Next up in our review of 2019, Kristine Klein picks out the 10 most arresting installations on Dezeen, including Banky's pop-up, pink seesaws slotted between the border wall and a sauna at Burning Man.

Gross Domestic Product, UK, by Banksy

British graffiti artist Banksy opened up a "for display purposes only" pop-up shop in East Croydon to showcase his merchandise, which is for sale online. The retail space was created in response to actions by a greeting card company trying to "seize legal custody" of his name.

The installation in Croydon consists of a series of window displays that contain several works of art created by Banksy, including the stab vest worn by rapper Stormzy for a concert this summer. Many of the retail products were made exclusively for the online shop and include t-shirts and mugs adorned with the artist's famous works.

Find out more about Gross Domestic Product

The Starry Night, The Netherlands, Ivana Jeli and Pavle Petrovi

To highlight the issue of light pollution in urban areas, Serbian artists Ivana Jeli and Pavle Petrovi installed a series of LED lights that together form Van Gogh's Starry Night over a canal in Amsterdam.

Using 1,400 acrylic rods illuminated by small LED lights the designers were able to imitate the artist's brushstrokes and recreate the painting's swirling night sky pattern.

Find out more about The Starry Night

Steam of Life, USA, JKMM Architects

Finnish studio JKMM brought a sauna to this year's Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert. To create the circular pavilion, Steam of Life, the team of architects stacked timber slabs.

The interior was lined with benches and an open atrium for cooling down and meditative relaxation formed the centre of the structure. Apart from the sauna stove, which was transported from Finland, all of the building materials were locally sourced.

Find out more about Steam of Life

Mirage house, Switzerland, Doug Aitken

American artist Doug Aitken built a ranch-style residence clad in mirrors for a site in Switzerland surrounded by mountains, where it will stay for two years. The reflective material of the building casts the scenic landscape, which changes with the seasons, across its exterior.

Inside the mirrored structure kaleidoscopic panels installed on the walls and ceilings refract light and distort the interiors.

Find out more about Mirage house

The Secret of the Great Pyramid, France, JR

French artist JR placed a massive optical illusion made from thousands of paper stickers on the grounds surrounding IM Pei's Louvre pyramid in Paris, to celebrate the building's 30th anniversary.

The collage, which measured 17,000 square metres, formed an imaginative image that proposed the continuing underground construction of the iconic triangular structure. JR's work was only on display for one day, the museum's daily stream of visitors left the piece in shreds.

Find out more about The Secret of the Great Pyramid

US-Mexico border wall seesaws, USA, Mexico, Rael San Fratello

Rael San Fratello inserted three pink seesaws between metal slats of the US-Mexico border wall, so that children on either side can play together. The playground equipment was inserted along the portion of the wall that extends from El Paso, Texas to Ciudad Jurez in Mexico. Rael produced the installation through a collaboration with Taller Herrera, a workshop located in Ciudad Jurez.

"The wall became a literal fulcrum for US-Mexico relations and children and adults were connected in meaningful ways on both sides with the recognition that the actions that take place on one side have a direct consequence on the other side," the designer said on Instagram.

Find out more about US-Mexico border wall seesaws

Unzipping Milan building, Italy, Alex Chinneck

For Milan design week British artist Alex Chinneck installed a giant zipper on the face of a historic Venetian building to give the illusion that it is being peeled open. The installation was created for vape and tobacco brand Iqos.

The 17-metre-wide facade features a large zipper on its right side designed to create an opening that reveals bright lights. Inside the edifice, sculptural zippers attached to the interior walls and a circular opening on the floor also reveals glowing lights.

Find out more about unzipping Milan building

For Forest, Austria, Klaus Littmann

Klaus Littmann planted 300 trees in Wrthersee Stadion, a football arena, in Klagenfurt, Austria to send a message about the anthropocene, deforestation and climate change. For Forest replicates the the types of plantings typically found in European forests.

It memorialises nature as an "artistic sculpture" and was designed to gather people together so that they contemplate the environment and the importance of its protection.

After the installation closed the hundreds of trees were re-planted on a nearby plot of land. A wooden pavilion that provides visitors with educational information accompanies the small forest.

Find out more about For Forest

Sight, Greece, Antony Gormley

British sculptor Antony Gormley placed 29 humanoid sculptures atop hills, inside architectural ruins and along the coast line of the Greek Island Delos near the Aegean sea. Works in Gormley's collection titled Sight were made using iron and formed abstract versions of human bodies.

The exhibition was organised in collaboration with the Ephorate of Antiquities of Cyclades and commissioned by Neon, a nonprofit art foundation.

