Rie Sakamoto knits rubber bands together like yarn for elastic garments

Japanese designer Rie Sakamoto replaced yarn with rubber bands for her knitted fashion collection, which aims to showcase this stationary item's overlooked qualities.

Created as part of her thesis project for Tama Art University in Tokyo, Japan, the Rubber Band collection comprises a series of garments made entirely from elastic bands.

Including a dress and a jacket, the collection aims to shine a light on simple, everyday objects that may be ignored in contemporary design and reestablish them as art.

As Sakamoto told Dezeen, she decided to work with elastic bands after noticing the beauty in their aesthetic qualities.

She knitted several bands together and held them up to the sunlight, becoming aware of their soft texture, high elasticity, sheerness and "beautiful candy colour".

After experimenting more with the rubber bands the designer found that, despite being widely considered as a mass-produced item with limited functionality, they do in fact have hidden qualities that aren't immediately obvious.

Their stretchy quality lends itself to clothing, she said, as it enables the material to morph to different body-shapes and sizes

Sakamoto made each elastic garment by connecting the rubber bands together one by one, before knitting them in the same way as knitting yarn with needles.

According to the designer, it took her up to half a year to finish the project. Her pieces were on display as part of a group graduate exhibition in Tokyo earlier this year in January.

While Sakamoto doesn't consider the garments to be a practical option for everyday wear, she sees them as playful works of contemporary art that may surprise people about the limits of lowly materials.

Other design graduates have also looked to unusual, stretchy materials for their fashion creations.

Central Saint Martins fashion student Fredrik Tjærandsen presented garments made from giant inflated rubber bubbles that gradually deflate to form dresses and skirts.

While London College of Fashion graduate Harikrishnan used latex to create inflatable trousers that fit snugly at the waist and balloon out to double the width of the wearer around the thighs, before coming in again at the ankles.

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Steep gable defines barn-style house in rural England by Elliott Architects

Elliott Architects has designed this barn-like house in the Tyne Valley, England, with double-height living space beneath a steep gable ceiling.

The locally-based practice built the four-bedroom home, called North Bank, on the outskirts of a village in Northumberland.

Despite its rural location, the house sits close to the road and has neighbours on three sides. It's oriented to look out over the Tyne Valley to the north and towards the Pennines to the south.

The form of the house references the nearby landmark-trust owned Causeway House, an old farmhouse with one of few remaining examples of a black thack roof – the lost art of heather thatch.

While silhouette of the new building mirrors the steep roof pitch of these old structures, thatch roofing has been swapped for a more contemporary zinc finish.

Metal was chosen to reference the nearby 18th-century smelt works.

"Materials-wise we justified the zinc roof through its connection to the area's history in mining and smelting," Elliott Architects co-founder Ben Elliott told Dezeen.

"The cladding was completed by the clients with locally-source Douglas fir."

Split across two storeys, half of the ground floor is occupied by a double-height, south-facing living, dining and kitchen area.

The other half, set slightly higher, features a study and a studio space.

Above, two larger bedrooms sit at either end of the home and two smaller ones in the centre, separated by a bathroom.

Square windows along the ground floor and skylights in the steep roof follow the path of the sun throughout the day, with deep internal reveals that create seating areas.

The double-height living area is the focal point of the home. It sits beneath the exposed wooden gable ceiling and is overlooked by an internal window from the bedroom above.

"We wanted to make a form which felt singular in essence, and single storey, rather than feeling distinctly two storey," explained Elliott.

"This connects it to the village hall and chapel barn precedents, but also to the evolution of the homes, where traditionally the upper floors were smaller and functional, just for sleeping, with the added benefit of protection and warmth."

Pale brown sealed plaster covers the interior walls of this space, creating a rustic finish that complements the exposed wood of the roof structure.

"It was a happy accident; the client wanted to do some of the work themselves so intended to paint, but in order to give them time we left the building with a sealed plaster finish," said Elliott.

"This gives the space a raw feel which perfectly suits the house."

Previous projects by Elliott Architects include another home in Northumberland which also drew on its surroundings for its material choices, with two stacked volumes finished in brick and cedar.

Photography is by Jill Tate.

