The Campana Brothers

Fernando and Humberto, are the Campana Brothers. Both born in São Paulo, a mix of a lawyer and an architect who decided to join and create/design furniture from ordinary material. They started at the beginning of the 80's causing controversy and lots of critics but this brought massive attention on them.

By the early 90's they were already known in Europe and the U.S. And in 1998 they presented an exhubition along with lightning designer Ingo Maurer at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

They have by now an amazing and long resumé, including São Paulo Design Week, Moss New York Design Week, Milan Design Week  and collaborations for Hotel Athens, Venini, Klein Karoo, Lacoste and many many more.

This year, Maison & Objet, selected the design duo as "Creator of the Year" for the significant influence to the design and architecture scene. 

Here's a selection of my favorite pieces created by them.

 "The Banquete Chair".

 "Alligator Lace" for Lacoste.

 "Alligator Lace" for Lacoste - detail.

 Tennis for Melissa.

 "Rivivo" for Venini.

 Garden Design for São Paulo Design Week.

"The Favela Chair" at the São Paulo Design Week.

Humberto and Fernando Campana.

Kois Associated Architects

As I said before, Architecture will always be part of my life, even if it's just to watch and appreciate great projects (from my point of view) or as an inspiration or just as part of somethings related with aesthetics.

I found this project to be made in Jordan by Kois Associated Architects, a greek firm who's proposal is a mixed used building, a trend right now that we can even find here in Costa Rica, but besides being trendy is very functional, I do believe in trends, sorry. Kois started with a study of Ammn's urban environment, its organization, typology of structure plus an analysis of the jordanian architecture.

The cover of the building is a grid, based on symbolisms and meanings from the contemporary city and culture. The purpose of it is to create a veil "which also defines the extent of the city’s flow into the building, allowing a gradual interplay between indoors and outdoors, differing from floor to floor". Also, the main circulations (vertical and horizaontal) to the upper floors are located on a space created next to the building, this is to accomplished circulation outside the main core of the building and to access it by small openings that reveal the interiors.

The stores are located on the first floors and are structured like a traditional bazaar, this because of the importance of the bazaar as a merchandising local practice. For the offices, the goal was to achieve maximum organizational flexibility for the user. The higher levels of the building is the residential part, that also includes two family lofts.

I dream of one day walking around San José and find interesting building to see... I know it's far from this, but there's too many creative people in this country, with amazing ideas. I've seen great projects from local architects, interior designers, engineers, people who's actually updated with what's going on worldwide, but of course, there's always a "wall", in some cases is breakable, in some others there's no other choice than walk away, but that's a society thing, that pushes away. What a shame!

Mixed Use Tower... in San José!?

A few months ago I was shocked when I read this article about an amazing construction planned to be constructed in Sabana Sur... Yes! In our country!

Little by little Costa Rica has some development, at least from an architectural point of view (not the same with fashion and culture). Moho Architects, a spanish firm, proposed the construction of this tower which will rise in San José's skyline, driven by a progressive enviromental strategy for the region.

It has a mixed use program of day and night activities which will include commercial and retail spaces, business centre, offices, conference rooms, hotel floors and a casino. It would have 25 floors and a restaurant with a panoramic views over the city.

As described, "the tower splits and creases independently as it rises into the sky. this 'head split' configuration, permits natural lighting, while sky courts filled with vegetation punctuate at intervals the tower and mitigate the hot climate. the development will take advantage of a number of sustainable energy strategies and key to the energy performance of the building are its wooden brise-soleil facades, designed to filter solar gain and to encourage daylight to permeate the complex. the tower is intended to be a paradigm for passive environmental control, providing an alternative to the more conventional models of sealed and air-conditioned glass stumps. the layered facade cuts air-conditioning load and the plan encourages daylight, reducing the need for artificial lighting. the project is currently in the schematic design phase and is expected to be completed in 2012".