Find out more about Sight

Desert X installations, USA, Sterling Ruby, John Gerrard and Pia Camil

Works by 18 artists and groups including Sterling Ruby, John Gerrard and Pia Camil were featured in a series of installations displayed at the biennial art festival Desert X in California's Coachella Valley. The arid landscape, located East of Los Angeles, is the site of the annual Coachella music festival.

Highlights of the exhibition were Sterling Ruby's monolithic rectangular block coated in fluorescent orange and Lover's Rainbow by Pia Camil, made from arched rebar, painted every colour of the rainbow. Camil realised the work as the twin for a matching sculpture located on the other side of the US-Mexico border, the piece sheds light on the current immigration policies between the United States and Mexico.

Find out more about Desert X installations

Visit link:
Dezeen's top 10 installations of 2019 - Dezeen

While it hardly qualifies as cutting-edge technology, the project described here did provide a solution to an annoying problem I have faced several times: How do you get a decent off-air signal from an AM station, where the studio is in a modern curtain-wall office building and is located at or beyond the 5 mV/m contour of the station?

I saw evidence that several engineers had explored solutions in the past. The hardware was still around when I arrived. A very nice (and pricey!) commercially-made shielded loop was installed on the roof with inside phantom power for its preamp in the studio racks seven floors down. That didnt really work. A better antenna signal could be had from the coax shield than from the actual loop antenna and preamp output.

Another iteration was the installation of pre-amplified loopstick antennas, taped to the window glass in one of the studios with coax routed back to the rack-mounted receivers. This, too, yielded a marginal signal enough to tell if we were on the air, but not useful for critical evaluation at all.

Yet the stations both had very usable, listenable signals on my car radio parked in the building driveway.

A COMMON PROBLEM

As is always the problem with metal-skinned buildings, the openings in the exterior walls behave like sections of waveguide at frequencies below cutoff virtually all of the field is cancelled. I concluded that no inside solution would ever work satisfactorily. Long runs of coax also werent working.

How could the car radio result be replicated in the building? To do that, I borrowed old technology and married it with some moderately-priced new technology to build what I believe is a solid solution.

I fabricated two shielded loop antennas from home center components as shown in Fig. 1. Inside the tubing is 10 turns of ordinary hookup wire. I used some multi-conductor wire and joined the ends to make one long wire length (see Fig. 2). Recall that the purpose of a shielded loop is to make the antenna responsive to only the magnetic component of the transmitted signal.

The shield is there to prevent successful capacitive coupling with electrostatic fields. Since the electrostatic fields from AM stations (and from most sources of interference) are vertically polarized, the electrostatic field induces voltage in only the vertical pieces of conduit. That same electric field exists inside the tubing as well and induces a voltage on the wire turns inside.

So how does this shielding help? Because the electric field in the vertical tubing sections induces voltage in the wire turns in opposite directions on either side of the loop. Thus the electrostatic contribution (in a perfect world) cancels. The gap in the conduit at the top of the loop (Fig. 3) is to avoid having the shield look like a shorted transformer turn, thus cancelling the magnetic component as well.

This is how your field intensity meter works. Regardless that the meter scale is calibrated in volts per meter, it is a magnetic device. The relationship between the electric field and the associated magnetic field is a known constant (120)t and the Potomac folks figure you wont be using the meter in other than an air environment, a pretty safe bet. Loop orientation works just like your field meter as well, with distinct nulls and maxima as you rotate it.

To provide just a bit of pre-selection to the loop, I added a small transistor-radio-style variable capacitor bought from an eBay seller. I calculated my ten turns to have about 200 microhenries, but with the capacitance contributed by the tubing and other unquantifiables, who knows?

My variable cap has two sections, each about 220 picofarads. I paralleled the sections and wired loop and capacitor as a tank circuit the miracle of adjustable components. Just turn the dial until it works! Tune for maximum smoke. The result is a broad resonance, but helpful for me, since my location is in the 50+ mV/m field of two other AM stations.

To couple each loop to a receiver, I used some randomly chosen ferrites found in a drawer and made a small ferrite loaded transformer for each loop antenna. I figured the impedance of the loop would be low. I guessed maybe an ohm or two. So, a 1:5 turns ratio would get me somewhere in the 50-ohm neighborhood.

NON-CRITICAL DESIGN

As youve probably guessed by now, nothing in this design is particularly critical. The radios are ordinary Panasonic in-dash models bought on eBay for about $20 each. This, too, is anything but critical.

Now, with two steerable antennas, I have a decent signal from both stations. But how to get that RF down seven floors to the studio? The answer is not to try. Instead, I installed my two car radio receivers in a weatherproof box (see below) and clamped the whole business to a railing on the roof.

The signals from two AM stations, as well as power, are carried on a piece of Cat-6 cable following the telephone riser path down the seven floors and into our leased space. Power comes up on two paralleled pairs, and baseband audio is coupled from the radio speaker outputs on the other two pairs.

