The Vitra Home Collection has got a new home – the VitraHaus by Herzog & de Meuron. The VitraHaus is a place where you can explore your sense of design. The products in the Vitra Home Collection are arranged according to a variety of living and working situations – classics by designers Charles & Ray Eames, George Nelson, Isamu Noguchi, Jean Prouvé and Verner Panton along with contemporary designs by Maarten Van Severen, Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Antonio Citterio, Hella Jongerius, Jasper Morrison and others. Here you can find inspiration for your own home furnishings and also try out, order and buy furniture and other objects on site.

In the VitraHaus you’ll find information about our production and quality control. You’ll also learn about Vitra’s attitudes to sustainability and its approach to the world of work and to its office chairs. Our colour laboratory will assist you in choosing the right colours. In its exhibition “Ein Blick in die Sammlung des Vitra Design Museums” (A Look at the Vitra Design Museum Collection), the VitraHaus showcases a selection of 19th and 20th century chair designs. The Vitra Design Museum Shop features items, accessories and books that may be purchased on site, and you may enjoy fresh local specialities every day at the VitraHaus Café.

So the VitraHaus is a place to learn, to try out, and to consume – an experiential space in which furnishing is accorded the importance it deserves as a means of providing your private life with a place where you feel safe and secure.

Follow this link for a 3D panorama of the VitraHaus.

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During the Stockholm Design Week David Report stayed at the newly opened Hotel Skeppsholmen. Situated only a stone’s throw away from the city centre – on the green and lush islet skeppsholmen, animated by art, culture and busy maritime activity. combined with the surrounding water and the view over scandinavia’s capital this is a truly unique place. It also seems like the international design community will find Hotel Skeppsholmen. During our stay prominent guests like Jasper Morrison, Ross Lovegrove, Karim Rashid, Inga Sempe, James Irvine and many more could be seen at the hotel.

Hotel Skeppsholmen is modern and of minimalistic design, but Erséus Architects together with Claesson Koivisto Rune keep its swedish heritage with beautiful antique floors and great embrasures. the hotel, earlier known by locals as “the long Row” has functioned both as barracks for karl XII:s personal elite force and a hospice for the poor people infected with the plague during the early 18th century.

– Naturally this has put exceptional demands on the renovation, says ola Rune, architect at Claesson Koivisto Rune. we have put an enormous amount of time and energy into creating perfection. we have kept a lot of the buildings character and used traditional materials such as soaped wood floors and linseed oil-based paint on the timber, but also a reception desk in solid, brushed aluminum. showers with glowing water droplets, magical sinks and a seven meter long dining table from Botswana. our design influence has been something that appears between sea and land – ‘fog’.

Hotel Skeppsholmen offers a nice and relaxed atmosphere. Almost like you are staying somewhere far away at the countryside.

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Swedish designer and architect Jonas Wagell got the commission this year to make the design for the Design Bar and the VIP lounge at the Stockholm Furniture Fair. The Design Bar was made of 150 sheets of chipboard, 200 liters of paint, 350 sqm of carpet plus 300 balloons. The conceptual theme for the Design Bar and the VIP lounge were ‘Forrest’ and ‘Industry’. Like a tribute to raw material, craftmanship and refinement, which constitute the backbone of the furniture industry. Jonas Wagell describes his idea like this:

TRADE FAIRS ARE TEMPORARY CONSTRUCTIONS QUICKLY BUILT AND TORN DOWN A FEW DAYS LATER. THIS PROJECT AIMED TO EMBRACE THE TEM- PORARY BY CREATING A SPACE WHICH WAS INFLUENCED BY STAGE DESIGN AND GRAPHICS RATHER THAN POLISHED ARCHITECTURE.

“You can come out when you can properly explain the differences between Modernist architecture and postmodern ornamentation”.

Just a short temptation from Unhappy Hipsters. Visit them for a lot more.

(Photo: Craig Cutler; Dwell, February/March 2006).

Studio Power / Tim Power Architects was awarded Third-Prize in the International Design Competition ‘Housing Sociale’ in Via Cenni, Milano, Italy.

The three winning projects were chosen by an international jury, composed of  11 experts in Social Housing from 5 european countries. The affluence of participants was from over 1100 enlisted studios, with 140 registered projects participating in the competition.

The competition was aimed at finding an efficient and sustainable solution for 9000 Sq.mts of Housing and Community services including Apartments for 110 families, Infrastructure, commercial and social areas, playgrounds and urban farms.

