Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law, Science & Technology

Spiral Vs Crazy: Biologically Inspired Architectures for Design Researchers

Let's close the biology and mimicry thread that started two days ago with a post briefly looking at two buildings that can be considered as very good examples of biologically inspired architectures and that may provide further inspirations also for interior/fashion and accessory designers (jewellery designers, I actually suspect this post may be rather interesting for you as well).

The first one is the Spiral Apartment House (1984-1989) located on a hillside in Ramat Gan, Israel, this is a particularly intriguing structure designed by Zvi Hecker.

The sketches showing the studies and the research behind the house have an Escherian quality about them, the building is indeed a gigant spiral staircase that derives its energy from the rotation of a spiral, but that incorporates elements inspired by other animal forms as well.

The spiral shape prevails obviously: it elevates the building upwards from its shaded lower floors to its open terraces,and the shape is also influenced by variations that create more complex spiralling forms. For example, rather than being supported by a classic load bearing column, inside the building there is an interior courtyard, while the apartments are fan-shaped.

While the materials employed for this structure, especially the white plaster and the raw pink stones, are usually associated with old or poor neighbourhoods, the house also evokes in its structure the terracing typical of Arab villages, while speaking the international language of geometrical shapes and forms.   

Hecker explains on his site that The Spiral House "is a work of incomplete precision. Because it is so precise it can't be really finished. No limit to the precision one can achieve. The Spiral's incompleteness is also its poetry, because poetry is the most precise expression of our need for precision."

"Expressive as it is, the Spiral can't be fully understood. It speaks to many languages at one and the same time. It speaks Arabic about the human condition. It argues in Hebrew abourt the sheer necessity to bring the muscles and materials together, but it is quite fluent in Russian when construction becomes architecture. Its Italian is very Baroque, as spoken in Piemonte by Guarino Guarini. The Spiral is a tower of Babel in miniature."

Another notable example of bilogically inspired architecture is the Gaudi-style nine-story building known as The Crazy House (1985), designed by Syrian-born architect Leon Gaignebet (also known as Leon Geneva).

Located in 181 HaYarkon Street, Tel Aviv, the building features gravel, shells, sand, natural wood and plants embedded in one  façade, while the front-facing side integrates a metal-and-concrete structure with balconies shaped like waves. According to the architect the building is also a combination of juxtapositions, such as east VS west, masculine Vs feminine and mineral Vs natural. So, what's your choice, do you feel more like a "spiral" or a "crazy" designer? 

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Fashion or Mimicry Cycles?

In yesterday's post we looked at a biological inspiration that could serve as the starting point for innovative designs. But maybe the principles of biology may not just inspire, but may be used to explain the laws governing fashion.

Let's think for example about Batesian and Müllerian Mimicry: explained by English explorer-naturalist Henry Walter Bates the former refers to a mimicry process adopted by harmless species that, palatable to a predator, mimic the appearance of a harmful or noxious species to protect themselves even though they wouldn't have the actual defenses to do so when attacked.

It was German naturalist Fritz Müller who in 1878 provided instead an evolutionary explanation for the close similarity of co-existing unpalatable prey species: according to him, two or more unprofitable (often, distasteful) species evolve to look similar to each other to their mutual benefit, since predators are repelled as they learn to avoid all of them and this causes lesser fatalities. 

In both forms of mimicry there is a pattern of emergence and assimilation linking the original and the copy, the model and the repetition, both these forms are also directly linked to the need to survive (the species copy each others to avoid and "educate" predators).

In Müllerian Mimicry you also get an infinite multiplicity and a continuous series of variations; this form of mimicry also implies the loss of singularities in favour of multitude and repetition. Several labels, brands and houses coexist in the realm of the fashion industry, but in the last few years we have seen a loss of distinctions and uniqueness in favour of a sort of principle of assimilation and adaptation: one label may copy another endlessly not to repel but to attract the consumer, using a form of visual mimicry (rather than originality) to make sure the consumer gets specific messages ("I'm as trendy/fashionable/cool as that other label/I can give you status as that other label/etc").

