PIECES JOURNAL

Another (black) brick in the wall

As the industrial revolution pushed forward in the 20th century, that classic building material – brick - was overshadowed by the wonders of steel and glass. Modernism took hold. Fast forward to the 21st century and although brick never really disappeared, black brick has slipped into a more pronounced limelight; creating an homage to modernism before it.

This collection of architecture uses black bricks as a defining material. It also communicates a strong formal language. Particularly when viewed together, the similarities of mass, colour and form become even more apparent.

But one of these buildings is not like the others, making the perfect starting point to dissect the rest. And that is St Hubertus Church by German architect, Gottfried Böhm. What is so different about this piece of architecture compared to the others? It was designed over fifty years ago, unlike the other four which have been realised in the last decade. Böhm’s St Hubertus Church in the town of Aachen in Germany was designed and built from 1961–1964. And sadly there is very little known about this Catholic Church. The roof design features geometric, angled lines as if cleanly sliced from a piece of timber. The black bricks rise sharply to meet a fine layer of slate ‘dachwerk’ (roof work). The result is a piercing structure that stands strong fifty years later.

Moving onto one of the more recent black brick projects, Dirty House by Adjaye Associates is an enigma in Shoreditch. The converted warehouse, built in 2002, is situated on a back street of London’s east side. Square windows that line the street-level are completely blacked-out, while several levels up, the contrasting white roof pops up to allow for a covered, rooftop space. The mass of the building defined by black bricks.

Not too far away in London is the Olympic Substation by Danish practice NORD Architects. The building serves a purely utilitarian function - an electricity substation for the 2012 London Olympics. The architects drew on the area’s industrial heritage by using brick as the primary material, however opting for black to bring into its modern context.

Taking black brick as it’s dominant building material is the ABC Building in Seoul by Wise Architecture. Described as an architectural mountain, the building draws its users up the summit via a stairwell that is encased with black bricks. While the front facade forgoes the traditional masonry, resulting in a semi-transparent wall.

Moving further into the southern hemisphere, the most recent project in the collection is Ari Apartments by OLA Studio. The commercial development features nine apartments with an accompanying ground-level retail shop in Melbourne’s inner east. Ari Apartments blends traditional black brick together with a timber batten facade and concrete. But the black brick is not only the striking feature, its selection ties back to the suburbs surrounding heritage as it is known as the brick-making district.

Collectively, these projects show that black brick can be used to create strong, striking and confident buildings.

A pegboard piece of furniture

In the Northland of New Zealand, a mother, designer and stylist has created furniture using pegboard front and centre. Homebase Collections is a furniture (and homewares) brand with Leanne Culy at the helm.

Her simple and almost childlike pegboard furniture pieces would be at home in a stylish grown-up apartment as much as they would look at home in a well thought out nursery. Designed by Cully and built to order by a local Hawkes Bay cabinet maker, the bedside table and sideboard are constructed with a plywood frame, cylindrical dowel legs and a pegboard door.

Supporting local design and craftsmanship, these pegboard furniture pieces bring a subtle touch of crafty charm to the home.

DESIGN PIECE: Pegboard furniture by Homebase Collections

Images via Homebase Collections

Designing with Pegboard

An architect’s home in Auckland, detailed with fervent character and a teeny glimpse of pegboard in the most unexpected way. Across the Tasman, a North Melbourne coffee institution takes the essence of pegboard and reimagines it in a practical application. Two examples of designing with this simple material to create something slightly left-of-centre.

First up, New Zealand architect Henri Sayes of Sayes Studio had the opportunity to build himself a home. Describing the home as a glorified barn, defined by a timber-framed rectangle with exposed, inverted timber trusses, the home also features more complex and unexpected details. One of those details happens to be a clever, custom made screen to add privacy to the downstairs bathroom. The pegboard offered a moderately priced alternative while keeping a sense of delight and practicality to the space.

Over the ditch, Melbourne-based interior design studio, Studio Zwei have created a cafe space rather fitting of its locale. Situated along bustling Errol Street in North Melbourne, the newly opened  Code Black Coffee is an exercise in industrial chic. The warehouse space respects the original facade and brick exterior, fitted out with clean and minimal timber joinery inside. One piece in particular being a wall display sat snugly between the front door and front window. The pegboard shelving is an update on the more traditional with larger size dowel slotted into the larger circle punctures on the timber backing board.

These two projects go to show that a simple material can be reimagined within a space with a little creativity.

BUILT PIECES: Screen divider in Onehunga House by Sayes Studio & Display shelf in Code Black Coffee by Studio Zwei

Images: 1-2 - Code Black Coffee by Studio Zwei via Studio Zwei website 3 - Onehunga House by Sayes Studio by Patrick Reynolds

Showroom turned Production Piece: Pegboard by Koskela

Using your power and influence for good things. It sounds like a line straight out of a movie, but it is also pretty fitting for a Sydney brand that started out with an ideal of creating honest-to-good furniture. Fifteen years later and Koskela has grown to include a café/restaurant, an exhibition space, host workshops, they even offer boutique accommodation. The list feels like it goes on and on. Yet they all share some commonality. Every detail along the journey has been guided by a simple ethos – design with conscious.

