the biggest Dutch Design library in Yangon

Dau Dai Zum Zang

On Sunday morning at 7 o'clock our friend Dau Dai Zum Zang arrives at Schiphol, it is his first trip outside his homeland Myanmar. Although it is 8 degrees that day, a reasonably mild temperature for this time of year, for Dau Dai it is extremely cold, an experience that, as he explained us later, he can't describe in words to his girlfriend back home. The first thing he does that day, is go into town and buy the heaviest wool sweater he can find. 

Dau Dai travels to the Netherlands on invitation of the Premsela Organization, the Netherlands institute for Design and Fashion and is asked to take part in a program on Design & Political activism. As an English speaking young graphic designer living in Yangon, eager to learn, open minded and seriously aware of his the role of connector and of his responsibility towards his colleagues in Yangon, Dau Dai is a perfect choice. 

Premsela has organized an extensive five day program of meetings with top of the bill designers, with visits to museums and galleries. There are also with some exclusive events, such as a meeting with the Mayor of Amsterdam who organizes a reception in honour of the 2012 Prince Claus Awards at his official residence. He also has been invited to a reception by the queen. And for this occasion Dau Dai is wearing his traditional Burmese outfit. 

We don't see our friend very often that week, his program is extremely dense with hardly any spare time left. Luckily he has some days left after the program. We invite him to stay at our place.  Dau Dai goes to the Albert Cuyp market, afterwards he expresses his sincere surprise about the fact that white people are actually working, being only used to meet white people who can afford to travel to his country and stay at expensive hotels. At night he posted a picture on Facebook of a lonely seagull outside his hotel. His comment: "The bird is very fat."

The day before Dau Dai returned to Yangon we make a trip to Eindhoven, to the Design Academy. On invitation we may witness that afternoon what happens during a graduation at the Design Academy. We can experience the atmosphere and have a sneak preview of the presented projects with some exclusive presentations by the students themselves. 

Two students from two different departments present to us in an informal lightweight manner their joint project. There seems to be a nice parallel between the chemistry of the two students and the presented research on the combining of earthenware with porcelain in one object. Interesting to see how research comes to life when it is presented in an aesthetic way, when the visual appearance support the story, when the story connects well with the person who presents it, and when the story makes sense. Logic and poetry together definitely works well!

  

During the introduction one of our guides explains to Dau Dai about the points of view of the Design Academy about the emphasis in the first academic year on creating a design mentality before focussing on the actual design process. Using mentality as a fundament, responding to the fact that the role of the designer of today is broad and can be developed in any direction; Advisor, reviewer, builder, connector, researcher, storyteller are just a few examples. Mentality building also as response to the need for a flexible approach as designer. An example mentioned is the rapid development of the 3D printing process, it raises the question whether design is still the exclusive domain of the designer, what can are the new demands in this context?

We end up having diner at long tables set for the tutors and the commissioners, next to use a group of tutors is still in their decision making moment, fragments of their discussion are surrounding us while enjoying our risotto with truffle. We really feel part of process and are impressed by the open attitude of the Academy.

It is a long way from any kind of education in Myanmar. When I ask Dau Dai at the end of our visit what his general impression is, he ends up comparing the Academy with big a play-ground which sounds in a pleasant way quite familiar to me. In that respect nothing has changed after all.

It turns out to be a special afternoon and the perfect conclusion of Dau Dai's trip. The Academy is very generous and gives him a wide selection of catalogs and publications. He got an extra large bag to bring home all those fantastic books he got on this trip. It takes some typical Myanmar style switching of bags and a lot of repacking during check-in. But right now, he has the biggest Dutch Design library in Yangon. 

Christmas in Eindhoven

The best things in life are free

The history of design has been documented extensively. It is not difficult to inform yourself nowadays. Most contemporary museums have their design collections, the choice of books is overwhelming and put the word 'design' in Google and you will be confronted with a staggering 5 billion hits.

Design has been influencing our lives and lifestyles for some decades now and the historical interest is providing some context to new developments in the field. But the laws of history are as relentless towards designers as they are towards political heroes and villains. To make sense in a broader context, we need to simplify the individual events. We all have that image in our head that we saw in the museums and that we saw in the books. And periods that are further in the past get reduced to fewer items.

