Sunday, September 27, 2015

Top 5 in Design News: London Design Recap, Jony Ive's First Store, and a Good Week for Women in Architecture

Today we launch Design News, a new series devoted to keeping you (and us) up-to-date on happenings in the world of design and architecture.  

Zaha Hadid First Solo Woman to Win Royal Gold Medal for Architecture

Zaha Hadid | Remodelista Design News

Above: Hadid's design for the Heydar Aliyev Center for culture in Azerbaijan is an intentionally dramatic departure from Soviet-style architecture. Photo via Arch Daily

British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid has become the first woman to be a solo winner of the UK's highest architecture honor. The prize, given out since 1848, recognizes lifetime achievement and influence on the field of architecture. In the award's 168-year history, three women have been named as co-recipients: Ray Eames (in 1979), Patricia Hopkins (in 1994), and Sheila O’Donnell (in 2015), each in tandem with their business partner husbands. Hadid is the first woman to win the prize alone.

Hadid is staying fresh in headlines after walking out on a live Sept. 24 BBC Today interview, accusing host Sarah Montague of poorly researching questions about migrant worker deaths on construction job sites for the upcoming Quatar World Cup. The BBC promptly apologized, acknowledging there is no evidence of deaths on Hadid's Quatar World Cup stadium job site. (Read it at Dezeen.)

The turmoil prompted The Guardian's architecture critic to question why Hadid is treated so harshly in media and by fellow designers in comparison to her star architecture peers.

London Design Festival Ends Today

The nine-day annual London Design Festival ends today, bringing to a close hundreds of installations and events across the city. Here are two that will be talked about for a while:

Curiosity Cloud | Remodelista Design News

Above: Austrian designers mischer’traxler teamed with Perrier-Jouët champagne to create the “Curiosity Cloud” installation in the Victoria & Albert Museum. In it, 250 blown glass Lobmeyr bulbs hang from the ceiling, each containing a tiny handmade insect in one of three species categories: extinct, common, or just-discovered. The insects are calm from a distance, but come “alive” upon approach. Read more at London Design Festival and Upper Playground

Faye Toogood Cloakroom | Remodelista Design News

Above: Designer Faye Toogood created 150 “navigational coats” for festival visitors to wear around the Victoria & Albert Museum. Each coat contained a built-in map to guide visitors to 10 Toogood designs located next to 10 of her favorite museum objects. Read more at London Design Festival.  

First Jony Ive-Designed Apple Store Opens in Brussels

Jony Ive Apple Store | Remodelista Design News

Above: Two rows of stools face a full-height screen showing Apple products and announcements in the new Brussels Apple store. Photo via Tech Insider

The famed Jony Ive, chief design officer at Apple, partnered with Apple SVP of retail (and former Burberry CEO) Angela Ahrendts to oversee the interiors of Apple’s first Belgian retail outlet. The store, which opened on September 19, looks familiar from the outside: it's made of glass, but in this case impressive 26-foot-tall glass panels, some of which are curved. Inside, bright wood-and-white interiors feature sequoia redwood tables, compartments and display cases sized to hold only Apple products, and an allée of eight live trees. One new feature: motion-sensing power outlets are hidden behind wood panels until they sense a nearby user and rotate open. Read more at DesignBoom and Wired

Deborah Berke Named Dean of Yale School of Architecture

Deborah Berke Darby Lane House | Remodelista Design News

Above: An East Hampton weekend house by Deborah Berke Partners, designed in 2000. Photo via the architect. 

Architect Deborah Berke (a Remodelista favorite) will become the first woman dean of the Yale School of Architecture, succeeding Robert A.M. Stern at the close of this academic year. In addition to holding teaching posts at design school across the country, she has been a member of the architecture faculty at Yale since 1987. For more, see the Yale Announcement and the story at Archinect. (For a sampling of her work, see Deborah Berke Partners in the Remodelista Architect/Designer Directory.) 

Handmade Goods Site Etsy Ventures into Manufactured Goods

Etsy Workshop | Remodelista Design News

Above: The two owners of Lithuanian Etsy vendor Feel Felt make leather and felt tech cases by hand. Photo via Etsy

On Monday, Brooklyn-based Etsy will launch a beta version of Etsy Manufacturing to connect makers of handmade crafts with manufacturing companies. The program resurfaces past debates about whether manufactured goods should be allowed on Etsy at all: the site launched a decade ago with a mandate that all products be handmade, positioning itself as the source for shoppers seeking an alternative to mass-produced goods. Over time, Etsy loosened its policy, and now some of the most successful Etsy sellers have relied on manufacturing for some time. The change comes with a host of recent others following Etsy’s $3.5 billion IPO in April, including Etsy Wholesale, which connects sellers with traditional retail outlets. Read it at The Verge and The New York Times

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