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About halfway through Unfolded, Peter Schmidt and Nicola Stattmann’s new book on the uses of paper in contemporary design, you get the idea that one volume probably won’t come close to summarizing the material’s current applications and, more importantly, its potential. It’s not just that there’s too much historical or cultural ground to cover; early on Schmidt and Stattmann confess that they “are not interested in [paper’s] function as a bearer of cultural heritage, or even as a means of mass communication,” but are concerned only with the material’s capacity in constructing three-dimensional art and design. Rather, it’s the sheer variety of works—Unfolded showcases paper furniture, sculpture, drawings, clothing, architecture—that makes a comprehensive review difficult.

Schmidt and Stattmann avoid that approach by treating their work as a primer to the field, and emphasizing a wide breadth of high-quality projects by artists like Mieke Miejer, who reverses the normal life of the material by making a wood table out of recycled newspaper; architects like Shigeru Ban, whose Paper Log Houses were first used as temporary housing for victims of the Kobe earthquake in 1995; and scientists like Shinji Suzuki, whose work may soon produce a paper plane capable of returning to Earth from space. The designers use the material in ways as diverse as their backgrounds, and in the hundred projects outlined in the book, paper is cut, stacked, folded, treated, shredded, worn, hung, lit, cooked, carried, and otherwise manipulated, always with unexpected results. Read more…

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Browsing the MoMA Design Store’s new fall catalog this afternoon, I was struck by a photo of Peter Schlumbohm’s 1941 Chemex coffeemaker, which has long been a part of the museum’s permanent collection but is only now being sold through its retail arm. It’s a familiar enough object, and easy to overlook—but what a funny design! Read more…

The James Dyson Award won’t announce a winner until next month, but its PR team is already promoting one “especially innovative” product by an American design student. Nicholas Riddle’s Prio Paper Cast is a stabilizing cast made from intricately woven paper; intended for disaster-relief efforts, the cast is lightweight, ships flat, and includes easy-to-read triage straps with instructions for medical personnel. Riddle’s proposal is one of 20 to move on to the semifinals; its competition includes an intelligent fire extinguisher from France, an ergonomic wheelchair brake from Ireland, and a collapsible electrical plug from the U.K. We’ll report back when the winner is announced in a few weeks.

Located an hour by bus from Poitiers, France, the Boisbuchet summer workshops are among the design world’s best kept secrets. On this sprawling 15th-century country estate, far from the distractions of the studio or the office, designers can recharge their creative energies by learning about aspects of the field that they wouldn’t normally get a chance to explore. Aside from the more conventional short courses in lighting, graphic design, furniture, and architecture, students can experiment with porcelain, glassblowing, jewelry-making—and even chocolate. Read more…

Every Monday until mid-August, first-year graduate students at the Yale School of Architecture are blogging about their progress building an affordable, accessible owner-renter residence in New Haven. Click here to read the previous posts.

Photos: courtesy the Vlock First Year Building Project

The siding saga has finally come to a close. Perhaps more momentous than nailing in the final ridge pieces on the front of the house was taking down the scaffolding, revealing the fruits of our labor. This was the first time we were able to stand back and view the entire house with the siding in place, taking in the sea of Plateau Grey. With the few remaining patches of Tyvek covered over, few of us will miss the paint-crusted rollers, the sawdust of the chop saw, or the balancing act on the scaffolding. Like it or not, the so-called siding blitz is over.

With this mammoth task behind us and the interior entirely painted, the beginning of this week brought a new flavor to our workday: specialization. Read more…

All-nighters and design school go hand in hand, but the night before graduation? Really? Shin Cho and Stuart Helo—two ‘09 Harvard GSD graduates and the partners of Cho+Helo—spent the early-morning hours before their big day on the last-minute assemblage of their first project as architecture professionals: a jagged aluminum pavilion hovering over the lawn outside the GSD’s main building.

