This collection of miniature figurines frozen in small-scale narratives by Hampshire based sculptor Nic Joly are entitled ‘Under Foot’.
The concept originally started as a hobby in 2006, creating miniature toys to entertain his two children. It’s now become a full-time occupation, creating sculptures of tiny people, typically moulded at a height of one centimeter.
These are just a few of his interesting pieces – see a lot more here on Design Boom.
In clear weather the rainbow will appear twice a day, for 20 minutes, and are created using sunlight, renewable energy and 100% captured rainwater.
The project was a decade in the making and represents a collaboration between irrigation and rainwater harvesting experts, Lindsay Corporation, structural and mechanical engineers, atmospheric scientists, Bemis Center and artist Michael Jones McKean
Quite a beautiful project that will start in early June and run until 15th September.
Hovering like ghostly aparitions of architecture these fabric installations by Korean artist Do Ho Suh create new environments within his exhibition using silk and metal structures.
The artist’s architectural sculptures have been brought together for an exhibition called ‘Home Within Home‘ at the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea.
Previously on display at New York’s Lehmann Maupin Gallery, they explore the idea of home and the sense of cultural displacement that comes with immigrating to a new place.
Experimenting with materials in architecture to achieve environmental benefits has led to the development of many outstanding innovations that have changed the way we interact with buildings.
Now architect Doris Kim Sung, assistant professor of architecture at the USC School of Architecture, is experimenting with how a building can interact with its environment through the materials used in its construction.
Her latest installation, “Bloom”, is 20-foot tall and made from 14,000 tiny sheets of metal that open and close with the sun manipulating the light within the structure.
Sung discovered a new use for a material usually used in thermostat coils that responds to temperature changes. The metal alloy, called “thermobimetal”, is made of two sheets of metal laminated together. Each metal expands at a different rate when heated, curling as the temperature rises and flattening when cooled.
The metal sheets curl upwards with the sun creating moving shaded areas within the installation when needed. Sung believes that it could be used to create canopies that close when the sun is above or vents that open when the air becomes too stuffy and is now working on ways to integrate thermobimetal with standard building components.
It looks fantastic and is a mixture of art and architecture that addresses an environmental need. See a video of the installation below and more can be found on their blog.
Two new sculptures by American artist Will Ryman are now on exhibition in ‘Anyone and No One’ at the Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York.
They are both massive installations created from every-day objects. ‘Bird’ is constructed from nails of various lengths and towers 12 feet tall whilst ‘Everyman’ uses a diverse variety of household items, such as paint brushes, bottle caps and work boots, to create a 90 foot figure within the gallery space.
Due to the sheer size and impact of both sculptures, Ryman’s installation has been separated in two parts– ‘Everyman’ has taken up residence in the 293 Tenth Avenue location while the 27th Street space hosts the Bird, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, ‘The Raven’.
Beautiful structures that really catch the eye.
See more and how they were constructed on Design Boom.
Neville Gabie, the Olympic Park’s artist in residence, has created a reimagined version of George Seurat’s famous 1884 painting Bathers at Asnières with builders from the Olympic site.
Set on the River Lea in East Stratford it is a far cry from the original stting on the banks of the Seine in Paris. The photographic portrait is called Freeze Frame and Mr Gabie said he was struck by the similarities in Seurat’s painting and the visualisation he was shown before work began on the Olympic Park.
‘There is an obvious and surprising physical connection between the two landscapes, but the concept for the work explores the more striking similarities between the social and political contexts of the two,’ he told Metro. ‘Now, in the east end of London, we’ve reimagined a post-industrial landscape using sports
From now until September bus stops all over London will be brought to life with digital art and inspiring messages, but you will only be able to see them if you are on the top deck of a bus.
Bus-Tops is an interactive art project, one of 12 around the UK commissioned for Artists Taking the Lead – an initiative set up by the Cultural Olympiad 2012 and Arts Council England to showcase the nation’s creativity to the world.
The concept is to to make London bus journeys more engaging and inspiring by installing LED screens on top of 30 bus shelters. The screens are being fitted with red and black LED lights and show designs from professional artists and members of the public.
