Design: Super smart backpack boat

Thibault Penven says he was walking along the banks of Lake Geneva when he met a “passionate” fisherman. It inspired Penven’s graduation project at University of Art and Design Lausanne (ECAL). “I decided to design a boat,” the industrial design student remembers, “intended for use as a shuttle between the shore and a boat.” Penven’s boat is super-lightweight. And unlike traditional inflatable dinghies, Ar Vag assembles in minutes for Life Aquatic-style exploits. Ar Vag’s assembly sequence seems similar to a run-of-the-mill camping tent. The plastic sheet unfolds and a series of metal rods are strung along its edges to give it shape. The bench is what keeps the whole thing stable (“like a keystone,” explains Penven), acting as cross-bracing for the flimsy shell. When it’s completely folded up, the boat can be worn like a backpack. “The hull of the boat consists of a series of fiberglass sheets, covered with heat welded plastic tarpaulin,” Penven writes in a press release. Heat welding is a pretty common industrial fabrication technique, involving the use of a heat gun to create watertight seams between plastic pieces.The boat folds into a tiny square of material that can be worn as a backpack. Ar Vag isn’t meant for long adventures--rather, it’s a shuttle to take you from shore to a larger boat.

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Soft Light by german designer Simon Frambach

Soft Light is a soft and flexible light shade made of foamed polyurethane. Its curvy fluent shape that resembles a calabash pumpkin provokes an organic and familiar appearance for a thoroughly synthetic and industrialized material.
Soft Light can be placed in unused spaces like cavities in furniture and other places as an object that fills a void in one's living environment. Its warm and tangible surface invites to touching and literally feeling light. The result is a light which is extremely flexible in use without having a technical characteristic.
The light shade has been crafted from a massive block of polyurethane foam on a simple self-constructed device for rotational milling. The device allows for a precise production of a desired shape. An energy saving light bulb, protected by a cage, illuminates the porous foam from the inside.

Cute design: Rainy Pot by Jeong Seungbin

Rainy Pot is a wall-hung flowerpot with a cloud-shaped water filter. It allows the plant within to be watered by ‘raindrops’.

DUPLI CASA - Villa near Ludwigsburg, Germany _J. MAYER H.

From j.mayer h. web site: “The geometry of the Dupli.Casa is based on the footprint of the house that previously was located on the site, originally built in 1984 and with many extensions and modifications since then. The new building echoes the “family archeology” by duplication and rotation. Lifted up, it creates a semi-public space on ground level between two layers of discretion. The spatial configuration of the villa performs a sophisticated connection between inside and outside and offers spectacular views onto the old town of Marbach and the German national literature archive on the other side of the Neckar valley.”

The Arch Nova Project ( mobile concert hall ) / Isozaki + Kapoor

Two years after a major earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, architect Arata Isozaki and artist Anish Kapoor have completed an inflatable mobile concert hall that will tour affected regions
It is an air-inflated membrane structure which equipped with the necessary stage and sound equipment. The membrane can be folded up and the equipment dismantled and loaded on a truck, so they can be brought to each site. The interior is a single uninterrupted space which, depending on the arrangement of equipment, is a multistage format which can accommodate various events from orchestras to chamber music, jazz, the performing arts or exhibitions. It is envisioned to seat 500 during an orchestra performance, and is planned to have a width of 30m, length of 36m and maximum height of 18m.

villa F_hornung and jacobi architecture_Rhodes_Greece

From HORNUNG AND JACOBI ARCHITECTURE:
"The site of the holiday home in Rhodes/Greece yet possess characteristics and outstanding qualities, which we only attempted to frame with our design.
The site is located three meters above a coastal road, which is bordered by a natural stonewall that has been equally continued for our proposal. On the one hand the continuation of the found wall generates a high level of privacy, while on the other hand it relates to the given situation, which we were tempted to preserve as much as possible. The holiday home was designed for a couple. They wished a separate area for guests, which we mostly embedded in the given topography by integrating the shady tree population and without generating an equally visible volume.At first sight the typology of the building seems to be strange compared with the context. However this first impression will be refuted by the choreography of the building, which is precisely orientated at the context. While from a formal point of view the building relates to the found eroded rocks and washed away shoreline, the entrance was generated by an interruption in the continuous natural stonewall, which leads one at first „under“ the site. Skylights show the path up to the main living area. The generated twist focuses our sight towards the ocean, whereas the surrounding walls only serve as a frame of the context. Thus a spatial division of the different uses was avoided where possible, as well as a differentiation of interior- and exterior spaces. Most important was to prevent a limitation of the magnificent view.The challenge in this design lies in construction and the involved climate technology. The construction of the building above ground is planned as a prefabricated timber structure finished with white plaster, which generates an abstract link to traditional old buildings close to that site. The lightweight construction was chosen because it will be mainly used for spontaneous short-term visits. Massive building parts were avoided to reach a quick cool down. Through a mechanically controlled opening in the roof a well-known chimney effect will be activated, which starts at the massive base plate in the garage from where integrated cable ducts lead cooled air through the building. An additional cooling effect will be provided by the evaporation of the pool. The triangle-shaped photovoltaics on the roof provides the building with energy and enables a self-sufficient living. Areas, which are kept spatially open will profit from cantilevers, which keep these areas shaded from cantilevers, which keep these areas shaded."