The fact that these items are forgotten is no indication for the lack of style and quality. There is a substantial market for hardcore collectors. They appreciate the high quality of the craftsmanship or the exclusivity of the items. They meet at auction houses like Sotheby's and it's wonderful that we are all able to peek over their shoulder. Sotheby's has a wonderful online catalog of their auctions and the iPad app is a fantastic way to educate yourself by drooling over forgotten classics and the discovery of many new masterworks that come from private collections. There are about 8 major auctions each year on design globally. I'll share some of my personal highlights from recent auctions with you:

Pair of  oak and vellum cabinets circa 1925 by Jean-Michel Frank 1895-1941. Surprising use of vellum, semi translucent paper made from calfskin

A wood and partially grey lacquered double sided cabinet by le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, circa 1927

La Polonaise, etching, aquatint by Tamara de Lempicka, 1933    

City Daybed by Jean Prouvé, 1949

Strangely detailled fishlamp by Frank Gehry, 1983

The iPad app can be found in the app store. And it's free! The app downloads the complete catalogue and also has some beautiful video portraits. Many past auctions are browsable online. Design is just one of the many themes in the Sotheby's auctions. Highly recommended!

Sotheby's Catalogue by Sotheby's
https://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/sothebys-catalogue/id471593295?l=en&mt=8

Blending in

Suspecting that Todays Orange weather alert will keep the crowd at home and the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum empty I feel finally ready to visit this recently reopened building.

I am not sure yet what to think of the bathtub shaped new museum extension that contains the new main entrance but today its appearance blends in perfectly well with the temporary snow white environment. I wonder, does an architect consider the different seasons when designing a building?

I arrive just in time to mingle in with a troop of excited school children. Threatened by some circulating snowballs I quickly dive into the big white bathtub, once inside it feels warm and safe. This almost floating monumental space offers an instantly agreeable atmosphere, bright and airy.

I am not the only visitor after all but the gathered crowd easily hives of in all directions and in no time is swallowed by the spick and span spacious museum halls. One of the guards explains me that in the weekend there are over the 5000 visitors a day. It feels like the new building can easily digest this.

This first visit is just a quick orientation, some halls are closed since the museum is working on the delayed Mike Kelly exhibition that will open December the 15th. During my tour there are two things that catch my attention;

In one of the ground floor halls metal cabinets are placed against the wall, visitors are allowed to open the drawers. Nicely arranged vulnerable design related objects are presented, each drawer contains a new visual surprise. Exploring the content of the drawers is definitely fun.

Close to the former entrance, underneath the famous staircase is a small space, painted red, called the Family Lab. The entrance radiates a nice red glow from within and seduces the families to enter.Theme related activities are organized and films are shown, I see some beautiful drawings on the wall...

Stedelijk museum Amsterdam, the new entrance

Stedelijk museum Amsterdam, the new entrance

Staircase and parallel escalator surrounded by yellow walls in new building

Metal cabinet with Design surprise 

Poster wall with entrance of Family Lab

Family Lab

Family Lab,  drawings depicting 'motion'

A shift in perspective

On Sunday, the day after the Designers Saturday event, I decide to take the bus to Weil am Rhein for a visit to the famous Vitra-House. On this rainy early morning crossing the border with Germany driving through some deserted little villages makes me wonder where this trip will lead me to, whether I am really heading in the right direction. But once arrived at the Vitra premises witnessing this spatial wonder placed in the middle of vast green meadows an instant feeling of excitement takes over.

The building, designed by the Swiss architects Herzog and deMeuron, is a construction of stacked and cantilevered building blocks that in shape refer to the archetypical representation of a house. This architectural assemblage has a certain degree of complexity and when entering the building it becomes even more disorientating. The stacked volumes are blending into geometrically complex shapes which are connected by staircases that do not necessarily respect the logic of the separate building blocks.

Wandering through this Vitra labyrinth is wonderful, the unexpected points of view that are offered do remind me of the sculptural building transformations of the 70ties artist Gordon Matta-Clark. His tube shaped intersections that carved in an 45 degree angle through the various levels of an abandoned building created a complete new spatial experience.

