What to do with Sao Paolo, the city filled with empty billboards? Dutch Design Academy graduate José Subero suggests emphasizing the parts of the city that used to be covered. Natureza Urbana consist of architectural interventions like a billboard as a lookout and as a tree, covered in climbing plants. Subero thinks it’s a mondial example: “Tomorrow it’s Mexico City.”
Instant urban leisure floats down at the Rotterdam central square. The Flying Grass Carpet is a 900 m2 park that can be unfolded in any city. It brings a picnic, frisbee match or sunbath to the city without having to travel. Parts can be adjusted to any size or location. The carpet resembles an immense Persian rug executed in different types of artificial grass. How does it feel between your toes?
Laying bricks and creating buildings that may collapse is fun, and should be encouraged. It is however quite dangerous and expensive, so Erik Hekman and Michiel Stade built their Media Technology graduation project “Continuous Physical Prototyping in Generative Design” in Lego. They make algorithms generate houses, offices, towns. Since generative (or algorithmic) architecture is way, way older than computers and requires knowledge of construction and esthetics, a human functions as the constructing and evaluating robot, eventually teaching the computer by feedback.
This month Suzanne Rietdijk graduated from Utrecht School of the Arts. I’ve met her and laundry-soap-water-close-wash-open-dry in Milan and published it in several magazines. Jewellery for your pipes is even more appealing. By pimping parts of your house that normally stay behind walls, Suzanne personalises the relationship between home owner and house.
A thick layer of paint and laquer, preferably on different kinds of wood. That is what makes artist Ron van der Ende smile. Friends collect the leftover wood. Ron saws, sweats and beasts the boards and panelling into a 2 dimensional reliëf. The 3 dimensional illusion is dazzling. Cars, planes, ballons, pc’s, his sculptures are very easy and just as populair.
Old products find new uses. Superuse is a creative way of going green. Good thing is, you can do it yourself. You don’t have to change the product in any industrial way, except for the way you look at it. Broken clothing hangers make a necklace, cd spindles are a bagle lunchbox, two dustbins make a handbag. Feed your find to this online community.
Good design can be green, as we’ve found out. Green does not have to cramp our speed, as this blog shows. Green can even be geeky if you’ve seen the glow-in-the-dark garden chairs. AfterGlow is 100% made from recycled milk jugs. This might come handy in the garden at night. As a light when sitting down, or to avoid knee caps if wandering. Question is: does it attract mosquitos?
House Spidernet the Wood can hardly be found. That’s exactly what architects R&Sie had in mind. The villa is surrounded by a labyrinth of 2000 m2 of plastic netting. With the passing of years, trees and shrubs will overgrow the net, leaving the house as if it were a spider with legs crawling into the vast forest. It will then be a void in the woods. Is the outside in, or the other way around?
Her surplus fashion named Post Industrial Folk Wear is found in art galeries, but Marian Schoettle told me of her difficulties in convincing the clothes shops you can actually wear paper every day. “Tyvek in the quality as used in envelopes does not tear, is waterproof and breathable. It gets more soft after every washing.” Tyvek could be tomorrow’s fabric even if it was found yesterday.
The speed of vegetation moving North as a result of global warming, has been calculated to 1,67 meter a day. In two weeks, the plants in your backyard have arrived in your frontyard. René van Corven’s Victor Mobile has been travelling to the North Pole with the same speed since 2003. The cargo of the wagon is as delicate as the 7 wheel drive cart is sturdy.
© Copyright The Green Light District - green dutch design & architecture - Powered by Wordpress - Designed by Speckyboy.