This kind of projects make me feel sometimes that there's hope for this country. There's potencial, but still there's many changes that need to be made. What I really liked about this project is that Moho is proposing a different building, very interesting, with an amazing shape and, besides all this aesthetic characteristics, is thinking about the enviroment, something that is really important in our country because of the conditions and our natural resources.

I just hope that this project won't stay as just images and files on a computer. I think that if we want to stop being a forgotten country we have to start to open our minds to new proposals, to new shapes, to new kinds of constructions that will put us back on the map.

Zaha Hadid Retrospective

I've always admired Zaha Hadid's work, she's a great architect and a constant innovator. Her work stands like no other and she has a very unique sense of aesthetics and shape. It's impossible not to notice her architectural pieces. Her designs influence many areas, including fashion.

She designed a concept bag for Louis Vuitton (see picture #7) and also has worked with Puma and Melissa. She also designed the Chanel Mobile Art Pavillion that traveled to many cities in the world including New York.

As part of the Barbara Cappochin Biennale, a retrospective of Zaha's work is taking place at the Palazzo della Ragione in Padua, Italy. This palazzo was constructed between 1172 and 1219 and it's an italian treasure. Its medieval roof is the largest in Europe unsupported by columns and all of its walls covered by frescos from 1425. The contrast between this venue and Zaha's exhibition is more than obvious, her designs are very fluid and modern.

The exhibition shows Zaha's work, experimentation and also her research into digital design and construction methods. The nice thing about this expo is that for showing each project, she created a large scale installation where you will find all of her work from the last 30 years organized by the theme that inspired them, for example: "aggregations/clusters/jigsaws".

Amazing work as always!

The Void

Besides fashion, architecture is one of the things that I feel passionate about. It's always cool to see what the great architects are doing, what they have on mind, their concepts, their creations and believe me, it's always amazing.

Integrating the architecture of the Guggenheim Museum, created by Frank Lloyd Wright, and an amazing and huge intervention by JDS Architects, the proposal invites everyone to experience the a net spiraling down the instituion's rotonda.

One of the great things about this art intervention/installation is that people actually can walk, play and rest IN it. The form is very dinamic and gives the same idea of movement that has the central part of the museum.

Love it!
♥

Momma Hadid

So I found this short video from one of Zaha Hadid's coming projects in Hoxton Square, London. The building is beautiful and its roof has the form of a wave. If you look at the facades they look pretty simple, but has some details that make them unique.

On the video you can also see the interiors of the building, with lots of contrasted materials. Matt/brilliant. Concrete/colors. All the furniture inside is from her design. And of course has a Zaha signature that is the dinamism on the structure.

One more to my list of loved projects made by Momma Hadid! ♥

Hermès Tokyo ♥

Hermès, the french fashion house established in 1837 by Thierry Hermès, especialized in leather goods, ready to wear, ready-to-wear and luxury item is renowned by everyone, in + out the fashion world.

After receiving a great gift book from my boyfriend for Christmas, it's called "Moda: arquitectura corporativa" I decided that I need it to blog about Hermès and its amazing store in Tokyo.

Hermès, always recognized by its quality and of course for its Birkin bag, is also famous for their scarfs and handkerchiefs, which are design by special artists and they are created with the oldest techniques of silk printing.

The tradition and also the craftmanship applied in each and every piece, lead the architect Renzo Piano to creat a store, a building meant to be one of a kind. Located in Ginza, one of the fashion districts of Tokyo, stands as one of the most monumental buildings in the city. With its 6000 square meters of construction, has on its inside shopping spaces, workshops, offices, exhibition spaces, a multimedia area and also a garden on the rooftop.

Its thingness, structure, covered all in glass blocks makes it looks like a well-crafted jewel. You can say that the Hermès store has two faces, one by day and one by night, lights (in + out the building) makes it look diferent. Another great detail about it is the form that every block has, flat on one side and curved on the other, this shape makes and effect on the glass, producing one of the things that Piano wanted for the building, that is NOT transparent and that people could use their imagination to wonder what's inside the glass box.

Hermès Tokyo by day.

Hermès Tokyo by night.

Detail of the glass blocks.