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.

CORTONA: DelBrenna Interiors

I just revamped some perspectives from my pop-up shop from this summer for the DelBrenna's jewelry shop.  I learned so much additional Photoshop this past semester, that I wanted to apply it to my past work.  These perspectives show the two ends of my pop-up shop designed in a shipping container.