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"X" Marks The Spot! #5
By Le Vin Chin
There’s always so much going on in the world of design, effects and color and often too little time to check it all out. Here’s your monthly treasure map to all the items you’re too busy to investigate yourself - but which are themselves too interesting to miss!
The shortlist for one of architecture’s most prestigious prizes, the Stirling Prize, was announced this past month. Awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects, the prize will go to one of these six European projects:
- America's Cup Building, Valencia, Spain by David Chipperfield Architects
- Casa da Musica, Porto, Portugal by Office for Metropolitan Architecture with Arup-AFA
- Dresden Station Redevelopment, Dresden, Germany by Foster + Partners
- Museum of Modern Literature, Marbach am Neckar, Germany by David Chipperfield Architects
- The Savill Building, Windsor, UK by Glenn Howells Architects
- Young Vic Theatre, London, UK by Haworth Tompkins
Will doubly nominated David Chipperfield split his vote? Will old reliables Norman Foster or Rem Koolhaas capture the day? With the award itself forthcoming on October 6, here’s your chance to make your own mind up and second-guess which way the wind is blowing in contemporary European architecture!
Logo design is in the news again, with mixed reactions to the recently revamped logo of Qantas. Ostensibly redesigned to fit the tail-shape of the Airbus A380 and other modern aeroplanes, the kangaroo has been retained, but in a “sleeker and more contoured” form, in a bid to evolve the brand – which has featured a kangaroo in one form or another since 1944, even including a winged version for some time – rather than make a break with the past.
"X" marks the spot in ...
... Bavaria and Salzburg
PingMag is this month’s featured design website. Observing the global design landscape from a Japanese standpoint, PingMag lovingly chronicles design at every aspect and level. (Check out our interview with Uleshka Asher, former Chief Editor and “mother” of PingMag!)
There’s nothing new under the sun … but sometimes, ideas can still pop up which change the way you look at the world. Saundra Parks has been delighting the New York cognoscenti for years with her exclusive custom floral arrangements from her shop, Daily Blossom, but the paradigm shift here comes from her handbags, which she hand-crafts … from flowers. Each handbag is therefore de facto one-of-a-kind and has a brief lifespan, making it simultaneously valuable and ephemeral. But more importantly the concept challenges our notions on decoration and the use of materials in design.
This month, our featured European design magazines are: icon, the British architecture and design magazine with a strong editorial and design aesthetic; and Interni, the glossy Italian magazine which bills itself not just as a magazine but as an “integrated communication system”. Check them both out for the best of contemporary design theory and practice!