Whoever said that reading was a religious experience was right, especially when taking a visit to Selexyz
Dominicanen in Maastricht, Netherlands.
Having just won the Lensvelt de Architect Interior Prize 2007, this
newest addition to the Selexyz book chain is well worth the visit to
this medieval city if you are ever in the area.
Erected inside a former 800 year old Dominican church, this bookstore
is said to hold the largest stock of books in English in Maastricht, one
of the oldest cities in the country.
It was always going to be a challenging task for Amsterdam based architects Merkx + Girod who
designed the space, to stay true to the original character and charm of
the church, whilst also achieving a desirable amount of commercial
space (there was only an available floor area of 750 m2, with a
proposed retail space of 1200 m2). Taking advantage of the massive
ceiling, both have been achieved through the construction of a
multi-storey steel structure which houses the majority of the books.
This is one giant bookshelf, with stairs and elevators taking shoppers
and visitors alike, up to the heavens (mind the pun), to roof of the
church.
To maintain a sense of symmetrical balance in the space, lower tables
of best sellers and latest releases have been added to either side, and
of course a small cafe at the back for readers to relax and enjoy a hot
drink.
Overall a great example of how with clever thinking, spatial solutions
can both achieve a suitable retail presence, whilst still respecting
and remaining true to the original structure. By Brendan Mc Knight
Chances are if you talk to any CEO within the
traditional corporation model they will most likely agree that
productivity is primarily measured in monetary terms (i.e. profits and
margins). If numbers continually rise or remain stable, then
change within an organization should be avoided at all costs. If,
at any time, productivity declines, the CEO will undoubtedly be the
first to take notice, and a top-down chain of events could result in
layoffs and downsizing and consequently evoke fear and panic from the
bottom up through the ranks.
But what about a change to the physical environment within which people
operate – create – innovate? Most companies adapted to the
so-called ‘open plan’ lining employees up in rows of cube-shaped spaces
essentially allowing working minds to adjust according to stimulus
created in the workplace.
Individuals who became accustomed to hiding inside their own closed off
sanctuaries were suddenly forced into listening and discussing openly
and candidly work-related problems and ideas abandoning the ability of
retreating into isolation. Those who had a difficult time acclimating
were either kicked out or discredited for not being able to operate
effectively.
During this phase in the evolution of work space design many larger
companies who could afford to do so, spent money on architecturally
impressive buildings from the outside – modern, sleek, media-attracting
structures – while simultaneously neglecting following through within
where the work generally takes shape.
The office cube became synonymous with monotonous, uninspiring highly
systematic office space. A new era of work space design was
dawning, and design professionals across the world began to seriously
consider the practices of an organization as an essential prerequisite
for subsequent design briefs.
Jump Studios in London have made a substantial contribution to the new
generation of work spaces in their innovative design for the Red Bull
Headquarters. Ideas about work environment design centered around
feelings associated with adrenaline and energy – directly associated
with the brand itself. The offices are spread across three floors
in a nineteenth century building in the West End. Visitors are received
at the main reception from the top floor – an area that serves as the
social space for the employees complete with a bar, café, various
meeting areas as well as the central boardroom. A continuous
carbon fiber feature links the entire space together – starting as a
canopy outside the building, winding inside and around the boardroom,
through the reception area, enclosing space for an actual slide between
floors, and finally forming an additional informal meeting area on the
lowest level. This ramp-like feature is a direct reference to the
various extreme sports associated with Red Bull.
A number of projects have also been completed by the Danish company of
Bosch & Fjord that fulfill the changing needs of work space
design. One recent project saw the creation of a series of
meeting rooms, a reception area, a café and several meeting spaces for
the Lego Group in Billund, Denmark – where the majority of the world’s
Lego products are conceived, produced and manufactured. In the
hands-on world of a company such as Lego, creative talent thrive in
dynamic spaces that encourage interaction among people, products and
thought, and the Bosch & Fjord design team successfully followed
through by producing meeting rooms and furniture that truly
inspire.
And what about adaptability for the changing needs of an
organization? Again, Bosch & Fjord believe that people should
not accommodate a room; a room should accommodate the people. In
an office, often the physical surroundings need to be shaped according
to what is happening within the company. In this sense, the
social aspect of design eliminates conventional hierarchies among
employees, and thereby enhances communal exchange and
communication. Bosch and Fjord created a furniture system for
Innovation Lab’s new space at the IT University in Copenhagen. Rooms
are designed within raw shipping crates that include three types
of workstations: a small meeting room, a kitchen box and a large
worktable that are packed, unpacked, arranged and rearranged with ease
and flexibility.
