Contemporary design - Green Prophet

Souk: Lebanese Street Food Served in Contemporary Athens

Tafline Laylin — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 20:12:05 +0000

A new trend is emerging throughout the Mediterranean and we kinda like it: a growing number of food artists and restauranteurs are bringing street food indoors. There’s a new joint in Cairo that serves Egyptian classics in a fresh, contemporary setting and now there is Souk – a vibrant space in Athens, Greece that serves up delicious Lebanese dishes around the clock! Designed by K Studio, this delightful eatery combines industrial-chic design with Islamic accents, creating a friendly, warm atmosphere.

If you’re not into downloading recipes or cooking your own Lebanese food and you happen to live in Athens, Greece, then you’ll definitely want to pop into Souk. (Otherwise, drool over these charming images and feel inspired.)

Many of the Lebanese dishes we’ve all grown to love, including Manaoushi, Saj and Taouk, are prepared in full view of the customer in a clean but colorful environment.

A series of small design touches give this Souk something of an Islamic sensibility in keeping with the ethnic cuisine.

Gorgeous brown and white lamps that mimic ceramic pots dangle from the roof, cut outs in the walls resemble mashrabiya screens and colorful mosaic tiles line the adorn the floor. Note these are subtle interventions that inspire comfort rather than alienation.

Reinforcing the street element of this charming indoor restaurant are neon signs, a mish mash of minimalist furniture, including long light timber tables and chairs of different stripes and hues.

Stripped timber slats line the kiosks, which are flanked by black boards on which the daily menu is scribbled with white chalk.

Like many contemporary designers in the Arab world, K Studio has infused this contemporary urban space with the best of Lebanon’s cultural and culinary heritage. And though we haven’t actually sampled it ourselves, we hear the food is pretty darn good.

But don’t take our word for it… head to the Glyfada suburbs and make up your own mind.

:: Yatzer

Photos © Vangelis Paterakis

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Recycled Furniture to Be Sold at Israeli Auction Next Week

Karen Chernick — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:45:39 +0000

Select pieces of recycled, eco friendly furniture will be sold at an auction house in central Israel next week alongside paintings and other fine art.

Sustainable furniture design has been creeping into the Israeli art world over the past few years, with eco friendly furniture being exhibited at Jerusalem’s Design Week recently and other recycled works being displayed at international shows of Israeli design such as the Bezalel Academy student show at Milan Design Week. Entering the local auction market for perhaps the first time though, recycled furniture pieces made by Israeli designers are participating in a sale that will take place at Tiroche Auction House in Herzlia on January 28th. The auction will include pieces created by Junktion Studio, Tal Gur, Adi Zaffran Weisler, Godspeed, Amir Raveh and Pini Leibovich.

The cabinet pictured at the top of this post is a one-of-a-kind piece made by Amir Raveh of Nagarya Studio and is titled Grid. It is fashioned out of a metal grid door and collected parts of old furniture.

Junktion Studio is represented by the Sonol Barrel chair seen above, made out of a discarded metal barrel that was considered industrial waste. This handmade, limited edition piece was fashioned out of the barrel, plywood, sponge and upholstery materials.

RAWtation by Adi Zaffran Weisler (who makes not only recycled furniture but upcycled bullet jewelry) will also be offered at auction (pictured above). The furniture set includes a coffee table and stool made out of raw citrus branches and polyethylene. Both items are limited edition and one-of-a-kind.

Tiroche Auction No. 144 of Israeli and International Art will take place on January 28, 2012. For more information about the auction visit the Tiroche website.

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Paper Carton Furniture Is No Pulp Fiction

Karen Chernick — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 06:51:08 +0000

Paper pulp furniture is stronger than it looks.

Bamboo has been praised for several years as the most sustainable material for furniture (due to its quickly renewable nature), with cardboard coming a close second due to its recycled and recyclable form. At first thought cardboard may not sound very strong, but when you think about the fact that it is used to package heavy items such as couches and refrigerators it begins to get a little more credit. And it is a short leap from cardboard to recycled paper pulp, so Israeli designers Odelia Lavie and Dan Hochberg took it.