An other more recent example in this context is the infrastructure of the buildings of  the Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. One of his projects, The Musashino Art University Library, has a labyrinth like interior with walls that are composed from bookshelves spiraling in from the perimeter and providing views and access across the different spaces via cutouts.

Although the interior of the Vitra-House in itself offers an unique experience but surprisingly enough it doesn't distract the attention from what is exhibited in it. There seems to be a natural balance between a space with a genuine outspoken identity and a perfectly styled collection of great furniture.

Vitra House

Interior view Vitra House

The Musashino Art University Library by the Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto.

transformed buildings by Gordon Matta-Clark

House N by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto

transformed buildings by Gordon Matta-Clark

Photograph of Vitra furniture

A lesson in physics

Last Saturday I paid a visit to the Museum of modern art 'De Pont' in Tilburg where several art works of the British Indian artist Anish Kapoor are exhibited. The former wool spinning mill with its spacious and intimate environments creates a perfect context for a real sensorial experience.

The atmosphere of the central exhibition space is different from the usual, instead of the formal distance to the art works the public is actively interacting with the installations. The perfectly polished steel made mirrors seem to trigger a somewhat primitive reaction. The moment confronted with the three dimensional mirrored surfaces as well children as adults are responding instantly by making distorted self-portraits or funny pictures of their companion with their cameras. It reminds me of the village fair evergreen, the mirror labyrinths.

But besides providing space for basic pleasure it definitely is the perfect play to learn installation for the physics high school teacher. Is there a better way to make students more eager to understands the complex rules of a three dimensional mirror surface?

In contrast with the extrovert spacious mirror experience,  the intensely pigment powdered half spheres presented in a separate space are providing a moment of seclusion. Absorbed by the depth of color, an experience of infinity and silence is created, the perfect mindfulness tool.

The brief moment of reflection will be rudely interrupted by a loud bang coming from the adjacent room. A compressed air canon loaded with red wax entities is fired in intervals of 30minutes. The wall opposite the canon is plastered with traces of the red wax ammunition. But the most exiting part of the performance is the waiting, the anticipating on the big bang, wanting to witness the collision, fearing to miss the moment and being anxious that the impact of the sounds will take you by surprise after all.

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Designers' Saturday

During the Orgatec fair in Köln  I was offered, by a Ruckstuhl sales representative, two free entrance tickets for the Designers' Saturday exhibition in Swiss. As I never had been at this biennial occasion before and had heard often positive stories about it, it felt as a good decision to make the trip to Langenthal.

Designers Saturday is an event organized by five major firms based in Langenthal. On the premises of these firms as well collections of international known firms as work of design students are shown in an experience like set up.

It is a very well organized, professional event with an informal relaxed and warm welcome feel. Plenty of good food, drinks and even life music create a lively atmosphere. The fact that one can enter the factory, in some locations even witness parts of the production process, makes this happening quiet special. There are of course some obligatory safety precautions but it doesn't feel like you are held at a distance, you are really inside, experiencing the atmosphere of a major industrial production site.

Some pictures to give an impression...

Creation Baumann. A dynamic color shifting maze leading the visitor to the core of the exhibition space

Presentation of Keramik Laufen & Similor at Girsberger 

Presentation of Bauwerk Parket Purzel Hause at Ruckstuhl

Creation Baumann. Factory

Office at Hector Eggen Holzbau

Food and drinks at Ruckstuhl

Presentation  at Ruckstuhl of ECAL University. Project Marbelous by Flora Fixy

Life music at Ruckstuhl

Presentation Carpets at Ruckstuhl

I

different angles

Image taken from ISS space station
from blog André Kuipers 

Transdisciplinary exchange and collaboration

the end of the solitary home worker 

During the Utrecht Manifest Symposium about the new way of working ‘Het nieuwe werken’ keynote speaker Florian Idenburg from So-iL architects mentioned the phenomenon of the ‘co-worker clubs’

Clubs that offer freelancers, entrepreneurs and sometimes-even employees from larger companies, a flexible use of office facilities as an alternative to working in cafes, at home or in a mainstream office building. A service orientated concept, providing lunch, free Wifi, meeting rooms, classrooms, breakout spaces, a library, top-notch media facility, a kitchen and more. Sometimes additional activities that fit the profile of the club members are organized such as workshops and conferences and educational programs.