So where does pegboard come into play? It was through their popular pegboard display system that I came across this all-encompassing and sustainable driven brand. Their pegboard display was designed for the fitout of their showroom and garnered so many enquiries that have put it into production, the ultimate example of ‘minimum viable product’ in action. The system is made from plywood pegboard with thicker dowel pieces slotting into the custom openings. It’s the perfect shelving solution for a design aficionado’s home or modern office.

DESIGN PIECE: Pegboard by Koskela

Taking a leaf out of a dream tool garage/shed of Dad’s all over – this week is all about the humble pegboard. Acquired by DIY lovers the world over of late, the pegboard can bring organisation to even the most unruly of people. But it can also be used in more unconventional ways – from café’s to furniture and everything in-between. Pegboard adds some quirky chic to any space. And not to be confused for the similarly holey Perforated cousin. 

Life-size Meccano Furniture

Flexibility is something often yearned for, whether in a home, an office or in a shop. Yet furniture is all too often a static beast. Taking this as a starting point, Polish designer Oskar Zieta (Zieta Design) created a collection of furniture that is versatile and dynamic. The 3+ Collection is a life-size incarnation of Meccano, taking perforated metal sheets and series of clever connectors in metal or timber, each piece in the range can be adapted by the user as needed.

The collection draws parallels to the familiar flat-pack designs as Ikea patrons will be all too familiar with. The easily ‘hackable’ nature of 3+ Collections design makes the series suitable for any environment it’s placed in. Plus there is the sheer delight that comes from something being at once functional, yet still playful. Childhood fantasies realised through a massive, life-size meccano kit.

DESIGN PIECE: 3+ Collection by Zieta

A perforated program of space: Corner house

Corner House by SMART Architecture sits on a tight corner block in Korea’s Daegu district, not far from the Kyungpook National University. The project defies classification, bringing together a mixture of parking, a restaurant space and single-family apartments.

Space-saving techniques were used in the design to ensure the 200m2 plot of land was used to its full extent – the resulting development uses up 58% of the land.

The program of spaces plays out with parking and facilities on the first two floors, third and fourth floors are apartments and the restaurant space neighbours the first floor on a terrace.

The folded steel façade with detailed perforations is used to give the residential floors privacy while still allowing light to filter through. The continuous zinc panel, daintily perforated, adds a clear demarcation between public and private. It also ensures that views and access to natural light are not compromised. A unique addition to the architecture that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing.

Behind the perforated Screen

Dutch Invertuals are a design collective that come together across a range of diverse backgrounds – but they all share one common principal – experimentation. The group work together to push the limits of their own practice as individuals, the outcome is projects that stretch beyond. And have even been involved in several international shows such as the illustrious Salone del Mobile Milan in 2014.

The ‘Cohesion’ series came about as their press material for Dutch Design Week, Eindhoven in 2014. The series, which can be purchased as posters or postcards, features people (members of the collective) screened behind various styles of perforated sheet metal. The material making pixelated images of people, as well as strong graphic elements from varying combinations.

The dictionary definition of perforation is to punch (or pierce) holes through something. It’s pretty common on facades in architecture, particularly as laser cutting becomes mainstream, but it’s also used in plenty of other, sometimes unexpected ways.

The beauty of perforated materials is the delicateness that it creates. Again, in architecture it can take a monolith of a structure and turn it into a dainty looking form. Likewise with fashion, the evolution and accessibility of laser-cutting technology has allowed innovation in fabrics to flourish.

From White to Grey: COS x nendo Installation

Minimalist Swedish-clothing brand COS, teamed up with equally minimalist design-house Nendo to create an installation piece for the 2014 Salon del Mobile in Milan. Nendo may ring a few bells as their Splinter furniture series was covered for the Japanese influence theme.

This collaboration takes a COS staple, their simple but sharply executed white shirt and turns it into a canvas. The space is spliced with a sinewy line of crisp shirts all held up on geometric, stainless steel frames.  Each time the shirt falls within the cubed frame, the shirt changes from varying shades of white to grey. 

The monochromatic journey shows the power of a simple palette partnered with a strong idea. All rounded off with every shade of grey in-between.

BITS AND PIECES: COS x Nendo installation

Camper down with Jardan

Jardan is an Australian furniture company, born and bred in Melbourne. Started by two brothers back in the Eighties, it has continued to grow. For anyone in the design industry, you could call them a staple mate and go to brand for quality, handcrafted furniture with beautiful and simple designs.

Keeping in line with its minimal aesthetic – grey is a colour that features prominently, along with timber and neutral colours. The Camper is no different. A sofa that is modern and simple while looking completely unique at the same time. A powdercoat steel frame fades into a functional role at the base, while the curving, cloud-esque backrest rises confidently to take all the attention. Each of the three backrests are rounded at the top, creating the soft-edged shape and alluding to a little bit of playfulness.

As with the Hay ‘About a Chair’, the upholstery is selected when purchasing so it’s not a piece that is exclusively grey. But the grey sample really makes the sleek design pop.

