Posts Tagged ‘colorful spaces’
Annie Aime Shop, Toronto
May 16th 2013 – Parisian retailer Annie Aime has moved west, setting up shop on the bustling streets of Toronto. Local designer John Tong, principal of Toronto-based creative firm +tongtong, spearheaded the design of the shop, creating an eye-twisting space that is bold, flexible, and an open-concept environment that can easily be transformed into a space for scheduled art openings and other Annie Aime events.
Tong outfitted the 800 sq. ft. space with stark white walls and oak wood flooring, which became the canvas for graffiti artist Pascal Paquette to create an “organic, almost spontaneous” graffiti mural. “It’s quite active. It’s dynamic. It’s textural,” says Tong.
The geometric display units, constructed of welded steel, are weighted so that they securely lean against the wall and can be easily moved throughout the shop with no fasteners required. “They’re layered into a space that is very animated,” says principal John Tong. “Bold colors and architectural expression were needed to really capture Annie’s personality. I got this from the very first time we met when she described her passion for what she does and the fashion she searches out for her clients.”
Tong also developed a low-lying stepped brick display unit down the center of the shop, as well as a floor-to-ceiling brick and wood shelving unit at the rear. “It gives the space a grounding with out being precious,” says Tong. “It brings a tactility and materiality to the space, which is otherwise made up of drywall, paint and steel.”
Tong visualizes the juxtaposition of the geometric racks layered over the fluid, almost malleable, graffiti as a built environment which also reflects the vibrant spirit of the labels she carries. The artistic design of the shop parallels the feminine, floral pieces as well as bold, architectural offerings from collections of Veeshoo, frrry, Outclass, Helene Clément, Prêt pour partir, Saint-James and Saisei. “Creating a space where Annie felt she could express herself, play and offer the treasures from her explorations and journeys to her guests has been a joy.”
Photography By Ben Rahn of A-Frame
Room Mate Pau Hotel, Barcelona
May 2nd, 2013 – 10 years after the opening of Barcelona’s Hotel Amrey Sant Pau, the Spanish-based hospitality group is opening the doors to it’s second establishment, Room Mate Pau. The hotel, which was designed by renowned architect and interior designer Teresa Sapey, is decked out with vibrant color pallets, charismatic graphics, and cosmopolitan decor.
The 66-suite hotel is located in the center of Barcelona, steps from Plaza Catalunya, and La Rambla; the most famous pedestrian street of the city.
Sapey’s reputation of using bright colors and bold objects in her designs is what made her a perfect choice for the lively Room Mate Pau Hotel. The Italian architect was called upon by the owners to create a hotel that is both friendly and stylish.
The building, which has just undergone a full restoration, now has an atrium full of piercing eye balls, and an elevator shaft outfitted with a huge mural of a ambiguous person wearing a houndstooth patterned dress coat. Spacey transformed large wall patterns into cool backdrops to unique and minimalistic furniture pieces that create a one of a kind experience for hotel guests.
Photography By Room Mate Pau
Barbatella Restaurant, Naples FL
April 12th, 2013 - It took over 9,000 screws to secure 1,400 bright green plaster medallions into the feature green wall and ceiling at Naples new Barbatella restaurant. Basically, building the Floridian restaurant was contractor’s dream job – sore arms?! Venetian-born chef and restauranteur Fabrizio Aielli purchased two separate buildings connected only by a courtyard with the intention of transforming them into one restaurant. Aielli teamed up with Griz Dwight of Washington D.C based GrizForm Design Architects to unify the two spaces that are located steps from the shores of Naple’s swanky Port Royal.
After opening two successful restaurants, chef Fabrizio Aielli knew exactly what he wanted in his new Italian joint, Barbatella. The chef wanted to turn two separate buildings into one restaurant, he wanted the design to cater to a casual dinner patrons, but also attract a sophisticated cocktail crowd, he wanted the space to cultivate two different styles of Italian architecture, and one of the chef’s most important requests was that the restaurant should function to serve three meals a day, seven days a week.