They designed a set of ‘Pulp Furniture’ that includes a coffee table, stools, and a clock (or wall hanging).

Made in 2008, Odelia and Dan (whose work was recently exhibited at Jerusalem Design Week) explain that “the inspiration [for ‘Pulp Furniture’] comes from pulp spacers used in packaging.”

If the set looks flimsy, have no fear. “Even though the set is made out of paper,” the duo write, “these furniture [pieces] are strong enough to use.”

The structural shapes of the pieces contribute to their strength, as well as make a playful reference to industrial packaging.

As with cardboard furniture, ‘Pulp Furniture’ is both recycled and easily recyclable. It can even be upcycled into packaging!

:: Odelia & Dan

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Jerusalem Design Week Uses Design to Heat Our Reactions to Climate Change

Karen Chernick — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:12:49 +0000

Jerusalem’s second annual Design Week will generate awareness of climate change through design and show off some local sustainable designers.

Jerusalem will host the grand opening of its second annual Design Week on December 4th, with a week of design exhibitions, conferences, master classes, cinema events and workshops planned for a variety of audiences. The exhibitions will touch on a few design issues. Culture Climate, curated by Alfons Hug, will attempt to use design to create more empathy towards the global issue of climate change. Time 02 Fervency, the central exhibit, will focus on designs created within a short period of time and feature some local sustainable designs, such as the work of Adi Zaffran Weisler (of upcycled bullet jewelry fame) and Joy van Erven of Godspeed (the speedy design team that makes all its pieces within one hour).

The Culture Climate exhibition is based on the idea that climate change is a cultural change, in addition to being a political and social change. Despite the fact that climate change effects us all, however, the issue has been objectified over the past century and is currently presented in the form of cold, distant facts.

Culture Climate hopes to “elevate the aesthetic temperature of the climate crisis in order to renew our sensual bond with the most significant global change of our time and for the following generations.” The exhibit will include works by Simon Faithfull, Michael Sailstorfer, Raynold Raynolds, Gudio van der Werve, and more.

Time 02 Fervency, on the other hand, focuses on works created within a limited time frame and includes the creations of 15 designers. Tal Gur, the a designer and the curator of the exhibit, explained that “I looked for designers whose work was marked by a sort of ‘fever’, or those able to come up with the goods within a short time.”

Situated in the basement of Jerusalem’s former Hansen leper hospital, the exhibition showcases the designs of Adi Zaffran Weisler, Gal Ben Arav (whose bamboo bench is pictured at top), and Joy van Erven of Godspeed (whose trash table is pictured above).

Jerusalem Design Week will take place between December 4th – 9th, 2011.

: Jerusalem Design Week
: Haaretz

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Lamps Made With 50% Sawdust, Some Plastic Bags, and Some Ingenuity

Karen Chernick — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:53:23 +0000

Made from sawdust and plastic bags alone, these adhesive-free lamps take leftover materials and make them shine again.

Plastic bags are an (unfortunately) abundant material that have been used in many ways by designers, but sawdust – though abundant as well – has not been used as frequently by sustainable Middle Eastern designers. One other designer, Yoav Avinoam, has made furniture out of sawdust but his designs required a great deal of resin (perhaps not the most eco-friendly material).

Kulla Industrial Design – a team of two designers based in Israel – has found new and more environmentally friendly ways to use this waste material. Combining sawdust with plastic bags and baking them together in molds, Kulla creates table lamps, pendant lamps and stools in their 50% Sawdust line.

On their innovative work method, designers Adi Shpigel and Keren Tomer write that “a measured mixture of the two materials is pressed into an aluminum mold and then baked. The heat creates a homogeneous connection without using any adhesives.”

The designers describe their material for the 50% Sawdust line as a combination of “two different worlds of waste.” In fusing them together in an environmentally friendly way, they make waste useful again.

The lamps are either set with a wooden base and suitable for use as table lamps, or hung from the ceiling as pendant lamps. Either way, the lamps can be fitted with eco-friendly CFLs. The semi-translucent nature of the plastic bags in the lamps creates a warm glow.

: Kulla Industrial Design

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Mannequin-made Chair Puts Human Form in Motion

Karen Chernick — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 06:09:02 +0000

When this mannequin free falls, low-carbon-footprint chairs with “human” form are made.

