Concept For Living

The Dynamic Tower

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Italian architect David Fisher is building his first skyscraper, the Dynamic Tower, and it happens to be one of the most ambitious construction plans since the Pyramid of Khufu. Every floor of the 80-story self-powered building rotates according to voice command, and nearly the entire structure of the $700 million building is pre-fabbed.

Fisher was inspired to design the Dynamic Tower during a visit to a friend’s top-floor Midtown Manhattan apartment. “I had a view of the Hudson River and East River at the same time, it was beautiful and I wanted to make that feeling accessible to more people.” He loves the idea of seeing the sun rise and set in the same room, and considers the building to be four-dimensional. “Time is always changing the shape of the building”.

The rotation takes up to 3 hours, and gets power from photovoltaic solar cells and 79 wind turbines, one located between each floor. The system is meant to create enough energy to power to the entire tower and still have juice to spare for some surrounding buildings. According to Fisher, two of these $700 million futuristic scrapers are planned so far, one each in Dubai and Moscow. They will be built using a truly radical technique.

Construction on the Dynamic Tower will be unlike anything that preceded it. The only part of the tower built on site will be the skinny center core. It is strong enough to hold the floors in place, and will contain the building’s elevators, which transport people and cars right to their door. Each floor will be made piece by piece in a factory in Italy—a throwback to Fisher’s previous life in prefabricated bathroom design—and placed onto the core using a lift system. With this method, each story is completed in about six days. By comparison, traditional ground-up methods can take six weeks per floor.

Click here to find out more.

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Liverpool ‘Best of Show’ winners announced

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

Design Show Liverpool, the city’s four-day design event, has awarded Best of Show to eight of its exhibitors.

Julie Colligan, project manager for Design Initiative, the organisation behind the show, explains that the idea of the awards was to create a benchmark in standards of quality, recognition of key trends and craftsmanship.

‘It means that in each particular category designers have been recommended as Best of Show, which is good for their profile at the show,’ adds Colligan.

Eight winners were chosen from the 150-plus exhibitors, across categories of furniture, glass, homewares, lighting, fashion, accessories, jewellery and eco-design.

Colligan explains that two judges – a sponsor and an independent judge – were assigned to each category, forming a panel that included Design Initiative chairman Geoss Allman, Littlewoods director of product Rebecca Elderfield, The Bluecoat Gallery’s Maureen Bampton and designer Wayne Hemmingway.

The homewares section in particular, says Colligan, demonstrated innovative techniques, while designers across all categories were mindful of environmental issues.

Bannerbags, which has reused advertising banners for the European Capital of Culture event to make bags, is now looking at taking the idea to the London Olympics, says Colligan.

Design Show Liverpool, a selling exhibition of ceramics, glass, lighting and fashion, is the brainchild of Della Tinsley and Gideon Cleary, who have worked with regional promotional organisation Design Initiative.

The winners are:

• Accessories: Bannerbags
• Eco-Design: Paperworks by Hannah Lo
• Fashion: Paul Robinson
• Furniture: Lazarian
• Glass: Notorianni Glass
• Homewares: Rebecca Gouldson
• Jewellery: John Moore
• Lighting: Jo Vincent

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Lilypad – Floating Ecopolis for Climate Refugees

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

According to the less alarming forecasts of the GIEC (Intergovernmental group on the evolution of the climate), the ocean level should rise from 20 to 90 cm during the 21st Century with a status quo by 50 cm (versus 10 cm in the 20th Century). As a solution to this alarming problem architect Vincent Callebaut came up with this ecotectural marvel that could serve as a luxurious future retreat for 50,000 inhabitants seeking refuge from rising waters due to global warming. He believes the world will be desperately seeking shelter from the devastations of climate change, and hopes the auto-sufficient amphibious city will serve as a luxurious solution. To bad that right now we are close to 7 billion people and this luxurious future retreat is just for 50,000 inhabitants ( just for rich people ).

Vincent Callebaut called this project “Lilypad“, but this ecotectural marvel is also called as “Floating Ecopolis for Climate Refugees”. The whole structure is covered in green walls and roofs, the top portion covered in grasses with the inner portion featuring a palm oasis, and the under portion serving as a bed for natural sea planktons and oceanic plants. Finally if you were already planning to reserve a place to this luxurious future retreat stay calm, because Vincent Callebaut hopes that “Floating Ecopolis for Climate Refugees” will make the transition from design to reality around the year 2100.

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The Loop

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

The Loop is the Learning Resource Centre at Blackpool and The Fylde College, with a full brand identity developed by Curious. This includes distinctive signage and info graphics that feature quotes from the likes of Mark Twain, Nelson Mandela and Thomas Edison, and a MySpace page where members can vote on what kind of music they’d like to hear played at The Loop.

Northern Design Awards 2008

Monday, June 2nd, 2008

This year’s Northern Design Awards took place on Saturday evening at the Chester Grosvenor Hotel and Spar. The event was compered by renowned Interior Designer Laura McCree, and Spaces Magazine Editor Emma Hill was on hand to present several awards.