Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby: Ascent
It’s been a vintage year for British design duo Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby; in the spring their first monograph was published by Rizzoli, which was followed a couple of months later by the unveiling of the 2012 Olympic torch, and now a solo exhibition at London art gallery Haunch of Venison.
Titled Ascent, the show [...]
The Power of Making
Walking into the Power of Making at the V&A comes as a bit of a shock. The place is stuffed to the gills with an eclectic range of objects, from a crocheted, full-size bear and a cake that looks like a real baby to a prosthetic leg and a Fabrican spray-on dress. The walls are [...]
Future Memory Pavilion
Future Memory Pavilion, an installation by Asif Khan and Pernilla Ohrstedt, is unveiled today as the Future Memory in Singapore, as the platform for promotion of British architects and designers, culminates.
The Future Memory Pavilion comprises of two cones stretching up to eight meters high and 20 meters in diameter. Made of ice and sand, the [...]
The Best of Look Again
Thanks to everyone who visited our stand at 100% design this year and designed their own sign. We had hundreds of entries and here we bring you the ones that really caught our eye.
Look Again
Blueprint asked a series of designers, artists and architects to redesign the British roadsign. The response was diverse and thought-provoking, challenging the role of the ubiquitous notices and the type of commands we receive.
When was the last time you looked at a road sign? No, really looked? These ubiquitous parts of the urban fabric, order, [...]
The Living Room
The Living Room is a showcase of established and emerging British design. Opening at the start of the London Design Festival, founder of brand DesignedMade, Jonathan Krawczuk and design journalist, Alyn Griffiths have curated a show that brings together the best of British design, transforming the Luna & Curious boutique in celebration of British talent.
Comparatively [...]
Comment: New York
New York, New York, so good they made it twice. This time, the city is being reinvented as the Big Green Apple, with ‘liveability’ at its core, writes Greg Clark.
For New York City, the challenge to stay ahead and keep its lead in the world league of cities is not solely about regaining its economic [...]
Design’s best kept secret
Despite an outstanding programme of interdisciplinary workshops that has been running for more that 20 years, Boisbuchet is still design’s best kept secret. The brainchild of Alexander von Vegesack, founder and director of the Vitra Design Museum, Boisbuchet is a former agricultural estate in the heart of France, turned into an international cultural hub (pictured [...]
High Line
When the first part of High Line opened in 2009 it was greeted as a triumph of urban salvage. Variously named the hanging gardens of New York, park in the sky and the green ribbon, the story of how the 1.45 miles of decommissioned elevated railway was transformed into a vibrant public park has captivated [...]
Letter From: Belgrade
On 26 May the former Bosnian Serb Army commander Ratko Mladic was arrested and subsequently handed over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on charges that include genocide. The arrest closes a chapter in Serbia’s history and brings the country one step closer to joining its neighbour Slovenia as part of the [...]
Best of the Student Shows 2011
This year the Blueprint team and a panel of 14 critics travelled to student degree shows across Great Britain and Europe. After viewing hundreds of presentations from a diverse range of disciplines, here we have compiled their findings, bringing you some of this year’s best work from the designers and architects of the future.
Click on [...]
High Arctic by United Visual Artists
This month sees the opening of a remarkable exhibition at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich in London by United Visual Artists. For the show, High Arctic, the new Sammy Ofer Wing is transformed into an abstract arctic landscape by the designers and offering an immersive experience that celebrates the unique landscape of the Svalbard [...]
Nintendo’s Game Changer
‘Real 3D Graphics. No Glasses Needed’ is the tagline for the much vaunted – well, much advertised – launch of the Nintendo 3DS hand-held games console. Blueprint handed over this piece of cutting-edge technology to Cinemod Studio, a London-based architecture and interactive design company, to offer an insight into the potential of this increasingly prominent [...]
Media Lab’s 40,000 New Logos
Last year Media Lab, the Boston-based experimental faction of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), celebrated its 25th birthday. The occasion was marked by the launch of its new graphic identity. Following the opening of the Lab’s new home, E14, this February, the new logo also heralded a period of transition for the institution. In the run-up [...]
Walking Men
‘The pedestrian symbol was never intended to be painted,’ says Stephen Wragg, ‘it appeared on the road by mistake’. Over the last seven years, he has been photographing the walking men painted on our paths. The preoccupation began when Wragg was commissioned by Hertfordshire Highways to design a map for the growing number of cycle [...]
Super-Computer-Romantics
In 1989 the former Theatre de La Gaîté Lyrique reopened as Magic Planet, a theme park costing 61 million euros: an act akin to putting Eurodisney inside the Garrick Theatre in London. In 1991, it was closed and became known as ‘The Sad Mute’ to locals.
Last month, the building thundered back into life as a gallery, [...]
The Bouroullec Family Album
The most intriguing exhibition at Maison et Objet this year was a small retrospective, featuring a selection of recent design pieces by Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec. As well as celebrating the pair’s work in their homeland, the show was a reminder of the brothers’ intense design activity. It was an opportunity to experience all their recent [...]
From Toys to Adaptable Structures
When completed, the new Campus of Justice in Madrid by Foster + Partners will not only be the largest building complex in Europe for administering justice, it will also be the first to contain law courts with adaptable ceilings. The British practice has collaborated with the American inventor Chuck Hoberman, who is perhaps best known [...]
The Orbiting Inflatable
In 1969, David Bowie’s Major Tom described his home as a ‘tin can’. From our occasional glimpses into the International Space Station’s (ISS) cramped confines, things have not changed dramatically. There is, however, an alternative being mooted. Robert T Bigelow has a different proposition: a habitable inflatable module. Although this sounds strange, it makes sense [...]
Beyond the Local Vertical
Growing up in the 1950s, it was difficult not to be enthralled by the idea of space travel. While I was at school in 1957, the Sputnik satellite was launched and four years later, President Kennedy pledged to have a man on the moon within a decade. Magazines and comics that were filled with images [...]
