Design Stuff

A brownfield in Norway will be going green, literally, thanks to a new master plan that calls for a rolling green roof to shelter a cultural center. The Danish architecture firm 3XN beat out Henning Larsen Architects, Niels Torp, L2 Arkitekter, and IN’BY LPO Arlitektur and Design in an invited competition to redevelop a former industrial waterfront known as Nedre Malmø, in the town of Mandal.

A green roof will shelter the “Buen” cultural building in 3XN’s waterfront redevelopment in Mandal, Norway (top).  Row housing will flank the Buen building (middle). The Buen, or Arch, rises 46 feet at its highest point, creating space for performance halls and other elements below (above).
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The $30 million complex, developed by a municipal organization, will stand on the eastern bank of the River Mandal. The architects divided the 6-acre site into sections containing a cultural hall, housing, and a hotel. In plan, the dividing lines produce a shape that resembles “a flower coming out towards the water,” says Kim Herforth Nielsen, 3XN’s founding architect. “We cut up the first lines for the cultural building, and moved it up like a carpet, and created this space [underneath].”

Called the “Buen,” or Arch, the cultural center creates a rise in the landscape that reaches 46 feet at its highest point. The two-story, 48,500-square foot building includes a public library, concert and theater halls, cinema, gallery, and a music school. Compared to the curvier, more sensuously designed exterior, the interior layout will be “fairly regular,” Nielsen says. “When you’re working with a concert hall, theater hall, for the acoustics, they want a shoe box.”

The master plan also includes 80 housing units in rows of four-story buildings, a 150-room luxury hotel, and a pedestrian- and bike-friendly road system. The long, continuous rooflines and varying slopes and angles of the housing rooflines bring to mind a or but they come from 3XN’s reworking of the local vernacular. “The wooden houses in Mandal have just normal roofs,” Nielsen says. “So we took this up and tried to twist it a little bit to make a reference to the old house but in a new way, and to put in windows in quite a different way, so it’s more an abstract reference to the old houses.”

A new 525-foot-long bridge, also designed by 3XN, will link the redevelopment site to the town center on the opposite river bank. Construction on the complex is expected to begin in early 2009 and finish by 2011.

source : archrecord 

Clear minimalist thought has created the stark Moab 80 AIS Sink – an exciting new all-inclusive sink. With careful regard to maintaining a clean linear aspect throughout, the Moab 80 AIS Sink entirely eliminates the need for a faucet. Rather, the water system is totally integrated to allow a mini-waterfall within the sink, gushing down from an unseen source under the ledge. Strong, bold lines are the focus of the sink – presented in a pure, impressive white. A metallic cube-shaped handle adds interest at the right corner… simply push the handle away from you to release the stream of water. Looking to the future with its fantastic hidden water sheet construction, the Moab 80 AIS is a compelling all inclusive sink.

Info : Moab 80 AIS Sink 

This modern stove from Nibe is the Handol 30 wood burning stove with mirrored glass detailing. The biggest manufacturer of wood burning stoves in Sweden, Nibe are clearly experts in providing efficient, good-looking solutions. The toned mirrored glass on either side of the fire allows a fascinating view of the fire when it is lit, and reflects the light in the room when the stove is not lit. This adds an extra dimension of spaciousness and intrigue to any contemporary interior space. The clever fan and convection system means that the heat is soon up to full power to keep you cozy. Stylish and environmentally friendly, the Handol 30 stoves are attractive wood burning stoves from Nibe.

More info : Handol 30 Wood Stoves 

JERUSALEM — In a remarkable feat of cooperation between France and Israel, requiring intensive negotiations and the passage of a law by the Israeli Parliament, the Israel Museum here has opened an exhibition of important art looted by the Nazis from France and then returned after the war. Some of it was never reclaimed, presumably because the owners were killed in the Holocaust.
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Running parallel to the show of French-held art is a companion exhibition: looted art, with no known owners, held in custody by the Israel Museum itself.

The two exhibitions are haunting, and they also contain some notable art, including works by Cézanne, Manet, Degas, Chagall, Delacroix, Egon Schiele, Monet, Alfred Sisley, Max Liebermann, Pieter de Hooch and others.