In Müllerian Mimicry species reduce the mortality involved in training predators to avoid them; in fashion labels and brands train and lure consumers, so this is mimicry based on the laws of attraction rather than repulsion; species do it to survive and labels act along the same line, to sell and therefore survive in the wide and dangerous fashion juingle.

Somehow it would be more fascinating if the endless copying cycles - pardon fashion cycles - were to be linked with biology and mimicry, but maybe looking for a biological explanation is simply useless and all these copying exercises should be attributed to a lack of design talent and a proliferation of laziness in most fashion-related fields, from the production of garments and accessories to the beauty and fragrance industry (as proved also by the recent and rather useless debate about KKW Body by Kim Kardashian, a fragrance packaged in a body-shaped bottle reminiscent of Jean-Paul Gaultier's Classique packaging that in turn was a modern copy of Elsa Schiaparelli's Shocking inspired by Mae West's torso...).

 

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Inspiring Biological Dimensions: Michael Burt's Sponge Polyhedra

Even the most creative minds out there may at times find themselves in a rut or feel suddenly drained when it comes to innovative ideas for new designs. This happens in all the arts, even though fashion designers seem to be the ones who have more frequent creative crises, maybe due to the relentless rhythms and pressures of the industry. When that happens the best thing to do is looking at another field or discipline and get inspiration from it.

Biology is a great resource for some great biomimicry inspirations, but there are particular researches that may lead to extremely intriguing results. Architect and Professor at Technion, I.I.T. Haifa Israel, Michael Burt has for example developed in the last ten years in-depth researches in sponge and polyhedral surfaces.

For his studies Burt moves from morphological ideas: while carefully observing the shapes and forms of what surrounds us in nature, Burt took an interest in structures shaped like solids or containers from historical cultures up to our present times and including pyramids, prisms, anti-prisms, star polyhedra, deltahedra and zonohedra, just to mention a few of them.

The architect realised that not all polyhedral forms have a proper name yet and that among them there are sponge-like labyrinthian, polyhedral, space dividing surfaces. The spongy structures Burt has studied so far are characterised by porosity and visual permeability, among them there are microscopic radiolaria bones, eroded rocks and gigantic cave labyrinths.

Burt analysed therefore sponge polyhedra, eventually getting to a sort of categorisation of the polyhedral universe and coming up with an essay entitled "The Periodic Table of the Polyhedral Universe", conceived to provide an overview of his thoughts and analyses. 

Some of the sections of the essay, in particular the ones regarding parameters and calculations may be rather complex for non-experts, but the mathematical patterns and Burt's thoughts on space lattice configurations and polyhedral tessellations are particularly fascinating, just like the images featured in "Periodic Sponge Surfaces and Uniform Sponge Polyhedra in Nature and in the Realm of the Theoretically Imaginable" in which he juxtaposes sponge polyhedra to images in nature and man-made architectures. There are more information on Burt's studies on his site and online such as his essay "Uniform Networks, Sponge Surfaces and Uniform Sponge Polyhedra in 3-D Space". Get inspired!

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The Symbolism of Anonymity: Nina Donis S/S 18 Vs John Baldessari

Conceptual artist John Baldessari is known for combining photographs with paint: in some of his most famous works such as "Connecting Dots" the heads of the people portrayed in a black and white image are concealed with colourful red, yellow or blue spots, the striking colours contrasting with the drabness of the photograph.

From an art point of view, Baldessari's palette may seem to remind the Russian painters' colour schemes and in particular Aleksandr Rodchenko's monochrome canvases dated 1921, "Pure Red Color", "Pure Blue Color", and "Pure Yellow Color".

