Animation director Patrick Smith ingeniously interchanges a variety of pills, capsules, and syringes with similarly shaped candy in a vertiginous new short film. Parodying the ubiquity of modern pharmaceutical use, “Candy Shop” opens by noting that there are a staggering 11,926 prescription drugs available to consumers. Smith shows only 2,863 as he juxtaposes them with individually wrapped sweets, boxes of Gobstoppers, and rolls of Hubba Bubba Tape, which are eerily comparable in size, shape, and color.
Smith shares more of his animated projects on Vimeo, in addition to some behind-the-scenes shots on Instagram.
New York firm No Architecture has designed this house in Oregon's Willamette Valley wine country around a glazed garden fill with deciduous trees.
A large dark roof covers the aptly named Courtyard House residence with an irregular piercing in the middle marking the courtyard. Inside, it forms a garden wrapped by glass walls with wooden frames.
"Piercing the centre of the home, the fully-glazed courtyard planted with native deciduous trees conceives landscape as partition, shaping the interior through more porous and dynamic boundaries that transform with the seasons," No Architecture said.
In addition to providing a feature of the interior, the studio said the courtyard also improves the passive heating and cooling. A glass door included in the walls also helps with natural ventilation.
"In wintertime, the courtyard's position increases passive solar heating, while in summertime, the courtyard stimulates passive cooling and natural ventilation," it added.
Designed for a couple, the one-storey residence is embedded into a hillside so it is hidden among its natural surrounds from the front.
While the house is disguised at the front, at the rear it opens up to enjoy views down to the wild river and wetlands.
Glazed walls match the enclosure around the courtyard, while the concrete platform cantilevers from the rear to form a viewing platform.
The kitchen, lounge, dining room and bedroom are arranged around the courtyard with views of both the enclosed garden and the house's natural surroundings on the eastern side.
"Inside, the courtyard liberates the internal circulation into a continuous loop where every living space doubles as a sleeping space at night," No Architecture explained.
Rather than adding in walls, No Architecture added storage cabinets in L shapes that form create lateral bracing and enclose two bedrooms in opposing corners.
"Departing from the compartmentalised 'room-and-corridor' plan found in conventional homes, the interior flows in a continuous loop sculpted by a faceted courtyard and two L-shaped storage cores," it said.
The volume enclosing the south-east corner is fronted with wooden cabinets for the kitchen on one edge, and a bathroom on the other. The second contains two bathrooms interspersed with closets, storage and space for mechanicals.
"Maximising usable space while minimising poché, the cores condense the fixtures necessary to support daily life, including: the kitchen, bathrooms, closets and mechanicals," it added.
No Architecture has used a minimal palette throughout the house including exposed concrete floors and walls, white-painted walls and wood-framed windows. Furnishings are sparse and include pale curtains, decorative rugs and wooden furniture.
Virtual Design Festival, the world's first online design festival, runs until 30 June. For the full schedule of upcoming events, visit dezeen.com/vdf/schedule.
Tuesday 26 May
VDF x Friedman Benda: as part of the Design in Dialogue series of video interviews with New York gallery Friedman Benda, industrial designer Stephen Burks spoke about the stereotyping he was subjected to as an African American working for big European industrial design firms.
VDF x Mark & Stephenson: the first of three documentaries by filmmaking duo Laura Mark and Jim Stephenson to be screened as part of VDF was Zaha Hadid: Words by Eva Jiřičná. The never-before-seen film features Czech architect Jiřičná paying homage to the life and work of her late friend.
Wednesday 27 May
VDF x Therme Art: this live panel discusison featured current and former Serpentine Pavillion designers Frida Escobedo, Junya Ishigami and Counterspace's Sumayya Vally in conversation with architect Stefano Boeri and artist Torkwase Dyson about how the art and design disciplines converge and complement each other.
Scavolini introduces BoxLife: in a Dezeen video produced for Scavolini, Rainlight studio's Yorgo Lykouria introduced a modular furniture system he designed for the Italian furniture brand. Called BoxLife, it can be adapted to form everything from a kitchen to an office or entertainment space.
Did you miss week four?Read our summary of the highlights, including exclusive interviews with Carlo Ratti and Iris van Herpen, as well as a cocktail masterclass from the owner of Milan's Bar Basso.
Did you miss week three?Read our summary of the highlights, including a video message from Ben van Berkel and an exclusive screening of Gary Hustwit's Dieter Rams documentary.
Virtual Design Festival, the world's first digital design festival, runs from 15 April to 30 June 2020 and is sponsored by bathroom and kitchen manufacturer Grohe. For more information about VDF or to join the mailing list, email vdf@dezeen.com.
Architecture studio Kientruc O built the Bó Mon preschool with a shady veranda for children living in Vietnam's mountainous Son La Province.
Situated in the Yên Châu District's Tu Nang Commune, the rural school was designed to be comfortable in the warm and humid subtropical climate.
Photo by Trieu Chien
Bó Mon preschool is raised slightly off the ground on stilts, in order to catch the most breeze in the valley.
Its corrugated bitumen roof curves in a gentle arch over the main school building, with wavy edges that create moving patches of shade down either side of its veranda.
Photo by Trieu Chien
"The soft shape of the roof creates a shady area that transits slowly from the wall to the floor as the sun changes its course," said Kientruc O.
"It sits among the indefinite mountains and hills, and where it blends itself between the cloud and the smog of a highland afternoon."
