The Cool Hunter, Roaming the globe so you're in the know
Hot Pick
October 2 2007
The stark XXS Shop for Mobile Gadgets opened earlier this year in Hamburg’s Innenstadt, at Spitalen Hof 8. It is a minimalist showroom by Hamburg-based Spine Architects for Etronixx-Trading GmbH. The store is void of practically everything else but white surfaces and the merchandise itself. Mobile gizmos appear almost suspended in air, as they rest in small slots within the white expanse of built-in cabinetry that encircles the entire space. It is an excellent example of forcing the customer - in a pleasant way - to focus on the products, not on the props.
Spine is a German-English partnership that started between Boris Bähre, J'orn Hadzik, Jan Löhrs and Neil Winstanley in 2001 when they won one of the prizes awarded in the international design competition for Rabin Square in Tel-Aviv, Israel. They are known for their work in several areas, from housing to public places to TV shows, private homes and shops. In September, Spine Architects opened an office in Menlo Park, San Francisco. By Tuija Seipell
September 28 2007
Walking past a series of drab estate agent windows doesn't really make you want to part with your hard earned cash. Even if you are looking to move out.
That's why estate agents Hotblack Desiato - depicted as a keyboard player in the cult sci-fi novel, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - decided to spruce up their Islington offices in London.
These little clusters of property were inspired by the revival of cubism within architecture. The 3-D squares created by designer Paul Crofts are set at varying depths to create an almost pixel like installation that spills over onto the adjacent wall inside. Which makes poking your nose round other people's houses that little bit sweeter. By Matt Hussey
September 28 2007
September 25 2007
Back in May this year, we told you about a little shop in New York called Pong (pictured below). A tiny table tennis parlour that you could hire out and film your slide into sporting greatness. What we also mentioned was after three months, Pong would be gone in favour of something else.
And the time has come for it to be replaced, by a Drive-in theatre. What was formally a sporting arena, is a cinema fitted with a 1965 Ford Falcon convertible and widescreen. Starting with films from 1960 and progressing chronologically each night, DRV-IN speeds through four decades of cinematic achievement.
With seating for six and a full concession stand, where else in Manhattan are you going to relive all those crappy B-Movie moments you saw when you were a kid? By Matt Hussey
August 29 2007
Bodrum in Turkey is home to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and birthplace to Herodotus. It is also Turkey’s answer to what Cannes is for the south of France. So it’s not the kind of place you want to build a tower block slab bang on the beach.
House ’Ö’ is a building perfectly in tune with its surroundings but still has an eye on modernising the idea of a country retreat. The ornate mosaic of heavy stone is a familiar building practice in the Mediterranean, but the use of large floor to ceiling windows certainly is not.
The building comprises three units joined by glass boxes allowing bags of sunlight in, but also allows the structure to cool quicker than houses favouring large swathes of white concrete as a method of regulating temperature. Inside, there are no separating walls in the central living area. Instead, furniture positioning and small partitions create individual spaces within an open whole. A fitting tribute to cultural and architectural traditions of an area steeped in history, but a refreshing approach to a home in the hills that isn’t all bling and dodgy ‘period’ features. By Matt Hussey
August 29 2007
The Nestlé Chocolate factory in Mexico City's Paseo Tollocan near Toluca has never been a site anyone went to see for its beauty. It is what is inside that has always interested chocolate-lovers.
That changed earlier this year when Michel Rojkind, the 38-year-old principal of Rojkind Arquitectos, decided that he was not satisfied with the original idea of just revamping the factory's viewing gallery.
He put together a team that came up with an entire museum, with a shop, a theatre, and direct access to the factory as well. The 300-meter-wide scarlet building cannot go unnoticed by anyone driving the entrance freeway to Toluca.
This is by far not the first chocolate museum in Mexico, the ancient home of chocolate. Neither is it the first sweet museum for the Switzerland-headquartered consumer-product behemoth Nestlé.