Yet while Rodchenko and the Constructivists were celebrating in this way the death of the old forms and setting onto a quest for new ones, Baldessari's main aim is that of confusing the perceptions of the spectator.

By adding the dots and erasing in this way the faces of the people in the photographs, Baldessari adds indeed a layer of anonymity to the black and white image, giving an aura of universal validity to the statement made by the picture.

Baldessari is the main inspiration behind Nina Donis' S/S 18 designs: you can easily spot his palette in the red, yellow and blue shirts and shorts, decorated with minimalist dots included in the collection.

The clothes are characterised by practical and simple shapes that combine Liubov Popova's sportswear, Vladimir Tatlin's work outfits and Nadezhda Petrovna Lamanova's designs made in collaboration with artist and sculptor Vera Mukhina. 

The whole is obviously mixed with a contemporary dynamicity, a passion for art and an obsession with postmodern bands à la New Order (Nina Donis' electric blue shirt and skirt is be the perfect uniform for a "Blue Monday" mood...). 

Other decorative motifs in the collection - scattered on long shirt dresses or separates such as vests and trousers - include an abstract floral motif and a silhouette of a dog that looks rather surreal when applied on long skirts and dresses, giving the impression the pet is standing next to the wearer. 

The modus operandi of the duo has remained consistent throughout the years: they take an inspiration and deconstruct it rather than blatantly copying it, and they are therefore not afraid of revealing to their public what moved, influenced or pushed them to tell their story.

Hence the lookbook points at Baldessari's "Person with Guitar (Red)", his "Noses & Ears, etc" series and "Eight Colourful Inside Jobs: Blue", works blending elements borrowed from Pop Art, Surrealism, Dadaism and Conceptual art.   

Yet there is another connection with Baldessari that does not stop to the colour palette: the duo erased indeed the face of the model in their lookbook and that is where the final meaning of the collection stands.

Nina Donis are telling us to add our face there rather than showing us how well a celebrity or an influencer would wear their stuff. They remind us that their clothes are not for some people but for a universal consumer who moves, works and plays, a clever consumer who prefers to live rather than to pose. Infusing a bit of art in these designs is just a way for Nina Donis to make the world more fun and beautiful.   

There is a lot of talk at the moment about revolutions in fashion, but quite often everything ends up with a lot of promises and with overusing the word sustainability without really believing in it. Then there are those designers who are keeping calm and carrying on with a quiet and anonymous revolution. Nina Donis are among them and that's why they should be praised.

Image credits for this post

Photo: Nina Neretina
Post Production: Svetlana Yaroshevich  
Layout: Natasha Ganelina & Dima Pantyushin 
Model: Svetlana Yaroshevich  

Meditations About the Future with An Architectural (and Fashion) Twist: "Quinceañeras" by Frank Thiel @ Blain Southern, Berlin

It may be challenging to combine in one picture an architectural inspiration with themes such as culture and traditions, while giving to the composition also a fashionable flair.

Photographer Frank Thiel has managed to do so in his "Quinceañeras" series, that will be exhibited at Blain Southern in Berlin (Potsdamer Straße 77–87) from this weekend (until 16th June).

Born in Kleinmachnow, in the former East Germany in 1966, Thiel moved to West Berlin in 1985, first studying photography and then enrolling at the University of the Arts.

He is known for his monumental photographs chronicling Berlin's topographical and architectural transformation after Germany's reunification, but he also developed further the transformation theme studying other places such as the glaciers of Patagonia.

Extensive research remains the starting point for all his projects as proved also by the "Quinceañeras" series. Thiel worked indeed with his Cuban team and the families of the young women portrayed for two years to create this series, shooting the images in the girls' neighbourhoods in Havana and ending up visiting and picturing all fifteen municipalities of the Cuban capital.

Marking the return to portrait photography of Thiel for the first time in over 20 years, the "Quinceañeras" images look at the tradition of lavish coming-of-age celebrations for a young woman's fifteenth birthday in Cuba.