Trees grows up through the floor and through one of the cut-outs in the side of the roof. Circular skylights punched in the metal canopy let shafts of sunlight dapple the floor below.
The double-layered roof, made from sheets of Onduline, is lightweight, durable and waterproof. Its dark colour absorbs the sun to keep the classroom warm in the cooler wet season.
Steps lead up from the ground to the veranda that runs down both sides of the school.
This external corridor connects through a central courtyard that separates the classroom from the teacher's room, kitchen and bathrooms.
Photo by Trieu Chien
"The courtyard is essentially a multifunctional open area under a shady awning where children play together," said Kientruc O.
"When school is in session, the yard is a place where siblings from the school next door gather to wait for each other before going home, an outdoor classroom, and a communal space for local festivals to take place throughout the year."
Photo by Trieu Chien
The school is orientated so that breeze running down the valley flows through it from one end to the other during the day. Windows on both sides of the classroom allow cross ventilation.
At night, when the wind comes down from the mountains, the low-hanging eaves shelter the building's sides.
Bó Mon preschool is a charity project, designed by Kientruc O on a strict budget to serve as a "connecting station" for 70 pupils from three villages in a one mile radius, including children from the Hmong ethnic group.
"Many uncertainties occurred during the long construction process, especially when it comes to a charity project with limited budget and constricted construction condition," said Kientruc O.
The practice, founded by Đàm Vũ in 2003, has a lot of experience in building for children's early education.
Photography is by Hoang Le, unless stated otherwise.
Project credits:
Architect: Kientruc O Principal architect: Đàm Vũ Design team: Anni Le, Duy Tang Support team: Thanh Viet Nguyen, Vu Phuong Nguyen, Minh Phuong Tran, Ngoc Long Huynh, Phuoc Truong Tran, Anh Duy Tran, Phu Thinh Pham, Chi Huan Nguyen Charity organisation: MT Community Charity funding: Pay It Forward Fund Constructor: Hung Phat Tradeco (Bimexco)
An editorial project by London's V&A Museum reflects on objects that have been ascribed new meanings and functions during the coronavirus pandemic. Curator Brendan Cormier selects his highlights.
Pandemic Objects is an online editorial project that was launched at the beginning of May, composed of a series of articles posted on the V&A Blog written by curators and directors alike from the museum.
The project shows how items already in the museum's collection that can now be seen in a new way. Its editors have also selected a series of everyday objects, such as flour and yeast or nitrile gloves, that have now been placed in the spotlight under the new context of Covid-19
"During times of pandemic, a host of everyday often-overlooked 'objects' (in the widest possible sense of the term) are suddenly charged with new urgency," reads the V&A Blog.
Toilet paper, for example, has become "a symbol of public panic", while parks have become "contested public commodities".
In collating these objects and considering the changes in their purposes, the V&A's Pandemic Objects project aims to "paint a unique picture of the pandemic" and the importance of the objects associated with it.
Here, Cormier explains the reasoning behind five of the object choices:
"One of the things the pandemic has made us think a lot more about – and which is often hidden to us in our daily lives – is the network of supply chains that keep our economy functioning.
"Zofia Trafas White writes in one of our posts about the ubiquitous cardboard box, used to ship countless parcels and packages to our homes when we don't have the luxury of going to the high street.
"Cardboard has become an essential material for logistics, and one that might be in short supply in the near future because of a breakdown in manufacturing and recycling. Thinking more critically about cardboard will be important in the future.
"Trafas White references this chair in our collection, Splat, which was designed consciously as an object not meant to last – as all children eventually grow up – and as such made from cardboard so that it can be recycled after use."
"In a piece I wrote about the vast proliferation of homemade signs over the course of the lock-down, I was struck by the power of individual voices finding expression out on the street in the form of simple paper messages.
"It recalled, in part, the early work the American artist Jenny Holzer's where she would bill-post acerbic and poetic statements through offset lithography in public spaces around New York City.
"As well, it's a reminder that the street is a perfectly effective forum for expression, one that has been slightly forgotten as we have all moved our socialising habits online."
"Although a lot of our focus has been on how new technologies will rise to the challenges brought on by the pandemic, one object that went into production more than 150 years ago, has proven especially effective: the sewing machine."
"In a post by Becky Knott [on the V&A Blog], she explores how different support networks have emerged like For the Love of Scrubs and Scrub Hub, in which people are encouraged to dust off their sewing machine to produce essential apparel and protective personal equipment (PPE) for hospital workers."
"To manage the crisis, we've seen governments and industry have to tackle the major logistical challenge of suddenly having to supply lots of urgent equipment, whether that be PPE or ventilators, in a very short period of time.
"Livia Turnbull, who wrote a piece for us on home-made masks, makes the useful comparison to a moment in Britain during thee second world war, when the government declared that every man, woman and child were to have a gas mask in order to protect against possible chemical attacks. Then, as now, industry was forced to rapidly retool in order to supply the millions of masks needed."
"In a piece by Ella Kilgallon, she explores the alternatives to travelling when we are all stuck at home. While referencing Google Street View as an unexpected new form of escapism, she also usefully points out to a longer history of travelogues and the depiction of voyages in literature and visual culture.
"This print is a vivid portrayal of what has been dramatically halted – air travel. The print redraws the world through the lens of travel routes that have become increasingly strained over the past decades."