Some of the French-held art was ordered taken by Hitler himself, for the Third Reich. Some pieces were looted; others were forced sales. After the war some works were immediately returned; de Hooch’s 1658 painting “The Drinker,” for example, was returned to the family of Édouard de Rothschild, whose daughter donated it to the Louvre in 1974. Some owners sold their works to museums, but some owners were never found.

The 53 French-held paintings are among some 2,000 works still not restored to their owners or descendants and maintained by French museums. The Israeli collection is smaller and less distinguished but includes an important Schiele cityscape of his mother’s birthplace, “Krumau — Crescent of Houses (The Small City V),” whose splayed arrangement of the houses carries an implicit sexual power.

The French exhibition is titled “Looking for Owners: Custody, Research and Restitution of Art Stolen in France During World War II.” France’s minister of culture and communications, Christine Albanel, came to Jerusalem to help open the exhibit Monday evening, despite a fierce winter storm.

France has both a duty and “a very strong desire” to keep alive the memory of the Holocaust, she said. In part, the exhibition fulfills a requirement of a French commission formed in 1997 to study Jewish property restitution, which recommended a project with the Israel Museum.

But Ms. Albanel is credited by the Israelis for working with the French Foreign Ministry to persuade the French bureaucracy to approve showing such important paintings, instead of more ordinary work; not all looted art was either good or valuable.

Still, Israel first had to pass a law that prevents the seizure of art temporarily exhibited in Israel by those who claim to own it. The 2007 legislation states that claims can be made only in the exhibition’s country of origin, in this case France. France would not have allowed the pictures to be shown here without such a law, a legacy of the 1998 controversy over the seizure in New York of Schiele paintings on loan from the Leopold Foundation in Vienna.

James S. Snyder, the director of the Israel Museum, praised Ms. Albanel, saying that “there is a resonance between the art and the state of Israel” because both were rescued, in a sense, “from the ashes of the tragedy of the war.”

The exhibition, he said, “is a kind of memorial to our loss in Europe.”

The parallel Israeli exhibition — some 50 paintings, drawings, artifacts and Judaica — is called “Orphaned Art: Looted Art From the Holocaust in the Israel Museum.” The display is drawn from some 1,200 works collated by the Jewish Restitution Service Organization, charged by the United States to gather looted art from Germany after the more obvious postwar restitutions had been made. The organization distributed the art to Jewish institutions in Israel and worldwide.

Much of the collection is indifferent or anonymous, and the museum has no record of its provenance. But Israel wanted to show, Mr. Snyder said, that “the issue of art lost in the war is a challenge shared by museums and countries around the world, including Israel.”

The Israel Museum (www.imjnet.org.il) has put the unclaimed art on its Web site. The two exhibitions will be on view here through June 3, and then appear at the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris from June 24 to Sept. 28.

Source : nytimes 

This summer, New York City couple Christine Santora and Justin Gignac launched Wants For Sale, a site where they sell paintings of things that they want, at the cost of the real item. So a painting of a slice of pizza is only $3 while a Nintendo Wii goes for $270.92. (Your DSL must have been down if you missed it.)

After starting the project, the couple realized there was something they both really wanted—the ability to help others. With that in mind, Christine and Justin are launching a new site today called Needs For Sale just in time for the holiday season. Needs For Sale follows the same idea as the Wants series, but 100% of the profits go to charity.

The Needs paintings will support various non-profits and depict images to represent what the couple wants to give to someone in need. For example, Habitat for Humanity says a $100 donation buys a kitchen sink, so the couple will paint a sink and sell it for $100.
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Here’s a list of their first set of paintings and benefiting charities:

Winter Coat–NY Cares Coat Drive
Wig–Locks of Love
Spiral Ham–City Harvest
Can of Peas–City Harvest
Kitchen Sink–Habitat for Humanity
Front Door–Habitat for Humanity
Pig–Heifer International
Cow–Heifer International
Ark–Heifer International
Barbie/Care Bear/Princess Crown–Toys for Tots
Nerf football/Transformer/Green Army Man–Toys for Tots

Source : coolhunting