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Project credits:

Architect: Elliott Architects
Lead architects: Lynsey Elliott, Ben Elliott
Structural engineers: Steve Jasper + Mark Kerr, Jasper Kerr

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Humans Stripped Down to Their Circulatory Systems Participate in Urban Life

All images © Markos Kay and Jay Kriwol

Back in the early days of anatomical illustration (c. 1500 – c. 1800), artists often rendered the human figure within the lavish landscape of the anatomist’s hometown. These historical illustrations are part of what inspired photographer Jan Kriwol and CGI artist Markos Kay to create the photographic series Human After All. The main character is the human circulatory system in the context of mundane urban life—grocery shopping, eating a burger, and even taking a cigarette break.

The Warsaw-based Kriwol is influenced by his connection to the Polish urban skateboarding scene, and he often infuses his photography with optical illusion and humor. So when he saw his girlfriend’s drawing of a human circulatory system smoking a cigarette, he thought creating a realistic version was the perfect challenge.

Kriwol approached several CGI artists with his idea, but the complexity of the project proved too difficult. He finally found Kay, a self-proclaimed visual alchemist based in London, who immediately took to the challenge of figuring out how to render the circulatory system in a way that looked as natural as possible. Kay found inspiration in the anatomy textbooks of Andreas Vesalius, Giulio Casserio, and Henry Gray. The two artists also studied images of the plastinated human circulatory systems pioneered by Dr. Gunther von Hagens of the infamous Body Worlds exhibits.

Kay shared with VICE Creators Project that, “the biggest challenge for this project was creating an anatomical character that looked life-like and integrated with the real environment. We spent a lot of time experimenting with different postures, and oftentimes we had to exaggerate the posture greatly so that it could translate visually with the deconstructed structure of the circulatory system.”

Kay started by modeling the main arteries and then used generative simulation to organically grow the thinner arteries and capillaries to fill out the figure. Meanwhile, Kriwol shot the urban settings in Warsaw, Tel Aviv, Masada hill in Israel, Grenoble, Berlin, and Brussels, as well as Cape Town, South Africa. Kay then recreated each photographed environment in 3D so that he had control over the reflections and shadows. The end result is a harmonious render of a delicate anatomical figure within its environment. Especially fitting is the circulatory figure at the bus stop with its reflection of the rivers and tributaries in the topography map.

Explore more of Kriwol’s urban photography and Kay’s scientific digital abstractions on Instagram.

 

 

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Batay-Csorba Architects expands Arts and Crafts-style house in Toronto

A patchwork of wood shingles and stone form this Toronto home that local practice Batay-Csorba Architects has extended and renovated.

Located in Toronto's residential neighbourhood Baby Point, the two-storey house was built in the early 1900s with stones from the city's Humber river, stucco and wood. The homeowners sought to preserve the characteristics of the home, and enlisted Batay-Csorba Architects for the renovation.

The original house was a mixture of Arts and Crafts-style and Tudor Revival, as seen in the exterior details that Batay-Csorba Architects left intact.

When developer Robert Home Smith created the garden suburb of Baby Point in 1912, he had many of the homes designed in this aesthetic, the studio explained.

"The Baby Point district is currently under study as a heritage conservation district in Toronto," said the studio. "The clients for Baby Point Residence had an interest in the Arts and Crafts movement, and preserving neighbourhood character."

The team cut a large, double-height slice in the west side of the home and added a gabled roofline on the back facade that features ample glazing and views of the back garden's ravine.

The result is a home that has three pitched rooflines of similar proportions, two of which run alongside one another on the back facade and a third that cuts across them. The home's front facade showcases new windows, wood shingles and masonry.

In addition to building the extension, Batay-Csorba Architects renewed the existing home structurally, reorganised the layout by tearing down walls and refurbished the interiors. The team sought to understand the underlying principles of the Arts and Crafts movement to design the house.

"Beyond medieval motifs, ornamentation and nostalgia for hand craftsmanship, we also interpreted the Arts and Crafts movement spatially," the studio added.

The ground floor is centred around a built-in storage volume that provides a pantry and a coffee bar in the new kitchen, and a bar nook in the adjacent dining room. A living room and separate sitting area round out the main level.

