This week, Dyson kept kids entertained and Frank Lloyd Wright gave virtual tours during lockdown

This week on Dezeen, Dyson crafted 44 engineering challenges for children during the coronavirus lockdown and Frank Lloyd Wright residences opened their doors for virtual tours.

The James Dyson Foundation devised 22 science tasks and 22 engineering activities for kids to try out while isolating at home during the coronavirus pandemic, after schools in many countries were closed.

Challenges include making an egg fit into a bottle without breaking it, making a balloon-powered car and constructing a bridge from spaghetti.

Frank Lloyd Wright sites offer virtual tours during pandemic

The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation also encouraged people to stay at home by opening the doors of 12 of its properties, including Fallingwater, Hollyhock House and Taliesin West, to virtual tours.

Launched on 2 April, the tours were posted to the foundation's websites, Facebook and Instagram accounts and will continue every Thursday for six weeks to provide access to the residences while in-person tours are postponed.

Foster + Partners designs reusable open-source face shield

Architects and brands, including Foster + Partners, Nike, and Apple,  joined the fight against Covid-19 by producing face shields this week.

Foster + Partners created a laser-cut face shield that can be disassembled and sanitised so that it can be reused, while Apple's piece of personal protective equipment is made of three pieces – the face shield, forehead strap and silicone strap.

Others that used  their skills to create face shields, included graduates from the Rhode Island School of Design and researchers at the University of Cambridge and the University of Queensland.

Virtual Design Festival partners with Ron Arad, Li Edelkoort, Dutch Design Week, Serpentine Galleries and more on digital cultural programme

Dezeen announced the names of some of its cultural partners who will be contributing to Virtual Design Festival, which launches on 15 April.

Collaborators include designer Ron Arad, artist Lucy McRae, Serpentine Galleries, Dutch Design Week and trend forecaster Li Edelkoort.

Samsung and Dezeen launch $20,000 Out of the Box Competition

Dezeen also teamed up with Samsung to launch a global competition that tasks designers with creating household objects that can be made by repurposing cardboard packaging.

The Samsung Out of the Box Competition is open for entries until 29 May 2020. The contest is free to enter for anyone over the age of 18 and features prize money totalling $20,000.

Eight home offices with stylish set-ups for remote working

Home offices and accessories were also in focus this week. We rounded up 10 essential items to help you set up your remote working environment, as well as eight examples of stylish home office set-ups.

Furniture pieces include a makeshift desk fashioned from a shelf, a storage container by Hay and a Wastberg lamp that doubles up as a Macbook charger.

Eldridge London's trefoil-shaped house has a "sense of the theatrical"

Other projects that Dezeen readers enjoyed this week were the Mai bag by Nendo made from a single sheet of laser-cut leather, a 25-square-metre micro-apartment in Italy, and a trefoil-shaped house by architecture studio Eldridge London.

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Take the Colossal Reader Survey: Tell Us What You Think and You Might Win $50 to 20×200

Ohara Koson “Peacock,” courtesy of 20×200

Every other year, we like to touch base with a quick survey about your Colossal reading experience. Your responses help drive decisions about our programming, marketing, and other secret upcoming aspects of Colossal.  We’re hoping you’ll give us just a few minutes to let us know what you think once again, and when you’re finished, you can enter to win one of three $50 gift cards to our friends, 20×200. We promise the survey is short, and even if you don’t end up collecting those free art-buying dollars, you’ll get our endless thanks.

 

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Textured Paper Sculptures by Zai Divecha Emphasize Shadow and Light

“Draco” (2019), paper, wood, LEDs, 40 x 72 x 3 inches. All images © Zai Divecha

San Francisco-based artist Zai Divecha fashions countless pleats, creases, and flaps for her monochromatic paper sculptures. From geometric tessellations to flat sheets with dozens of rounded cuts and points, Divecha’s pieces accentuate the relationships between light and shadow and natural and manufactured elements.

Her inspiration is wide-ranging and includes “bathroom tiles, clouds, storm drains, the ‘skeletons’ of dead cactuses, peeling bark, raindrops on a car window, rock formations, ornate screens in Islamic architecture.” The artist also has woven data into her textured pieces, creating four artworks that represent HIV and AIDS diagnoses in San Francisco from 1992 to 2018. Each piece contains a series of cut flaps to visualize the number of cases.

In a statement, Divecha said her fascination with paper is derived from transforming an ephemeral, mundane substance into a permanent artwork. Only recently has she employed a single color. “The all-white palette allows me to create pattern and texture with just light and shadow alone, which feels soothing to me. I aim to create work that makes people feel centered, quiet, and focused,” she said. “I want my work to feel like a respite from an overstimulating world.” The move coincided with a switch in her personal life to limit her sensory input, meaning she forgoes fragrance and sets strict boundaries on the noises she consumes.

Keep up with Divecha’s crimped and twisted work on Instagram, and take a peek at these tutorials she released on making paper stars and garlands.

