Best of the Week

Mapping thousands of abandoned Albanian bunkers, a pragmatic working machine by Christ & Gantenbein, contemporary Arab identity applied to design by Nada Debs, and a surprising building in the outskirts of Paris: here is this week's best.

This week, Tim Parsons takes a look at The Outdoor Office, a new exhibition by Jonathan Olivares Design Research at the Art Institute of Chicago which launches an utopian, modernist idea: fifty years from now, an outdoor workspace may become something as common as a gazebo or a patio. Polish photographer Alicja Dobrucka surveys the Albanian landscape, mapping the abandoned bunkers which dot the country, and we talk to Beirut-based designer and entrepreneur Nada Debs, who aims to celebrate the quality of Middle-Eastern craftsmanship and combine it with international taste. Stéphane Maupin & Nicholas Hugon complete an intriguing building in the outskirts of Paris, and Christ & Gantenbein's BLKB bank in Liestal stands as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Outdoor Office
A design report from Chicago by Tim Parsons
What could possibly link Monty Python's Flying Circus with the surrender of Japan on the USS Missouri that ended World War 2 in 1945, or celebrated US television show Twin Peaks with the steps of the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow? The answer is they all produced scenes of office work or teaching being played out in the open air. These examples are from the research benchmarks collected for a project entitled The Outdoor Office by American studio Jonathan Olivares Design Research, being exhibited at The Art Institute of Chicago until 15 July 2012.
[Read the complete article]

Top: Alicja Dobrucka, bunker in Drymades, August 2011. Above: Christ & Gantenbein's BLKB bank is not an over ambitious luxury project, but a pragmatic cask-like building, with only a couple of well designed things: the windows and the façade are the protagonists
Top: Alicja Dobrucka, bunker in Drymades, August 2011. Above: Christ & Gantenbein's BLKB bank is not an over ambitious luxury project, but a pragmatic cask-like building, with only a couple of well designed things: the windows and the façade are the protagonists
Design Days Dubai: Nada Debs
A design report from Dubai by Maria Cristina Didero
Originally from Lebanon, designer Nada Debs has lived in three continents. With pitch-black eyes and a radiant smile, she looks like a young girl. Nada was born into a family of merchants who moved to Japan. She lived in the Land of the Rising Sun until her teenage years, absorbing its minimalist, linear and simple forms. Nada then crossed the world to study interior architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, the United States, a crucial experience for her understanding and reinterpretation of the concept of form and function, she says. The designer was fascinated by the American pragmatism, which she embraced and transferred to her first designs — with such excellent results that she was able to escape a degree in economics imposed on her by her family. Nada packed her bags again, arrived in the United Kingdom, became a mother, and in 2000 founded both the East and East company and the brand that bears her name, before deciding to return to Beirut where she now lives and works after 40 years of absence.
[Read the complete article]

Mapping Bunkers
A photo-essay from Tirana by Alicja Dobrucka
In the Summer of 2011, Polish photographer Alicja Dobrucka found herself in Albania amidst by 750,000 abandoned pillbox bunkers, a remnant of 45 years of communist dictatorship. Built to protect the country from enemies that never came, these concrete structures are a truly ubiquitous presence in the country's landscape, which Dobrucka was compelled to document.
These mushroom shaped shelters are the physical manifestation of a paranoid past and stand as reminders of the folly of totalitarianism. Now, with a recent bill passed by the Albanian government which allows for the bunkers' full destruction, the country is actively erasing its past, and Dobrucka's survey might be the last record of many of these bunkers.
[Read the complete article]
Nada Debs, <em>Ali Baba</em> cabinet for the East & East collection
Nada Debs, Ali Baba cabinet for the East & East collection
Stéphane Maupin & Nicolas Hugon: M Building
A news report from Paris
A climatic mechanism determined the shape of the building, with the solar templates of the project sculpting internal slopes which get to the very heart of the construction. Two 45° symmetrical slopes establish a triangular quadrant, relieving the whole block from the building's compactness. As a result, a central void appears, where the dwellers can share a continually illuminated unique space. As the light hits one side in the morning, the opposite side will benefit from it in the afternoon.
[Read the complete article]

An exercise in not fitting
An architecture report from Liestal by Kersten Geers
On each of the sides, the particular landing resolves urban issues. Close to the station it adds a stair to connect with the lower part of the city. In the back — its most sculptural side —, it allows the existing road to remain where it always was. In the front, it organizes a parapet for the bus stop, sheltering from the rain, while silently offering its main façade to shops and services. Urbanism happens through this volume, as if it was the result of a conjecture. In the intervals where the building does not fit, it consciously manipulates and presents the demands and desires of the future Liestal urbanite: as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
[Read the complete article]
Stephane Maupin & Partners, "M" Building
Stephane Maupin & Partners, "M" Building

Latest on News

Latest on Domus

Read more
China Germany India Mexico, Central America and Caribbean Sri Lanka Korea icon-camera close icon-comments icon-down-sm icon-download icon-facebook icon-heart icon-heart icon-next-sm icon-next icon-pinterest icon-play icon-plus icon-prev-sm icon-prev Search icon-twitter icon-views icon-instagram