Custom furniture was built by local designer Heidi Earnshaw and includes a wood banquette in the kitchen whose aesthetic is designed to be reminiscent of the Arts and Crafts movement. Minimal, built-in cabinets in pale and dark wood feature throughout the home for added storage.

A stairwell with glass railings cuts through one of the home's pitched rooflines and accesses three bedrooms with ensuites. Measuring 5,200 square feet (483 square metres), Baby Point Residence is square-shaped in plan and is complete with a bedroom, living room, and two bathrooms in the basement.

Walls are white in sharp contrast to the existing stone fireplaces, and pale wood covers the floors.

Batay-Csorba Architects was founded in 2010 by Andrew Batay-Csorba and Jodi Batay-Csorba.

The studio has designed several apartment complexes in Toronto, including a building with a brick screen exterior and two townhouses linked together, as well as Milky's coffee shop.

Photography is by Doublespace Photography.

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Kengo Kuma's Japan National Stadium is "definitely not iconic" says Martin van der Linden

Architecture video blogger Martin van der Linden visits Kengo Kuma's new Olympic stadium in Tokyo in his latest contribution to Virtual Design Festival.

"Here behind me is the new Olympic Stadium designed by Kengo Kuma," says van der Linden. "The project was rather controversial, as the international competition was initially won by Zaha Hadid."

Officially called Japan National Stadium, the building was completed earlier this year in time for this summer's Tokyo 2020 Olympics. However, the games have since been postponed until next year due to coronavirus.

Controversy over Zaha's original design

The project was mired in controversy in its early days, with Zaha Hadid winning a competition to design the stadium in 2012. However, three years later, the project was scrapped amid opposition from leading Japanese architects and concerns over costs.

"Due to budget constraints, some changes to the design were requested by the Japanese government," says van der Linden, who made the short video for his One Minute Architecture channel on YouTube.

"Even after the changes, the redesign by Hadid was still estimated at ¥300 billion - three times the cost of the London Olympic Stadium."

Japanese architects protest

"At the same time, in 2012, a group of Japanese architects led by Fumihiko Maki and also Edward Suzuki were very vocal against Hadid's redesign," he adds.

"A limited competition was won by Kengo Kuma, with Taisei as the main contractor, at a cost of ¥157 billion. Construction was completed in 36 months."

Kuma's design features slatted-wood cladding on the exterior and three levels of walkways lined with planters.

"Quite a bit of wood used"

"The conceptual basis for the design is what Kuma called a living tree," says van der Linden. "As you can see, many plants have been integrated into the facade design and there's also quite a bit of wood used."

Kuma's use of wood echoes the approach at his SunnyHills project in Tokyo, which also adapts a traditional Japanese technique and which Van der Linden blogs about in another short movie.

"This wood lattice structure is a reference to traditional Japanese architecture and will, according to the architects, add to building structural integrity," van der Linden explains.

Fans to keep visitors cool

"Cross ventilation and fans should help cool the visitors and athletes during the hot and humid summers of Tokyo."

Van der Linden, founder of Tokyo-based Van Der Architects, points out that "the number 47 comes back in the design many times."

"The height of the building is 47.4 metres. 47,000 trees have been planted around the venue. And wood used in the construction was sourced from the 47 prefectures of Japan."

Stadium resembles "a large planter"

"The design is quite simple, and definitely not iconic," van der Linden concludes. "But I personally like it very much, especially once the vegetation is blooming and the stadium will look like a large planter. We definitely need more living trees in Tokyo."

Virtual Design Festival has teamed up with van der Linden to present a selection of his best short architecture movies.

"Even after 28 years, I found Tokyo endlessly fascinating, and I enjoy making videos of its architecture, and its rather mysterious urbanity," he said in a specially created video introducing the collaboration.

About Virtual Design Festival

Virtual Design Festival, the world's first digital design festival, runs from 15 April to 30 June 2020. It is a platform that will bring the architecture and design world together to celebrate the culture and commerce of our industry, and explore how it can adapt and respond to extraordinary circumstances.

VDF will host a rolling programme of online talks, lectures, movies, product launches and more, complementing and supporting fairs and festivals around the world that have had to be postponed or cancelled and it will provide a platform for design businesses, so they can, in turn, support their supply chains.

Find out more here or email vdf@dezeen.com for details or to join our mailing list.

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