Check out Design Boom’s list of the top 10 art exhibitions of 2013 — here.
Image is of ‘heritage’, 2013 by Cai Guo-Qiang
Love is Calling, 2013. Wood, metal, glass mirrors, tile, acrylic panel, rubber, blowers, lighting element, speakers, and sound. / Courtesy David Zwirner and Yayoi Kusama Studio Inc
A Humble Cabin In The Desert Becomes An Art Phenom
Mirrors, LED lighting, and Arduino programming turn a 70-year old home into a contemporary work of art.
There is a great history of artists and architects messing with houses. In the ’70s, Gordon Matta-Clark famously took a saw to a New Jersey home and split it in two. More recently, Detroit architect Catie Newell transformed burned and abandoned houses into mind-boggling sculpture. Now you can add a humble cabin in the California desert to the list.
Via (FastCodeDesign)
~Claude Monet
After the Chaos by Bob Verschueren
A new 2014 calendar, curated by Aleta Florentin of Amber Lotus Publishing, brings some of the best examples of environmental art all together in one place. This inspiring genre of art beautifully incorporates its natural surroundings in a way that’s surprising and oftentimes meaningful. Whether these artists are rearranging natural materials found on a site, like branches and rocks, while leaving no detrimental effect, or are reimagining a landscape by introducing unexpected materials, their overarching goal is the same. They aim to create art that helps improve our relationship with and understanding of the natural world.
Click to check out more — ART
If you’re reading this at work, it’s best you take a deep breath and maybe go for a walk. Otherwise, life might become temporarily frustrating. We present to you the coolest workplaces on Earth.
PARLIAMENT
Chill factor: Firewood walls to start
Industry: Design studio
Location: Portland, Oregon
Design studios, on the greater whole, are usually pretty cool. They’re design studios! Parliament, a cutting edge design agency with clients like Microsoft and Gatorade, has taken the design studio thing to the next level. With wood being the main motif, they have walls constructed of firewood (it looks like a giant stack of wood—as the wall), and all the floors, chairs and desks are also wood with a little bit of varnish. The look? Like if a lumberjack decided to hang up the axe and open a creative agency in the centre of a urban core. (Did we mention there’s also an authentic bear rug? Because there’s that, too.)
PIXAR HEADQUARTERS
Chill factor: Steve Jobs’ brainchild
Industry: Animation
Location: Emeryville, California
According to Steve Jobs’ biography, the concept behind Pixar Headquarters was a place that “promoted encounters and unplanned collaborations.” He also wanted a building that would stand the test of time. Well, he nailed it. Again. The open space concept super-lab has it all: real-life sized characters from its movies dot the campus, mini cabins that are office spaces for executives, a huge 20-acre landscaped green space and lots and lots of casual meeting spaces, you know, for that unplanned collaboration, for say, the next big animated movie.
RED BULL LONDON
Chill factor: 3-storey video wall, “floating” staircase and slide
Industry: Energy drinks, action sports
Location: London, England
So it turns out that like Google, all of Red Bull’s office spaces are drool-worthy. And the new slick Red Bull digs in London takes the cake. From their translucent pod rooms to the carbon fibre slide to ping pong meeting rooms, to their “floating” staircase that is suspended, the adrenaline from just walking around this adult playground would be sufficient without the gratis energy drinks. But we will take one anyway.
TWITTER HEADQUARTERS
Chill factor: Redo on Mid-Market historic building
Industry: Social media
Location: San Francisco, California
Twitter quickly outgrew its original pad in San Francisco. And instead of building a state-of-the-art, brand-spanking-new complex, they instead took to revitalizing San Fran’s Market Square, which has seen better days. But the new location is a historic Art Deco building, originally built in the 1930s, equipped with a rooftop patio with a office garden, a yoga room and a cafeteria cleverly dubbed the “birdfeeder.” (Also of note, Twitter just came to Canada and has started hiring, you know, if you’re looking for a new job.)
Read more of Ryan Bolton’s cool piece for Chill Magazine — Art in the workplace
The spiritual and cultural significance of growing miniature bonsai trees derives from a thousand-year-old horticultural tradition in Japan, representing a careful, contemplative and Zen-influenced relationship between humans and nature. Taking up this time-honoured practice of cultivating trees, Japanese artist-architect Takanori Aiba gives his bonsai an unusual twist by adding on miniature, realistic structures like bridges, stairs and intricately detailed buildings.
Click to see many more designs — ART.
Image © Takanori Aiba
Young Korean artist Jee Young Lee recently presented her beautiful, surrealistic and Photoshop-free photography exhibition named “Stage of Mind”. The magic happens in the artist’s small 3,6 x 4,1 x 2,4-meter studio in Seoul. The artist builds these highly dramatic, psychedelic and visually intense scenes herself, ensuring that every teeny tiny detail is hauntingly perfect and leaves the viewer in awe.
Take a look at Jee Young Lee‘s photos and embrace her enchanting world!
