I recently learned about Rachel and Stephen Kaplan’s concept, “soft fascination.” According to the Kaplans, environmental psychologists, “Experiencing environments that encourage soft fascination provides opportunities to think through situations and make decisions; to reflect on prior experiences and make sense of them; and to develop ideas that can be implemented in the workplace or in personal life.” The environments they mention can usually be found in nature. This is precisely what artist and designer Michele Oka Doner does. She immerses herself in the natural world and comes back with questions and answers that fuel her creations. Case in point is her new design for a landmark pavilion in the recently incorporated City of Doral, in Miami-Dade County.

Pavillion Elevation. Rendering by Local Office Landscape Architecture

A Miami Beach native whose inspiration is heavily influenced by her city’s abundance of nature, be it from the ocean or the flora, Oka Doner has left her mark on her home town, in projects like “Walk on the Beach,” the mile long floor installation that greets passengers at Miami International Airport.

When Armando Codina who, with his daughter Ana, is developing the Downtown Doral project, went looking for something that would make a statement about the new independent municipality, he was searching something that “would give it a heart.” Having chosen Oka Doner, he says, “She was the natural artist to do something special in our new city, so the selection was easy,” Codina explains. “Michele is a world-renowned artist whose roots are very much a part of the history of Miami–Dade, having grown up in Miami Beach,” he adds. Read more…

On Monday night, a crowd of 200 assembled at a construction site in Harlem for the first panel in a series called “Changing Architecture.” The discussion, moderated by Metropolis editor-in-chief Susan S. Szenasy, focused on the need for architects to develop a wider skill set that will enable them to take a more involved role in the building process of their projects.

Among the evening’s panelists was Peter Gluck, founder and principal at the firm Gluck+. He is a strong believer in architects getting their hands dirty at the construction site, working with communities, and being held responsible for a project coming in on budget.  He remarked that “Architectural thinking is seen as a luxury item not relevant to the real needs of the development process…Architects need to acquire multi-faceted knowledge and accept previously shunned responsibilities in order to change this perception.”

Design-build firms like Gluck+ have established successful practices by creating teams of skilled architects who have a firm grasp of making a building and everything that goes with it—a deep understanding of how their designs will be made by the craftsmen and builders involved. By utilizing this knowledge and following their work through the entire building process, the firm can ensure that the quality and cost of the finished building is in keeping with the needs of the developer and the surrounding community. Read more…

It seems somewhat silly to publish a book filled with pictures of nothing but trademarks; after all, how useful can a book be that deliberately shows pictures of the things that already permeate everyday life? There are trademarks on the clothes I wear, on my coffee cup, and on nearly every product I see on store shelves. One would be hard-pressed to find a more ubiquitous subject matter.

You wouldn’t be wrong to ask such questions, however, Marks of Excellence is much more than a catalog of brand logos. Revised and expanded for its latest edition, the book is filled with over 1,000 color illustrations, each one carefully selected to be an object lesson on some aspect of trademarks the purpose they serve. Used as a launching pad, this collection of trademarks is able to draw connections and bring insight to almost every aspect of their use. Read more…

Lower Manhattan’s Battery Park City has seen several major disasters in recent memory, a fact that was not lost on the presenters at Thursday’s topping-out ceremony of the area’s new SeaGlass carousel. “This community, you cannot bring us down,” said Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer, who spoke at the ceremony. “You can attack us, flood us… but we are about building and creating.”

Borough President Scott Stringer speaks at the SeaGlass topping-out ceremony.

The carousel, designed by New York firm WXY, will be the centerpiece of the newly redesigned Battery Park. Several speakers at the ceremony lauded it not just as a new neighborhood landmark and beautiful work of design, but as a symbol of the resilience and strength of a community that has endured both the 9/11 attacks and hurricane Sandy.

Attendees admired the completed exterior. Inside, banners were placed to indicate the scale of the carousel seats. Read more…

As Neil Harbisson lifted a red sock up to the end of the narrow, black device extending from the back of his head, a note sounded. After a moment he set down the red sock and reached for a blue sock, this one playing a different note as he brought it to the sensor suspended over his forehead. Repeating the gesture several times, new notes sounded for each different sock - he was playing a “color concert”. Although Harbisson cannot see colors, the device attached to his head, known as an eyeborg, allows him to perceive them through the frequencies they emit, including many which are not perceptible to normal human eyes. The performance was a fitting end to the 2013 PSFK Conference, a day of talks, panels, and presentations centering on the latest in technology, design, and brand innovation.

Neil Harbisson performs a concert using his eyeborg and different colored socks.

Much of last week’s PSFK conference, which took place April 12^th at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Lower Manhattan, centered on the connections between humans and technology, and how advances in technology are changing how we relate to the world. Other major topics of the day were strategies for successful branding, and several plans to reshape New York City for the better in the coming years.

Harbisson, who in addition to his concert was also the day’s first speaker, explored the possibility of augmenting human senses with technology, similar to how he has done. He believes that, in a way, we are all handicapped in that our natural five senses do not allow us to perceive the full range of inputs from around us. Through the use of technology, our range of perception can be expanded and our awareness increased. His group, the Cyborg Foundation, works to help people augment their senses through technology, as well as advocating on behalf of cyborgs like himself.

Douglas Rushkoff discusses the phenomenon of “present shock.”