Across Latin America, a girl's fifteenth birthday is an important rite of passage marking the transition into adulthood. Traditions may vary from country to country, but one thing remains the same, the iconic portrait of the girl being celebrated, usually shot by a professional photographer and showing an idealised fantasy aiming at preproducing the look of mainstream fashion magazines or a sweet and dreamy fairytale.

Thiel's portraits look rather different: the girls have a static pose, they look at the camera and radiantly smile with their hands on their hips in their brightly coloured tiered and ruffled gowns with bejewelled bodices and tiaras that make them look like classic Disney princesses, but the backdrop behind them varies.

One girl is standing in front of a pool, another looks like a goddess as she fiercely stands surrounded by majestic trees in a tangled forest. In some cases there's a dilapidated building, an unadorned brutalist concrete structure or a geometrical patterned wall behind the young women. 

Daniela Lucrecia Márquez Rivero defiantly stands in front of an abandoned department store in Havana's centre, the sign behind her ominously reading Fin de Siglo (End of the Century). 

The buildings create a stark visual contrast with the colourful attire donned by the girls, the romanticism of their dresses is almost shattered in some cases, while at the same time the image is full of power.

The young women in Thiel's pictures may indeed be princesses emerging from the debris and still standing after a major apocalypse, or in world in constant movement, as proved by the people waiting for their local public transport behind one of the girls photographed.

The quince tradition in Cuba becomes therefore for Thiel a metaphor for a culture in flux with the young women growing up while a heritage-rich city is radically changing or even decaying.

These visually striking yet intimate portraits hint at an uncertain future in which architecture, the transitory moment and socio-political realities are combined together.

Hopefully in a few years' time Thiel will go back and take new pictures of the girls and we will discover that, while only some of them will have turned into fairy-tale princesses, all of them will have transformed into brave, determined and strong women.

All images by and copyright Frank Thiel

Daniela Lucrecia Márquez Rivero, La Habana, Centro Habana, Colón, Tacón, 2015

Damay y Yamay Gómez Hernández, La Habana, Plaza de la Revolución, Nuevo Vedado, 2015

Beatriz Maricé Darna García, La Habana, Playa, Miramar, 2016.

Melany Linares Díaz, La Habana, Playa, Miramar, La Puntilla, 2015

Gabriela León Greenup, La Habana, Cerro, Latinoamericano (Carraguao), 2016

Naomi Francisca Dangel Rodriguez, La Habana, Playa, Kohly, 2015.

Maria Carla Hidalgo Fernández, La Habana, Playa, Cubanacán, 2015

Dailys López Alejo, La Habana, Playa, Miramar, 2016

Lisandra de la Caridad Rodríguez Ramayo, La Habana, Arroyo Naranjo, Mantilla, 2016

Donna Gladys Machado Sánchez, La Habana, Plaza de la Revolución, Rampa, 2016

Aurora Lawton de la Caridad Tamayo Genes, La Habana, Centro Habana, Dragones, Monserrate, 2015

Claudia Sholans Peña Gonzáles, La Habana, La Lisa, Versalles - Coronela, La Corbata, 2016

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Styles of Repression & Repression in Style: "Dressing for Dystopia - The Handmaid's Tale Costumes by Ane Crabtree" @ SCAD FASH, Atlanta

The Met Museum's "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination" will launch in three weeks' time, but there is an exhibition celebrating the costumes inspired by a religious cult that will be opening sooner than that. "Dressing for Dystopia - The Handmaid's Tale Costumes by Ane Crabtree" (until 12th August) will indeed start next Tuesday at SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion and Film, in Atlanta.

The event will showcase costumes from the Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning Hulu original series, produced by MGM Television "The Handmaid's Tale", adapted from the eponymous 1985 dystopian book by Margaret Atwood, and with costumes by Ane Crabtree.

