Designer Yves Béhar's studio Fuseproject has worked in collaboration with robotics company Superflex to design the Aura Powered Clothing collection, a series of responsive garments that assist the elderly with mobility. The studio is hiring a senior industrial designer to become a part of its team in San Francisco, USA.
Russian studio Niko Architect has sunk a Teletubby-style house underneath an artificial hill punctuated by conical skylights that pop out of its planted roof.
Called House in the Landscape, the three-bedroom home near Moscow is hidden under lawn-covered hummocks.
The funky green roof is reminiscent of the green domed house was the house of the Teletubbies, a popular British children's television show.
Towards the north it opens out with glazed walls that wrap around a courtyard overlooking a pond.
Contrasting the green landscape, the flowing walls of the home are finished by Niko Architect in smooth white render.
Winding paths and staircases on either side follow the contours of the hill to provide.
They lead to a large, curved concrete front door.
House in the Landscape's roughly U-shaped plan is organised according to the movement of the sun throughout the day.
Light enters through the skylights above the living areas in the morning, and from those above the bedrooms in the evening.
Glass walls look out over the courtyards.
The large living, dining and kitchen area is finished with a cave-like roof that follows the shape of the hill above.
Photo is by Sergey Ananiev
In the living area, a sunken circular seating area sits underneath a large skylight surrounding a ceiling-mounted log burner.
A curved wooden partition separates it from the dining area.
Photo is by Sergey Ananiev
An open corridor leads to the western wing, where the master bedroom is given privacy by the deep window reveals and a screen of wooden slats.
A sculptural white staircase leads up to the first floor.
Photo is by Sergey Ananiev
This upper storey houses two additional bedroom and opens onto a terrace overlooking the pond to the north.
A section of wall curves around to create a roof to shelter the terrace.
Photo is by Sergey Ananiev
The courtyard, arranged around a central sculpture, is finished with raised wooden path that leads to a wooden platform overlooking the pond.
Photo is by Sergey Ananiev
The interiors frame various pieces of artwork, furniture and sculptures which provide focal points for the open rooms.
Suzanne Saroff doesn’t mind if her audience has a distorted view of the vibrant flowers and leaves she captures. The New York-based photographer, who’s worked with a long list of clients like Glossier, Sephora, and The New York Times, is a master of illusion in her tonal images that place florals behind clear glasses of water, skewing their structures in her red, pink, and beige compositions.
Saroff tells Colossal that her latest work revisits elements of distortion she used in previous projects that framed images of bananas, avocados, and fish behind glass vessels filled with water. Since her Perspective series, the photographer says she’s begun to explore “subtle new ways of expressing feelings and emotions through flowers, color, composition, and lighting.” Her more recent project maintains themes of “exploration and play,” although it employs different techniques and aesthetics.
I always have some idea of what I want to shoot—in terms of color, light, subject and composition—but some of my favorite photos come from something raw and in the moment. These photos can take 20 minutes or the entire day—with the distortions I work at and the moving of all of the pieces around until everything feels just right. When I get the photo I know right away. This series is about bringing emotions to creating.
Head to Saroff’s Instagram to see the skewed projects she conceives of next.
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The sportswear company has created uniforms for three countries, the United States, France and Brazil. They will all be bringing teams to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics to compete in the sport's first street and park competitions at the Olympic level.
Nike worked with visual artist Piet Parra to create abstract patterns for the uniforms
Nike partnered with Dutch artist and ex-skateboarder Piet Parra to design artwork for each of the federation's uniforms. Each look is intended to be unique to the country's style and intended to pay homage to its sporting history.
The brand worked closely with athletes like Sean Malto, who is in the running to qualify for the US skateboarding team in Tokyo, to create attire for a sport that isn't typically associated with having a uniform.
"Skating has been such an individual thing, it's all personal preference and your style, the clothing matches the style of your skating," Malto told Dezeen. "So having a uniform is different, but it also is cool, that it now it is a bigger thing."
Brazil's outfits take cues football jerseys and feature colours used in the country's flag
According to Nike, this year's games are on track to be the hottest temperature ever, so the aim was to create a uniform that would be lightweight and breathable.
"Nike has been working with us to try to figure out the best possible outfit to feel comfortable in to feel like we look good and if you look good, there's a side psychological way of performing as well," Malto added.
"We're pushing ourselves to the limit, it's a dangerous sport anyways, and then adding hot humid weather makes it a little more extreme."
The United States men's outfit features a basketball jersey top and khaki-coloured cargo pants, while women skaters will wear a button-down shirt paired with navy chinos.
A colourful pattern, designed by Parra, decorates the shirts and socks. A bald eagle, an emblem of the country, adorns the bottom left corner of the top.
Nike said it also focused design efforts on making pieces that are at the "forefront of sustainability" by using more environmentally conscious manufacturing processes and recycled materials.
All of the skateboarding jerseys will be made from 100 per cent recycled polyester comprising waste objects such as plastic bottles
All of the skateboarding jerseys will be made from 100 per cent recycled polyester comprising "water bottles and other things that would go to waste," according to Nike.
Brazil's uniforms are reminiscent of football, an important sport in the country's history. The tops take cues from the form of soccer jerseys and are paired with green leggings for the women and loose-fitting shorts for males.