Dwight, along with his team at GrizForm managed to pull the two spaces together and meet the programmatic needs by creating a comfortable place where old world authenticity meets new age sophistication – giving Barbatella a dual personality.
Barbatella’s bar side offers a more sophisticated dining experience with a long wood communal table, birdcage chandeliers, an eye-catching green medallion ceiling where light bulbs sporadically pop out, and bright yellow upholstery, attracting an uptempo night-owl crowd.
“We just kept adding more medallions and before we knew it, 1401 medallions lined the ceiling and wall,” Dwight explained of creating the feature wall. The architect admitted that the chef was initially hesitant about painting the wall bright green, but because the two have previously worked together, chef Fabrizio lent his trust. “Chef was calling asking me ‘are you sure green?’ trust me, bold color and bold gesture.”
The dining side takes a more rustic approach, celebrating its Italian roots with brick floors, wood tables, terrazzo counters and copper finishes, exuding the warmth and roughness of the Italian countryside. “Together, the spaces illustrate two very different styles of Italian architecture. One takes a more, practical utilitarian approach, while the other is a bit more flashy and decorative,” Dwight explained.
The open kitchen on the restaurant side further characterizes the honest and open features of the dining side of the restaurant. The fire of the copper-clad, wood-burning pizza oven further warms the space, creating a welcoming environment for guests. Photographs line the left wall featuring both unknown and celebrated Italians, including Toto and Sophia Loren, enjoying Italian feasts.
The restaurant has only been open a few months, but is kicking off to a great start with a design that comforts and ‘wows’ guests at the same time. “Make sure you try the Pizza’s” Dwight insisted. “They are light and refreshing, perfect to have during a day at the beach.”
SpaQ at The QT Gold Coast Hotel, Surfers Paradise
April 10th, 2013 – Australia’s QT Hotels are gaining a reputation for their laid back, vibrant beach side vibe that has been arranged by Nic Graham, creative director of g+a. Graham designed contributed his colorful brilliance to the whole hotel, but recently completed the last phase of the project – SpaQ. The spa is outfitted with light tones of wood, then complemented with unique lighting fixtures, one of a kind furniture pieces, and local spun accent pieces. Bright colors and patterns offset smooth timber finishes for a cluster of designs and ideas that is vivid but not overdone. Each of the treatment rooms are designed to suit different personalities, guests are able to choose which rooms they best relate too. The spa even has a wet zone featuring a unisex hammam and ice fountain.
Photographs Courtesy of QT Hotels
An Office Of Illustrations For JWT Amsterdam
March 8th, 2013 – With a founding year of 1864, advertising firm JWT (aka the oldest advertising firm ever), can now match their surprisingly young hot-shop mentality with a clever new workspace. Two talented Dutch designers Alrik Koudenburg and RJW Elsinga came together to create a playful workshop full of dreamy illustrations, upside-down castles, and a greenhouse. Here, having a conversation with a family of life size toy robots is a new possibility.
For ‘Do’ a city setup was created, which functions like a busy beehive where JWT staff organize the idea, getting it done with a team of concept producers, online- / activation- / and print producers.
Oostcampus, Belgium
November 27th 2012 - In 1991, Coca-Cola called this shed home to one of its celebrated soda making factories in Belgium. Today, the 20 year old factory has been re-invented into a luminous landscape of clouds by Carlos Orroyo Arquitectos. A few years back, the Civic Center in Oostkamp acquired the building and funded an architectural competition to turn the space into a public administrative center for a network of towns nearby. “We decided to reuse the spacious industrial shed; not just to recycle materials like the steel, but to reuse the space itself, it’s foundations, enclosure, services, access, and all the “invisible” parts; and to turn it into a series of abstract clouds; a sheltered public space within a controlled weather environment,” The architects explained.
This functional, sustainable, and creative approach to the project is what led to Carlos Orroyo Arquitecto’s winning of the competition, and the eventual realization of Oostcampus. The outside of the boxy blue warehouse is cleverly juxtaposed with large circular windows, which stem from the ground and circle upward to mimic the abstract white cloud design on the interiors ceilings.
