Light, angels & a short film concept

It's been quite difficult staying creatively active away from home, in a foreign county and totally out of the local creative culture loop. But recently I've been brooding over a number of projects. The above series of images was just a quick gap filler in my day full of applying for and getting no response from design agencies and recruiters in London.

The project I'm tossing backward and forward in my mind the most, is a short film project called 'The Runner', a short film about anxiety, frustration, and perseverance. At the moment I'm still working on the script, and looking for interested parties to collaborate with; you can see a vague outline of the idea on the Facebook group I created for organizing it.

Modular Japan, Tribute/Update

Update: 16/10/07
Kisho Kurokawa 1934 - 2007
Last week, the japanese architect kisho kurokawa died of heart failure at the age of 73. His best known designs, include the Nakajin Capsule Tower, the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and the recently completed Tokyo National Art Centre.

Previous Post: 5/8/07
Lloyd Alter at Treehugger has posted an interesting and thoughtful article about Japan’s famed Capsule Tower (and its scheduled demolition!), an iconic structure and unique archetype for contemporary prefab architecture. Designed by Kisho Kurokawa in 1972, the Capsule Tower demonstrates the application of scalable and stackable modular architectural strategies. The tower consists of 140 capsule units attached to a central core. Its concept articulates the ideology behind the Metabolist movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which envisioned cities formed of modular components. Two weeks ago, the decision was made to replace the Capsule Tower with a new 14-story tower, despite resistance from Kurokawa, who has been touting the flexibility of the building and even proposed the modernization of the tower by replacing old capsules with more modern units. Read Lloyd Alters' article here.

Staircase drawers

Regardless of attempts to be organized in the modern world, most of us continue to be ashamed of one junk drawers around the house - black holes filled with old receipts, pens, and random trinkets. But now you can flaunt your junk drawer with Unicraft Joinery’s simple yet brilliant under-the-staircase drawer solution.

What a great way to utilize a generally overlooked space! Step and store in style, using each step as storage for a different item- everything from socks and shoes to books and, well, junk. The Australia-based company unfortunately does not have a website, but contact info can be found here, with more details in Vogue Living Australia’s Autumn/Winter 2007 issue.

Green wall at the Musée du Quai Branly

Vertical Wall on Jean Nouvel’s Musée du quai Branly
Patrick Blanc’s Vertical Garden System, known as Le Mur Vegetal in French, allows both plants and buildings to live in harmony with one another. The botanist cum vertical landscape designer is probably best know for his gorgeous living wall on the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris (shown above). But Blanc’s Vertical Garden System can be implemented anywhere: indoors or out and in any climatic environment.