Musical Down Pipes

Aesthetically, I have always hated down pipes on facades - like pit lids, they always seem to be an afterthough which wasn't thought through... Atypical of this, the Funnel Wall in Kunsthofpassage in Dresden, Germany plays music when it rains.

via bloomacious

Investment Banker In Formaldehyde

Living in London, it is impossible to avoid the (hyper)reality of the Global Credit Crunch, every day there are new record breaking statistics on just how bad the situation is - the number of jobs lost, the number of homes repossessed, the falling pound... its seems to be never ending. I can't work out if it really is that dire or if there are just a lot of Indian nationals working in the London media these days. At least I no longer see bankers in expensive suits going home on the tube carrying boxes of their belongings. Which leads me to the best piece of humor I have come across in reference to our current troubled times.

Damien Hirst sets new auction record with ‘Investment Banker in Formaldehyde’

A piece of art by Damien Hirst has set the new record for a single item at auction. The piece entitled ‘Oh Shit’ fetched £2.3bn after frantic bidding by an anonymous investor. The work, which features a Merrill Lynch employee suspended in a tank of formaldehyde secured the highest price yet paid for a single piece of banking history.

It was believed that it was purchased for a private exhibit, and is unlikely to be put on display to the public or auditors, in the immediate future. ‘Pay Day’, a piece comprised of empty envelopes and which was expected to make between 4,000 to 5,000 people happy, eventually went to administrators Price Waterhouse Coopers for well over the asking price.

Art critic Mathias Van-Leer praised Hirst for his courageous decision to sell all these works from his Financial Meltdown period. ‘It is a remarkable that Damien has been able to command these sort of prices,’ he said, ‘especially as we are seeing a lot of similar pieces suddenly coming onto the market.’

The success of the Hirst auction is in contrast to the fortunes of artists and brothers Jake and Dinos Lehman who were unable to find a buyer for their latest work, ‘White Elephant’. This has led some art experts to claim that the market will be unlikely to secure the same sort of money for other historic banking institutions, and some predict that the bubble will burst sooner rather than later. Daily Telegraph art critic Mark Walker-Brice is one of the sceptical voices; ‘I mean we’ve seen this all before, haven’t we? I mean, this is just Northern Rock Bank Clerk, given a transatlantic sheen and passed off as the next big thing.’

Meanwhile, Hirst’s agent said he was delighted at the amount raised by the sale of his latest work. ‘Although we’re a bit worried about where he should deposit the cheque.'

via NewsBiscuit

One Day Poem Pavilion

I have been having an "interesting" time recently with the concept of canopies and shade structures on a project in the Middle East. We suggested 'em > the client wanted 'em > we designed 'em > the client doesn't want 'em anymore > somebody found the shadow studies and realised that we don't actually need 'em > but now the boss wants 'em... just great... anyway, the One Day Poem Pavilion by Jiyeon Sung is an amazing project that tracks the sunlight with a moving poem. These is a time lapse video too. I wonder if this can be made to work on a very large scale.

Psychoanalyst Puppets

Some props to help those of us who over analyze everything and talk to ourselves to get through the day.

"Go nuts with this wacky pack of puppets! You ll get Freud (the father of psychoanalysis), his daughter Anna Freud (a noted child therapist in Britain), Carl Jung (king of the collective unconscious ) and a red chaise lounge so the shrinks can take turns shrinking each other. You and your friends can debate psychological theory, reenact the friendship and breakup of Freud and Jung, and just turn psychoanalytical theory on its head! The box converts to a puppet theater."

available from uncommon goods via boing boing

working together in isolation

Recently I have been working on a project where there are too many designers with very different ideas, none of whom are willing to come to a compromise and merge the ideas into one working concept. This wouldn't be a problem except the client wants a landscape to cut a red ribbon in front of next september and the contractor is already on site pouring concrete (!!).

The inspiration of this chair - the folded sketch, a child’s game where you draw one part of a character not knowing how the previous or next person will draw theirs - may be the only way forward...

via Notcot

ORDOS 100

Project Statement:

"The scope of the project is to Develop 100 hundred villas in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China, for the Client, Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd. FAKE Design, Ai Wei Wei studio in Beijing, has developed the masterplan for the 100 parcels of land and will curate the project, while Herzog and de Meuron have selected the 100 architects to participate. The collection of 100 Architects hail from 27 countries around the globe. The project has been divided into 2 phases. The first phase is the development of 28 parcels while the second phase will develop the remaining 72. Each architect is responsible for a 1000 square meter Villa."

Sounds like a great project.

Reminds me of another great project that was almost too incredible to be true which I came across in a WWILF moment in Paul's library - Commune by the Great Wall "a private collection of contemporary architecture designed by 12 Asian architects. It was exhibited at the 2002 la Biennale di Venezia and awarded a special prize. Commune by the Great Wall was named “A New Architectural Wonder of China” by Business Week in 2005."

More information at ORDOS100
via inhabitat

WOrld BOttle

interesting use of the statistical correlation between homelessness and alcohol abuse...