Can we make our studio's like these?

Nissan's Artful Surroundings

Luce et Studio design for the car company’s styling and design studios is big enough to accommodate the cars -- and intimate enough for creative collaboration

By John Gendall

For Nissan's design studio in La Jolla, Calif., and its styling studio in Detroit, Mich., Luce et Studio conceived facilities whose architecture not only reflects the car company's high design priority, but also features an open plan to encourage communication among designers without compromising privacy.

Because of the intense competition in this industry, automotive design facilities must be private and secure, but that often results in buildings of what Jennifer Luce calls “antiseptic architecture.” The San Diego-based architect set out to redefine automotive design architecture with the 25,000 sq.-ft. interior renovation and 9,000 sq.-ft. expansion of the studio in California, and the new, 45,000 sq.-ft. facility in Michigan.

The BW/AR jury noted that the facilities “maintain a design studio feeling with the capacity to build large mock-ups, a variety of design environments with both indoor and outdoor areas.”

* This was a recent article found on BusinessWeek's website http://www.businessweek.com

Flavor Paper

Flavor Paper
“To the uninitiated, the word ‘wallpaper’ still conjures up thoughts of an elderly relative’s living room, with cozy floral prints lining every wall. Jon Sherman, founder of the new wallpaper firm Flavor Paper, is trying to change all that.” This young New Orleans based company has taken the “flavorful” approach of adding vivid life to vertical surfaces. The brightly colored, hand painted, metallic wall coverings have been featured in a number of retail locations, clubs, and residential homes. Although vintage in inspiration, the brilliant color and wild patterns can transform a room into an experience.
http://www.flavorleague.com/

Create Your Own Snowflake--Salvation Army

Something to get you in the holiday spirit. Popular Front, an interactive design firm, has put together a website that determines how much they will donate to the Salvation Army. With each new snowflake you create they will increase their contribution. What's even cooler than that, these personalized snowflakes hold messages that others can respond to. It's such a fantastic way to communicate with others around the world. Let's start snowflake making!

Visit the Wurm!

Frye Art Museum
704 Terry Avenue
Seattle
www.fryeart.org/
Cost: Free
Until January 28, 2007

I Love My Time, I Don’t Like My Time highlights ten years of production and includes a range of explorations into the ways sculpture can be made, understood, and communicated through performance, photography, installation, drawing, video, and text. Museum visitors may construct sculptures through instructions and a variety of objects supplied by the artist. Key works include staged situations for the creation of One Minute Sculptures; the photo series Instructions for Idleness (2001); Instructions on How to Be Politically Incorrect (2002–03), a series that addresses the disorientation and paranoia of a post–9/11 world; and Thinking about Philosophy (2003), drawings of several figures, each contemplating a different philosopher. Also featured is the Fat House/I Love My Time, I Don’t Like My Time (2003), in which a bloated and anthropomorphized house meditates on the meaning of life, art, and architecture.

BusinessWeek- Best and Worst 2006

Business Week always has a great end of year review on business and design. This year Boeings new boss, Jim McNerney, received best start at a new company. It's always good to have a client on the list. Take a look at the links below, there is some really interesting stuff in them.

Leaders
Products
Ideas

Raw Material Time Horizons

Based on a recent United States Geological Study, Lester Brown informs us that we will exhaust known stores of several vital metals within the next two to three generations, based on a reasonable estimation of 2% growth in extraction. While recycling efforts have accelerated, virgin materials are still being harvested at an alarming rate.What will the world be like when we have run out of copper or steel? The average building today relies upon a great quantity of these resources for its construction. Faced with these facts, we can easily imagine a future in which industry has completely re-engineered its handling of material resources. After all, there seems to be no other choice.

An Inconvenient Truth

Last week we took time to watch Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth. It was with great hope that inspiration as well as motivation towards obtaining LEED accreditation and building/designing green was generated. At the end of the film a plethora of strategies for reducing our environmental footprint flashed across the screen, many of which we have all heard repeatedly (i.e. car pool, walk, ride a bike or take mass transit, use low energy light bulbs, and water conserving fixtures, turn lights off when not in a room, recycle, etc). However, there are greater ways to contribute, aside from reducing personal energy use. Below are a few resources, ranging from organizations and products to glocal and local environmental news, to help further your education as well as get you involved.

http://www.climatecrisis.net/ (the website from the film)
http://www.treehugger.com/ (sustainable company/product news)
http://www.worldchanging.com/(world and local environmental news)
http://www.cascadiagbc.org// (local chapter of USGBC great site for sustainable discussions)
www.seattle.gov/environment/ (Seattle's office of Sustainability)
http://www.builtgreen.net// (Washington state sustainable housing/building resources)
http://www.environmentalhomecenter.com/(environmental building materials)
architectureforhumanity.org/ (an organization of designers interested in improving the built environment)
www.metropolismag.com/cda/sustainable.php (Metropolis Magazine's online sustainability section)
interiordesign.net/GreenZone/CA451322.html (Interior Design Magazine's "Green Zone")

LitFuse--Interaction Designers

LitFuse is an amazing interactive design firm, and it's here in Seatle! Check out their site, it is inventive and fun to explore. They do a great job of breaking the mold associated with traditional webpages. Make sure you check out the singing dolls and their portfolio, especially the Chevy Avalanche website.

Introduction to Service Design

I just attended the first Service design conference at CMU called Emergence. The speakers and panel were great and there was an assortment of professions there. All the professions spoke the same language, but in different dialects. I thought the conference was well organized. It began by creating common definitions and terminology for use as a reference during the conference.

Service design can be both tangible and intangible. It can involve such things as artifacts, communication, environment and behaviors. Whichever form it takes it must be consistent, easy to use and strategically applied.

This is not something brand new. It is merly a clarification and collection of knowledge based around user centered design. The phrase "user centered design" is becoming as hot as the term "interactive". What sets firms apart from each other is not the process of service design, systems design, or human computer interaction, but the translation of the information gathered during these processes. The strength of these designs is their ability, in the right hands, to create something insightful to use. Everything is based on tests and investigations proven by the user.

Manufactured Landscapes

MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is a feature length documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Burtynsky makes large-scale photographs of ‘manufactured landscapes’ – quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines, and dams. He photographs civilization’s materials and debris, but in a way people describe as “stunning” or “beautiful,” and so raises all kinds of questions about ethics and aesthetics without trying to easily answer them.

Office for a New Generation

Here are some great photos of the future of work environments. They are from the May issue of Interior Design--office: a space odyssey. A lot of the photos are reinforcing our belief of a collaborative culture. How do these new spaces change or empower a change in the way we work, other than space? As some of these are starting to feel more like home, does that make it easier to work longer hours or at your own times throughout the day? Check out the photos.