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Design

A System of Root-Like Benches Spreads Organically Through a South Korean Public Park

Root Bench is a multi-height bench system installed in Hangang Park in Seoul, South Korea. The design is a winning proposal by Yong Ju Lee, which creates a circular protrusion of roots that provides space for rest and relaxation. The nearly 100-foot diameter installation is formed from conjoined slats of wood attached to a metal frame, and sprawls from a centralized point in the park. Three different heights accommodate children’s seating, adult chairs, and tables for picnicking. This provides space for all sizes, and allows gatherings that vary from intimate to community-wide celebrations. (via Designboom)

Design

A 10-Ton Copper Staircase Designed by CEBRA Floats Above Copenhagen’s Redesigned Experimentarium Museum

A twisting set of floating copper staircases intertwine at the main entrance of Copenhagen’s new science and technology center, the Experimentarium. The museum, and its four-story Helix staircases, were designed by Danish architecture studio CEBRA who wanted to create a subtle nod to the institution’s science-based curriculum. The design is an abstract version of a DNA strand’s composition at an extraordinary scale. At over 300 feet long, the staircase includes 20,000 pounds of copper and 320,000 pounds of steel.

CEBRA won an international architecture competition to design the building in 2011. In addition to doubling the exhibition space of the Experimentarium’s original building, the re-design also includes a roof terrace, new staff facilities overlooking the museum, and convention center, and a large cafe and picnic area. You can see more images of the build-out, and CEBRA’s designs on their website and Instagram. (via ArchDaily)

Design

A Green-Tinted Aluminum Canopy Inspired by Florida’s Mangrove Trees

Form of Wander is a new project by Mark Fornes of THEVERYMANY studio (previously) which was recently installed on a pier above the Hillsborough River in Tampa, Florida. The winding aluminum structure was built to subtly imitate the form of the native mangrove, and extends the city’s Riverfront Park recreational space onto the waterway. Its shape encourages playful wandering through the seven trunks secured along the floating bridge, and its branches imitate the mangrove’s tangled roots. Despite the thickness of the green-tinted structure being just a few millimeters, the canopy was built to withstand hurricane force winds. It held up to its first major storm this October when Hurricane Michael traveled through Florida’s Gulf Coast. (via Colossal Submissions)

Design

An Undulating Brick Facade Imitates the Free-Flowing Movement of Draped Fabric

German architecture firm Behet Bondzio Lin Architekten recently constructed a new headquarters for the Association of the Northwest German Textile and Garment Industry in Münster, Germany. The firm wanted the building to allude to the association’s work with fabric, and designed a facade that would imitate its folds through a gradient of bricks oriented at different angles.

The decision to recreate the appearance of a soft textile from a firm material was inspired by the alabaster folds of Max Klinger's statue of Beethoven located at the Leipzig Art Museum. The carved composer sits shirtless on an armchair with what appears to be a piece of fabric draped over his knee. The fluid nature of the sculpture’s scarf is believable, despite its composition of solid stone. A similar experience is shared by the new headquarters, however created from bricks rather than rock. You can see more of the Behet Bondzio Lin’s designs on their website. (via Jeroen Apers)

Design Photography

Majestic Conservatories and Cozy Private Potting Sheds Showcase the Universal Appeal of Glass Greenhouses

Photographer duo India Hobson and Magnus Edmondson (known collectively as Haarkon) celebrate the universal beauty and rich history of glass greenhouses in a new book, Glasshouse Greenhouse. Filled with verdant images of greenhouses from around the world, the book is divided into seven thematic chapters including History, Research, and Pleasure. Haarkon complement the visual storytelling with written reflections that explain each location and their experience in discovering it.

The UK-based pair travels widely for their editorial and commercial work as visual storytellers, and seeking out greenhouses has become a touchpoint in their explorations of new places. In an interview with the Telegraph, Hobson shares, “It’s a fusion of both botanicals and architecture, an odd but extremely satisfying mix of the organic and engineered which I think appeals to a broad range of [people]. To me, they are a universal language in some ways: the fusion of many cultures and countries all under one beautiful glass roof.”

Freshly published by Pavilion Books on October 4th, Glasshouse Greenhouse is Haarkon’s debut book and it is available on Amazon. You can see more from Hobson and Edmondson on their website and Instagram.

Art Design

A Prickly Structure Made of 70,000 Reusable Hexapod Particles

Architects design structures to last for generations. They erect buildings that will become classic additions to the skyline and last for generations due to solid foundations unsusceptible to catastrophic disaster. Researchers at the Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) at the University of Stuttgart have taken a different approach in their recent 2018 Aggregate Pavilion, a moveable structure composed of thousands reusable star-shaped parts.

For the last ten years, researchers at ICD have studied how the behavior of granular substances, such as sand or gravel, can be adapted into an inhabitable structure. Their pavilion is the latest result from this research, and the first fully enclosed architectural space that has been entirely constructed from elements which hold their position by loose frictional contact. This allows the piece to act as a solid material while also maintaining the properties of a shape-shifting fluid.

For construction, 70,000 recycled plastic particles were poured by a robotic system into an enclosed space of about 29 x 32 feet. Included in the pour were also dozens of inflatable balloon-like objects, which fill the structure’s negative space until they are removed. These rubber spheres are used by the designers to roughly construct the inner form of the pavilion, creating hollow areas where the surrounding decapod particles will not topple inwards. You can take a look behind the making of ICD’s granular structure in the video below, and see more projects by the institute on their website. (via Archdaily)

ICD Aggregate Pavilion 2018 from ICD on Vimeo.

Design Food

A Cafe in Seoul Uses Clever Contour Lines to Appear Like a 2-Dimensional Cartoon

Since 2017, a small cafe in South Korea has been transporting its visitors to a two-dimensional world. Cafe Yeonnam-dong 239-20 in Seoul features all-white walls, floors, furniture, and fixtures accented with black contour lines that give the space the flattened look of a cartoon drawing. Illustration-inspired elements include drawn cacti, a curious puppy, and blank picture frames. Some of the beverage containers even sport defining lines. You can take a peek inside the playful cafe on Instagram and Facebook. (via My Modern Met)