First envisioned last September, after Cho+Helo received a grant from the Korean Ministry of Knowledge Economy, the pavilion took nine months to go from rendering to reality. Recently, I spoke to Helo (full disclosure: he is a friend and former classmate) about the logistics of the project. Read more…

Every Monday until mid-August, first-year graduate students at the Yale School of Architecture are blogging about their progress building an affordable, accessible owner-renter residence in New Haven. Click here to read the previous posts.

The crew mounts scaffolding to paint the interior of the owner unit. Photos: courtesy the Vlock First Year Building Project

The issue of affordability has been a subject of discussion since the very first day that our class met with our program director, Adam, back in February. We had all gathered in the basement of the architecture building for our weekly meetings, during which we were introduced to the history, clients, schedule, process, and constraints of the annual Yale Vlock Building Project. Adam raised a question on an issue that many of us were not anticipating to be open for debate: he asked if we were interested in pursuing donations for the house or if we would rather work within the budget we were originally given. If I recall correctly, choosing to stay within budget would result in the use of cheap carpet (gasp) and standard vinyl siding (which, come to think of it, after three weeks of custom cedar siding, sounds amazing!) Naturally, as with the years before us, we thought that the former route would be beneficial to both the process and the outcome. And so, with 49 classmates alongside me (this was possibly the closest thing we’ve had to a class-wide consensus since my classmate Matt was offered free bagels for the site), we agreed to pursue donations as a substantial source of funding for the house.

Fast-forward to July 27. Read more…

 
The Italian manufacturer MDM World announced this morning that its Estrema chair, designed by Massimiliano Della Monaca, has been certified by the folks at Guinness World Records as the (drum roll, please) World’s Lightest Chair. Made from a single layer of carbon fiber, Estrema weighs a mere 1.36 pounds. That is indeed very light. By comparison, Frank Gehry’s aluminum Superlight chair, for Emeco, weighs 6.5 pounds. Heck, some issues of Metropolis weigh more than 1.36 pounds. Despite its light weight, the chair can support about 220 pounds—impressive, but probably not enough for widespread adoption in the States, where the average adult male tips the scales at 190 pounds. 
 

Every Monday until mid-August, first-year graduate students at the Yale School of Architecture are blogging about their progress building an affordable, accessible owner-renter residence in New Haven. Click here to read the previous posts.

The presence of “Jimmy” is noted through the changing board sizes. The denser the boards, the closer you are to Jimmy (cue suspenseful music). Photos: courtesy the Vlock First Year Building Project

As week 13 of the Yale Vlock Building Project draws to a close, many of us are finally feeling the effects of the long 40-hour weeks. And rightfully so, for the last few weeks have been anything but slow. We left last week with a certain sense of accomplishment; we had finished painting the exterior siding, begun installing the birch-plywood ceilings, selected our interior paint color, and cleaned up the interior window trim. The roof was finally complete and the drywall was ready for a fresh coat of paint. All the rapid-fire installation and site work, made possible through our use of prefabricated components—the subject of several previous blog entries—seemed to live up to its promise. That said, none of us was prepared for the task at hand, or the trade-off for using so many standardized elements in the early phases: the tremendously arduous art of fine needlework, known to many of us as the exterior cladding. Read more…

Every Monday until mid-August, first-year graduate students at the Yale School of Architecture are blogging about their progress building an affordable, accessible owner-renter residence in New Haven. Click here to read the previous posts.

Voting slips from exterior-cladding pattern decision, Type C / June 20. Photos: courtesy the Vlock First Year Building Project

The unfinished shell of the house stands before us, a testament to the many decisions that have been made and those that still remain. It seems silent, waiting for the materials and colors that will define and bring life to the frozen form. I am sure that each of us walks through with a different image in our head even six weeks from completion, but that is part of the beauty of this open organizational structure. The initial pressure in decision making from the SIP shop drawings back in early May has faded, and without a cut-and-dry standard we continue to make our way toward determining the design of our house. Read more…