To follow suite with the sustainable ideology behind the projects concept, a covered bicycle parking lot was created that resembles the likes of trees and promotes visitors and employees to ride their bikes.
The architects noted that they “decided to reuse the spacious industrial shed; not just to recycle materials like the steel, but to reuse the space itself, it’s foundations, enclosure, services, access, and all the “invisible” parts; and to turn it into a luminous landscape of clouds; a sheltered public space within a controlled weather environment.”
“It is not uncommon to underestimate the value of all these “invisible” parts of a building,” the team explained, “this is combined with a far-reaching transformation of the interior.”
Shell structures have been used for almost one hundred years now, making it very easy to build them as a very thin layer; in the case of Oostcampus, they will be in GRG, only a few millimeters thick in the highest points, weighing a mere 7 kg/m2.
Building the cloud shell within the weatherproof industrial shed simplifies the demands – inflatable form work simplifies the building process. It creates a fascinating landscape for very little energy.
The openings among the clouds are equipped with simple devices that transform all kinds of weather conditions into wonderful events. The strong winds of the outside are transformed into electricity that feeds a disc of LED’s, an artificial sun that will bring joy to, for instance, wedding days!
(Photography: Miguel de Guzmán)
DEFENSE Future Room Installation, Zurich
Over in Switzerland, Zurich just became the home of the new Defense Exhibition at the Vögele Cultural Center. Nau Studios is responsible for the creating of the new exhibit which mixes a high-tech style with kryptonite green design elements. The design has manifested from the idea that “at times a thin veil provides better defense than the thickest of armor.” The dynamic exhibition space is divided by semitransparent fabric planes and carpeted islands into seven themed areas, each circumscribing a defense mechanism, ranging from bunkers to camouflage and cooperation.
Nau explains that “defense strategies are diverse, often intuitive, and sometimes surprising – the exhibited objects emphasize the parallel use of defense mechanisms in distinctive fields.” Where do these strategies happen? The Future Room. The Future Room anchors the center of the room and is a gleaming white disc acting as an open forum where visitors can participate and record their thoughts. The exhibition is conceived as a cultural, sensory experience, where the visitor is submerged in a poison green world where sight, sound and senses of smell are activated!
(Photography: Jan Bitter)
Fabio Novembre at The Triennale Design Museum
Fabio Novembre says “drawing a rainbow to connect Heaven and Earth in that constant state of human balance we maintain with our feet in the mud and head up in the stars.” Novembre’s quote is the defining concept for his new exhibition at Milan’s Triennale Design Museum. The “rainbow” is an artistic metaphor for an “intangible pathway ” from Heaven to Earth, which is represented in the colorful exhibition. Novembre explained that creating the exhibition “involved exhibiting something absolutely new compared to previous editions, a selection of carefully chosen items confirming the theory that there is only one Italian school of graphics,” continuing on to explain “even though it has no proper structure, hardly surprising since the same could be said about everything connected with our dear old unpredictable country.”
Novembre was asked to add a third dimension to graphics – which are almost always two dimensional. The third dimension came in the form of a built space: full of color and divided into nine sections consisting of books, letters, magazines, culture and politics, packaging, advertising, visual identity, video and signposting. The clever designer imagined the space as a blank book, then decided to introduce the color spectrum to the empty white pages. “using color as an authentic graphic hypertext to support material, which, nevertheless, require more complex codes in order to be fully interpreted.” There’s some food for thought for ya!
(Photography: Fabio Novembre)
Spicy Color Shop, Korea
‘Fashion is play’, is the light hearted mantra for Spicy Color, a trendy fashion store in Korea which offers bright colored garments to Seoul’s tweens. Local design team m4 wanted to create a space to reflect their clients slogan. The designers took a white space and added a grid of bright blue steel wall columns and connecting ceiling beams. The floor is filled with an over sized colorful pattern with custom built white display units scattered on top. Our favorite part of the space comes into effect in the ceiling lighting, where a bunch of oddly angular white lights hang, each fixture with a different geometry!