Parra's artwork on the uniform uses colours found in the country's flag, yellow, green and blue.
France's women's uniform for women a red jumpsuit, while men will wear a shirt evocative of typical tennis wear
For France's set, Nike has created a red jumpsuit for women and a shirt evocative of typical tennis wear for men. Both feature a rooster, a symbol of hope and faith in the country.
All of the skating attire will be paired with Bruin React sneakers, which feature a suede upper part and a react foam sole covered in a zonal herringbone pattern to provide traction.
Nike created the shoes knowing athletes like to feel the board through their shoes while they move.
A rooster, a symbol of hope and faith for France, is displayed prominently on the country's uniforms
"Obviously skaters like to feel their board, but there are some important pressure points in the arch of the foot where React will then perform," Nike said.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics are set to take place from 24 July to 9 August 2020. Regulatory board World Athletics just released new sporting guidelines ahead of the event, which means that Nike's controversial Vaporfly shoe are permitted for use.
Nike also designed a number of products for the last Olympic Games, held in Rio in 2016.
Harris Diamant knew he discovered an important piece of outsider art when he came across a hand-bound book of drawings for sale on Ebay in 2006. Listed by a bookseller in Lawrence, Kansas, the collection was comprised of 238 crayon and colored pencil illustrations on ledger paper by a then-anonymous author and was sold to a collector minutes after being posted. Diamant reached out to the buyer to share his contact information in case the person decided to sell the work. Soon enough, he purchased the entirety of the cardboard, cloth, and leather-bound book that held a hefty five-figure price tag.
The series is titled Ectlectrc Pencil—a misspelled version of Electric Pencil—and features lightly-pigmented drawings from a patient at Missouri State Hospital No. 3, a moniker that often tops the pages. On the cover, a thin-lipped woman with coiffed hair holds up a bouquet of flowers. Other plages include a brown lion with a bird swooping overhead carrying a banner saying “Cat Rag,” while another depicts a rocky gorge with a train running above it. The portraits throughout the work are detailed similarly: most people have large eyes and are dressed in clothes indicative of the early 20th century. Each page is numbered in the top corner.
After multiple unsuccessful attempts to sell the entire collection, Diamant brought the drawings to the 2011 Outsider Art Fair in New York, where the project garnered attention from The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Art on Paper. Firmly planted within the tradition of outsider art, the Electric Pencil project somewhat resembles the work of Henry Darger, the American writer and artist who worked as a Chicago hospital custodian while creating hundreds of drawings and watercolor paintings that were discovered after his death. His pieces now sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
As talk about the unknown artist’s identity grew—Diamant even hired a private investigator to look into the project—so did interest in the collection. According to a 2012 report in Riverfront Times, a 52-year-old woman soon contacted Diamant about the artifact. She was the niece of James Edwards Deeds Jr., the collection’s creator.
Born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1908, Deeds frequently was abused and mistreated by his father. When he was four years old, the family moved to McCracken, Missouri, where they ran a successful farm. By age 25, Deeds’s parents sent him to the Marshall School for the Feeble Minded, an outmoded component of a system that sequestered people with a range of educational and social capabilities. Three years later, he was committed to the state hospital in Nevada for the rest of his life.
Housing more than 2,000 patients at its greatest capacity in 1950, the state hospital was situated on 500 acres and was an active farm that patients worked throughout their stays. In a conversation with Colossal, Diamant mentioned that four pages in the book, including the cover and title of the project, refer to ECT or electroconvulsive therapy, a procedure that sends small electric currents through the brain in order to cause a seizure, which alters the brain chemistry and can aid in mental illness. The frequent mention of the therapy points to the effect it had on Deeds as he underwent standard treatment from doctors at the time.
Reports printed in Riverfront Times from the state hospital described Deeds as “psychotic, disturbed, boisterous and delusional.” Doctors diagnosed him officially with schizophrenia.
On the ward, he is hilarious, sings and runs around on the hall…Worked for the state of Arkansas for a man he did not know. States he only committed one crime and that was murder, and did not think that amounted to very much. Said they told him at home he was crazy, but he does not think so, but his mind is not quite right since he got hit on the head with a stick. He is in no way depressed, is much pleased at being here, says he is worth twenty or thirty million dollars. He states that he is most popular with the girls, that they are all running after him. When asked how (illegible notation) he states that he was just born that way.
While committed to the institution, Deeds crafted scenes of circuses replete with animals and performers, in addition to what seem to be depictions of the expansive hospital. Page 33 even features a yellow-eyed man sporting a top hat called “Why Doctor,” perhaps an indication of how Deeds’ understood those who oversaw his care.
Diamant also noted that the cover and many of the inside pages show signs of wear, signaling that Deeds carried his prized project with him often. As his most valued possession, Deeds gifted his illustrated works to his mother to protect them from getting ruined or thrown away, but of course, that plan didn’t work out as he intended. Lost for years, a 14-year-old boy found the collection in the trash in 1970 at the Springfield town dump, and it was then passed through various hands until Diamant purchased it.
He’s been digging deeper into the story since, trying to uncover and share information about Deeds’s life and the creativity the artist fostered while confined to a life inside Missouri State Hospital No. 3. For deeper insight into the Deeds’s life and his illustrated project, grab a copy of The Drawings of the Electric Pencil.
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