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No More Vagina? Qatar Releases Designs for 2nd World Cup Stadium 2022

one small seed — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 14:40:26 +0000

With the world glued to the screen for 2014 Soccer World Cup, the timing is spot-on for Qatar to release designs for the second 2022 World Cup Stadium. Called Al Bayt Stadium, the stadium comes after the first proposal by Zaha Hadid Architects for the Al Wakrah Stadium — which quickly earned the title of ‘The Vagina Stadium’. The Al Bayt Stadium is said to reflect Qatar’s proud cultural heritage and is based on the Bayt Al Sha’ar, a black and white tent used traditionally by local nomadic people.

Incredible Stadiums proposed for Qatar’s Second 2022 World Cup Stadium

Here are some of the comments people left below the video on YouTube. Read on for images of the Second design … Feel free to continue the conversation by leaving a comment below or tweeting us at @onesmallseedSA.

jackreaper131

‘This is actually a sea shell not a vagina’

Joe Joel1

‘Sounds and even looks good but it will never happen. We are living in very liquid times. The way we planed for the future has changed even if we have not kept up with the change’

Pierre Louis1

‘The country is too small. When all these fans get in there the temperature will reach 190 degrees. Completely impossible. I wish United Emirates was close to them .That way they both can do it together.’

znekile7

‘hahahhaa designer out.’

Image unveiling of the Al Bayt Stadium…..

image: © Neoscape, Inc

Images: © Neoscape, Inc.

Check out our article “VAGINA ACTIVISM | SHAMELESS PROVOCATION OR CONCEPTUAL ART?” on one small seed here.

The Aesthetics of Science: Iris Van Herpen’s Voltage Haute Couture Collection

one small seed — Fri, 23 Aug 2013 06:50:24 +0000

For her fourth collection presented in Paris as a guest member of the Chambre syndicale de la Haute Couture, Iris van Herpen explores the electricity of the body in her ostentatious Voltage Haute Couture Collection.

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Iris Van Herpen’s Voltage Haute Couture Collection

Experimenting with its use in the field of creation, this collection seeks to portray its tangible movement and power.

This ability of light and electricity to change states and bodies is reproduced using the most innovative technologies. Described as an alchemist approach to fashion, Van Herpen’s designs perpetually embrace new collaborations with artists, architects and researchers. As part of the show she collaborated with new Zealand artist Carlos Van Camp, echoing his notion of controlling high voltage electricity and its interaction with the human body.

Van Camp experiments with three million volts running through bodies.

Iris Van Herpen’s Voltage Haute Couture Collection

Van Herpen shares Canadian architect Philip Beesley’s fascination with materials and structures.

They focus specifically on how the reaction of chemistry and electricity causes structures to respond to their environment and react as living beings.

Iris van Herpen is also know for being today’s leading fashion designer in the use of 3D printing. Drawing on the idea of movement, the flexible 3D printed dresses are a revolution, a result of collaborations with Neri Oxman of the MIT Media Lab as well as Keren Oxman and Prof. Craig Carter of MIT with Stratasys, and architect Julia Koerner with Materialise.

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Iris Van Herpen’s Voltage Haute Couture Collection

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Iris Van Herpen’s Voltage Haute Couture Collection

Voltage Haute Couture credits:

Frontstage Photographer – Michel Zoeter
Photographer – Ronald Stoops
Backstage Photographer – Boy Kortekaas and Philip Beesley

full credits for Voltage Haute Couture

source: irisvanherpen.com

No Rules Just Architecture

one small seed — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 08:41:58 +0000

NRJA stands for No Rules Just Architecture, a title that could not be more fitting for this Latvian architecture firm. Their flashy designs have caught the eyes of prospective clients around the world but it was their newest development that caught the eye of one small seed.