DESIGN PIECE: Camper sofa by Jardan in Tailor Quartz upholstery with white powdercoat steel frame

Gray Matters Documentary

Despite fitting in perfectly with this week’s theme, there is also another, slightly more selfish reason for featuring this film. I was lucky enough to catch this film at ACMI last week.

Who is Eileen Gray? To those not enamoured with mid-century design and architecture it would be conceivable not to know who she is. But even without being a buff on all things modernist and art deco, there’s a pretty high chance that her work is very familiar. Gray was a prolific designer and all-round creative throughout the Twentieth century and several of her furniture pieces are still sold through certified retailers today (something I learned from the documentary!). One of the most iconic pieces being her adjustable side table made with curved stainless steel tubes – the first of its kind and appropriated many times over.

But it’s E-1027 and the saga surrounding it that truly showcased her talent. Sadly the very story around it, with a cameo of Le Corbusier, is the only reason why it has survived to this day. Gray is a woman who is completely deserving of some time on the big screen.

BITS AND PIECES: Gray Matters: A documentary on Eileen Gray. Showing at ACMI until 27 Oct 2015

Grey is one of those colours that makes other colours pop (although technically it’s not a colour, it’s achromatic). Its soft tones bring everything together and it’s the main ingredient for anything Scandinavian.

Grey is the epitome of subdued, minimal chic.

A curving plastic wall

Retail environments are one of the most important commodities for a brand. They become the face and the experience that consumers have when purchasing. And fashion would be at the top of the list.

Italian couture brand, Marni knows the value that their retail spaces have on the whole customer journey. Each of their flagship stores around the world has a sense of individuality while also instilling a sense of familiarity. London-based studio Sybarite have completed a handful of Marni stores, but the moulded fibre-glass walls found in the Miami and Las Vegas stores show that many shapes and forms of plastic can be truly cutting-edge.

A curved form surrounds the stores interior, with spherical shapes popped-out and sunken in for displays. This interior wall also allows a clever space for storage off the shop floor. The partition wall creates a series of vignettes throughout the store, allowing product to merchandised and ‘featured’ as needed. The circular motif is repeated throughout from the moulded plastic wall to the circular, tiered shoe displays in a polished stainless finish.

The curving, circular repetition of the fibre-glass wall is the star of the space, creating a unifying presence throughout.

 BUILT PIECE: Marni flagship store, Miami by Sybarite

A landscape of plastic cups

You would know it if you’ve seen an installation by Tara Donovan, the prolific artist takes an everyday object and creates completely unexpected forms. Her entire oeuvre is this very modus operandi. And one of the first installations I saw (althought not in person unfortunately) and it left me staring at the computer screen in amazement.

Untitled (plastic cups) from 2006 creates an entire landscape, mapped out with nothing more than white plastic cups. An intricately detailed topography, the valleys and mountains moulded through each layer. This piece of work pre-dates 3D printing but the stark white, undulating patterns somehow draw similarities.

A trivial, everyday object. Plastic cups have probably caused more harm for the environment than good. Yet this installation creates an enigmatic beauty out of the mundane.

BITS AND PIECES: Untitled (Plastic Cups) 2006 by Tara Donovan

Plastic for a good cause

When hearing about the first bioplastic chair to be produced, I was intrigued. What makes it bio? What is the process behind it? How was it developed?

All these questions were asked of Alki, the French furniture manufacturer who are indeed the makers of the world’s first bioplastic chair, the Kuskoa Bi Chair.

Alki’s philosophy is one of sustainability, with their factory and offices located in the mountainous Basque country in France; it’s easy to understand why they would want to preserve the beauty around them.

“Surrounded by nature, this is a unique environment in which it is a privilege to work and one which we strive to protect by seeking out new and integrated methods of production. We are very much aware that everything we do, whether as individuals or groups, has a direct impact on the surrounding environment.”

All of the oak used in Alki furniture is from sustainably managed forests, with all other materials being natural fibres – so the same approach was taken when developing the Kuskoa Bi Chair. They wanted a chair that would envelope the user and create a comforting shell, seeing as plastic would be the most suitable material; the research into a bio-plastic began.

Given that the production of plastic requires a substantial amount of fossil fuels to produce, is a pollutant and fundamentally at odds with the company’s ethos. Bioplastic was born - a fully recyclable material, sharing similar properties to traditional plastic. The bioplastic is made through the transformation of starch, which creates a biopolymer. A growing industry already in Europe and potential uses across multiple industries, the world of bioplastic is sure to keep growing.

But what about future bioplastic products by Alki? 2016 will see a new version of the Kuskoa Bi Chair but that’s it for the time being.

DESIGN PIECE: Kuskoa Bi Chair by Alki

Plastic is generally not considered very sexy. It conjures up images of 70’s furniture, cheapness and the dreaded carcinogenic debate.

But, there is a new era of plastic, everything from fibre glass, resin, carbon fibre and even more new – bio-plastic. Now that’s sexy.

As technology continues to experiment with materials and push the boundaries of the materials we’ve come to know and love, there is a rich pool of inspiration out there in the world of plastic.

Don’t be afraid of the past, there’s a new era. Get inspired by the New Age Plastic Pinterest board.