Las Vegas—a marketplace for high fashion and cutting-edge architectural design, or one kitschy, tasteless replica of what was once-good fashion after another? True, by the time you’ve stepped inside any of the big name casinos in Las Vegas, Macau, or any other gambling destination, you’ve entered one of the most meticulously designed and fashioned structures in the world, be it walkways that guide you to gambling areas or all of the sights and sounds that have been engineered to make you feel like staying to gamble for a while. It’s got the exuberance, the high paid consultants and a cash flow larger than some small countries, not to mention the live shows, the nightclubs and an insatiable modeling industry. But most of the behemoth structures that typify today’s casinos resist the avant-garde, with designers and entertainers relying heavily upon classic notions of luxury, décor and architectural design. (more…)

Artist James Turrell has spent decades experimenting with light, not just exploring light as an intellectual idea but actually using it as his physical material. Fascinated by celestial spaces and perceptual illusions, Turrell developed “skyspaces,” impressively minimal structures with succinct skylights designed to change the way viewers perceive light. Because of the meditative way in which they channel light, the spaces act as haven-like environments in which people become acutely aware of the sky’s variations.
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The design world is haunted by a ghost shared in many other facets of our society: it whispers in our minds about past wickedness, inspires guilt, and warns us of the present dangers of blind hatred. Discrimination forces many minorities to forgo the innate genius so many have to offer to the art and business worlds, among other venues for their talents. All forms of discrimination and segregation were designed to create and justify tyrannical holds of power by one group of people - just as there is a design in how we sometimes interact with other people [or in other words, manipulate them] for our personal gain. There were very few professional artists and designers in any industry who were not white up until the past two or three decades as a result of racial discrimination. But there were people, such as the infamous Los Angeles architect Paul Revere Williams (who was Black), who overcame these prejudices and discriminations to make huge strides in the arts and design worlds for all other minorities that dared chase a dream.
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On 21st Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Brooklyn-NYC, New York USA, there is a grey building that doesn’t quite fit with the rest of the scene at first glance. Its stucco facade hits your eye differently than the brick apartment buildings and the old church that neighbor it. This building aforementioned is by no means abrasive like the latest, ultramodern additions to the South Slope (the neighborhood formerly known as Greenwood Heights), but it’s calm rectangles and asymmetrically patterned windows tell you that it’s something newer than its neighbors—it is, in fact, one of Brooklyn’s first green buildings. It is an Energy Star-honored building; its bamboo floors, energy-efficient heating system that adjusts with the outside temperature, recycled carpet, and recycled tire roof decking are just a few of this apartment’s green amenities. (more…)

Long before anyone knew what sound waves were and the ways in which they travel through a medium, people knew that buildings shaped a certain way could help enhance or stifle sound. With this knowledge, the ancients built amphitheaters and auditoriums in which their concerts and plays could best be heard by the assembled audiences below. Yet, it is obvious that scientific knowledge of how sound works and the ways in which it moves is now taken into consideration whenever one designs a room or building where it’s important to be listened to. Knowledge that was once developed through trial and error over countless centuries has now been codified and refined as a technical study that is applied, more or less, consistently with the builder’s desired effects. (more…)

In 1915, artist Marcel Duchamp presented a new kind of art to the world: Duchamp called his pieces “readymades,” which were nothing more than everyday items – most famously, a toilet – taken out of their ordinary context and placed on display. Seen in their new settings, it was possible to appreciate these readymades as aesthetic pieces rather than merely functional items.

Duchamp was one of the earliest artists to deliberately blur the line between form and function. He was followed by the infamous pop artist Andy Warhol, who notoriously painted multiple perspectives of Campbell’s soup cans. Where Duchamp took something ugly and ordinary and called it art, Warhol used ugly, ordinary objects as an inspiration for his art.

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Ask anyone associated with traditional, British mod culture, and they will tell you that when it comes to scooters, there are two iconic designs. If you wanted to be a mod, you simply had to ride a proper scooter. While the Vespa has been experiencing a surge in popularity following the reintroduction of the scooters to the US market, the other scooter has been sadly absent … all of this is about to change, however, with the reintroduction of the Lambretta motor scooter to the United States. (more…)

Buy it paste it wrap it ship it get it take it hold it love it stop make it write it ink it sculpt it kiln it screen it show it sell it go — the pace of art picks up its step as the beat takes it to a different level of mixing: Urban Vinyl.

Munky King… Munky King… Munky King. The name, or title, has been whispered in the alleyways of the night; echoed from the downtown rooftops of urban locales; mixed into the samples of DJs; spray painted on the walls of museums; stenciled onto the buildings which create the town of Los Angeles. But what is it or better yet who is it?
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Listen to the beat. Feel the beat. Beat. Beat. Beat. Beat.

In music, the beat is the driving force, but it can quickly become boring. Design is no different of an art form. Shifting beats and layering rhythms is the only way to revitalize and be creative in a world inundated with monotonous sounds and repetitive designs. Only a rare few, in recent years, have been able to achieve something truly unique. Redstr/collective, the self-proclaimed Djs of Design, fall into this category of eclectic and forward thinking artists that test the boundaries of conceptual and theoretical issues underlying the design world.
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Only in San Francisco would a filmmaker bring together a leading mid-career architect, an ex-hippie junk collector and the city’s building code inspector to complete a month-long project creating a beautiful, architecturally sound home made entirely of scrap from the salvage yards. Only in San Francisco would that building stand on the lawn in front of City Hall as a monument to the abilities of a community committed to exploring alternative design methods in unconventional settings. And only in San Francisco would such innovative architecture find so much support that a year later the film documenting the project would be screening as part of a month-long tribute to architecture in the city.

“ScrapHouse” was the pet project of Rachel Weidinger, a filmmaker dedicated to doing work which contributes to the world around her. She had the idea to film the process of a design team coming together with a construction team to complete the creation of an environment-conscious building constructed entirely of junk. There was a time when she was certain that the project was not going to come to fruition. There was no funding, there was no organizational plan, and there was no concrete group of people to complete the project.
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