Image: nrja.lv

Geometric domes have been around for years, except NRJA has found a way to make them portable and accessible. Their domes are designed specifically for remote locations and can withstand all types of weather. The dome is meant for adventurous people, if you fancy staying at five star hotels and living in mansions, this is not the place for you. The upper section of the dome is divided into two seemingly spacious bedrooms and the lower half is all open with the exception of the staircase running through the middle. Overall, the space looks rather homey if you don’t mind feeling like you’re living in a giant snow globe.

image: nrja.lv

The design is not only edgy but also eco friendly. Four underground ducts contain the air supply and circulation. To keep you cool when it’s hot, the dome has a flap at the top that can be adjusted. And for those snowy winter nights, there is an all natural fireplace with a heating pipe to radiate warmth and comfort throughout the home. NRJA seems to have thought of everything when they dreamed this to life, but there is one costly downside to living in a dome: furniture. Hopefully NRJA has connections with some innovative interior designers because a house in the shape of a dome deserves some seriously creative equipment to match its eccentric vibe.

image: nrja.lv

images: nrja.lv

Pritzker Conceptual, Toyo Ito

one small seed — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 09:30:48 +0000

Seeking to concurrently direct the physical and virtual worlds within his work, Toyo Ito has always been at the forefront of architectural development. Just awarded the Pritzker Award, Ito once again assures and restores the urge to push the bridges of architecture.

Kaohsiung Statium via bestourism.com

Porta Fira Hotel by Dorma world

The Seoul-born mastermind relocated with his family to Tokyo at age two, and after the death of his father at age 12, worked within his family business making misco until enrolling at the University of Tokyo. While being a student, his love and life was increasingly steered towards architecture. Toyo worked for Kiyonori Kikutake Architect and Associates from 1965 to 1969, and in 1971 he started his own studio in Tokyo named Urbot, but changed to Toyo Ito & Associates in 1979. Since then he has expanded his works to the world and has grown in favour and stature.

Modern library by Baan-Photography

Throughout most of his career he has been an acclaimed and recognized architect, of which the evidence is his ten-years-in-a-row nomination for the Pritzker prize before, finally, being granted the honour of winning this year. The prize was designed in order to honour a living architect whose work demonstrates an arrangement of qualities: talent, vision, and commitment. And more importantly, it aims to reward work produced that has a consistent and significant contribution to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.

“Creator of timeless buildings,”

is just one of the many praises sung for him by the Pritzker Jury, who feel that his work has always allowed for expression and dimension. Ito has described architecture to be the ‘clothing’ for urban inhabitants and has identified that, with every work completed, he feels more and more inadequate and therefore moves his energy towards new projects.

image for Domus

“I will never fix my architectural style and never be satisfied with my works.”

Sendai image by Nacasa & Partners

Much like any genius, his fixation on developing his ideas and having the world look to him as an alumni of architecture could move Toyo Ito even further.

Post by Jared Ethan Blake

Images via toyo-ito.co.jp, domusweb.it, dorma.es, bestourism.com, nacasa.co.jp, iwan.com

WATCH: one small seed magazine’s issue 25 preview

one small seed — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 12:31:14 +0000

one small seed magazine issue 25 – “The Bigger Picture” – out now! Check out our content preview and keep posted to onesmallseed.com for full interviews, videos and much more coming this week… Length 02:18

one small seed’s 25th issue Content Preview from one small seed on Vimeo.

Screenshot

‘el B': new architecture from Spain

one small seed — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:29:27 +0000

Spain – a country that already hosts a number of famous buildings, like the Guggenheim in Central Bilbao on the waterfront and The City of Art and Sciences in Valencia, now has a new addition to her diverse architecture oeuvre. The recently completed auditorium and performing centre, known as the ‘el B’ , is a project run by Madrid-based firm Selgascano.

The project has made waves with the controversial ‘el B’ building running a kilometre along the Alfonso XII dock in Cartagena, Spain. There is a 20-meter space between the building and water, serving as a promenade creating a waterfront-like feel. The building is at the pinnacle of contemporary architecture with its clear and definite geometric design. The use of aluminium and plastic as materials gave the architects the ability to play with colour and gives the ‘el B’ a sense of transparency and clarity.

Words: Bianca Budricks

Sources: trendland.com, designboom.com, metalocus.es

images: designboom.com, iwan.com

Orchard Library by HMC Architects

one small seed — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:28:27 +0000

Officials at Orchard School in San Jose, CA, United States chose to improve their outdated campus library. Improving student access to technology, providing adequate space for a growing book collection and creating a central focus for the school were the organizers primary goals.

