purpose Zero Waste Center in Japan

Back in 2003, Kamikatsu, a town in Tokushima Prefecture, became Japan's first municipality to go zero waste, establishing a whopping 45 categories for recycling. Today, the village reuses about 80 percent of the garbage it generates, and the Kamikatsu Zero Waste Center is at the forefront of the community's charge to become entirely trash-free in the coming years. Designed by the architect Hiroshi Nakamura (previously), the recycling facility is comprised mostly of upcycled materials, including a mishmash of 700 donated windows cloaking its facade. Unprocessed timber and trimmings—cedar logging once…

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Art

Playfulness and Imagination Inform the Textured Wooden Sculptures of Artist Efraïm Rodríguez

From fallen trees, planks, and old furniture, Efraïm Rodríguez carves vivid sculptures that evoke the imaginative and playful daydreams of childhood. The Barcelona-based artist highlights the texture of the organic material, creating life-sized figures donning garments of veneered wood or whose bodies mimic the toys they stack. Many depict toddlers or younger children in the midst of play, and even the older characters are infused with elements of sport and recreation, like "Anna"…

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Design

A Japanese Forestry Technique Prunes Upper Branches to Create a Tree Platform for More Sustainable Harvests

Literally translating to platform cedar, daisugi is a 14th- or 15th-century technique that offers an efficient, sustainable, and visually stunning approach to forestry. The method originated in Kyoto and involves pruning the branches of Kitayama cedar so that the remaining shoots grow straight upward from a platform. Rather than harvesting the entire tree for lumber, loggers can fell just the upper portions, leaving the base and root structure intact. Although daisugi mostly is used in gardens or bonsai today, it originally was developed to combat a seedling shortage when the demand for…

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