Israeli designer Ezri Tarazi, the head of the Industrial Design Department at Israel’s Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, is no stranger to sustainable design. Some of his previous projects include eye glass frames made from wood, and home furnishings created from upcycled ammunition boxes. But he put an entirely new spin on sustainable design recently with his free-falling mannequin chair – which employs the drop of a female mannequin filled with 100 kilos of concrete in order to sculpt the metal chair instead of using energy-guzzling machines. The chair is almost entirely man (and mannequin) made.

As shown in the clip below, Tarazi begins with a trapezoidal box made of perforated metal sheets. He then (with the help of a friend) hoists the weighted female mannequin above the box and drops it. The mannequin, being shaped in the human form anyway, creates a hollow in the box that is suitable for people to sit in. Whether the chair is comfortable or not is another question entirely.

The chair raises questions about the relationship between human needs and design – do contemporary designers fashion their creations around the needs of human consumers, or do we adapt ourselves to the design of the objects that we use?

Watch video of free fall forming:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRVfjy29T5w[/youtube]

The free falling mannequin chair is currently on view at the Paradigma Gallery in Tel Aviv, alongside other chairs and home furnishings made by Tarazi.

::designboom via Designist Dream

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Ron Arad’s Bike Wheels Will Never Go Flat

Karen Chernick — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 12:04:47 +0000

Ron Arad’s bike is up for the auction block: These wheels will add some spring to your ride.

Unlike the car, which comes in many shapes, colors, and sizes, the bicycle has not been subject to as many design transformations and over the years has pretty much retained its classic shape. Here and there there are a few exceptions (such as the recycled plastic bike we saw a few months ago), and designers try to upgrade the design of the bike or the urban bike rack. Some bike users may even try to make their bikes ugly in order to deter others from stealing them. But not Israeli designer, Ron Arad. His Soft-Ride Bike (pictured above) breaks one of the cardinal rules of bicycle design, which is that bikes wheels should have… well…. tires.

Instead of your average rubber tires, the Soft-Ride Bike’s wheels are made entirely of sprung steel. In addition to being very aesthetic, this choice has some functional applications as well: the tires will never go flat, the bike has a natural bounce, and the design of the wheels enhances their shock absorption.

Designed as a type of flower, the wheels are each made of 18 steel strips that are pinned together at different tension points to create a circle.

The Soft-Ride Bike was designed to be auctioned at the Elton John AIDS Foundation on October 29th along with other celebrity-designed bikes. Ron Arad’s bicycle will team up with others designed by fashion designers Patrick Cox and Alice Temperley, British actress Paloma Faith, and artist Natasha Law.

Until the auction, however, guests staying at the W Hotel in London’s Leicester Square are invited to take the bike out for a spin. (Or in the case of this particular bike, for a soft-ride.)

: Geek.com

Images via: Geek.com and FastCoDesign

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Meet Me in St. Louis for Sukkah City 2011

Karen Chernick — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 23:33:07 +0000

Inspired by last year’s Sukkah City in NYC (see one of the past designs above), St. Louis is hosting its own sukkah design competition this year.

With the Jewish high holidays fast approaching, some of us are thinking about honey recipes, sustainable festive meals, and sukkahs (or temporarily erected shelters). The folks over at Washington University in St. Louis (WUSL) certainly have sukkahs on the brain, as they are preparing to host Sukkah City 2011, a design competition similar to the one held in New York last year. The theme of this year’s Sukkah City will be “Defining and Defying Boundaries”, asking participants to focus on the material, cultural or metaphorical boundaries that may influence our lives and define the ways that we relate to an increasingly global society.

Artists, architects and designers of all faiths are invited to submit their designs, with 10 to be selected for construction by the competition panel. The panel will be diverse as well, including environmental designer Mitchell Joachim, architect Carol Ross Barney, Rabbi Hyim Shafner, and Bruce Lindsey, a Professor for Community Collaboration at WUSL.

Rabbi Andrew Kastner of the St. Louis Hillel student organization said of the competition that “the biblical narrative of the Sukkah commemorates the temporary dwellings of the Israelites during their exodus from Egypt. But it also represents universal ideas of transience and permanence, as expressed through architecture and ritual.”