This concept creates for individual workers the opportunity to exchange ideas and expertise. The collaborative, sometimes even trans-disciplinary, nature of this set up creates a sense of community and shared purpose. Potential members are interviewed to make sure that they fit into the club’s mentality.

The co-working spaces are not typical office environments and often have a more comfortable and trendy ‘home-from-home’ atmosphere. There seems to be a vast expansion of these facilities in recent years. A variation on this theme is the Pop-up co-working space.

Slightly different but with some similar starting points, aimed at the entrepreneur that wants to share, to collaborate, is a recent project of Piet Hein Eek with the development of a new business complex, set for location in Amsterdam's Minerva harbor called ‘het dak’ (the roof). The framework of the project has been conceived to give companies the freedom and flexibility to create their own office space. An informal place where diversity defines the building's image, which is, composed of a collection of separate structures arranged in such a way that terraces, squares and alleys flow between, creating a network of paths.

A 'collective business concept' where the arts, media, entertainment and creative business services come together and collaborate through urban activity, 'the roof' derives its strength from the identity that users give to their individual spaces.

By the end of 2010 a group composed of leaders of university Innovation Centers, architects and designers met to discuss the future of the so called Innovation Centers, institutes that operate outside traditional academic parameters in an environment radically different than the typical university undergraduate experience.

In the article ‘How Innovation Can Thrive on Campus’ published by Herman Miller again the future IC workspace is described as flexible framework that offers an inspiring and diverse environment for collaboration and innovation

Some quotes:

“…Creating an innovative environment means more than providing space for experimentation. One important element of the search for a new product, process, or idea is the sense of community, making the quest a shared experience reinforced by interaction and engagement…’

 “…Temperature control, variable lighting, a pleasing colour scheme, access to natural light, and movable, ergonomic workspaces and furniture all create an environment conducive for interaction. The space will house many users and stakeholders and must be able to easily evolve in order to support differing functions as new projects are introduced and different uses are discovered to expand its capabilities…”

“…The centers are not classrooms, but highly flexible, dynamic spaces that must meet a wide variety of demands, often on a 24/7 schedule’

The interesting news is that the added value of these trans-disciplinary collaborations in co-working environments seems to be noticed also by the larger companies.  

Mini factory

left to righ top; studio Swine hydraulic press, Sea chair label, Dirk vander Kooij repurposed robot arm

left to right below; PietHeinEek workspace, Tom Dixon temporary digital production facility in Milan

What struck me most when visiting the Salone del Mobilé exhibition in Milan last April was the strong focus of the individual designer on the vast potentials of the digital production tool. 

Having your own mini factory within reach, making mini series production, being independent of stakeholders, controlling the total process from draft to end product that clearly must be an enormous challenge for the entrepreneurial designer.

During the symposium ‘Me Craft/You Industry’ keynote speaker Professor Pieter Tordoir discussed the topic ‘New Cottage industry’; which he defined as a mid size, mid tech industry with a craft intensive, flexible and entrepreneurial approach, focussed on network collaboration, often located in outdated industrial areas. This high-tech craft movement operates independently from existing industries were human intervention often has been minimized by advanced automation systems. The description of this small scale industry development seems to connect well with what was presented during the Milan furniture fair.

This new decentralized way to design is also made possible through crowd funding, open source technology, free software, peer to peer platforms, low cost of new production and networking technologies such as 3D rep-rap tools and laser cutters.

From within design this development can be linked to the motto ‘technology enables us, individualisation drives us’. It also responds to the mentality of the new consumer that demands transparency and influence and wants to be actively involved in production developments.

Some examples;

• Studio Swine launched the concept of a floating factory ship that recycles harvested plastic waste from the ocean into sea chairs, using a hydraulic press made from recycled agricultural machinery that fits on a small fishing boat.
• Dirk vander Kooij set up his own automated production line using an repurposed robot arm printing a series of chairs from melted recycled plastic obtained from recycled fridge components
• Piet Hein Eek moved his company to a former Philips factory building in Strijp R Eindhoven NL
• Tom Dixon promoted the direct digital production process in Milan by a temporary installation of a digital production facility during the Milan Salone del Mobilé event
• See also reviews on ‘Future in the making’ a presentation in Milan curated by Domus and Audi 

diversity

photo's by Gena Haensel

07.06.2012 


Presentation of ArtEZ final grade fashion students.