The radios I used are bridge amplifier designs, meaning that the speakers are driven in a balanced, differential way, but I used small audio transformers for isolation anyway. Preserving balance yields undiminished audio quality downstairs. I also added a local headphone jack for each, allowing confirmation of proper operation before leaving the roof.

The whole business was installed into what Amazon calls a black, tactical, weatherproof case as shown in Fig. 4. Weve all seen these used for sensitive electronics that must be shipped. They have snap locks and gasketed lids. I just ordered a generously sized one and installed the shelves you see. The loop antennas attach using ordinary 3/4-inch plumbing components with the antenna coax fished through. I added reinforcement where the pipe flanges attach. Finally, the whole assembly is U-bolted to the railing.

WHAT ABOUT POWER?

Powering the system remotely involved a little I-squared-R thinking. The Cat-6 run overall was about 250 feet. Paralleled Cat-6 conductors at that distance worked out to be about 5 ohms overall. I had no idea what current the radios drew and, barely visible in the pictures, is a small lead-acid battery also in the enclosure. Its there to hold up the radios channel memory if the downstairs power needs to be disconnected for some reason. It needs to remain charged.

Finally, theres a small 12-volt fan in the box as well. I guessed 2 amps for the radios which, with 5 ohms on the way, means my 12 volts will be 2 volts on the roof. I could have done some bench measurements and built a supply, but when I can buy a 30-volt 3-amp adjustable supply with metering and overcurrent protection on Amazon for $60, why bother? The supply is pictured in Fig. 5.

With the battery disconnected, the supply voltage was gradually raised until the receivers saw about 13 volts. I then noted the current. When the battery was connected, the voltage came down to about 12.8 and the current increased by about 50 milliamperes. That seemed a reasonable amount for trickle charging one of the 7amp-hour batteries commonly used in UPS devices. Well see.

Anyway, the completed project, which is shown in Fig. 6, was simple, straightforward, not too terribly expensive, and solved a long-standing and annoying problem. For engineers it doesnt get any better than that.

Frank McCoy is chief engineer of Salem Communications Chicago cluster. Got an idea for a hands-on engineering article? Email rweetech@gmail.com.

For more stories like this, and to keep up to date with all our market leading news, features and analysis, sign up to our newsletter here.

Continue reading here:
Receivers in a Box on the Roof - Radio World

One-third of Dutch households are using some sort of smart home technology, to regulate their heating, monitor security and even switch off lights.

Intelligent robot vacuums that clean the floor, your children telling the bathroom light to turn itself off and checking who is ringing your doorbell while you are having drinks with the neighbours smart home technology is seeping into many aspects of our lives.

Yet despite the advantages smart home technology offers, research published in September shows that even though almost two-thirds of Europeans are interested in installing some sort of smart system in their homes, most have not yet gone down that road.

The research was published by the Smart Home League, an alliance of companies involved with smart home technology. It showed that although only 11% of European homes currently employ some form of smart technology, that total is set to accelerate as more devices are developed and more consumers become aware of the advantages they bring.

Climate

German intelligent home climate management system Tado for example, says it want to demonstrate how technology can help people make their lives easier with technology, while saving energy and cutting energy bills at the same time.

Energy saving is a hot topic in the Netherlands and the Dutch can count themselves among the early adopters when it comes to smart homes. Research by the Smart Home Monitor early this year showed over one third of Dutch households already have some form of smart home technology, far outstripping the European average.

Energy and climate control systems to help residents to reduce energy consumption and save money were top of the popularity list, followed closely by followed by lighting and home security.

Consumers have a wide choice of devices and suppliers to choose from. Among the dozens of security systems on offer, French firm Netatmo has smart alarm systems using cameras, movement sensors and smoke alarms so you can protect your home both inside and out. The company also produces air quality monitors and heating system regulators. The aim, the company says, is to help users create a safer, healthier and more comfortable home.

Light switches

While the advantages of a complete home security system are easy to see, some of the more minor services offered by smart home technology such as light switch control might seem a waste of time.

However the Smart Home League research showed that two-third of Europeans are bothered by simple household tasks such as turning down the heating and searching for keys which can be easily solved using smart home technology.

The smart home is currently moving from early to mass adoptions, but to drive that forward, companies much make sure devices are accessible, affordable and easy to use, the League says. Smart speakers like Amazon Echo and Google Home have accelerated smart home adoption, because they are simple to set up and easy to integrate into every day routines.

Cost effective

In this way, the smart home can support consumers by making their homes safer, more comfortable, more energy efficient and increasingly cost effective.

