Florence & Johann

THE KINGS AND THE QUEENS pictures made with Johann Besse for Magazine

FLORENCE is a graphic designer & illustrator, & JOHANN is a photographer. They live and work in Switzerland.

Florence & Johann

Uniqlo in Times Square

Photo: Courtesy of Uniqlo

Uniqlo is promoting its new Heat Tech innerwear by giving it away for free in Times Square next month. Three cheers! Free clothes! But the best part is how they plan to distribute the clothes: with a "giant human vending machine." Above you see a rendering of said giant human vending machine. We didn't understand what a giant human vending machine was, so we called up a Uniqlo rep to find out. This is how she described it:

"Basically we’re going to have two mimes. A male and a female mime inside the machine. And the public can see them through glass. When you get there, we’re going to have Uniqlo reps dressed in the silver bodysuits. And they’re going to hold a thermograph scanner — think of an airport security machine. The thermographer identifies cold spots in your body. After you go through that, you go to the vending machine and push a button and the mimes are going to do a synchronized choreographed routine and then your outfit comes out."

Oh hell yes. Women will go to the women's side and men will go to the men's side and get outfits for their respective genders. However only one size will be distributed, which "should fit your average body type." A few thousand will be given away. Here are event details:

WHAT: Free Uniqlo Heat Tech Innerwear Distributed by Giant Human Vending Machine
WHERE: Military Island, Times Square
Broadway and Seventh Avenue, between 43rd and 44th Streets
WHEN: Tuesday, November 18, 1 p.m.

via NY mag

Hako-ie, Japanese House in a Box Wins Good Design Award

The Hako-ie “house in a box” is an assembly-type Japanese-style room that you can set up inside a larger space. Made with excellent materials and fine techniques, with attention to the smallest detail. It has tatami mats, as well as an arched ceiling, a lacquered tokonoma corner, and even a wooden veranda. It can be assembled or disassembled in an hour and requires no nails or screws, just a hammer and battens. A winner of the Good Design Award 2008.

via Daily Icon

Hako-ie, by Asao Sakamoto, Sakamoto Urushi Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Best 15, Good Design Award

Miles Aldridge for Numero 97

Bang! Bang! Numéro 2008

Pictures selected from Miles Aldridge

All images copyright (c) 2007 Miles Aldridge. All rights reserved.

via Fashionation

Moss House by Nendo

Nendo renovated an olf wooden house on the Shibuya River in Tokyo into a live-work space.

The house had accumulated some strange and wonderful features, like an inner courtyard, an oddly long hallway and a tiny room, from a series of earlier renovations. The hallway became a study, and the small Japanese-style room a studio.

Veins of moss pattern were used on the interior walls to connect existing spaces with newly-renovated ones. The same pattern appears on the cable outlet, and on the doorframes and door handles of the office.

via coolboom

Mare Street, E8 — Digital Club

Mare Street, E8 — Digital Club from Digital Club on Vimeo.

Design Tide 2008

Design Tide Tokyo is back on October, 30 until November, 03

Below some of last year images
If you are in Tokyo, don't miss it




「PALLET FUNITURE」。photo by momoko japan



「MOKU TANK」。

White Apartment / Parasite Studio

Architects: Parasite Studio
Location: Timisoara, Romania
Project Team: Baldea Maja, Wneczel Attila, Toma Claudiu
Project year: 2007
Constructed area: 150 sqm
Photographs: Andrei Margulescu & Magazine Architectura

The initial configuration of the apartment is almost entirely maintained. The original woodwork and metalwork are entirely refurbished and integrated within the concept, endowed with a contemporary “plastic” materiality. Also the wood parquet was maintained and treated as a valuable feature of the apartment that tempers the new intervention and confers “warmth” to the living areas. The general appearance of “septic” white is counterbalanced by the paneling, the color of the niches, the lighting units integrated in the furniture and the personal objects of the owners.

via ArchDaily

Cultural trend: the antischoolers

According to Mitchell L. Stevens, a sociologist at N.Y.U. and the author of “Kingdom of Children: Culture and Controversy in the Homeschooling Movement” (Princeton, 2001), home-schooling is becoming more popular in New York City, with more than 2,600 students registered this year, up from nearly 1,600 in 2001 (New York City Department of Education).

