Studio Helmo’s diverse work covers everything from posters to photographic printing

The Parisian studio continues to embrace new disciplines whilst trying to avoid repetition.

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Architecture Club builds cast-concrete studio for sculptor Monika Sosnowska

Architecture Club has completed a sculpture studio for Polish artist Monika Sosnowska, featuring board-marked concrete walls and huge windows.

Located in Warsaw, the 150-square-metre studio is described by its architects as "a generous light-drenched space for undistracted experimentation".

It is a five-metre-high concrete box, with large, bespoke window walls on both the north and the south sides.

Obscured, reinforced glass features on the southern elevation, facing the street. This prevents passersby from seeing what's inside and prevents distractions to Sosnowska while she works. It also helps to subtly diffuse the bright midday sun.

Glazing on the north side of the building is low-iron, making it extra transparent. It offers clear views of the garden, which serves as an ever-changing backdrop to the sculptures on display inside the studio.

"We presented three options during our first discussion and a solid cube was one of them," explained Pawel Krzeminski, who leads Architecture Club with partner Karolina Slawecka.

Krzeminski said that this concept, of a basic volume defined by a few walls and a roof slab, was the one that felt right. They even simplified it further as the project developed.

"By introducing two large open facades, we were left basically with two walls and a roof slab," he told Dezeen.

"The project has nothing to do with trendy extrusions," he added. "It is about bringing architecture to the basic concepts, to a minimal design alphabet of walls and slabs. The rest is the space between."

The concrete walls and ceiling were cast against wooden boards, creating an organic texture both inside and out. This contrasts with the smooth finish of the polished concrete-aggregate floor.

Three steel I-beams support the roof and incorporate lighting fixtures. But they are designed to also carry additional weight, so that Sosnowska can use them as a crane to hang her work from.

A few large wooden elements were also designed for the space. A free-standing oak partition contains a kitchen, a toilet and storage, while a six-metre long table runs alongside the north window.

Other details include a south-facing window seat with a heating and cooling system concealed within it.

"Introducing south light into an artist's studio was experimental, but conceptually it was what we wanted," said Krzeminski.

"In the end, the mixture of north and south light turned out to be extremely interesting for the space."

Krzeminski and Slawecka founded Basel-based Architecture Club in 2017. They completed Atelier Monika Sosnowska in 2019.

The project also included the construction of a timber storage shed, which also faces the garden.

Photography is by Hélène Binet.

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Special Projects distills essential smart phone functions into a daily Paper Phone

London design studio Special Projects has developed an app that condenses important information such as contacts and maps onto a paper print out to help people live without their device for a day.

The app lets users select things from their phone that they will need that day – whether it's their calendar, a to-do list or tickets – and formats them into a simple grid that fits onto a single sheet of a A4 paper.

This can then be printed out and folded into a pocket-sized booklet that also has a slot to keep your credit card, so you can make contactless payments.

"We interviewed a lot of people to ask them about the ways they balance technology, and about the things they would class as essential on their device," explained Special Projects co-founder Adrian Westaway.

"It was those insights that informed the content of the paper phone and you'll see playful elements in there such as games, which were directly inspired by the interviews."

The preliminary interviews showed that, although most people might like to leave their phone at home for a day, but they're afraid of not having access to the necessary, day-to-day information it contains, like public transport routes or a parent's phone number.

Paper Phone aims to be the answer to that, as a "gentle, empathetic way" to ease people into a digital detox, with a user experience that's centred around playfulness rather than the feeling that something is lacking without their phone.

"In the studio we have a mix of backgrounds, in engineering, design and also magic, and there is always a small element of delight or 'magic' in what we do as long, as it stays anchored in reason and function," Westaway told Dezeen.

In this case, the key was striking a balance between making the Paper Phone fun to use, while not overcrowding it with extraneous functions.

"People used to demand more features, but now things have changed and instead we want technology to take a back seat and dominate our experiences less," he explained.

"Calm technology was first coined in the mid-nineties by Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown, and it's just incredible how on-the-rise it is today. We are always trying to take the technology part out and instead focus on the experience someone has, to transform your device into a calmer, quieter, simpler version of itself."

The project was created as part of Google's Digital Wellbeing Experiments, which seek to help people find a better balance with technology. This means that the app is currently only available on Android phones.

With the aim to make the project as accessible, low cost and sustainable as possible, the app is completely open source and can be adopted and adapted by anyone.

"If you worry about the environmental impact of printing a sheet of A4 every single day, you’ll be surprised to know printing one page per day would produce approximately 10 grams of CO2 in a year," said Westaway.

"In contrast, using a mobile device for one hour a day produces 1.25 Tonnes of CO2 at the end of the year, taking into account network and server infrastructure energy requirements."

Elsewhere in the space of calm technology, design studio SF-SO has recently reverted speakers, radios and smart door locks back to their sensory, analogue interfaces, while researchers from MIT Media Lab have wired plants to act as motion sensors and displays to offer a more nourishing alternative to electronic screens.

The post Special Projects distills essential smart phone functions into a daily Paper Phone appeared first on Dezeen.

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Entries are now open for 2020’s Association of Photographers awards

One of the highlights of the photographic calendar has opened entries for its 2020 edition, open to professionals, enthusiasts and students.

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Luo Yang captures China’s Generation Z through an intimate lens

The Chinese photographer talks us through her latest series, Youth, a highly anticipated successor to a more personal series, Girls.

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