The alliance survey also showed that 37% of people plan to buy a smart home product within the next year and that 68% of people who already have one such product are ready to buy another. This, the compilers say, suggests people who use them are aware of both the value and the benefits.

People want a smart home that provides them with a positive experience, says Dave Ward, European product director at Smart Home Alliance member Ring in a press release. They want to see a true benefit, something that solves an issue, rather than simply adding technology to their home.

DutchNews.nl has been free for 13 years, but now we are asking our readers to help. Your donation will enable us to keep providing you with fair and accurate news and features about all things Dutch. Donate via Ideal, credit card or Paypal.

Read this article:
Would you let a robot vacuum your floor or use your phone to turn off the lights? - DutchNews.nl

In season nine, episode seven, The Spock Resonance, Sheldon is asked to take part in a Star Trek documentary by Wil Wheaton.

Sheldon is overjoyed to have been asked to participate, especially when Wil reveals Bill Nyes son will be on hand to help.

During the interview, Adam asks Sheldon: Do you have any Spock collectables?

Sheldon said: I have many. My most treasured is an autographed napkin given to me by my very thoughtful friend Penny.

READ MORE:Big Bang Theory: Did Young Sheldon star Iain Armitage ever appear?

While Penny and Leonard process what the camera may have caught them doing, a problem lies with when Sheldon said it was installed.

In 2012, the sixth season of Big Bang Theory premiered with The Date Night Variable.

During the episode, Leonard and Penny are working on their relationship and gather at Leonards to watch sports.

However, in the background, there was no Aquaman on display.

See the rest here:
Big Bang Theory plot hole: When did Sheldon install security camera? Blunder uncovered - Express

SINGAPORE - A tender to install, operate and manage 6,000 digital displays screens in lifts and lobbies in Housing Board blocks has been won by Target Media Culcreative (TMCC).

The panels will be built by June 2020 and allow more residents to receive information and news from the screens, in line with the Republic's Smart Nation drive to leverage digital technologies.

The project will be fully funded by TMCC - a joint venture between Singapore Press Holdings and Focus Media China - which beat out three vendors to win the tender.

Most of the panels will be installed at lift lobbies on the ground floor, with others inside residential lifts.

The content broadcast on the screens will range from local notices on activities in the estate to nationwide updates on emergencies and public health advisories.

In its call for tender in October this year, HDB said that commercial advertisements could also be displayed, but it will be capped at 30 per cent of the total screen time.

There are currently about 8,700 such panels installed at common areas in HDB blocks.

TMCC operates 8,000 screens across seven of the 16 townships in Singapore - Choa Chu Kang, Tanjong Pagar, West Coast, Jurong-Clementi, Sembawang, Tampines and East Coast-Fengshan.

International brands such as McDonald's, Mitsubishi and Redoxon, as well as government agencies such as the Ministry of Communications and Information and Ministry of Manpower have broadcast content on these screens, TMCC said.

Apart from investing in the hardware and software of the panels, the firm will also pay a temporary occupational licence fee to HDB, which is similar to the current arrangement it has with town councils.

Mr Jeff Liu, chief executive of TMCC, said: "In our past experience of building 8,000 screens, we understand how the digital display panels can bring vibrancy and relevance to HDB dwellers.

"In sync with the Singapore's government push for digitalisation, our smart digital display panels serve as an innovative channel and green initiative for the majority of Singaporeans to receive timely and relevant information."

View post:
Target Media wins HDB tender to install digital display screens in lifts, lobbies next year - The Straits Times

Written by Hina Rohtaki | Chandigarh | Published: December 16, 2019 10:38:22 am The vendors site in Sector 15, Chandigarh. (Express photo: Kamleshwar Singh)

IN ANOTHER glaring example of splurging public money, the Chandigarh civic body will be providing flooring afresh on a site meant for street vendors which was refurbished in January this year with neatly layered paver blocks, completely intact. The new flooring at this vendors site which is one of the largest among all vending sites in Sector 15 will be done at a cost of Rs 37.49 lakh.

According to the estimate prepared by the engineering wing, accessed by Chandigarh Newsline, of this Rs 37.49 lakh, around Rs 1 lakh would be spent on dismantling the concrete paver blocks and stacking the existing ones. Providing and laying cement concrete of specific grade excluding the cost of shuttering will be done at a cost of Rs 19,48,875 and another part of it will be done at a cost of Rs 8,66,658. The railing would be installed at a cost of Rs 3.02 lakh.

When contacted, Chief Engineer Shailender Singh said that existing pavers are not to be dismantled and an approach road needs to be made. However, when told that it was in the documents of estimates prepared by the engineering wing that the existing ones will be dismantled and nowhere in all the 17 points of the estimate it was mentioned that any approach road will be made, he said he would check with the executive engineer concerned.