Find out more about this project and where you can find the installations by chicking here.
Looking for a bit of light relief this December then check out The Art of Dancing, an advent calendar of dance that will knock your socks off, or at least give you a laugh. A new dance every day up to Christmas – will they keep going?
Using orphaned & unloved antique plates Beat Up Creations has transformed these and many other throw away items, breathing new life into them in interesting and creative ways.
The winners of the Blueprint Awards at 100% Design have been announced. In a very competitive year the Best New Product award went to Nathalie Dewez for her piece Linea light and the Most Promising Talent at 100% Futures award was given to Daniel Emma Studio.
See more of about the winners and their work on Blueprint.
Takashi Murakami’s whirlwind exhibition of manga-inspired works comes to the Palais de Versailles, Paris, in a display of 22 bright coloured sculptures – does it work with the historic background of the palace? What do you think?
The Industry Gallery, Washinton DC, is holding a new exhibition called Nature/Data by New York-based Italian designer and architect Antonio Pio Saracino. The exhibition features eleven chairs that are constructed in a range of materials including plywood, metal, carbon fiber and synthetics and in various forms such as molecules, leaves, blossoms, and crystals. Great furniture designs that inspire.
Madrid architect Antón García-Abril of Ensamble Studio has installed two enormous girders that slice through the Arsenale exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Entitled Balancing Act, the installation comprises one girder balanced across the other and supported at one end by a metal spring.
A new digitally fabricated installation by Jonathan Henry Arseni Zaitev from Anonymous Studio called “Alexandria”, is to be situated in the Architecture Gallery of the Southern Polytechnic State University. It is to open at the State University’s biannual exhibition of young professional work as a part of the “Summer Salon 2010”. Alexandria hovers above the floor and drapes across the gallery, transforming a canopy into an intriguing installation. “The symbolic disillusionment with the political datum of the ground relinquishes the installation from prescriptive idealizations. Alexandria’s canopy will not be tainted by agendas but will be appropriated but those who are most likely to contribute to it,” explained the studio.
Tokujin Yoshioka’s tank of flying feathers is on show at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. Below you can see a video of the installation as shown on Dezeen.tv - Beautiful
A new installation will be placed in Trafalgar Square during the London Design Festival. Outrace, includes eigth industrial robots borrowed from Audi and both visitors to the square and users of the project’s website will be able to take control of them, each of which have a reach of over three metres. Users will be able to write short messages and the robots will ‘write’ using light heads. “As a user’s message is drawn, the light trace will be simultaneously recorded through a system of high definition, long-exposure cameras, encoded as a video and relayed back to be shared across social media,” The project is the brainchild of KRAM/WEISSHAAR, artists Reed Kram and Clemens Weisshaar – See more here or visit the Outrace site.
IKEA has unveiled their SURREALISTIKA kitchen sculpture, a piece created to celebrate creativity in design. The sculpture takes center stage as part of The Surreal House exhibition at the Barbican, London. Bringing fantasy and imagination to life, the sculpture incorporates the natural beauty of the Silver Birch tree intertwined with elements of an everyday kitchen. It depicts a surreal vision of the future when environmental concerns will be ever more at the core of kitchen design. The Silver Birch was chosen because it has always been a source of inspiration for Swedish designers and artists.
MOMA, New York, has released a free iPhone application feature 32,000 works of art plus audio tours of the museum and event calendars. Combining art and content the app brings some of the worlds most famous works of art to your iPhone.
A project by photographer George Logan, Translocation puts African wildlife into less predictable settings. Logan has been developing this photographic series for five years and they have recently been published as a book, which will be sold with 100% of the sale price going to the international wildlife charity, the Born Free Foundation.
Troika has unveiled a kinetic sign directing visitors to London’s V&A Museum. The sign is installed in the tunnel from South Kensington tube station and uses Alan Fletcher’s identity for the museum to create Palindrome. The piece features a revolving V&A monogram suspended in a cylindrical ceiling-mounted capsule. According to Troika “the logo decontructs and reconnects itself with each half turn forming a playful palindrome legible from either side, while the wheels produce a gentle ticking sound reminiscent of a Victorian automaton clockwork.”
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