The story - set in the Republic of Gilead, a modern totalitarian theocracy in the former United States in which women are divided into castes - follows the vicissitudes of handmaid Offred (interpreted on the screen by Elizabeth Moss), one of the many handmaids, fertile women dressed in bright-red dresses and stark white bonnets used as the reproductive organs of the state and forced to bear children for the infertile wives of the Commanders.

Born in South Dakota and raised in Kentucky, Crabtree studied fine arts at Harlaxton College, Lincolnshire, England, and fashion design at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. She has earned nominations for her work on shows such as "Masters of Sex," "Pan Am" and "Westworld."

Co-curated by Alexandra Sachs, executive director of SCAD FASH and Atlanta Exhibitions, Rafael Gomes, director of fashion exhibitions, and SCAD alumnus Mangue Banzima (B.F.A., fashion marketing and management, 2014), the exhibition will feature around 40 costume designs from season one and season two (premiering today).

The main costumes are obviously the uniforms of the handmaids, inspired by cults and religious groups around the world from the 1900s to the present, including the Amish and a Danish cult called Tvind, but visitors will get the chance to discover further symbolisms behind them, from the red colour - inspired by blood - of the handmaids' dresses and cloaks to the horse blinder-like bonnets that were designed in a special way and that, while filming became lightboxes that framed and highlighted the heads and faces of the actresses.

Costume design students should pay attention to details such as the absence of buttons and zippers in the handmaids' uniforms and of the laces in the boots (replaced by a leather spat), elements hinting at imprisonment and jail and at being forced not to even think about committing suicide.

But there's more to discover in the many shades of teal employed for the Commanders' Wives' dresses and the olive-brown clothes of the Aunts. The former also feature little tailored details hinting at a subtle but repressed form of elegance and style; the latter move from the colour and texture of German uniforms from the Second World War.

The second series of "The Handmaid's Tale" promises to be even bleaker judging from the images of handmaids in black cloaks and with their face hidden behind a red veil and from the moods and themes of the first episode in which we follow pregnant Offred on a journey to freedom. 

Since series one was first broadcast, the handmaids' uniforms became a symbol of resistance at various political rallies and marches, in particular the ones against US President Donald Trump and eventually infiltrated the catwalk shows, arriving on Vaquera, Vera Wang and Preen's runways.

"Dressing Dystopia" will be anticipated by a museum members and SCAD card holders only reception next Monday, accompanied by an exclusive screening of "The Handmaid's Tale" season two, episode three, and a discussion with select cast and crew from the show (both open to the public).

You wonder if the white wide-brimmed chapeau designed by Hervé Pierre (evoking in its shape the hats seen on Marc Jacobs' S/S 18 runway) and donned yesterday by First Lady Melania Trump to welcome French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte in Washington was somehow referencing the handmaids' iconic white bonnet. Who knows, maybe Melania too is crying for freedom. 

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Instant Poetical Messages in a Fashion Display: "From Foot to Head" @ Galleria Artepassante, Milan

A group of tiny men - Lilliputians or maybe Little People out of Murakami's 1Q84 - is strategically placed under the sole of a ballerina shoe, as if they were carrying it. They look as busy as ants and as organised and determined as a Roman Legion testudo.

Pencils and coloured pastels replace the sole of another pair of shoes: they give the sandals a stilt-like configuration and probably cause terrible discomfort to the wearer, their broken tips hinting at lost struggles and hopes, but also at the power of resilience.

Five padded genderless dummies hug each other in a strange and disturbing yet tender configuration, maybe finding a bit of comfort from invisible pains and sorrows. 

These are just three of the pieces on display in the "From Foot to Head" exhibition (until 5th May), the annual display that colonises the spaces of the Galleria Artepassante located in the underground entrance of Viale Tunisia/Corso Buenos Aires, in Milan. 

The showcase has a double aim: while joining the celebrations for Milan Design Week (that closed last Sunday), the display is also a way to present to the wider public the work of the Fashion and Textile Design students at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milano (NABA).