Former councillor and BJP leader Saurabh Joshi said that this expenditure was not justified as the site was refurbished in January this year and pavers were completely intact. It is surprising that not a single paver block is broken. And why do they want to make it concrete again by splurging public money? Just this January, they made the area concrete, Joshi said.

Joshi also raised a question as to when the change in land use was done as it was a green belt earlier. Has a proper procedure been followed when the change in land use was done because I was told by the department of urban planning that the CLU cant be done? So now, how did they convert the green belt into this land? And did they call in public suggestions and objections for this? Joshi asked.

Surinder Sharma, president of the Residents Welfare Association of Sector 15, said that a vigilance inquiry should be ordered into the fresh expenditure that is being incurred at the site. They have made it a money-minting thing. Everything is in a perfect condition. Moreover, they should focus more on the fact that the choice of this site is faulty. Who will provide security to the girls who are in the hostel adjacent to the site? he asked.

The site was recently revamped for as many as 936 vendors. Residents have already been raising questions on the choice of the site saying that there is a girls hostel next to it and it will become a hub of anti-social elements.

For all the latest Chandigarh News, download Indian Express App

See the original post:
For refurbished vendors site, Chandigarh civic body to spend again, readies flooring estimate of Rs 37.49 lakh - The Indian Express

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Rainscreen Cladding Market by Material (Composite Materials, Metal, Fiber Cement, HPL), Construction (New Construction and Renovation), End-Use Sector (Non-residential and Residential), and Region - Global Forecast to 2024" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The market for rainscreen cladding systems is projected to be valued at USD 14.3 billion by 2024. The market in the North American region is projected to grow at the second-highest CAGR of 7.5% during the forecast period. However, Asia-Pacific is projected to grow at the highest CAGR of 8.4%.

The rainscreen cladding market comprises major manufacturers such as Kingspan Insulation (UK), SIKA (Switzerland), Rockwool International A/S (Denmark), Everest Industries Limited (Denmark), SFS Group AG (US), Sotech Architectural Faade (UK), Promat UK Ltd (UK).

Increase in the construction (innovation, remodelling, and maintenance) activities are projected to drive the overall growth of the rainscreen cladding market across the globe from 2019 to 2024.

The global rainscreen cladding market has witnessed high growth primarily because of the increasing construction activities worldwide. Rising disposable income of consumers, specifically in developing nations, is another key factor contributing towards the increase in renovation and remodelling activities, which in turn will drive the growth of the rainscreen cladding market over the next few years.

In terms of both, value and volume, the new construction segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.

The new construction segment of the rainscreen cladding market is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period, in terms of value as well as volume. It is a durable, flexible and waterproof cladding material in the market. It includes an extruded polymer-based core layer which provides a better rigid property to the floor. Its properties such as easy installation and smooth finished appearance after the installation further drives the market for the rainscreen cladding market.

In terms of both, value and volume, the composite material segment is projected to lead the rainscreen cladding market from 2019 to 2024.

Growth of composite material segment in the rainscreen cladding market is primarily attributed to the high strength, increased durability, and design flexibility. It accounted for a market share of 53.4% among all the materials used for rainscreen cladding due to its low cost and easy installation techniques. Composite materials are the most preferred rainscreen cladding material for residential as well as non-residential buildings, owing to their high durability, longer shelf-life of around 30-40 years, and no maintenance. Their easy maintenance & installation features save the additional labor cost involved in it.

In terms of both, value and volume, the non-residential segment is projected to lead the rainscreen cladding market from 2019 to 2024.

The growth of the non-residential segment in the rainscreen cladding market is primarily attributed to the favourable and lenient lending policies initiated by governments across all regions, which is driving the sales of residential construction projects. The non-residential construction spending is estimated to go up, particularly in the emerging Asia Pacific and Latin American regions; there is a trend of urbanization observed in these regions, resulting in a much higher growth rate for the residential construction market, than in developed markets. The increasing need for renovation, remodelling, as well as maintenance, further increase the need for rainscreen cladding in the non-residential segment.

In terms of both, value and volume, the Europe rainscreen cladding market is projected to contribute the maximum market share during the forecast period.

In terms of value, the Europe region is projected to lead the rainscreen cladding market from 2019 to 2024 due to the strong demand from countries such as UK, Germany, France, Russia, and Italy. This demand in these mentioned countries is due to the tremendous growth of the construction opportunities in these countries. The demand is also driven by the increasing number of new housing units and huge investments in the infrastructural sector.

