Octium Jewelry shop by Jaime Hayón

Spanish designer Jaime Hayón has completed the interior of a jewellery shop in Kuwait.

Called Octium Jewelry, the shop is fitted out with lacquered wood, natural timbers, ceramic and long curtains.

Jewelery is displayed in cylindrical containers that seem to rise up for the surface of a table, or a display cabinet like a hollowed-out log.

More about Jaime Hayón in our special category.

Here's a little text from the designer:

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Octium Jewelry

Octium, a new concept jewelry shop, opened its doors in October 2009.

Located in 360º mall in Kuwait, Octium presents the work of various exclusive jewelry designers from around the globe.

Hayon's design offers an innovative approach to an interior.

Most elements where custom designed for the project using contrasting finishes like glossy lacquered woods, natural oak, ceramic, luxurious fabrics…

Multimedia Centre in Armentières by Béal & Blanckaert

Belgian photographer Julien Lanoo has sent us his pictures of a library wrapped in metallic panels in Armentières, France, designed by French architects Béal & Blanckaert.

Called Multimedia Centre in Armentières, the project consists of a glazed ground floor and faceted, metallic second storey.

The interior is clad in wood.

Photographs are by Julien Lanoo.

Here's some text from the architects:

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The Multimedia Centre in Armentières, France

Béal and Blanckaert, architects

The new Media Centre provides the city of Armentieres with a performant tool with regard to reading and new cultural media for the benefit of the public.

It fosters the urban reorganization and structuring of the area of the station.

This is one of the events of eminent importance that transcend an architectural act of the beginning of the XXI century.

The architects Béal and Blanckaert do not dissociate these three terms: culture, urbanity and architecture are in their view the major actors of the city.

Through the use of unifying materials, shining stainless steel in the roof and in façades and the wood in the interior underground of the buildings, and a strong formal presence, the architectural writing of Béal and Blanckaert is stated in terms of "narration" and expressionism convenient to a formal interpretation as opposed to every austerity that is too theoretical.

In a city composed of very closed islets, the Media Centre lets discern the interior gardens from the surrounding streets.

The Shell by Maarten Baas

Dutch designer Maarten Baas, this year's Design Miami/ Designer of the Year, presented a specially-commissioned cabinet at the show in Miami last week.

Called The Shell, the piece has a faceted outer surface and wooden interior with two shelves.

More information in our previous story.

Bloody Haze by MAP Office

 

Hong Kong architects MAP Office have installed a point for viewing the city through two pairs of binoculars in Hong Kong as part of the Shenzhen & Hong Kong bi-city Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, which opened this week.

Called Bloody Haze, the installation consisted of two pairs of binoculars, one turned the wrong way round, mounted inside two cylindrical frames.

Visitors can look through each in turn to see the city appear alternately closer and further away than in reality.

More about the biennale on Dezeen:

Photos from Shenzhen
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Mésarchitectures

Here's some text from the architects:

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MAP OFFICE for HK_SZ bi-city biennale 2009

BLOODY HAZE
Inverted Binocular and Maxi Binocular

MAP OFFICE [Gutierrez+Portefaix]

"As far as I am concerned, I try to direct my telescope through the bloody haze upon a mirage of the nineteenth century, which I seek to depict according to those features that it will show in a future state of the world liberated from magic." Walter Benjamin, Briefe, Vol. II, Letter to Werner Kraft, of 28 October 1935.

Notion of visibility and invisibility are centered to "Bloody Haze". The predetermined intensification of the magnifier allows the construction of a new reality. The distortion by means of optical instrument: the binocular create an illusion of being close or being far while always being at the same position. Shooting or murmuring at someone mediated by this inverted projection. The multiplication of the reality is here reinforced by the instrument itself, i.e., the 2 lenses and then again multiplies by 2 in ordered to experience the two extremes variations: so far… so close – always together but never together!

Then, the skyline or the subject of this optical experience is the mere illustration of capitalistic development to become its best representation. The celebration here takes the shape of a fragmented heroism. Each of its components disappears for the construction of singular masse that is aiming at becoming a single mediated image to acquire its status of Skyline and to become hyper visible (when the weather allows it).

The two binoculars are mounted on a fix pole overlooking towards the skyline. The skyline is the physical graph of a successful economic development of Hong Kong. The two binoculars are pointed at the same direction; one is positioned in close-up mode while the other is offering the large open view. One is excluding the other with the impossibility of having the range of perspective.

MAP office is a multidisciplinary platform devised by Laurent Gutierrez (Casablanca, 1966) and Valérie Portefaix (Saint-Etienne, 1969). This duo of artists/architects has been based in Hong Kong since 1996, working on physical and imaginary territories using varied means of expression including drawing, photographs, video, installations, performance and literary and theoretical texts. Their entire project forms a critique of spatio-temporal anomalies and documents how human beings subvert and appropriate space.