Architecture for Dogs offers customizable designer pet homes

Written by: William on December 10, 2012 at 8:38 pm | In LIFESTYLE, PRODUCT INNOVATION | No Comments

Designer dog houses adapted to match the breed of the pooch? Well, it already no secret that the Japanese do love two things — pets and good design — so perhaps this marriage was inevitable. After all, we’ve previously seen this two come spectacularly together to create duck-bill design Oppo Quack dog muzzles.

A group of architects, led by designer maestro Kenya Hara, has proposed a series of special dog homes, each one customized for a particular kind of canine.

Participants in the Architecture for Dogs project include Atelier Bow-Wow, Kazuyo Sejima, Kengo Kuma, Shigeru Ban, Sou Fujimoto and Toyo Ito, and more.

Here’s how Hara himself puts it: “Dogs are people’s partners, living right beside them, but they are also animals that humans, through crossbreeding, have created in multitudes of breeds. Reexamining these close partners with fresh eyes may be a chance to reexamine both human beings themselves and the natural environment.”

Word got out online about the project in November but the website has only just gone live, and it also recently exhibited at the Miami Design District.

From the website dog-owners can download blueprints for the designs, plus instructions and videos for how to construct and customize them for your own pet.

There will be another exhibition, this time in Tokyo, in October 2013, along with a book.

Tags: Architecture, Design, Pets
Category: LIFESTYLE, PRODUCT INNOVATION
Other categories: CULTURE

Zaha Hadid to design the new National Stadium Japan in Tokyo

Written by: William on November 16, 2012 at 12:38 am | In CULTURE | No Comments

The Japan Sport Council has selcted the winning architect for building the new National Stadium Japan.

There were 46 entries from architects around the world in the first stage, of which 11 were then put forward for the final slection. The jury chair was Tadao Ando, the Japanese architect famed for his use of concrete.

The winner has been announced as Iraq-born and British-based studio, Zaha Hadid Architects. Zaha Hadid beat out other short-listed candidates such as locals Toyo Ito and Pritzker-winners Kazuyo Sejima, and other entries from Germany, Britain, Australia and elswhere.

Hadid has previously won the Pritzker and Stirling prizes, and her sporting facilities include the London Aquatics Centre that was a large part of the recent Summer Olympics in the UK.

As Ando put it, the new stadium has “to establish a dialogue with its physical context, which includes sites such as the Meiji Shrine”.

Will the Hadid stadium be up to the challenge? The concept images as any rate look awesome.

The original stadium of course featured in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, although it is not nearly as well known as the nearby Yoyogi National Gymnasium, designed by Kenzo Tange, and which still graces north Harajuku with its curving roof and featured in background shots of the James Bond film You Only Live Twice.

It is to be built by 2018, in time for hosting the 2019 Rugby World Cup (and perhaps another Tokyo Olympics in 2020 if Shintaro Ishihara et al has his way).

There has been a lot of this flag-waving based on Sixties nostalgia recently, from Ishihara’s new party name and logo to now the distinct tone of the stadium competition outline, which claims without a hint of irony that “the construction of the stadium is being undertaken as a national project on a scale unprecedented in this century”.

You could argue that a “national” stadium cannot avoid sounding, well, nationalist, though somehow these words chill: “We want to change Japan. We want to make it new again — a nation that lives each day with its head held hight. But we need a symbol — a symbol the entire nation can take pride in, and enthusiastically support.”

Funny, I thought that was the job of the Emperor, a veritable good ol’ egg if ever there was one and certainly a symbol of sorts for the people.

To our cynical eyes, this project smacks less of sport and design, but, like most similarly large-scale projects at times of national crisis, it feels more like bread and circuses: Distracting the population from all the bad things, namely Fukushima, TEPCO and the ineptitude of the government.

Tags: Architecture, Design, Sport
Category: CULTURE
Other categories: LIFESTYLE, PRODUCT INNOVATION