Market Dynamics

Drivers

Restraints

Opportunities

Challenges

Key Companies Profiled

Other Companies Profiled

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/c69c9f

Read the original here:
World Rainscreen Cladding Markets to 2024 - Increase in Demand for Sustainable Cladding Materials - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Business Wire

from the transformation of a disused gas station in arkansas to a mirrored cabin that reflects the sublime alpine landscape, 2019 saw a number of large scale art installations completed around the globe. each of the projects whether they be temporary, permanently fixed, interactive, or informative in nature engaged audiences with a memorable experience, while challenging the definition of the term art installation. continuing our annual review of the years BIG stories, we take a look at the TOP 10 large-scale artworks that caught our eye in 2019.

image JR

in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the louvre museums famous glass pyramid, french artist JR created a 17,000 square meter optical illusion surrounding the structure. over the course of five days, JR and a team of 400 volunteers used 2,000 paper stickers to create the artwork that made the pyramid appear as though it was submerged in a quarry of white rock.

image by roberto conte

in september, edoardo tresoldi unveiled simbiosi, a site-specific artwork for arte sella an open air museum located in italys trentino valley. following the works of renowned artists and architects such as eduardo souto de moura, kengo kuma, michele de lucchi, and ettore sottsass, tresoldis work represents the last stage of the rebirth of the trentino park, which reopened this year following a destructive storm.

image gerhard maurer

earlier this year, to bring attention to the issues of climate change and deforestation, klaus littmann turned a football stadium in austria into a native central european forest. opening on september 2019, for forest the unending attraction of nature marks the countrys largest public art installation to date, with almost 300 trees, some weighing up to six tons each, carefully installed on the existing pitch.

image by marc wilmot

in april, alex chinneck, known for inverting electricity pylons and tying grandfather clocks in knots, unzipped the faade of a building in milan as part of the citys design week festivities. to create the dramatic effect, chinneck created a totally new elevation in the style of traditional milanese architecture, which appears to open up to reveal the building within. the interior spaces, on the other hand, are radically transformed through unexpected openings in the cement pavement and stone walls.

image by stefan altenburger, courtesy of doug aitken

at the start of 2019, doug aitken unveiled mirage gstaad, a semi-permanent building that reflects the sublime alpine landscape. standing in contrast to the surrounding chalets, the ranch-style structure suggests a latter-day architectural version of manifest destiny, the westward migration that began in europe and finally settled in california.the project was presented as part of ELEVATION 1049: frequencies.

image teamLab

teamLab displayed two new artworks at singapores recently completed airport destination designed by safdie architects. the installation comprises a luminous forest of trees, transforming the space into a glowing valley floor. each trees light is autonomous and pulsing, shifting colors as visitors pass by and radiating toward neighboring trees. in the same way that light is transmitted between trees, the tone continually permeates and spreads. this color-specific tone changes pitch according to the trees elevation along the shiseido forest valley trail. light resonating outward from deep within signifies a presence, serving to enhance ones awareness of the presence of others within the public realm.

in november, french artist camille walala turned a disused, vintage gas station into a thrilling piece of public art. I love this canvas it was exciting to do something really bold, that stands out on a bigger scale, walala says of her time in arkansas. we had a great team of people working with us for a few days, most of them were locals from fort smith who came to help and it has been an amazing execution of the project.

image courtesy of pekka niittyvirta and timo aho

in the outer hebrides, off the west coast of scotland, finnish artists pekka niittyvirta and timo aho created a light installation that brought attention to our rising sea levels. by use of sensors, the installation interacted with the rising tidal changes; activating on high tide and providing a visual reference of our future sea levels. in doing so, the installation explored the catastrophic impact of our relationship with nature and its long term effects.

image by mikel ponce

from june to november, seven monumental sculptures by jaume plensa went on view santiago calatravas city of arts and sciences in valencia, spain. each cast iron sculpture comprises a large-scale portrait head of a woman respectively entitled silvia, isabella, laura asia, maria, minna, carla, and laurelle. each is presented with eyes closed and gaze directed inward. together, the arrangement encouraged a tranquil moment that transformed the public space into a highly personal one.

image halcyon art international

coinciding with the 2019 venice art biennale, lorenzo quinn unveiled building bridges. known for his previous installation in 2017, which saw a pair of hands prop up the famous italian city, the new, site-specific sculpture comprises six pairs of hands joining across the entrance of the arsenale. with each pair representing one of six universally essential values friendship, wisdom, help, faith, hope, and love the concept behind the project aims to symbolize people overcoming their differences to build a better world together.

see designbooms TOP 10 stories archive:

nina azzarello I designboom

dec 04, 2019

Read more:
TOP 10 large-scale artworks and installations of 2019 - Designboom

HELSINKI, Dec. 5, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A former operation theatre building at the Charit, Berlin University of Medicine in Germany will be converted into a modern research building which will be used as an outpatient and translational research and innovation centre. For the project, Caverion will implement the technical installations related to Automation, Cooling, Security and Safety, Ventilation and Air Conditioning, Heating and Sanitation, and Electricity. The Charit is one of the largest university hospitals in Europe and it is wholly-owned by the Federal State of Berlin. The value of the project is not disclosed.