Colorful and diverse, especially the male outfits, from Coco to Swag

pinterest

Collected images that connect to this blog can been found on my Pinterest page;

http://pinterest.com/bmgriffioen

temporary

Cardbord-Cathedral-Christchurch-Shigiru-Ban

Transitional church
Plans are announced to build a 25-metre high cathedral constructed with 104 tubes of cardboard. The structure will be a temporary replacement for the iconic stone ChristChurch Cathedral, which was ruined last year in an earthquake 
The Japanese architect, Shigeru Ban, has used cardboard as a material for other temporary buildings, including a "paper church" which is used as a community center after the 1995 Kobe earthquake in Japan.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad/nz-to-get-cardboard-cathedral/story-fn6s850w-1226328585996

Transient truth

Wiki truth

In her final exam project Kyra van Ineveld visualizes her so called “transient truth” in the shape of four gigantic Wikipedia encyclopedias were she touches upon the topic of the overload of information and the unattainable, never complete answer resulting in a constantly evolving truth.

Wiki Truth is a project in which the designer states that truth isn’t fixed anymore but transient. Quote: ‘The digital Wikipedia is dynamic, the information is created, changed, criticized, deleted and updated every second, we have to decide for ourselves when an answer is complete’.

This transient thruth is made tangible by making a physical encyclopedia that presents the evolution of four major Wikipedia subjects within a certain time slot. On the bottom of the book you read the first sentence that was ever written in this article; and at the top of the book you see the article as it is now. (and by the moment I write it, as it was than).

The encyclopedia is telling the story of transition.

Flexible framework

Das House 2012

The theme of endless transition challenges to actively re-examin basic assumptions about  how space is used and experienced.

The project "Das House" presented by the designers Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien,  during the  "Imm Cologne" fair in January, offers a good scenario of  how to make an existing framework more flexible, more dynamic, creating space for improvisation.

Quote “Das Haus is about domestic activity and redefining traditional spaces, structuring the house into functional zones and challenging cliché notions of what is a bedroom, kitchen or bathroom. Every part of the house connects and redefines, intersecting volumes of the kind you might find in industrial buildings to create fragmented spaces. Walls with varying degrees of transparency and frames with mesh-like coverings. A microcosm in which all the spaces are interconnected”

http://www.doshilevien.com/projects/installations

Traces of time

Lex Pott, true colours, detail

With his 'true colours' collection Lex Pott visualizes, in a series of metal plates, the origin of the materials as well as how the material has been manipulated. The product itself communicates the story of the production process.The designer shows a fascination for where things come from and how they are created and states that 'a product gets a deeper meaning by telling a story about the material qualities'. 

The chemical process that that is applied generates controllable randomness, an approach that needs flexibility curiousity and talent for improvisation. The transformed materials communicate the story of the color which is directly linked to the process and therefore becomes genuine, true. 


http://lexpott.nl/

Capture the moment

More and more designers are challenged by the process, material properties or artisinal skills. 

Tim Simpson and Sarah van Gameren from studio Glithero focus in their work on the transition of an object during the production process. Their leitmotif is  “To capture and present the beauty in the moment things are” This quest is superseding the importance of the finished product, they create experiences, the end product becomes the medium, the process the message.

 'A brief moment of happiness' which is being developed in support of the Vauxhall Collective, is a collection of ceramic objects whose decorative surfaces have been captured through the process of blueprinting.


http://www.glithero.com/

Transition

A never ending story

Transition is about the dynamics of change.

There is a growing awareness (uneasyness?) of the increasingly speed in which information is updated and in which things evolve. The  fast expanding amount of available choices results in a need to get more grip. 

There seems to be a connection with the emerging attention for mindfulness courses where the focus is on the experience of the moment, the transition, promoting to exchange our western pro-active approach for a more Asian “being” or “laissé faire” attitude.

In the design world there is a fascination for the ephemeral and the temporal elements of a process, this mentality can be found in projects where the focus is on trying to capture and to archieve the process, to visualize the history of the process within the product itself. A shifting attention from the end result to everything that happens before, visualising the neglected moments. It is a reflective, philisophical approach, slightly linked to the art world.