Curated by NABA lecturer (and former fashion designer) Cinzia Ruggeri, Aldo Lanzini, MA Fashion and Textile Design Course Leader, and Luca Belotti, academic assistant, the main message behind the display comes from Ruggeri's desire to encourage her students to leave a poetical trace, a sign or a message using the semantics of fashion and accessory design.

Students always respond to Ruggeri's invitation in the most original ways and using all sorts of materials - some bought, some found, others recycled.

The pieces they create - garments, accessories or small design objects - are therefore very different one from the other, but they are all handmade; besides, each of them is supposed to tell a story to the passer-by.  

So there may be a terrible tale of madness, censorship and imprisonment in the jacket and slippers made with a corse canvas linen fabric torn into strips; beauty prevails in the nude organza cage dress on which flowers bloom, while the skeleton shoes and dress left on the floor of the gallery may be an ironic memento mori, rather than an ominously scary message for the passers-by. 

There are hints at a brainwashing dystopia, but also at the possibilities of recycling the materials surrounding us in the headdresses made of cables, and there's more to admire in the flat felt construction incorporating the minimalist biomorphic forms and colour scheme of Joan Miró or in the sensual evening red gown made with paper and plastic.

There are the most disparate messages behind these creations: some students want to make an instant statement and leave their mark in the ever-changing history of fashion; others are maybe hoping they will contribute to save the planet with their designs or they more simply want to express their youthful energy through their pieces. 

One of the most interesting things about this event remains the space it occupies: rather than waiting for visitors to go and see the students' work at NABA, Ruggeri & Co with Artepassante bring the students to the people, hoping to inspire but also to reconnect the world of fashion gone pretentiously digital with ordinary passers by and make them smile, laugh and cry.  

While it would be great to see this concept being applied to other cities as well, for the time being "From Foot to Head" remains the only showcase of this type in a public underground station.

So if you happen to be in Milan, visit the Artepassante Gallery and think a bit about modern cities and the power of collective emotions. And in case you think you're too busy to do it, well, while rushing to get the train to your next destination, stop and look at Ning Wan's dummies hugging in a Comme des Garçons-like conceptual gesture, and let them remind you that everything - especially fashion and accessories - is ephemeral in life, but love.

"From Foot to Head", Galleria Artepassante, Train station Porta Venezia, Milan; entrance Metro Viale Tunisia/Corso Buenos Aires; until 5th May. Participating projects and students: Maria Enrica Barbieri, Deepayon Bera, Cuier Chen, Siyin Chen, Tianyun Chen, Sharon Della Tommasina, Claudia Di Lorenzo, Alla Efimova, Lucia Fiore, Domenico Formichetti, Chuming Fu, Shi Chi Kuo, Francesca La Russa, Mingdi Li, Bingxin Li, Siyu Lian, Siming Lin, Xin Lin, Manni Luo, Yue Ming, Feng Nie, Susanna recchia, Song Ren, Mariaa Rudenko, Xiaoyan Sun, Yuchen Tan, Raffaella Tarantola, Katherine Hildegard Taube, Ning Wan, Anqi Wang, Yi Xuan wang, Jinghui Xu, Ningyang Xu, Yuanxiao Yang, Ding Yuan, Shinan Zeng, Yue Ziyan.

Image credits for this post

Images 1 - 5 by Amin Zarif 

Images 6 - 14 by Luca Belotti 

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Know Thyself Through Technology: "My First Me" by Masahiko Sato X Issey Miyake

"Gnothi Seauton" (know thyself), the Ancient Greek aphorism must have come up to the mind of all those visitors with some grammar school or philosophical knowledge who dropped by the Issey Miyake shop in Via Bagutta during Milan Design Week (on until yesterday) to see Masahiko Sato's installation "My First Me: Know Yourself Like Never Nefore".