(Photography: Lee Pyo-Joon)
Wuhan Pixel Box Cinema, China
The concept of the new Wuhan Cinema, designed by Hong Kong based firm One Plus Partnership Limited, is founded on the idea of pixels and movement, a concept which sparked a variation of block-like designs for each different space in the theater. The designers went all out when creating the grand hall of the theater. 6,000 connecting Stainless steel panels graciously curve and hug the space creating a spectacular dark silver entrance. The metal panels are broken into various sizes, and have a mirror like quality, which is the cause to a magical play on movement as the reflections of the visitors drift past the panels.
Beyond the grand hall, Square blocks become seats and tables in the concession area, while the table tops the designer retro-fitted LCD screens under glass so theater goers can watch the latest trailers and film trivia. Hallway walls are outfitted with undulating rectangular forms which shoot out from the wall, plush theater carpeting is covered with a custom pixeled pattern, and the restrooms are fit into individually lit cubes which glow green, like Kryptonite. Talk about a having whole new cinematic experience!
An Ordinary Parking Garage Turned Extraordinary
Who knew parking could be so fun? Or so “kaleidoscopy.” (Okay, we made that word up, but it seemed fitting). If we’d only known what the future of parking would hold we may not have endured such white-knuckled parallel parking snafus during Drivers Ed. The spectacular rainbow hued parking garage that you’re feasting your eyes on is the product of Craig Redman and Karl Maier, titled 72DP Mural Project. The dynamic duo is the brains behind Craig & Karl, a creative firm specializing in a genius array of colorful illustrations, installation, typography, editorial and pattern design.
Craig & Karl’s most recent project is this shockingly colorful mural-turned-underground-parking-garage in Sydney which took them three full weeks to paint. Their trademark eye-popping color occupies and award-winning residence and results in a dynamic mix of overlapping geometric forms that mirror and respond to the angularity of the architecture.
We caught up with Karl Maier to dig in a little deeper to the project. Maier explained that “In order to counteract the darkness of the space, we agreed at the outset that the colours would be quite vibrant. A lot of the hues are actually quite light as well, which—believe it or not—has quite a calming effect when you’re in the space.”
He also went on to say that the most challenging part of the project was “getting a sense of how the space would come together when it was finished; essentially translating something 2D into 3D.” Initially, he explained, “the artwork was more complicated and we soon realised it was going to be somewhat headache inducing. Even more so than it may be now!” We think they achieved their objective of breathing life into the space. How ‘bout you?
(Photography credit: Katherine Lu)
PKO Bank Polski Is Not Your Ordinary Bank
The PKO Bank Polski, by Robert Majkut Design, is a far cry from your ordinary bank! We normally wouldn’t describe a bank as warm, sexy, and sensual, but the design of the PKO Bank makes saving and investing feel glamorous – ‘tell me more about your IRA options Mr. Bank Teller.’ That is exactly the environment that Polish architect and designer Robert Majkut wanted to create. Majkut took inspiration for the interior design from the already existing company graphics which consisted of black, white, and gold. The colors manifested within the wall materials, furniture, and lighting, to create a dramatic ambiance within the space. One of the most interesting features of the bank comes is the dynamic wall behind the receptionists desk. Majkut explains that “a bi-dimensional pattern was completely transformed by introducing an additional dimension: it was made spatial by being projected on the tri-dimensional model of the interior.” The architect went on, “to achieve this effect special software for parametric design was used, which allowed for the creation of a complex and ordered structure formed as a transformation of the subtle grid of lines converging in one abstract point.” The grid form of the wall came straight from the logo of the bank, then transformed into an exciting design feature within the space. Next came the lounge, a conference room, individual offices, and a small meeting area, all of which are designed to be luxurious, sophisticated, and comfortable!
