If it was up to us, all the best design in the world would be posted within the Parfois Portfolio. But it's not up to us. Stumbling the web we often bump into things worth sharing. The world wide web is so full off great things that will never end up in our portfolio, but which we want the world to see. For this we created our blog. At this moment there are 4 of us blogging on a regular basis. Work, studies and social life makes that there are weeks with a lot of posts, and weeks without. But we'll do our best in bringing you the nicest shit on a acceptable basis.
LINK creates a temporary physical connection between the Fontainas square and the Fontainas park,which forms the only public green space in this North-South axis in the centre of Brussels, Belgium. LINK aims to launch a debate on a potential redefinition of this urban site.
The use of scaffolding for its material refers to public works, and aims to trigger all sorts of associations to this material: change, evolution, restoration, starting of larger works, the beginning of something new… Locals and passerby are in this way involved and mobilized for the possible change that LINK aims to bring in.
LINK is the Brussels/Belgian contribution to the European project Green Days which takes place this summer in four European cities and focuses on the relationship between urban and natural environment, and runs from August 12 to October 14, 2011.
Green Days in Belgium is organised by the non-profit association AAA.
LINK is designed by Wouter De Raeve, partner of Dees & Lepage Landscape Architecture Bureau, and is supported by the European Cultural Foundation (ECF).
“Sudden market” is a workshop that took place in the Markthalle IX in Berlin the past four days. An international team of 34 students from Prague, Dortmund, Italy, London, France and Japan proposed ideas in the context of the general movement about the development of the Markhalle IX, while designed and built installations usefull for the market. RaumlaborBerlin were the organizers of this workshop and they invited many interesting guests and tutors such as Martin Kaltwasser, Folke Köbberling,Prinzessinnengarten,Lukas Feiress, Florian Heilmeyer and many others. Every evening there was a culinary event in the mobile kitchen “Die Stadküche, the search for culinary plurality”, made by Daniel Unterbeg and Isabell Weiland. >> Read more
I love the clean and minimal japanese style. House of trough is a house for a couple in east Hokkaido, Japan, made by japanese studio jun igarashi architects. Due to poor neighbourhood conditions (the plot is next to an iron-factory), the house is introversially organized and visual contact with the surroundings is limited. There is a logic of buffer zones that protect the living/dining/kitchen area while spacious quality in the verticall axis balances the lack of horizontal quality. Found in designboom.
Utopian architecture is the only kind of architecture worth talking about, a very bold statement indeed. A whole exhibition discussing only this, Realstadt at Kraftwerk in Berlin. Coincidentally I also saw some work of Jens Reinert who jonas posted a couple of weeks ago. The exhibition space, an old factory nicely decorated and curated.
Davina Pardo has been working on a short documentary called Minka* about a 250-year-old farmhouse in Japan that was restored by an American journalist and his adopted Japanese son, architect Yoshihiro Takishita. Davina describes it perfectly as, “an intimate story about place, architecture, memory and the meaning of home.” I recommend taking a cup of coffee and watch this movie in full screen, the quality is good enough.
Japanese architecture is known for its smart use of space. In this perception the project of Yoko Shibata is not something new or super-spectacular. The nice thing about this space is the furniture, or the use of furniture to define a room or an office. He uses a movable wall that slides over the table, making the same table part of the library and part of the living room. At read more u can find a plan which will hopefully be a bit more explanatory.
Architectural models are fascinating enough. Nevertheless the work of the German educated graphic designer Jens Reinert offers some new perspectives on our architectural surroundings. Instead of complete buildings Reinert models their fragments or visualises the volumes of subterranean spaces – it seems he builds “negatives” of architecture we ususally only perceive from the inside. >> Read more
The past weekend there was the opening of the Kindervrijstaat. A place designed for children where they can do art workshops, creative camping and a small gallery. We went to the opening because we are fan of 2012 architects and because our very own valentina was in the design team. they transformed an old farmhouse to a place for kids. By making smaller spaces with window frames in the big farm, it is possible to heat them up in the winter. The floor was covered wit sea shells to control the humidity. Lots of nice elements and interventions. see for yourself at read more.
Swedish architects Visiondivision has built a very interesting project that is ment to be inhabitated by fishes and not humans. It started with the problem that crayfishes started to emigrate from the specific location to other lakes due to lack of stones,calcite and hiding places. To prevent the emigration and help the crayfishes emigrate back Visiondivision has built a concrete crayfish refugee. While the organic concrete morphology lays on the lake, semi-covered by water and seemly hidden by the vegetation, someone can question what is artificial and what natural.
I fell in love with this project at first sight. Be sure to check te pictures at read more.
Last year the Buenos Aires based architectural practice BAK arquitectos finished this massive single family villa on a sloped lot in the forest around the Argentinean capital. >> Read more