“Draco” (2019), paper, wood, LEDs, 40 x 72 x 3 inches

“Canis Major” (2019), paper, wood, LEDs, 31 x 93 x 3 inches

“Canis Major” (2019), paper, wood, LEDs, 31 x 93 x 3 inches

“Canis Major” (2019), paper, wood, LEDs, 31 x 93 x 3 inches

“Aids Diagnoses in San Francisco, 1992” (2019), paper, 11 x 14 x 0.5 inches

“HIV Diagnoses in San Francisco, 2009” (2019), paper, 11 x 14 x 0.5 inches

 

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Diez+Muller steps atrium through Natura offices and residences in Ecuador

This office and residential building near Quito, Ecuador was designed by local studio Diez+Muller to enclose a staggered atrium for yoga classes and gardens.

The mixed-use complex is located in Tumbaco Valley, which is 14 kilometres from the Ecuadorian capital. Diez+Muller described the area, which has a lower altitude than Quito, as having a "remarkable climate and natural conditions".

The project comprises a roughly 70:30 mix between offices and apartments, including the firm's workplace and the home of its co-founder Felipe Muller.

Called Natura, it is located on a sloped site that was already home to vegetation such as jacaranda, acacias, carobs and avocados.

Most of these were on the outer edges of the site, so the studio place the 6,841-square-metre building in the centre of the plot to save as much of the greenery as possible. The remaining vegetation was replanted in a nursery.

An atrium is carved out of the centre of the three-story-high structure. Touches of greenery are present here including plants that spill over balconies wrapping around the void and a tree that grows up the centre.

The atrium is segmented into three levels designed to traverse the existing gradient of the site, which slopes down from the entrance towards the rear of the building.

Each platform is intended as a space to encourage users to gather. The first platform has an angular bench around a planter, while the middle section is an open space suited to activities like yoga. The final section is covered in gravel and leads out to a garden that allows for natural ventilation.

"We have planned a building that generates healthy spaces for its users," said Diez+Muller. "Spaces endowed with vegetation and light, with generous shared spaces for communal interaction."

"They are also versatile spaces that can be used by the community as places for exhibition, health, culture and art," it added.

Upper-level walkways cross over the space and are intended to offer views to maintain the connection between the different levels.

"This atrium becomes a connector space," Diez+Muller continued. "A space that generates paths and promotes encounters between users, through horizontal and vertical circulations of different types."

The atrium also demonstrates the range of materials used through Natura. They include stone tiling on the floors, warm wooden panelling and white-painted brickwork walls. Walkways have concrete bottoms and black, metallic banisters.

Diez+Muller chose the materials because they are well suited to the area's climate and will weather well.

"These materials are worked and found regularly in the local environment, and have the virtue of being timeless options that will gain quality over time," it said.

The materials continue inside the practice's office, which is on the upper level of the complex. It contains an open studio with windows to views of the surroundings and a meeting room.

Muller's apartment is located on the ground floor of the building. The residence is arranged in an L-shape around a patio, with large windows and glass doors offering views of the outdoor area.

Glazed partitions separate different spaces inside, which include a lounge, a study, and an open-plan kitchen and dining room. A black metal stair leads to the bedrooms on the first level.

A wave of new projects are underway nearby in Quito, where leading architects are designing major projects for architectural developer Uribe & Schwarzkopf. They include Jean Nouvel's lush Aquarela community and the YOO Quito residences completed by Arquitectónica and YOO studios, which is run by Philippe Starck and John Hitchcox.

BIG has also designed two projects for Quito that include mixed-used tower called EPIQ, which is covered in pink, herringbone-patterned cladding, and the curved IQON tower that is set to become the tallest building in the city.

Photography is by JAG Studio.

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Project credits:

Architecture: Diez+Muller
Project team: Felipe Muller, Gonzalo Diez, Alvaro Borrero, Hugo Navarrete, Paola Picciallo
Construction: Diego Cueva
Landscape design: Clemencia Echavarría

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Pejac Launches Movement to Transform Home Windows into Imaginative Silhouette Art

All images © Pejac, shared with permission

From his home in Madrid, Pejac (previously) revived his miniature window figures, and simultaneously began an inventive global movement, by using nearby landmarks as backdrops for creative marker silhouettes. Since then, the Spanish artist has prompted hundreds of people around the globe to imitate his playful work as they convert structures, fences, and even powerlines into light-hearted and often humorous sites for their outlined figures.

The burgeoning initiative is an attempt to inspire interaction with urban environments from indoors, while also providing a creative and collaborative public art initiative. “I always believed that everyone has an artist hidden inside and that if you give them a good reason they are capable of doing wonderful things, and in these strange days of global lockdown, I believe that creativity can be one of the best therapies to fight anxiety and boredom,” says the artist, who’s been positioning figures atop airplane contrails and telephone poles since 2011.

Pejac also offered a simple tutorial (shown below) for those needing more guidance on how to create such realistic silhouettes. The artist first photographs himself posed in dark clothing and traces the image from his computer screen. He then cuts the drawing out and reproduces it on a window, perfectly orienting his own silhouette on the building next door. The trick, of course, is to be resourceful with the outdoor landscape and find ways to transform a mundane window ledge into a lively scene.

Head to Pejac’s Instagram for a deeper look at his process, and dive into the hundreds of imaginative contributions featuring kids picking fruit from a tree and a rollercoaster ready to dive down a powerline under #stayarthomepejac.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Pejac (@pejac_art) on Mar 28, 2020 at 11:10am PDT

 

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