The “Sitscape” is a seating zone with a length of six meters. The form transforms the usual use of a couch. The design is based on specific seating positions and smooth transformations between them. Based on the preferred relaxing positions of the client we generated six basic positions and formed a perfect fit for them in the “Sitscape”. Consequently, the “Sitscape” provides familiar possibilities for relaxing. The transitional areas between these positions are undetermined in their use. They provide new and unexpected possibilities, which have to be discovered by the clients. The “Sitscape” is a “customized mass product” that can fulfil different demands and forms with the same structural principle. The main structural elements are the sections, which are digitally cut out of laminated wood. The connecting structure is a steel and aluminium construction, which is minimally visible. The prototype will be finalized with white leather upholstery, laminated wood with white finish for the sections and polished aluminium connections.

Client: Anonymous
Location: Upstate New York
Building area: 300 m2
Program: single family house
Status/phase: construction/ realization August 2006

UNStudio: Ben van Berkel with Olaf Gipser and Andrew Benn, Colette Parras, Jacco van Wengerden, Maria Eugenia Diaz, Jan Debelius, Martin Kuitert, Pablo Rica, Olga Vazquez-Ruano Advisors
Project Consultant: Roemer Pierik, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

In the design for this single family house the sloping site is used as a device for programmatic and volumetric organization. A box-like volume bifurcates into two separate volumes; one seamlessly following the northern slope; the other lifted above the hill creating a covered parking space and generating a split-level internal organization. The volumetric transition is generated by a set of five parallel walls that rotate along a horizontal axis from vertical to horizontal. The ruled surface maintaining this transition is repeated five times in the building. From inside the huge window strips from floor to ceiling allow a fluid continuity between interior and landscape. From the exterior the reflective glass seams to become one with its surroundings.

UNstudio

 Virtual games on a whole other level. Since talk began of this computer game last year it already has a cult following, countless dedicated blogs and discussion groups, and hours of video. Spore is destined to be the next big computer game since World of Warcraft. It was developed in the mind of Will Right, creator of the Sims. In the virtual world you can  customize you animal, mate, kill prey, build buildings and vehicles, create a city and eventually control  an entire galaxy Spore is different than other computer games because it is simply the technical canvas in which the user creates their own materpiece.

 The Bad news is that it is not planned on being released until August of 08, but with the amount of dates set but later then pushed who knows.

 Fred Duthy designs lighting and interiors products for mass production and to commission. A regular designer for high street stores as well as producing one-off signature pieces. Using geometric forms, he creates lamps off all shapes and sizes. His paper lamps have been constructed so that the light gives off just the right effect.  His work is contemporary and classic.

 No longer is the world of textiles a 2-D one. Jessica Preston designed 3-D fabrics serving a variety of services, from brooches to cards to wall hangings. She used origami techniques to create these textile sculptures.

Your average designer will spend 90% of their waking life sitting in-front of a computer. Pete Harrison, the founder of Desktopography commissioned serval different artists fro mall over the world to design a nature-inspired desktop wallpaper. As you scroll the latest exhibition release back in march of 07 you can see the variety of styles and techniques used by the individual designers.

www.desktopography.net/ 

Those who have browsed the Neimen Marcus site, visited a store or flipped through a catalog know that Neiman Marcuz likes their butterflies. In celebration of their 100th anniversary they decided to go big. Vico Gutierrez shares the obsession of butterflies with the upscale department store. Gutierrez lead an international conservation effort for the endangered Monarch Butterfly, he flew along on their 3,000-mile, 10-week migration from Canada to Mexico in an ultralight deemed the Papalotzin (ancient Aztec for “Royal Butterfly”).

How would one go about trying to sell a monarch-mobile and a trip with the migrating monarchs? The sale pitch is as follows from the Neiman Marcus website: “To celebrate Vico’s quest to keep the world a beautiful place, you can attain his original documentary-starring machine. Plus, you get to fly along in his upcoming Monarch Migration Tour. And you’ll be up there, baby. The two-seater weighs just 420 lbs. It’s like riding a chair through the air. Just you, the wind, and those ethereal Monarchs.”

You can find the Papalotzin under the gifts category, nothing says “I love you” like an $80,000 butterfly.