However, it is probably the first chocolate museum ever to be called both a piece of origami and a shipping container. The corrugated metal look gives it an air of impermanence and industrial clunk while the bright color and crazy shape evoke play and fun. What any of this has to do with chocolate, we are not exactly sure, but we almost managed to fold a KitKat wrapper to a similar shape. By Tuija Seipell
August 20 2007
Here at TCH, we love riding bikes through the city. There's something immensely pleasing about sailing past scores of traffic with little more than a push of a pedal. And at the same time, you're burning the calories, and doing your bit to stay green. But there's one thing we hate about this simple mode of transport. People like nothing more than stealing them, damaging them, or driving buses into them. While your safe at work crunching the numbers, who's looking after your ride home?
Cue the bike dispensing machine. Brought to you courtesy of bikedispenser.com, a small firm from Amsterdam, the idea is to help facilitate bike rentals in urban areas. Cyclists pay a small fee to hire a bike, and then they can take it where they please. Once they've finished, they can return it either to that machine, or another one across town. And because they've been fitted with RFID tags, they won't all have been nicked before you can get one.
Now, if only they can do something about those van driver - By Matt Hussey
August 14 2007
Forget your traditional definition of an amusement park, Wannado City leaves behind the cotton candy, the solicitors of large stuffed animals, the mindless entertainment and trash. Instead the “city”� has redefined child entertainment with aspirational activities, all of which are framed around the question: “What do you wanna do when you grow up?”�
Wannado City was crafted from the vision of Mexican-born Luis Javier Laresgoiti, who had a eureka moment while watching his daughter “play executive” on his business phone. Laresgoiti, with the backing of several major corporations has crafted a dream world where children are encouraged to take on an adult profession and see where it takes them. The park is located in Sawgrass Mills Mall in Southern Florida.
Each venue has its own concentration, such as the Motorola-sponsored M-Lab that focuses on innovation and invention. The M-Lab turns each visitor is given a white lab coat and transformed into an “M-Ventor.”� The children are encouraged to work together on a technology-based game to solve a difficult problem. Once they’ve solved the situation at hand, they’re greeted with a congratulatory “Mission Accomplished”� banner.
M-Lab however, goes far above and beyond the standard protocol for children’s playthings. The space was designed in collaboration with Motorola and Gensler, a self-proclaimed “global design, planning and strategic consulting firm.” The M-Lab lures passer-bys with its façade — clad in stark aluminum and panelite — which contrasts with the surrounding “quaint village” motif. Inside there are seven chambers, each meticulously designed depending on the room’s task at hand. The end result is a realistic series of rooms that embrace each child’s fantasy of becoming the next influential innovator. By L. Harper
August 13 2007
We’ve been running into amazing walls recently (not literally, of course, or at least not physically) and this is giving us reassurance that “contractor beige” is not the only wall colour imaginable or acceptable. So, you can imagine the grins on our faces when we discovered E-Glue. The 3 month old French based company started by designers who create super-fun wall adhesives for kids rooms. The creative duo create all the illustrations and hand-make all the products. They ship worldwide but we see no reason to spoil the kids with such extravagance. We are ordering some for the office. By Tuija Seipel
August 1 2007
As you’ll no doubt have seen on the pages of the cool hunter over the past few weeks, we’ve been paying homage to wall-art from all over the world. From bars in Baghdad to clubs in Cairo, we’ve been trawling buildings looking for the finest illustrations the art-world has to offer. And for this next one, we had to scurry around the trendy backstreets of Jingumae in Tokyo to find it.
This small live in studio and salon has been decked in black paint with a beautifully elegant mural, depicted from the salon’s own brand to engulf its two exposed walls. The hand-painted pattern is reminiscent of an inverted Rorschach inkblot drawing. Yet the symmetrical display blends perfectly with the centre piece - a woman overwhelmed by the surrounding plumage. And while the windows are large and severe, they don’t distort the image. Instead, they perforate the design with different levels of intensity, revealing larger and smaller details of what lies beneath.
Inside, the space has been deliberately simplified, so as to not compete with the eye-catching exterior. Blackened wood surfaces sit quietly against the enlarged windows, decorated with cream-coloured blinds. While the theme of masculine and feminine remains true throughout. The angular planes of the structure repeat in the harsh lines of the furniture and the effeminate fresco is imitated by the soft lighting inside. A smart yet simple piece that respects the duality of the building — somewhere to live and work — while playfully intertwining the two. By Matt Hussey