The result is a modern building that is attractive for both students and teachers, as well as eco-friendly. The project is currently registered with the United States Green Building Council for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification. LEED is an internationally recognized mark of excellence providing building owners and operators with a framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions. The Orchard school library utilizes a high-performance exterior building envelope, interior day lighting, natural ventilation, photovoltaic panels, upgraded mechanical systems, green-certified interior furnishings and finishes, water-saving plumbing fixtures, and careful siting and orientation to reduce solar heat gain all to achieve a high level of sustainable design.

Dating back to the 1850s, Orchard School is one of the oldest operating schools in Northern California. Its library, located at the heart of the campus, connects the elementary and middle school areas. Because of that ideal central location, a renovation and expansion of the 3,000-SF space made more sense than new construction elsewhere. Using the centralized location to advantage, the design team planned for opposing elementary and middle school entries to the library, thus defining a spatial organization that acknowledges the distinct identity of each group.

With its location tucked between stucco-clad, flat roofed 1990s-era buildings, designers and school officials knew they needed to distinguish the library from its surroundings. The expanded and renovated library responds to this challenge through the use of a metallic composite-panel façade with zinc plate accents and abundant glass, giving the library a striking aesthetic reflective of its position in the heart of Silicon Valley. The angular, sloping windows emphasize the building entries and focus interior vistas obliquely toward view corridors. They taper the building’s scale in response to its smaller users, and effectively block the unattractive view of an adjacent building’s blank rear wall and mechanical equipment, yet maintain a continuous sense of connection with the landscaped plaza outside.

Inside, the dramatic full-height glass brings natural light deep into the expanded 6,000-SF space, a drastic departure from the obstructed views of its predecessor. A natural wood screen, locally crafted from FSC-certified wood, helps to define space and provide boundaries without compromising supervision. With the circulation desk installed in the center of the space, librarians are now able to survey students while greeting anyone coming and going. Dark existing instructional spaces for elementary and middle school classes were relocated to corners filled with natural north light; the renovated existing space, with no access to windows, now houses stacks for the 18,000-volume collection, along with a new technology lab for up to 36 students.

The library has been hugely successful in creating a focal point for this rambling campus, providing new instructional opportunities, and attracting student, staff, and community users; as a bonus, its natural light and spatial quality have made it the most popular spot on campus for after-school faculty meetings and training sessions. The Orchard Library is a testament to the passion and creativity of all those involved in its creation, especially the talented people at HMC Architects.

Clearly an architectural marvel, the Orchard Library sets new precedent for educating grade school children. The library incorporates state-of-the-art technology to teach the future generation life in their modern world. Students benefit from an improved sense of community, access to technology and the profound sense that adults care about their education. Crumbling facilities send the message to students and teachers, even parents, that education is not important. The Orchard Library, in contrast, provides a shining example of a community where adults take early childhood education seriously. These adults–parents, teachers, architects and administrators–have put their money where their mouths are to improve the lives of the next generation.

Source: King , Victoria . “Orchard Library / HMC Architects” 23 Jan 2012. ArchDaily. Accessed 30 Jan 2012. http://www.archdaily.com/201366/orchard-library-hmc-architects/
Photos: David Wakely
http://www.davidwakely.com/

Contemporary South African Art in Brazil

one small seed — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:33:29 +0000

The work of top South African artists like William Kentridge, Roger Ballen and Mary Sibande is currently showing in Brazil, as part of an exhibition of contemporary South African art at The Niterói Contemporary Art Museum (Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói, or MAC).

Situated in the city of Niterói in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, MAC is one of the city’s most prominent landmarks due to its majestic modernist design. The saucer-shaped UFO-inspired structure is set on a cliffside, at the bottom of which is a beach.

The exhibition, entitled RECONSTRUCTIONS – CONTEMPORARY ART FROM SOUTH AFRICA, features post-apartheid South African artwork, by a range of artists from the globally acclaimed to the emerging, all of whose work is seen to subvert or challenge sociopolitical and cultural representations, creating new spatio-temporal relations.

Reconstructions features the work of David Goldblatt, Diana Hyslop, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Kagiso Pat Mautloa, Lawrence Lemaoana, Lerato Shadi, Mary Sibande, Roger Ballen, Sam Nhlengethwa, Santu Mofokeng, Thenjiwe Nkosi, Tracey Rose and William Kentridge.