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As much as the boundaries between design and art fade away (at DesignMiami galleries sell design through an art market structure, such as a $50,000 limited edition of 3 “designer” chairs), yet we continue to need to categorize and make distinctions between the two. And when we can’t see the distinction, bewildered, we cry for an explanation.

A recent post here by Starre Vartan elaborated on one of the defining factors of that distinction: the relationship between the creative and the commercial and what it means to both. This was a great insight. Then my visit to Indianapolis and the new art hotel brought even more clarity to the topic, a case study for discussion.

The Alexander Hotel (a 209 room property, part of the CityWay redevelopment complex in downtown Indianapolis) is the result of an initiative by Indiana developer Brad Chambers, a long-time art philanthropist and collector. With the assistance of the curatorial team, lead by chief curator Dr. Lisa Freiman of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Chambers wanted to bring to the project the inspiration that art, his passion, gives him and, in the process, bring to Indianapolis something new and unique.

Beyond a comprehensive and thoughtful art collection put together exclusively for the hotel, 14 artists were commissioned to create site-specific pieces for the property. All pieces make relevant statements and combine successfully to bring the trendy art hotel category to America’s Midwest. Undeniably, the piece de resistance is Jorge Pardo’s “design” for the bar and lounge, Plat99.

Pardo was given one of the most prominent parts of the project to design. The bar and lounge area is a glass box slightly pulled off the main volume of the Gensler designed building, hovering on the second floor at the corner of the busy intersection where the hotel is located, its curtain walls serving as a teaser, inviting passersby for a closer look at what’s inside.

Read more…

The Tulip Collection bathtub, featured in Metropolis’ February 2013 issue “Productsphere”

All too often fragility is accepted as part of manufactured luxury goods; the product’s short lifespan considered as luxurious as its disposability. With the recent release of their WETMAR™ update, WETMAR BiO™, Wetstyle set out to combine the purity of environmentally-sound material with industrial durability into the foundation of their sumptuous product lines. And as with all their products, WETMAR BiO is produced in the Wetstyle factory in Montreal.

WETMAR BiO craftsmanship includes hand polishing

WETMAR BiO craftsmanship includes surface buffing

Wetstyle’s entire product line now incorporates the updated material including its five new collections, designed to work with the enhancements of WETMAR BiO. To see how, check out the Wetstyle featured storyboard on the Metropolis Pinterest page. Read more…

If they are to be believed, designers cherish their computers, their books, and their cameras. At least, that’s what Frank Phillipin and Billy Kiosoglou were told by most of the 50 designers they interviewed for their book I Used to Be a Design Student. The book, from Laurence King Publishing, lays out a series of profiles of designers, both the way they are now, and as they were as students. Compressed into one volume, it creates a frank look at nearly every aspect of a designer’s life that can be expressed on a page—their process, their inspirations, their projects, their favorite food, their weight. The list goes on.

With the goal of understanding how their processes and motivations have changed, the authors have catalogued the creative evolution of these designers from their days as students to their present careers. There’s no road map to success here, but a trove of interesting insights and, for the aspiring designer, it is full of sound advice that will lead in the right direction. Read more…

EVERYONE DESERVES GOOD DESIGN was the mantra of Public Interest Design Week (PID Week), anchored by the 13^th annual Structures for Inclusion (SFI) conference. Hosted by the University of Minnesota’s College of Design (Cdes) in Minneapolis, from March 19-24, PID Week was animated by nearly 500 attendees – architects, designers, students, professors, the media and interested public from across the country, and a dozen or so from far off places - who embedded themselves in the thought, language, and practice resonating at the intersection of good design and public service. Branded in orange and black across T-shirts and carrying bags, the phrase EVERYONE DESERVES GOOD DESIGN was visually underscored by three black and orange icons titled Products (cube) Places (triangle/map pin-like shape) and Processes (circle).

PID Week attendees at reception and gallery at the College of Design’s Rapson Hall, U of MN. On view is the exhibition Rural Design: A New Design Discipline. Photo Credit:  College of Design

According to John Cary, of PublicInterestDesign.org and chair of PID Week, this was a first-of-its-kind conference.  It did not disappoint. “We decided to unite otherwise disparate events, in an effort to combine resources and audiences,” wrote Cary in a post-conference email-chat. “Our goal with the expanded slate of events was to appeal to the design disciplines more broadly as well as other stakeholders, such as beneficiaries, clients, and funders.”

Read more…

What is Instagram? How do you use it? Why would you use it?

KI’s Aiden McGuire, IIDA’s Christa Payton, MarketSavant Group’s Dana Van Den Heuvel and Metropolis’ Kimberly Taylor and Grace Ehlers deliberated on the power of the social networking tool during the hour-long KI Social Media University webinar, entitled “InstaWham! The Power of Instagram in the Design Community”. Despite some skeptics in the audience (one quarter responded to a live poll that they felt Instagram was a fad), 69% of the audience felt that they would try Instagram out after the webinar for new product ideas and inspiration. And despite the 66% of the audience who ranked Pinterest as higher on their design industry “Wham-o-Meter,” the panelists agreed that Instagram’s average of 10,000 likes per second was a force to be reckoned within the design community and our global community at large.

If you missed our InstaWHAM webinar, you can view it in its entirety here:

InstaWHAM! The Power of Instagram in the Design Community from Metropolis magazine on Vimeo.