A new model without guidelines or conformity has been established for
work place design yielding visually interesting and mentally
stimulating environments. Steve Jobs hired Bohlin Cywinki Jackson
to design the gigantic Pixar Animation Studios outside of San Francisco
(BCJ have also designed ten Apple Stores worldwide). While Jobs
insisted on including a swimming pool, soccer field, basketball court
and fitness center, his main concern was about the longevity of the
design.
The interior space also includes a 10,000 square foot atrium used as a
reception and lounge area, a café, screening rooms and a large
theatre. The workspaces are laid out in 46,500 square foot wings
accommodating offices for the 650-person staff. Interesting,
office spaces are individual and full enclosed set out in units of six
– each around a central meeting area.
The San Francisco based firm Garcia + Francica installed the fit-outs
based on Jobs’ recommendation of mid-century classics and his love of
color. Pieces from Cassina, Ligne Roset, Eames, Aalto and Platner
can be found throughout the entire space. Perhaps the most
impressive aspect is a series of handwoven Tibetan floor coverings that
add a level of comfort to the large office areas.
The Los Angeles based Clive Wilkinson Architects designed the space for
Google’s headquarters – known at the Googleplex with a combination of
open and closed spaces allowing for maximum flexibility for all members
of the organization. Employees are grouped in three or four-person
clusters - and each shared space includes a meeting area with sofas.
Other office amenities include a fitness center, spa complete with
massage rooms, various video and table games spread throughout the
complex as well as a full service café and snack rooms. Again
vibrant colors are splashed around the space – colored glass panels,
bright red walls, green, grass-textured flooring – all set against
white work stations.
Ultimately there seems to be no general guidelines set that reveal how
to create the perfect office environment. From the designer
perspective, it becomes apparent to understand the type of work that
will be carried out in the space, and plan accordingly.
The cookie-cutter open-plan office spaces are no longer an effective
means of stimulating creativity. Physical dimensions such as
light and surrounding noise undoubtedly affect the way people work with
one another. Even subtle alterations in the color of a wall or
the angle of a work station may result in highly sustainable creative
thinking efforts.
Not everyone does their best work from their own desk either.
Individual work spaces may serve as an organizational area – a home
base to return after meeting with coworkers in a nearby meeting room –
or in a shared informal conference space – or even after a competitive
round of ping pong or foosball.
New and improved stimuli have only just
begun to inspire a new way of working and relating to our corporate
peers.
Forget about wandering through an art gallery and wondering if you’re
the only one who has no idea what anything means. Hannes Broecker
has brilliantly invited the cultural elite to grab a glass at an
exhibition in Dresden, Germany, and drink away the art.
Regardless of what we do or do not understand about art, we can all
agree, it stimulates our senses. Broecker has aroused our sense of
taste (not to mention eliminated the need of elbowing our way to the
bar) by hanging flat, glass containers with a variety of cocktails in
the exhibition space. As the night progressed, the levels of the
multi-coloured infusions diminished. By the end of the event, the art,
itself, ran dry, and empty drinking glasses were returned to where they
were originally placed. By Andrew J Wiener (spotted by CH reader, Chris Bothge)
The latest unexpected fashion pairing comes from Finland’s 56-year-old design powerhouse, Marimekko, and the King of Shoes, Manolo Blahnik.
Blahnik Spring/Summer 2008 collection will include shoes in the
venerable Marimekko pattern Mini-Unikko (shoe on left).
Maija Isola designed the pattern in 1964 in protest to Marimekko’s
founder and mastermind Armi Ratia’s pronouncement that there will not
be floral patterns in Marimekko. Unikko not only melted Ms. Ratia’s
heart but it has become one of the most enduring and recognizable of
Marimekko patterns. The other Marimekko Blahnik shoes will be adorned
in the more graphic BonBon pattern.
Apparently, Blahnik had decided to base his latest collection on the
wonderful architectural lines he saw in Hagia Sophia, Turkey. He then
came upon some Marimekko fabrics in a little shop in Bath, England.