Design week closed yesterday, but the ideas, inspirations and memories of products and installations seen during it always stay with the visitors in the weeks that follow the event, and prompt them to delve deeper into specific themes and issues. Sato's "My First Me" is definitely among them.

A professor at the Graduate School of Film and New Media at Tokyo University of the Arts, Masahiko Sato is known for researches going from film and animation to neurosciences and video game software development ("Kurushi / Intelligent Qube" for PlayStation).

At the Issey Miyake shop he introduced ideas from his latest book New Ways of Understanding that seem to have some connections with the Ancient Greek maxim encouraging people to know themselves to get a better grasp of human nature.

Sato asked visitors what they knew about themselves apart from basic info of the kind we (irresponsibly) share on social media – so our name, face, height and weight, our tastes when it comes to music, food or style and the names of the people close to us.

The researcher argued that technology has changed our lives when it comes to knowing ourselves: audio and video recording devices gave for example us the chance to discover how we sound or look from the external point of view, but we still do not seem to know ourselves well enough. 

He therefore devised a series of interactive installations to prompt visitors to experience new sensations to discover their identities. The first one was the cutest: it consisted indeed in a pool of fingerprints that encouraged visitors to think about the diversity and uniqueness of fingerprints, while experiencing feelings of attachment or affection. Visitors got their fingerprint scanned and the image then became a sort of little fish that went out swimming in a pond of virtual light with other visitors' fingerprints. Yet, if that visitor came back to the pool, the fingerprint would go back towards its "master" like a dog would, sparking in this way affection and tenderness in the visitor.

Surveillance cameras and monitors inspired instead the next installation - spooky binoculars that gave the viewers the impression of looking at themselves through the eyes and brain of a stranger.

In another space surrounded by Issey Miyake's latest collections, a miniature swing allowed visitors to let their fingers enjoy a ride while looking on an iPad screen to a park-like setting. In this way visitors lived a childhood experience from another perspective and dimension and realise that the senses may at times provide us with distorted experiences.  

The event also included a selection of video works: among them there was also "Ballet Rotoscope", a film in whcih a dancer's body is mapped by dots and lines, and "A-POC inside", a study about the Gestalt laws of grouping that interpreted from a fashion perspective the principles claiming that humans naturally perceive objects as organized patterns.

For his next project Masahiko Sato hopes to develop tools to improve knowledge of the self tailored for children: chances are he will do so, becoming a sort of futuristic Bruno Munari-like figure from Japan.  

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Forms & Movements According to Nendo @ Milan Design Week

While some of the design companies and creatives presenting their latest works and collections during Milan Design Week mainly focused on technologically advanced materials, Japanese company Nendo opted for a showcase at Superstudio Più "Art Point" (Via Tortona 27; until today) that didn't just look at high-tech materials but also at movement.  

The compact exhibition "Forms of Movement" features indeed 10 different collaborations with selected Japanese manufacturers, and introduces a range of interior design objects that transform or mutate their shape and form via movement.  

One of the main display is a sort of pool of light on which seven large pearls - the "Seven Sliding Cases" designed for Blanc Bijou - are displayed. 

This project consists in a series of boxes made with Fluoropolymer, a molecule produced by compressing and heating granulated natural mineral fluoride.

Being characterized by unique durable qualities such as high wear resistance and antifouling properties, not to mention a low-friction quality, this material is commonly used in the medical industry and in joints for robots.

In this case the material was instead employed to create a high-tech jewel box that is as precious and collectable as the piece it preserves. 

All the white cases have the same sphere shape of 65mm in diameter, but slight indentations are located differently on each of them.

These indentation marks serve as a clue as to how the boxes open: each case opens indeed in its unique way (sliding sideways, turning open with weight when held, etc.), revealing the jewelry placed within.

There are other projects in the showcase that look at the possibilities offered by variations in just one object. The "Blooming Shades" for Micro Technology look like ordinary blinds.

