Florine's Cellophane

I recently thought of Florine Stettheimer and her lovely cellophane decoration. A less well-known female painter of the early 20th century, Stettheimer was friends with Duchamp, O'Keeffe, Stein, and that whole crew, but she kept her work in her own private group of friends to visit her Greenwich village home. She began her more public artist career creating the set for Four Saints in Three Acts (1934). Cellophane was a new invention at this time, and she used in both her home (Fig. 1) and on stage (Fig. 2). I always thought this such a great idea with this new invention at the time, so I wanted to include a few images. Florine Stettheimer is and will always remain one of my favorite ladies.

Aicher's Photoliths

Today I visited the High Museum in Atlanta with some friends. The High currently has an exhibition called "Fast Forward: Modern Moments 1913 - 2013," and it's a collection of modern art in America with several pieces from MOMA. One of my favorite collections in this show was a series of German Otl Aicher's Photoliths, beautiful graphic representations.

 

Athens Regional NICU: First Completed Project

So Tuesday, Athens Regional Medical Center in Athens, Georgia held an open house for the revealing of their new NICU, designed by LeVino-Jones Medical Interiors, my employer. This is the first project that has come to completion in which I took part. I helped select the furniture, materials, and colors for the space. I'm very excited, so I wanted to post some pictures. These are my own photographs, so I apologize for the lack of professional quality.

Höst: Scandinavian Minimalism

It's been quite a while since I've posted. Much has happened since my last post: I have finished design school, been thrown into the real world of balancing two jobs, but I have begun a design career in the healthcare sector. All that is to say, I miss this blog, and I'm making an early new year's resolution to get back into exploring current design in the world.

With that, I just discovered Höst, a beautiful example of industrial and minimal Scandinavian design in a Copenhagen restaurant. The restaurant was design by Norm Architects of Copenhagen, and the lighting and tableware were design by New Norm, a subdivision of Norm Architects. The restaurant has a small palette, including dark industrial lighting fixtures, white rustic walls, and reclaimed wood throughout.

"The theme has been to transform the feeling of eating outside on a Scandinavian farmyard in rural settings to an urban and more minimalist indoor context," said Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen of Norm Architects.    
What I find most remarkable about this space is the use of light, both natural and artificial. The natural daylighting enters in beautiful architectural ways, while the fixtures are stunning, industrial statements.

Desert Rocks

So I have officially graduated from the University of Georgia with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design (and Magna Cum Laude at that). Now to finish my self applause, I have photographs of a product design project from a ceramics course I just finished.

Henry Leon Charbonnier Performing Arts Centre

I apologize for the lack of posts, but I have officially finished my senior exit project! I have designed the Henry Leon Charbonnier Performing Arts Centre for Athens, Georgia. The space features two concert halls, the 750 seat Albert F. Ligotti Hall and the 190 seat Studio Theatre. The lobby of the complex inhabits the Old Clarke County Jail, and an additional structure has been designed for the two theaters. The concept behind the project is a community connection to both the building and to music itself. The forms of the building evoke a musical score with gradations in forms and juxtapositions of delicacy and strength. The following images are my large 3' x 7' banners for the exhibition. I'll be updating my website with this project soon, and I'll add large images of the drawings and renderings.

Pods + Treehouses

Pacific Environments of New Zealand have designed pod-like treehouses sitting 33 feet high in redwood trees. I love the wrapping of the wood to enclose the pod without a literal fully enclosed shell.

My New Website

I completed my first portfolio website. To view it, click here. I really like how it has come together.

Concert Hall Concept Image

I've been working diligently on my senior exit project, a concert hall located in Athens, Georgia. I wanted to share my concept image to portray the types of sculptural forms I've been studying during this project.

Also, I've been building a website of my work and will share when it is completed.

Old Clarke County Jail Site

This is the Old Clarke County Jail in Athens.  This jail will be the site of my (hypothetical) concert hall I'm designing for my exit project.  French architect Leon Henry Charbonnier designed the jail in 1876 in the Second Empire architectural style. I'll post updates as they come.

Geometric Forms

Since completing our very geometric South African school project, I keep finding really great architecture comprised of varying geometric shapes. Here are some favorites of mine from my endless pinteresting and blogging.

C-2 in Japan by Curiosity Architecture

Incubadora Social ITESM-Bancomer in Mexico by SHINE Architecture

Mineral House in Japan by Atelier Tekuto Co. Ltd.

Klein Bottle House in Australia by McBride Charles Ryan

Huanacu Warehouse & Office in Chile by tFPS Architects

Museo ABC in Spain by Aranguren + Gallegos Arquitectos

Vision Questing

We finished our South African school project for the 2012 IDEC Student Competition. Here are the results:

Binta

Swiss designer Philippe Bestenheider has designed the Binta armchair, with African-inspired prints and woodcarvings. The bright textiles encompass the rubber polyurethane structure, recalling a tree-trunk form.

IDEC 2012 Student Competition

I'm currently working a education project in South Africa for this year's IDEC student competition. The project is coming together really well, and I have a great teammate. Here's an exterior site view as a preview of more to come.

ABŌD - Prefab in South Africa

BSB Design has created the ABŌD prefab housing solution in South Africa. The structure comes in a flat package that can be assembled with only a screwdriver, ladder, and awl in one day with four people. The outside is lined with colorful corrugated metal, and the interior provides loft spaces or other pre-determined solutions.

ZH - JS Bach Chamber Music Hall

As I've started my thesis research to design a concert hall space in Athens, Georgia, I've been researching many concert Halls.  A favorite of mine comes from another favorite of mine, Zaha Hadid Architects.  Zaha Hadid's JS Bach Chamber Music Hall installation at the Manchester Art Gallery is wrapped in a translucent fabric membrane stretched across a steel structure suspending from the ceiling.

The ribbon swirls and twists around the space, much like Bach's own harmonies, as the firm describes.

"Pivotal to is function is the performance of the ribbon. It has been designed to simultaneously enhance the acoustic experience of the concert while spatially defining a stage, an intimate enclosure, and passageways. It exits at a scale in which it is perceived a both an object floating in a room as well as a temporal architecture that invites one to enter, inhabit, and explore."

Restaurant Sheets

The Mandarin Oriental in Paris by Patrick Jouin and Sanjit Manku has beautiful, sheet-like forms on the wall.  The walls are covered in a delicate cotton fabric, and white wool spreads across the floors.

While the restaurant is a stark but peaceful white, Manku explains, "Your eyes get so used to [the white walls] that when the food comes on your plate, with the rich colors -- the green of the asparagus or the red of the tomato -- the food itself becomes the main experience."

I can't get over how beautiful and light the space feels. I am in love with these walls.

Tsutaya Books

Tokyo-based Klein Dytham Architects have designed this Tsutaya Books retail space.  There are several small details I love about this space.

large light boxes hanging from ceiling, creating a diffused light

hammered-steel staircase, front and center within the shop

book-lined bar and tables

Shipping Container Illumination

Marcio Kogan of Studio MK27 has designed the "Decameron" in San Paulo, Brazil as a solution to an empty plot of land needing a quick, budget-friendly retail solution.  Shipping containers hold different shops, much like my own DelBrenna pop-up shop from this summer.