Cy Kim: Looking Out Week 6

This work table is a collaboration between two French designers, Mathilde Roman and Pauline Androlous. Their approach was mostly driven by their desire to create a clutter free space that can induce creativity. The storage and organization spaces are refreshingly new and innovative. The table includes dowels of various sizes that hold or prop up various items, as well as a piece of elastic textile that is stretch on the underside of the table (that can store sheets of drawings or a laptop) then comes out and stretches over a void in the table (to hold tools and such). The joinery at the legs and the bracing of the table is quite unique in that it emulates the form of a twig. It is quite baffling how they managed to create a unique design from typical components and I want it.

Cy Kim: Looking Out Week 5

Three Baskets of Knoweldge, David Trubridge,  Milan Design Week 2009

This light piece is inspired by a Maori mythology about the beginning of life when a demigod, Tane, ascended to the heavens in seek of knowledge on how to live life. He brought back to earth three baskets(kete) of knowledge that hold different contents: Kete Aronui (knowledge of nature, body), Kete Tuarui (rationality, mind) and Kete Tuaatea (knowledge of spirituality, spirit). According to the myth, which resonates with current ideals, these three needs to be balanced for a harmonious life; however, rational knowledge seems to dominate over the other two. The installation aims to represent the three different components of life in a harmonious balance.

Kete Aronui is made of 1.5mm caramelised bamboo plywood, held together with plastic clips. Tuauri is made of aluminum and Tuaatea is made of polycarbonate. 

Cy Kim: Looking Out Week 4

Graftwerks was commissioned to create a 1,100 s.f rooftop garden on a building from the 1850s in Greenwich village. The program consists of: seating, planting boxes, canopy and an outdoor shower. The furniture requirements are not considered as individual components but instead are part of the six parallel ruled-strips that roll or furl upwards. In other words, the deck starts to do some crazy sh*t to form furniture or planting beds.

Cy Kim: Looking Out Week 3

Normally I associate with the term wood with a plank. Pretty lame for someone who wants to be an Architect but in all honesty the psychological connection is intrinsic. Anyways, March studio managed to take something  so bland and employed it in a very unconventional manner (3,500 plank stacks on stacks). The undulating wall incorporates various shelving spaces so not only is the wall just an aesthetic statement it is also highly functional. The wall holds onto Aesop (an Australian skin care company) products. The store sits on Rue Saint-Honoré, a historical part of Paris, and was inspired by Parisian parquet floors.

Cy Kim: Looking Out Week 2

Sensing Spaces
Kengo Kuma Architects
Installation at Royal Academy of Arts

Seven architecture firms were invited to create site specific installations at the Royal Academy of Arts, that would engage the viewers to fully experience space through their different senses. It is different from many other architecture exhibitions, in that it does not display flat drawings (plans, sections...etc) of the work but the actual three dimensional forms themselves, giving viewers true experience through encounter with the form,  touch, sound, lighting, proportions and so on.

Kengo Kuma's design incorporates multiple bamboo strips woven with another to create pyramid-like structure. The thin materials and the minimal lighting create a ghostly frame presence in the room that people could walk into. Another main emphasis was to engage the sense of smell in the experience and in this case the "experiencers" could smell faint wafts of bamboo.

Cy Kim: Looking Out Week 1

The Float Table

The float table is a set of magnetic wooden cubes held together by tensile cables. It is an interesting project not only because the cubes are levitating in a fixed sequence but also because of the material choice. Wood is not a material that conducts current let alone magnetize and so the visual of wooden blocks repelling each other is intriguing. In another sense, the wood cladding was an appropriate choice as it is a light material that is "levitate-able".

Designed by: Rock Paper Robot