"There are high demands of technical design in clinical environments when it comes to the well-being of patients and the indoor climate of medical and biological laboratories. During the conversion of the former operation theatre building, the focus is on ventilation technology. High-performance ventilation systems will be installed for the new research laboratories and operation theatres, which will, on completion, circulate approximately 220,000 cubic metres of air per hour," says Frank Krause, Executive Vice President, Caverion Germany.

Caverion is also going to install smoke extraction systems for technical exhaust air and will be responsible for the technology that supplies the premises with technical gases such as oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. The building will also be equipped with new heating and cooling systems and a high-pressure water mist system for fire protection.

The University Hospital will use the building as a central research building for biomedical basic research and clinical research. Seven floors will house laboratories, operating theatres, teaching areas, a data centre and patient treatment areas on a gross floor area of about 30,800 square metres.

The Charit - Universittsmedizin Berlin represents Caverion's public sector customers. Read more about our services to the public sector.

Illustration: Heinle, Wischer und Partner. Freie Architekten

For more information, please contact:Holger Winkelstrter, Head of Marketing and Communication, Caverion Germany, +49-89-374288-117,holger.winkelstraeter@caverion.com

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/caverion/r/caverion-wins-a-building-technology-project-for-the-berlin-university-of-medicine-in-germany,c2983371

The following files are available for download:

More:
Caverion Wins a Building Technology Project for the Berlin University of Medicine in Germany - Yahoo Finance

Like many, I have been absorbing the slow death by strangling of Barneys New York online, in articles about failed Hail Mary investments and LOL-worthy Instagram photos of 5-percent-off price tags and clearance posters in the windows that look as if they were last used at a Hobby Lobby.

It has been dispiriting, and also farcical the butterfingers dismantling of a great New York institution.

Anytime I noticed that a friend had gone for a visit, I sent a message asking for a graveside report; most came back bleak. Recently I went to see for myself in Beverly Hills, forgive me and found the air inside stagnant.

The clerks were bored, verging on resentful or resigned. There was an in-house collection of T-shirts with graphics drawn from Kurt Cobains journals. A leather Gucci jacket bearing the logo of the Chateau Marmont was about $6,000, down from $6,700. I dry-heaved just a touch.

The gracelessness of the thing was what got me. But in truth, that gracelessness had been a long time coming. Barneys had been in decline for at least a decade: chaotic merchandising, diluted brand, sophisticated competition.

But Barneys truly became replaceable because it no longer had a monopoly on point of view. Artful luxury became broader as a category, and more diffuse. Barneys, which at its peak operated like an idiosyncratic boutique on a grand scale, found it difficult to remain the ne plus ultra of sly style.

And now its gone, or receding. Lets all meet up at the Barneys pop-up inside Saks Fifth Avenue five years hence, likely to be a tiny but glitzy corner featuring cheap logo tees and mugs and a vintage installation of old Barneys house-line clothing curated by Procell.

IN THE MEANTIME, WHERE TO GO? Over the last few weeks, I visited the heirs apparent, the stores that have taken on the mantle of early Barneys, each homing in on a particular segment of the high-end marketplace, or a particular angle of view: Dover Street Market New York, Totokaelo, Forty Five Ten, the Webster and Kith.

(I skipped long-running competitors like Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdales and Opening Ceremony; new wide-umbrella competitors like Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus; and avant-garde specialists like Atelier New York and IF.)

What I was craving was a combination of fantasy and authority, a place that could nudge me toward a new self, or a refreshed one. Im older than I was when Barneys first hypnotized me, but no less susceptible to magic.

And wizardry is what I feel at Dover Street Market, each and every time I go, which is why I dont go more often. To do so would be hopelessly destabilizing to my bank account and my personal silhouette.

The selection is limited and ambitious, and spaced out enough to encourage serious consideration of Marine Serre face masks, or Margiela Tabi shoes, or a patchwork argyle Molly Goddard sweater.

Every five feet in the store is a new climate zone, thematically distinct but close enough together to ensure you never deny yourself a chance to dream big, or strange. Dover Street is as close as New York has to a Chalmuns Cantina for fashion misfits. Every employee is wearing at least one item of clothing that looks objectively wrong, until you realize its you thats wrong.

The EKG is slightly less frantic at Totokaelo, but just slightly. Where Dover Street is an avant-garde theme park, Totokaelo exudes a natural calm, as if all the various strands of elegant design were always reconcilable. Stay here long enough and youll begin to see what Bode has to say to Issey Miyake, or the ways in which Craig Green and Sacai are in quiet, unlikely conversation.