Located north-west of the city Center in Milan, the project site will be developed by Polaris Investment Italia on behalf of the ethical real estate Fund “Abitare Sociale 1” in collaboration with the Fondazione Cariplo.

‘Our proposal, based on a ‘new sustainability’ prescribes that in order to project and nurture the environment, we must look beyond engineering: instead, a ‘new sustainability’ proposes to mix urban density and social variety with natural and physical phenomenon.  Landscapes, weather patterns and the metropolis combine to create living environments . This project is as much a landscape as it is a building.  Our proposal is a significant intervention deliberately emphasizing its great mass, as if it were as much part of the natural environment as it is of the urban environment.  It is in fact an eco-system which focuses as much on social interaction, the environment and nature as it does on architecture and the urban environment. Its insertion in the city balances the multivalent needs of its inhabitants with the existing urban fabric of Milan.’  TIm Power - Founding Partner, Studio Power

The project emphasizes the horizontal morphology of the city of Milan. The housing units are oriented towards the south, to maintain views and natural light, and are placed on a vertical expanse like a precipice which rises above the alpine pastures below. The units themselves have ‘oversized’ semi-collective terraces. Crossing the grey facade are tree lined paths, connecting  the sloping grasslands and their collective functions below to the peaked green roof above.

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David Report just spent a week in Miami Beach relaxing and hanging out at some cool places. We have put together a package of images to show you some highlights from our trip. Here we go for part one.

The above pictures are from Standard hotel. Probably the best experience in Miami Beach. Cool, scandinavian styled and relaxed. André Balazs know how to do it. Maybe you have been at his Shelter Island hang-out?

The new Herzog & de Meuron 1111Lincoln road building offering a new context for retail, residential, dining and parking experiences. Developed by Robert Wennett.

Raleigh hotel garden with the famous and classic Esther Williams pool. Another bohemian chic hotel by André Balazs.

And some beach life of course.

More to come from Miami beach in a few days. Stay tuned!

The first Camper shoe store in Sweden recently opened up in Malmö. It’s designed by TAF, Gabriella Gustafson & Mattias Ståhlbom. The design concept of the store derives from the well known truth that “everybody loves Ice Cream”. Several scale models were built by real Ice Cream sticks to be re-scaled into full size furniture. The furniture collection is made to expose at least 40 pair of shoes and consists of tables, stools, benches and one cash desk. The tabletop and the sticks are made out of color stained solid birch. All the used colors come from different tastes of Ice Cream. The curtain walls are made out of vanilla colored sliced rubber to hide the stock of shoes on the backside. The floor is vanilla colored concrete. All the existing walls and the ceiling are painted in matt vanilla color.

Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec has just finished the interior for Dos Palillos, the new restaurant of the Casa Camper Hotel in Berlin. Looks great. Will try to go there soon. Between the images below you will find the story about the project told by the Bouroullec brothers.

Camper invited us to design Dos Palillos, the restaurant of the Casa Camper Hotel in Berlin Mitte that will open in January 2010. What immediately interested us was that Dos Palillos was a one of a kind culinary experience offered by Albert Raurich, elBulli’s former chef. In order to celebrate his cuisine, the concept of the restaurant gives full means of expression to his culinary art.

Naturally, the kitchen had to be the centre of the space and thus, it had to be wide open so that guests could see the preparation of the dishes from the beginning to the end. We have decided to articulate the environment around one long wooden table and the stainless steel kitchen, one module facing the other. Consequently, the guests find themselves at the centre of the kitchen, while the chef acts in front of them.

It was important for us as well to set a dialogue between the 10 cooks and their nearly 30 guests, invited in the chef’s kitchen. In order to emphasize such an interaction and encourage eye contact, we worked on different ground levels so that the guests are able to have a global experience once seated at the table, as if they were attending an artistic performance. Throughout the project, our intention was to reduce our level of intervention to the utmost to let the scenery express itself. Indeed, the space is voluntarily raw with very few elements and materials to sustain the idea that the legitimate sense of the space comes from the relation between the guests and the cuisine.

The restaurant is located on the ground floor of the Casa Camper hotel. Large glass windows separate the space from the street in order to invite the people passing by to participate to the show that is happening in the kitchen.

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Erik Andersson Architects wins first prize in architectural design competition in Norrköping, Sweden. EAA was invited as one of three teams to design a new bridge over the river Motala Ström in the City of Norrköping. The bridge will be constructed of stainless steel plates, welded together to create a highly polished exterior with no visible seams. The bridge will mirror the river and have an artificial waterfall built into its railings.