According to Blahnik, “the two just happened to fall perfectly into
place — as bizarre as that combination may sound.” To wear these
fusions of Turkish architecture and Finnish protest we will need to
wait until January 2008 when they will be available in Blahnik stores
in London and New York. By Tuija Seipell
THANK YOU
to all who voted for us and made The Cool Hunter.net the Best Culture
Blog at the world’s largest weblog competition, 2007 Weblog Awards
The
final results were announced on November 8, 2007, at the BlogWorld
& New Media Expo in Las Vegas. This is particularly sweet because
we came second last year. We love to beat ourselves! Thank you, thank
you, thank you!
Villa Eugénie
is an "events" company in the most impressive sense of the word. These
are not people who organize bridal showers and baby parties for minor
movie stars. For the Brussels-based team of Villa Eugénie, led by
Etienne Russo, routine means orchestrating a major runway event for a
major fashion house. And stunning everyone.
Best known for its catwalk extravaganzas, Villa Eugénie is now involved
in not just creating spectacular fashion shows, but staging major
events for luxury business in all of its forms - magazine launches,
major celebrations, and jewellery, perfume, art and opera
installations, corporate events and fairs around the world. The team
also advises major fashion brands on store concepts, stores space
searches, lighting and branding. Although based in Brussels, Villa
Eugénie operates in all major fashion and luxury centers and has a
permanent office also in Miami.
We do not envy their task of having to impress the time-hardened
fashion buyer or editor, or the celebrities that line up the runways of
the famous fashion emporiums. These events are critiqued like major
concerts or art exhibitions, and the shows themselves are as much about
drama and ever-bigger surprises as they are about the designers, or the
fashions - most of which are unwearable by mere mortals anyway.
Villa Eugénie must be doing it right. Year after year, its client list
reads like a Who is Who in the fashion world: Chanel, Dries Van Noten,
Miu Miu, Maison Martin Margiela, Lanvin, Hermès, Hugo Bosss, Sonia
Rykiel, Olivier Strelli, and the
Adidas-backed Y-3.
These are all major brands with huge production budgets. But even when
you know that sky is not the budget's limit, it is still astonishing
that the same production company can be creating several shows in one
season - all attended by the same posse of cynical seen-it-all viewers
- and not start to appear stale or formulaic. Boundless creativity and
ruthless attention to detail, both most likely still sparked for each
project by Etienne Russo himself, are the cornerstones of such a feat.
Russo started humbly in the 1980s as an artistic and creative barman at
Mirano, a fashionable nightclub in Brussels. He was soon creating major
events there and drawing serious attention. His first real fashion
client was Dries Van Noten for whom he worked as a model, salesman,
lighting engineer, cook and extraordinary producer of Van Noten's first
fashion show in Paris in 1991.
In 1995, Russo started his own production firm, naming it after the
charming villa where it was located. Since 2004, the Villa Eugénie team
has worked out of a former factory close to Brussels South station
(Bruxelles-Midi, Brussel-Zuid). The space, covered by a vast glass
canopy, was redesigned by the Ghent-based architect Glenn Sestig.
This is the same man who this year opened his first luxury hotel Sestig
Hotel. In the cubic Huis Van Waes building in Ghent
that he reconstructed. By Tuija Seipell
Seen any other interesting events we should know about? e-mail
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We’re looking for aspiring coolhunters to contribute to the site,
which is on the road to expansion with new coolhunter sites set to
launch all over the globe, a magazine, TV show and a series of books.
We attract those who know - and those who want to know - about fashion,
lifestyle, design, travel, architecture and music, among many other
topics.
We are looking for a few more contributors around the world that can
spot, research and write about cool stuff – we are particularly keen on
new contributors in fashion, design/architecture and music. If you have
an eye (nose, ear) for what’s new, innovative and cool, and are willing
and able to do the research that make the posts worth our readers’
while, we’d love to hear from you! You need
to be able to write concise, snappy copy but more importantly you need
the ability to locate and unearth interesting and original things –
that means people, products and places that are leading the way.
Basically you need a ‘cool radar’ that enables you to spot something of
interest at 20 paces. If this sounds like you send us a sample. Keep it
to 300 words max and attach pics. e-mail
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We really do take swimming pools for granted. Lounging poolside at the
hotel, swimming a few laps at the health club, or dipping into the
Jacuzzi at the spa — we are used to pools but we want them fabulous.