The default aesthetic is vertical and slim, and the tones are mostly neutral. Overall, the suggestion is that you can be bleeding edge and also modest, an innovator who can easily blend in.

That said, on one of the days I visited recently, Totokaelo also had by far my favorite clientele, and easily the most vibrant: someone who looked like a rogue K-pop star on the lam, a young stylist for rappers, three men (shopping separately) wearing heels.

Even though it has been in New York for four years (and in three locations), Totokaelo still feels as if its only for people who have the password.

AS OPPOSED TO FORTY FIVE TEN, which is often so empty as to suggest Prada Marfa. Occupying much of the fifth floor of Hudson Yards, the 16,000-square-foot store is broken into four parts. And yet still, everything feels crammed together. No store in New York does so little with so much.

The spaces are beautiful, the clothes largely chic. And yet each section is a battle of its own. The intense mirroring of the vintage section distracts from the crucial details of the often astonishing clothes, including a pastel layered chiffon Giorgio SantAngelo dress.

In the emerging designer and ceramic tchotchke section, the clothes are huddled together so tightly that its hard to disentangle the Sandy Liang tech-tulle from the Saks Potts patchwork mink.

Most ostentatious is the womens designer section, which is thick with fanciful and often astonishingly expensive clothes, from Marni to Monse. It is far more thoughtful than the mens section, which tends to the anonymously wealthy and only moderately imaginative, apart from a few electric pieces from Jil Sander and By Walid.

When it arrived in March, Forty Five Ten promised to remake the citys retail landscape; its Dallas locations are imaginative without feeling unapproachable. But this location is hopelessly saddled with the baggage of Hudson Yards, among the least romantic places to shop in all of New York.

Spend too much time in the store and youre struck by just how ill a fit it is for this development, which tends toward luxury as commodity, not canvas. When you fall for one of the pieces, you look around and feel vulnerable, alone, exposed.

Which is maybe what would happen at the Webster, were it not so narrow. The New York location, which has less flamboyant offerings than the one in Miami, occupies a slender building in SoHo; its hard to admire the clothes without being mindful of a wall at your back or side.

It is glitzy and slightly awkward. In its European-ness, it reminds me slightly of 10 Corso Como, which is still open, I suppose? Tough to say I havent heard that name in years.

The selections are organized by color and texture, not designer, which is smart and occasionally vulgar pink Jacquemus denim on the same rack as Versace baroque-print track pants though the options within any one designer are fairly limited. But for all its shortcomings, it is still the highest-end multibrand store in SoHo. On the day I visited, Christian Siriano was perusing the mens floor with some friends.

From the moment you step in the store, the Webster abuses you with scent. Its louder than the walls, louder than the furnishings, louder even than the clothes. The dizzying effect feels almost purposeful, a tool to detach you from your good sense.

WHAT THE WEBSTER DOES WITH SMELL, Kith does with sound. On a frigid recent Saturday, after I had to wait in line outside for the customary few minutes, I entered the store and was greeted by Playboi Carti and Baby Bash, thumping at unreasonable levels.

The cold, hard-to-swallow truth is that it is perhaps Kith, more than any of these other stores, that encapsulates the luxury evolution that left Barneys floundering. Dover Street, Totokaelo, Forty Five Ten, the Webster they draw fundamentally from the same playbook, the same stratosphere of brands, the same ideology. They want to be sacred.

Kith crashes a Porsche Cayenne into that daydream, gleefully. It is a luxe street wear hub, a nightclub in daylight hours. The clothes are geared toward rappers and the rapper-adjacent. The engines that are powering the shift in high-end mens wear aesthetics are all emanating from here.

Sure, there may be no Louis Vuitton or Balenciaga, but the ideas that are animating the makeovers of those brands are happening on a more germinal level.

And besides, it trademarks its own sort of clout: Kith collaborates widely, the new hallmark of prestige. When I went, there was a mini exhibition of its recent Disney collaboration, both audacious and inexplicable, and also a Kith/Vogue varsity jacket, which may well lead Anna Wintour to fire whoever convinced her of its merit. (The sweatpants are good, though.)

As a shopping experience, its never not grim. The store is claustrophobia inducing, and as rowdy as the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. There are intriguing pieces from Mastermind and Ader Error, but its a challenge to embrace them more than cursorily. The womens floor essentially sells only aprs-spin items that would pair well with black leggings and Air Force 1s.

One inconvenient fact about Barneys is that it attempted, in its last years, to court this market ever so slightly. There was a grudging understanding that luxury was increasingly trickling up, not down. But the market pivoted faster than Barneys could. What was once a pastoral affair is now a scrum.

Read more here:
Barneys Is Gone. Where Should You Shop Next? - The New York Times