Yet a hidden mechanism consisting in two layers of high-quality shading film and a layer of shape memory alloy connected to electricity, offers users the possibility of controlling privacy and varying light intensity in a clever and rather dreamy way.

When connected to electricity, the shape memory alloy develops resistance and generates heat, pushing out the film and releasing the shape of a flower embedded in the blinds. 

Depending on the sensor and settings chosen, various combinations can be applied for the movement of the flowers. For example when the sunlight gets stronger or the temperature inside a room rises, the flower automatically opens to block the bright light and maintain a pleasant room temperature. 

There is more or less the same principle behind the "Four-Layer Vase" for Wakazono: this piece features two different overlapping patterns created using fine milling technology and carved in constant intervals on the vase's exterior, resulting in two different levels on the surface.

This process produced a four-layer surface with different depths, but the patterns appear visually when you move around it, or when the light hits the vase at a particular angle. So in this case the process of transformation is not triggered by a mechanism, but it depends from the depths of the surface-embedded grooves (according to the designers, it was a painstakingly long and slow process testing the depths to achieve perfect grooves to get these effects).   

The most interesting point about the designs included in this project by Nendo is not just the research behind the materials employed to make them, but the inspiration behind them, that is movement.

The boxes, the blinds or the vase are indeed almost an excuse to design new types of movements and movement ends up becoming a design opportunity for the researchers and creative minds at Nendo. Fashion designers take note as this could be a good inspiration for a collection or for a collaboration with an innovative studio like Nendo (they are already well-known for their experiments with YKK zippers, so they do have some experience when it comes to experimenting with fashion-related products). 

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Nature has often served as an inspiration for human development: let's think for example at how biomimicry, a science founded on observing systems and models that exist in nature and on employing them to provide solutions to human issues, has become an inspiration in more recent years for many architects and fashion designers as well.

The "Brave New World: Re-thinking Design in the New Age of Technology" display at the pop-up showroom of Spanish design group Nagami in Milan's Brera Design District (Spazio Theca, Piazza Castello, 5; until 22nd April) features four chairs, created by famous architects and designers, and based on the principles of biomimicry, but manufactured employing technologically advanced 3D printing processes.

Zaha Hadid Architects's Patrick Schumacher and Sebastian Anda recombined the shapes of the 3D printed sculpture entitled "Thallus" that the studio displayed at Milan Design Week last year and the metallic "Arum" installation from the 13th Venice Biennale, coming up with two new pieces - "Bow" and "Rise".

Both the chairs vaguely resemble two blooming flowers: their shape is particularly intriguing, but so is their innovative texture and visually striking colour grandient.

The pieces were printed with a pellet-extruder employing raw plastic particles rather than a filament. The plastic of choice for this project was PLA, a non-toxic, biodegradable material from renewable sources such as corn-starch.

The natural and artificial dichotomy continues in Ross Lovegrove's "Robotica TM", a combination of botany and robotics that resulted in a high stool with a 360° access.

Based on rotational geometry, the piece can be used as a chair, as a table for placing food or a versatile plinth for a sculpture, a TV set or a computer. 

Daniel Widrig left the natural and botanical element behind but refocused on the ergonomics of humans and robotic arms in his undulating "Peeler" chair. 

The latter was conceived to overcome the limits of additive manufacturing: the design is 3D printed in single 7mm thick shells of PLA and TPA by an industrial robot in just a few hours, this means that only a small amount of machine time was used, that resulted in a minimum waste of material.  

Nagami founders Ignacio Viguera Ochoa, and Manuel and Miki Jimenez García hope that the pieces will provide a 3D printed glimpse of tomorrow's designs and to support their vision they also organised a series of lectures with the designers involved in this project and with further artists and engineers, that have been running daily for a week (today's lectures will feature Isaie Bloch and Arturo Tedeschi; tomorrow Sebastian Andia will be on).

 

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