According to the curator, Daniella Géo:

[Their work is] informed by collage, aesthetic and logic, and based on repetition – whether through appropriation and re-contextualization, through the accumulation or the use of series, of reenactments or montages, of embroidery and sewing, of assemblage or collage itself, of deconstructing to reconstruct – the artworks that are exhibited here, through the artistic gestures invested in them, do not only encourage us to inquire about their genesis but also signal themselves as reconstructions..

'Her Majesty, Queen Sophie' by Mary Sibande

Work on the exhibition include’s Sibande’s ‘Her Majesty, Queen Sophie’ (2010) exhibited on a billboard-size poster, photographs from Ballen’s Boarding House (2009) and Kentridge’s renowned animated short film Felix in Exile (1994).

The exhibition is notable as an unprecedented international profile on contemporary South African art, and one which is drawing invaluable attention to the South African art world, giving it long overdue recognition for its value as a worldclass creative industry.

Géo explains the relevance she finds in contemporary South African art, motivating the exhibition:

Twenty-one years after the announcement of the re-democratizing of South Africa, in February 1990, the artistic production of the country has not permitted that the much-demanded end of apartheid would lead to a crisis of creation, as some critics had feared.

If South African art no longer is in the service of the struggle against the segregationist regime, it has sustained the dynamism of the artistic strategies by expanding its aesthetic, formal and operational models as of its massive internationalization and the fostering of domestic infrastructure. At the same time, the remaining sociocultural contradictions and the repositioning, still underway, of distinct identities, have preserved the need for questioning that goes beyond the formal aspects of art.

With 11 official languages and comprised of different ethnic groups, including tribal societies, this young democracy is seeking to adjust itself to its plurality and to reduce the gaps that had been amplified by apartheid. For their part, the visual arts have confirmed themselves as a platform of fundamental reflection, by which a moving present, formed of times past and in constant evolution – is put into question.

In the midst of the multiplicity that is common in contemporary practice, as if responding to the indispensability to reorganize memories, revise concepts, reestablish paths and reconstitute uniqueness, the notion of (re)construction seems to be prevailing in the work processes and the thought systems of very different authors.

'Scavenging' (2004) from Boarding House by Roger Ballen

After the very successful FIFA World Cup putting South Africa on the map as a legitimate global player, and being in the upward climb out of worldwide recession, it seems the country is finally feeling the effects of its long struggle.

Reconstructions runs from 19 March to 15 May 2011.

Exhibition information courtesy of MAC. Architecture images courtesy of Unusual Architecture.

THE LAND OF GIANTS

one small seed — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 07:31:03 +0000

Landsnet is an Icelandic electric company. About 80% of the electricity produced by Landsnet comes from green sustainable sources. In 2008, Landsnet set out a high voltage pylon design competition. The winners of this competition, Choi + Shine Architects of Boston, MA , USA, were also awarded the Boston Society of Architect’s Unbuilt Architecture award late last year. Their original design helped change the way the world sees landmark structures such as electric pylons. The project was given the name “The Land of Giants”.

The ‘standing’ position of these pylons changes, as sometimes electrical lines may ascend on a hill, the pylon posture is that of a climbing person- in that way, the pressure from holding the wires is reduced. Each pylon is assembled in “kit parts”, which include; a torso, fore arm, upper leg, hand, and the materials used to build the pylon steel, glass, and concrete. These iconic structures bring with them change, and it is this sort of solutions oriented thinking that make design the powerful force that it is.

Choi and Shine Architects founders Jin Choi and Thomas Shine are both former students of the Yale University’s School of Architecture. The two joined forces in 2003 to form what they call today a company “specializing in beautiful, optimistic and thoughtful designs”.

Images courtesy of Choi+ Shine Architects

The Ecomo Home – architect Pietro Russo published in Arch Daily

one small seed — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 04:01:07 +0000

Showcased in issue 14 of one small seed magazine, The Ecomo Home project by architect Pietro Russo has been published in the internationally renowned architecture website Arch Daily (www.archdaily.com).

Take a look at issue 14 in our online magazine section and read more about what an eco-friendly home is all about and how the three important elements – Sleep, Play and Live – are addressed, from conception through to execution.