Call for entries to AHEAD MEA awards 2020

Dezeen promotion: architects and designers working across the Middle East and Africa are invited to submit their entries to the 2020 edition of the AHEAD awards.

Recognising exceptional hospitality projects from across the globe, the AHEAD awards focuses on four different regions: the Middle East and Africa (MEA), the Americas, Asia and Europe.

The Gorgeous George hotel in Cape Town was named Hotel of the Year in the 2019 AHEAD MEA awards

The 2020 AHEAD MEA competition will review projects that have opened, reopened or launched in the region between January 2019 and February of this year.

Submissions are organised into 14 different categories: Bar, Club or Lounge; Event Spaces; Guestroom; Hotel Conversion; Hotel Newbuild; Hotel Renovation & Restoration; Landscaping & Outdoor Spaces; Lobby & Public Spaces; Lodges, Cabins & Tented Camps; Resort; Restaurant; Spa & Wellness; Suite and Transport.

Gorgeous George was praised by awards judges for its mix of old and new

Each entry will then be closely assessed by a panel of industry experts, comprising hoteliers, architects, designers and leading hospitality commentators.

Among the group of judges for last year's award were Omar Ghafour, founder of Dubai-based studio Light Space Design, and Leila Abdul Rahim, director of design at Hilton Worldwide.

Art-filled Bahrain hotel The Merchant House also won at the AHEAD MEA 2019 awards

Winners will be announced in November 2020. Tickets can be purchased on AHEAD's website.

The 2019 edition of the AHEAD MEA awards saw the Gorgeous George hotel in Cape Town take home the coveted Hotel of the Year award.

Shipwreck Lodge, a remote set of guest cabins in Namibia, also won at last year's awards

Occupying a pair of Victorian-era heritage buildings, the hotel was praised by judges for its balanced mix of contemporary and historical features.

Dezeen created a short-film about Gorgeous George, in which its interior designer – Tristian Du Plessis – explained that the guest property is also meant to spotlight "what African design can be".

The awards ceremony for AHEAD MEA 2020 will take place in November

Other prize-takers from 2019's AHEAD MEA awards include The Merchant House, an art-filled hotel in Bahrain, and Shipwreck Lodge, a handful of wooden cabins strewn along the sands of Namibia's Skeleton Coast.

Each entry to the AHEAD MEA awards costs 1200 AED (+ VAT). Winners from all four regions will come together to compete at a global biennale, where world-wide titles are up for grabs.

The post Call for entries to AHEAD MEA awards 2020 appeared first on Dezeen.

from Dezeen https://ift.tt/2IvdIrh

Blank metal facade of Tokyo home hides tree-planted courtyard

Apollo Architects & Associates has designed the austere metal-clad exterior of this compact home to disguise a central planted courtyard covered by exposed wooden rafters.

Leaf House is located in a quiet residential neighbourhood in Tokyo where its owners also run a dentistry clinic.

Its name refers to the visual similarity of the roof rafters to the veins of a leaf.

Conceived by Apollo Architects & Associates as an "intermediate area between the indoors and the outside world", the home is arranged so that all of its rooms face inwards to the central garden, planted with a single tree.

The exterior of the home is almost entirely blank, save for two glass areas – one semi-mirrored and one frosted.

These windows give glimpses of the tree inside, and a series of small, high-level windows at the rear of the building.

"It is impossible to imagine the interior living space based on the dark grey galvalume steel outer wall or the closed facade made of half-mirrored glass," said the studio.

"Moving inside one becomes conscious of the comfortable contrast afforded by the expansive space, suffused with natural light."

Leaf House's entrance, cut-out of the facade to create an area covered by the upper storey, leads into an L-shaped corridor.

This corridor runs alongside the children's bedrooms to reach a large master bedroom at the rear of the home.

Glazing with sliding doors surrounds the courtyard at this level, providing light and access to fresh air for all of the bedrooms.

The first floor is entirely taken up by a large living, kitchen and dining area that wraps around the courtyard.

This level is illuminated by a skylight that covers half of the roof, allowing light to enter through the gaps between the wooden rafters.

"Looking up at the ceiling, the exposed rafters - the most prominent feature of this house – transition from the interior to the exterior, where they transform into a pergola," said the studio.

Dark wooden flooring, grey wall finishes and uplighting illuminating the rafters creates warm, intimate spaces for Leaf House.

"The sky is trimmed by a striped pattern evoking the veins of a leaf that crosses the inside and outside of the house along the simple gabled roofline," continued the studio.

"The space is imbued with a sense of depth by the play of light and shadow projected into the room."

Tokyo-based Apollo Architects & Associates was founded by Satoshi Kurosaki in 2000, and has previously completed another house in Tokyo that featured a closed, black exterior, opening-up internally to overlook a courtyard planted with a tree.

This approach of a closed exterior and a courtyard interior was also used by Osaka-based practice Arbol, which designed a wood-clad home in Akashi looking inwards to courtyards for growing food and drying clothes.

The post Blank metal facade of Tokyo home hides tree-planted courtyard appeared first on Dezeen.

from Dezeen https://ift.tt/2Q0qvpT

Concrete floor splices House L224 by Felipe Gonzalez Arzac in two

Argentinian architect Felipe Gonzalez Arzac has used folding wooden blinds and a chunky concrete floor slab to provide shade to this house near Buenos Aires.

House L224 is a 220-square-metre (2368-square-foot) house located in the neighbourhood of City Bell, which is just outside of Buenos Aires.