“In one sense it is hyperparenting, an extreme version of bourgeois parenting,” he said. Parents, he said, are anticipating a world in which children will have to be ever more flexible and creative, and some home-schooling parents believe their approach will provide that edge.

Read the article by Penelop Green in the NYT

JEWELLERY SHOP BY X+L

X+L turned an old Amsterdam gallery into a jewellery shop in just one month's time.

Entering the Gem Kingdom in the 'Negen Straatjes' (Dutch for nine small streets, a shopping area in the city of Amsterdam) feels as if entering a stage! This focused feeling is exactly what Xander Vervoort and Leon van Boxtel – the designers behind X+L – have intended when they turned an old gallery into a jewellery shop within a month. The dark oak floor with its rough finish and the black painted walls and ceiling provide the humble surrounding for the jewellery to perform its show. Placed in cabinets and drawers which are covered in skin tone velvet, the delicate actors - designed by Gem Kingdom’s own Johanna Titselaar and Bernard Jongstra – play their role on neutral ground. X+L wanted to emphasize traditional craftsmanship in a mixture of old and new. Inspired by old venetian decoration they decided on raddled velvet as the dominating material. The light skin tone colour is based on what jewellery is worn on – Human skin - and sets the attention dragging contrast to the dark surrounding. Only the front of the cabinets is finished but the timbered back is left undone and clearly visible for customers to underline the wanted stage feeling. ‘We wanted it to look like it could be taken out and placed somewhere else’ says van Boxtel who has designed a special furniture item which can be used as a prop to complete the scenery.

But Gem Kingdom is not a play to be watched. Customers are required to take part in the action: In order to see the whole collection of necklaces, bracelets and rings every drawer has to be opened which leads to another wanted interaction. Very much to the liking of the designers the signs of usage are clearly visible on the light delicate material. X+L ‘hope this will look nicer in time.’

Words Frederike Bettermann
Photos courtesy of X en L



via Frame

Culinary Trend Mapping Report

You may know I am on the look out for interesting food spaces developments now that the credit crunch is forcing us in.

Here is how the supermarkts and CPG's industry are responding to the crisis and the new "Guess, who's coming to dinner" trend I came across another a big report: The culinary trend mapping report dealing with the subject and at home being the new eat out, food manufacturers are offering restaurant quality packaged meals without the dining out tag price.
According to Karlene Lukovitzon, "for all players in the prepared-meals game, the keys are staying in constant touch with consumers' rapidly evolving convenience and taste/quality expectations, and continually honing strategies that are founded on an understanding of the core trends driving meal solutions, sums up CCD. Those drivers include the well-established ones of consumers' focus on health/wellness and "eating adventures," as well as emerging drivers including "chef cachet," outlet convenience, local/seasonal offerings and meal-planning assistance."

In line with these, CCD recommends that CPGs consider strategies such as branded merchandise sections within supermarkets/grocery retailers that link products with a chef (so as to appeal to the allure of sophisticated, high-end prepared meals); adding restaurant-inspired sides and desserts to entrée lines; and emphasizing frozen and fresh-prepared meals that offer ingredient "purity" and "global inspiration."

If supermarkets are the new restaurants, surely restaurants have to be the new home

More on restaurants trends shortly in the meantime you can enjoyed the credit crunch chocolate designed by Purpose for Selfridges

And read this on the subject

Garçon l'addition s'il vous plait

It seems the consumer is saying non merçi. I mentioned frugality this week and French brasseries are the first casualty. Check this article in Business Week

It'd be quite interesting to see the shape of things to come for restaurants and bars when everyone is eating in... (Times US)

I shall keep you posted on the subject

House N / Sou Fujimoto

By Nico Saieh

Architects: Sou Fujimoto Architects
Location: Oita, Japan
Project Team: Yumiko Nogiri
Structural Consultant: Jun Sato Structural Engineers
Design Year: 2006-2007
Construction Year: 2007-2008
Site Area: 236,57 sqm
Constructed Area: 150,57 sqm
Photographer: Iwan Baan

via ArchDaily