Scary-blue tubs with tepid, chlorinated water just don’t do it.
While you are at it, you might be interested in some history of the
pool. Bathing pools, of course, predate swimming pools, and we have all
heard of the lavish and sophisticated ancient baths. But the swimming
pool has a long history, too, dating back to ancient times.
Already in 2500 B.C., Egyptians knew swimming as an organized activity
and depictions of swimming from India are equally old. Ancient Romans
constructed artificial pools for athletic training, nautical games and
military exercises. Swimming was also part of boys’ education.
Extravagant swimming pools with live fish entertained Roman emperors,
and gave the pool its Latin name piscina. Ancient Greeks did not
include swimming in their early Olympic games but they did practice the
sport and built swimming pools as part of their baths. The first heated
swimming pool was built in Rome in the first century BC.
England’s first indoor swimming pool, the 40-foot-long Bagnio in Lemon
Street, Goodman's Fields in London, opened in 1742. King Ludwig II of
Bavaria built the first-ever wave pool with electrically heated water
and light, in his Linderhof castle in 1879.
In the U.S. the earliest public swimming pools were small indoor pools
built with the intention of encouraging better hygiene among the poor.
By the 1920s, the American public pool had become a large public place
of amusement and recreation for thousands at a time. Home swimming
pools became popular in the U.S. after WWII and Hollywood films made
the backyard pool an important status symbol.
All of this historical stuff is really rather exhausting when all we
really want is serious pleasure – superior amenities, spectacular
views, impeccable details, breath-taking eye candy. Let us know where
such pools are, so that we can let the rest of the world know, too. By
Tuija Seipell
When it comes to cycling, combining safety with style is not always easy. However, these new bicycle tires from Sweetskinz merge the two effortlessly. Sweetskinz is a range of nocturnal tires which are light reflective at night.
Unlike
many reflective add-on features, the entire rubber tire itself is
reflective. With urban edge, graffiti inspired patterns such as the
fiery 'Scorch' and the snake like 'Rattleback', riders can be seen at
night in style. by Andy G
Stack hats suck. Most kids would rather suffer a
brain injury than endure the humiliation of wearing one. They are like
wearing corduroy flares ..on your head. Thanks to Indigo Snow
the Hell is taken out of Helmet with their awesome new line of head
protective gear. Inspired by retro cool Evil Knievel line designs,
these helmets have the competitive edge with their injection of organic
and reptilian face designs. The cobra and black belly snake skin
designs would make The Fonz weep, whilst the wood grain finish say '
I'm earthy and up for the challenge". Full on flip down eye wear
attached is so 'Magnum P.I' its in a cool class of its own. Extreme
sports safety gear has been at a relatively uninspiring stage for some
time now. It's great to see Indigosnow stepping up to the plate by
taking designs to the next level. by Andy G
As a kid, you may recall being woken by the test sound of this symbol, after falling asleep in front of the television.
Well now, you can watch this test pattern
in a whole new way. As a great wall clock! With it's traditional title
"One Moment Please' this clock is brilliantly replicated, on glass and
is coupled by metallic hands. With T.V being 24/7 these days, this is
the only way you will get to see this old friend again! By Andy G
Sensory overload is unavoidable in Paris, and after a while you become
a bit numb. But like a sorbet that clears your palate between courses, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac’s (JC/DC) store at 10 Rue Vauvilliers will work as a visual palate-refresher.
The store has an air of theatre without being theatrical, drama without
being dramatic and history without being historical. A retro,
semi-aggressive undertone, popped up by whimsy and surprise. Oh yes,
they do sell fashion, too.
The store’s flair and ingenuity are not accidental. Cooperation between
super-talents such as JC/DC and Christian Ghion is likely to produce
something remarkable. In his 40-plus years in the business of
high-impact eye candy, the Casablanca, Morocco-born Marquis de
Castelbajac has enjoyed enormous successes designing fashion, movies,
cars, sportswear and interiors. Celebrities from Elton John to Pope
John Paul II have worn his creations and added to his fame.
The 49-year-old Christian Ghion
is no less prolific or versatile. He is known as a designer of high-end
furniture and accessories, exhibitions, and home, store and hotel
interiors. His chicest furniture design is the 2002 Shadow chaise
lounge for Cappellini. By Tuija Seipell
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