It comprises two glazed floors separated by a chunky concrete slab. Folding wooden screens cover the windows of the first floor. The ground floor is free of blinds and shaded by the overhanging roof of the floor above.

Felipe Gonzalez Arzac designed the house to include minimal forms and little exposed structure. He said his ambition was to create a "single image".

"My idea of single image is related to the idea of ​​character, sculptor of the house, to be able to represent it in a few lines of drawing, of clear rational and simple lines," Arzac explained.

"The free floor, the little presence of visible structure, only the columns of the gallery, the rest hidden inside the mobile," he added.

In addition to the wooden screens, a concrete wall built around the property creates additional privacy and sun protection for the house. The structure is completed by two columns and horizontal concrete partitions.

"The conceptual simplicity of the house is achieved with the complicity of the structure, two circular columns and partitions and concrete at the ends support the construction," Arzac said.

On the ground floor, sliding glass doors provide access between a covered patio and grassy yard with a stone fireplace and an open-plan lounge and dining room.

The kitchen is concealed from these spaces by a box-like structure covered with wooden slats.

A simple aesthetic continues inside the house with exposed concrete ceilings and smoothed cement floors.

Minimal furnishings include a grey sofa and a wooden dining table topped by a row of black, disc-shaped pendant lights.

The residence's three bedrooms are located on the upper level and each have an attached bathroom and dressing room.

Felipe Gonzalez Arzac, who is based in La Plata, Argentina has completed a number of residential projects in the area. These include a concrete house that opens up to verdant courtyard and an L-shaped residence with a large cantilevered concrete volume.

Photography is by Javier Agustin Rojas.

The post Concrete floor splices House L224 by Felipe Gonzalez Arzac in two appeared first on Dezeen.

from Dezeen https://ift.tt/2THbUAA

Inexpensive Toys Fashioned into Unique Action Figures by Artist Tomohiro Yasui

All images © Tomohiro Yasui

Tomohiro Yasui is best known as the creator of the paper robot wrestlers called kami-robo, but that’s not the only medium his imagination has conquered. Using wire and cheap rubber duckies, squirting frogs, and plastic hammers, the Japanese artist builds posable action figures that deserve their own Saturday morning cartoons and comic books.

Having spent the past 35 years designing paper robots and plastic toys, Yasui is an expert when it comes to humanoid anatomy in dynamic poses. Multiples of the same donor toys were used to create the chiseled physiques, which means that all of the pieces match in texture and color and did not have to be repainted. If the fantasy figures were packaged and displayed on a shelf in the toy section, no one would be able to guess that they were cut, reconfigured, and assembled by hand.

To see more of these unlikely heroes come to life, follow Yasui on Twitter.

 

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member and support independent arts publishing. Join a community of like-minded readers who are passionate about contemporary art, apply for our annual grant, and get exclusive access to interviews, partner discounts, and event tickets.

from Colossal https://ift.tt/3aH9CZ5

One Manhattan Square apartment by Jamie Bush features sculptural decor

American designer Jamie Bush has decked out a New York apartment with 1970s furniture and contemporary pieces to fuse architectural designs that are new and old.

The unit designed by Bush, who is based in Los Angeles, is on the 60th floor of the 80-storey One Manhattan Square that completed last year in the Lower East Side neighbourhood.

With expansive views of the city's East River, the apartment has three bedrooms, a living room, dining area and a kitchen.

A feature of the decor is the mixture of colours and furniture, from curvy upholstered seating in light blue and pink colours in the living room to more geometric, rare finds.

Included is a 1950s walnut Vittorio Dassi bar, a black Hoop chair from 1972 by Piero Palange and Werther Toffoloni, and tall ladderback chair by the late Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Other accent pieces are a Stilux chrome floor lamp, and an Italian chaise lounge from the seventies upholstered in green.

A dining room has views to New York's Governors Island, and a lamp by the late German industrial designer Ingo Maurer.

These vintage finds are paired with geometric pieces like an Arflex Vela Screen with coloured glass, and a wooden bunk bed in a yellow children's room by Brooklyn studio Casa Kids.

Continuing the project's strong combination of colours and design styles is a pale blue bedroom with a bright red desk and chair, a white mid-century Mushroom Table Lamp, Thonet's Hideout Lounge Chair.

A mustard-coloured drape hangs above a blue Lid bed by Blu Dot.

More neutral tones decorate the master bedroom, such as grey walls and linens, and soft pink and green accents.

The residence spans 2,347 square feet (218 square metres) and is one of the 815 residences at One Manhattan Square.

Designed by Adamson Associates and Extell Development Company, the skyscraper features a glass curtain exterior that scales 823 feet (metres) and interiors by New York firm Meyer Davis Studio.

The slender tower stands out from its surroundings, in an area bordered Chinatown and marked by low-income housing, and is nestled next to the Manhattan Bridge ramp and FDR Boulevard.

Further downtown, Magdalena Keck has designed an apartment within the Four Seasons Private Residences.

Other noteworthy New York apartments include a unit in Jean Nouvel's MoMA tower, a penthouse at Viñoly's 432 Park Avenue and a penthouse in Zaha Hadid's 520 West 28th.

Photography is by Stephen Kent Johnson.

The post One Manhattan Square apartment by Jamie Bush features sculptural decor appeared first on Dezeen.

from Dezeen https://ift.tt/32YZJ6u