(Photography: Szymon Polanski)
A Joyous Cupcake Shop
Joy of Cupcakes is quite the confection. The delectably sweet cupcake shop by Mim Design definitely lives up to its name. The interior is iced in an array of soft colors that breathe life into the handmade tiles and natural timber stools. Custom pieces were crafted to enforce the product like the pendant light fixtures that look like upside down cupcake wrappers (our fave!), custom stools, and the bench top that’s dressed to impress in an adorable “doily table cloth.” And did we mention that they use all natural ingredients in their products? You could say it’s the “icing on the (cup)cake!”
(Photographs Provided By Mim Design)
Helicosm Shop
French based architecture firm FREAKS Freearchitects has unveiled their latest project, Helicosm, a Parisian cosmetic store. The shop is located in a railroad style space stretching a mere 70′ feet from front to back. Freaks used the slim and deep space to their advantage by creating a design which complemented those perimeters. At the entrance, the space is covered with a light mint hue which covers every surface of the space, including the custom designed retail counter. Near the middle of the shop, a birch wood tunnel is introduced which draws guests to the rear of the store. The wood tunnel wraps the floor, ceilings, and walls, and incorporates shelving and storage units within the feature. The back of the store repeats the front with the mint color, and a whimsical, refreshing aesthetic!
(photos : david foessel)
Baumann’s Beautiful Tube
The new Modern Museum of Wroclaw is a six floor venue dedicated to all things art! The building, which is located in Strzegomski Square, was once used as a raid shelter from the Second World War, but will now temporarily display modern art until it’s new building is finished nearby. Lang Baumann, a Swiss based design firm, used wood, carpet and lacquer to create this colorful tube hallway. The hallway functions for walking, sitting, and resting. The team created layers of heightened steps for people to sit on and tables extruding from the walls for guests to eat on. The “Beautiful Tube” is designed with the marriage of colors, shapes and materials, and is meant to be an playful and energetic place!
(Photograohs Provided by Lang Baumann)
The Radial Office By Sako
Ever wondered what it would be like to live betwixt the pages a Pantone color book? Well now you can get a glimpse. Sako Architect’s new Radial office in Beijing has left no PMS color ignored. Slick, lacquered white surfaces meet bright pops of crimson, fuchsia and lime green in a striking contrasting stripes throughout the office space. Biomorphic, curvilinear seating undulates in waves, cascading down steps in a cornucopia of hues. Illuminated rings of light dangle playfully from the ceiling like fishing lures in an incandescent rainbow underworld. We’re hooked.
(Photography Credits: Sako Architects)
Lexington Avenue Agency Office
When Ana Hernández Palacios of studio Masque Spacio examined photographs of New York City, she saw colors, lights, and larger than life skyscrapers. These images became her inspiration for the Lexington Avenue Agency office in Valencia, Spain. The industrial space is minimalistic yet powerful! Yellow and Black Stripes streamline the walls and ceilings representing the taxi cabs and the height of buildings. A clear plastic curtain with the company’s logo on it gently divides the space into two, in order to keep the flow of natural light into the reception area. Masque took a small space and made it very interesting!
(Photography Credits: Araski Kuro & David De Cualiti)
A Swedish IT Firm Gets A Colorful Workspace
Contrary to what you may be thinking, Dynabyte is not a prehistoric predator from the Cretaceous period. It happens to be a Swedish IT consulting firm. The company is young, fresh and full of ideas, and yet in experiencing the growing pains of a too-small workspace. That’s when they placed a call to PS Arkitektur, a design agency with a creative and colorful reputation.
PS found it important that the workplace met all business requirements and functionalities but that it be a mixture of playful and serious elements. The concept parallels Dynabyte’s moto for their relationships with their clients and the market. PS set a goal to create a workplace with a mix of private and neutral jobs that would meet the requirements of flexibility Dynabyte desired for their business.
The team achieved success by creating a dynamic blend of open and closed spaces, family style public areas, and tiny private conversational niches. All spaces were dressed in bright colors on the floor, ceiling, walls, and throughout the furniture pieces. It wasn’t until they created the perfect juxtaposition of functionality and fun that Dynabyte was satisfied that they had created a stimulating workplace for their employees.