“The Sukkah is a means of ceremonially practicing homelessness, while at the same time maintaining a close proximity to the comforts of our modern, sheltered world,” Kastner continued.

It is also a means of remembering how to live more simply and closer to nature. Perhaps some of the protesters in Tel Aviv’s recent ‘tent city’ experienced some of these feelings.

: Washington University in St. Louis

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More Sustainable Eye Glasses – Wood or Human Hair?

Karen Chernick — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 18:39:38 +0000

If you think these sunglasses are made from tortoise shell, guess again.

Accessories may be one of the most important places for an ecologically minded designer to start. Accessories are the victims of quickly changing trends and fads, and so their unsustainable fashionable-ness makes their ecological sustainability greatly needed. We’ve seen other green designers tackle this issue before, creating purses out of old tire inner tubes, wallets out of discarded wrappers, and clutches made from old architectural designs. There are the wonderful theme-based goodr sunglasses. However we have not yet seen designers stare sustainable accessories in the face.

Namely, take it to one of the most ubiquitous fashion accessories of all – the eye or sun glasses. And now we’re faced with two sets of designers tackling the issue in very different ways: one making eye glasses from human hair (seen above) and the other making them from wood.

Ezri Tarazi, an industrial designer and the Head of the Industrial Design Department at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, is the one responsible for the wood glasses seen above together with Shoham Zak. Made from special laminated wood layers, they are extremely strong (even though, from a practical perspective, they are not collapsible).

Tarazi notes that they are suitable for people with skin allergies to metal and plastic. In terms of energy consumption, the wood is probably much less energy intensive to obtain than metals and plastic. With a slight tweak in the design to make these frames from durable and quickly growing bamboo, these glasses would be much more sustainable.

Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves, two graduates from the Royal College of Art in the UK, are behind the “Hair Glasses” line to the left – a collection of sustainable fashion eyewear exploring the potential of human hair. Made from human hair and bioresin, the frames are completely biodegradable and no harmful substances are released during production.

In attempt to explain why they would use human hair, the two founders of Studio Swine explain that “the UK beauty industry imports 15 million pounds worth of human hair per year. As the world’s population continues to increase, human hair has been reimagined as a viable – importantly renewable – material.”

Maybe human hair is the new bamboo?

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Upcycled Bath Tub Chair Design by Reddish

Karen Chernick — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 20:14:29 +0000

Reddish Studio designs an upcycled bath tub chair

Designers often talk about “clean” design, with crisp lines and an absence of frou-frou decoration. See the emergence of functional design in restaurant furniture.

But apparently there’s another kind of clean design – the kind that’s clean because it’s upcycled from objects formerly used to keep people clean, like a bathtub.

The blueprint to upcycle a bathtub to chair

The Bath & Beyond chair, made by the Israeli designers at Reddish Design Studio, joins a list of other fun eco-friendly chairs such as the modular Loop Chair, the Daily Chair made from the remains of the daily newspaper, and the Rocky Chair made from vintage movie theater seats and rocking chair bases.

Upcycled, aesthetic, and allegedly very comfortable, the Bath & Beyond Chair is a welcome addition to our list of sustainably designed chairs.

Reddish Studio was founded in 2002 by a pair of industrial designers, Naama Steinbock and Idan Friedman, both graduates of the Holon Academic Institute of Technology. The studio designs a range of products, from household objects to jewelry and furniture, and exhibition design as well.

Reddish Studio founders

In describing the mission of the studio, the designers write that “Reddish studio focuses on keeping its designs clear and intriguing, and spends most of the time helping objects feel better about themselves.”

The bathtub used to create the Bath & Beyond Chair should certainly feel better about itself, for both aesthetic and ecological reasons.

::Reddish Studio

Find more sustainable chair designs from Israel:
Tal Gur’s Daily Chair Finds a New Use for Yesterday’s Irrelevant Newspaper
Modular Loop Chair Serves a Twelve-Fold Function
Another Rockin’ Chair by an Israeli Designer
Amir Zinaburg’s Recycled Designs Can-Can

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