The architecture and design blog

Carpet, annihilated in the popular markets by a shift in taste to hardwood flooring, is being reinvented.

Not that these carpets designed by the artist Alexandra Kehayoglou with the Design and Sustainability Lab of Spartan, a Brazilian company founded by his grandparents in Buenos Aires 70 years ago, will change that.

But these carpets help to rekindle an interest in the art form that has been out of fashion recently. Read more

Photos: Carl-Antonyn Dufault Vous êtes ici

Running until the 17^th March in Montreal, is Art Souterrain. It is the fifth year of this annual exploration of the underground spaces of the city. It is held in 14 different interconnected complexes both above and below ground, and includes three metro stations. Read more

Photos: Bas Helbers.

The Dutch artist and designer Roeland Otten has taken it upon himself to intervene when he finds ugly street furniture such as supply boxes and service enclosures. His installations might be seen as camouflage or, as I prefer the Star Trek explanation, “cloaking devices”.

The peculiar thing is that these installations actually draw attention to the object being masked, although they cause them to … disappear!

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Table salt 45x magnification.

The San Francisco based artist and photographer Caren Alpert, wanted to see what we were eating in a new light, so she found a way to photograph food under an electron microscope. The series of photographs she produced is called Terra Cibus.

It is interesting, that while working on the images, she eventually started to see food and consumers as part of a larger ecosystem.

Is it a similar thing with architecture? Read more

Photos: Dean Caufman

Sitting like a peculiar, precision-made machine part, with its black polished stainless steel, the newly completed Museum of Contemporary Art in Ohio, USA  is open. It is a non-collecting museum whose task is to inspire creativity and growth in the city of Cleveland and beyond.

Farshid Moussavi Architecture‘s scheme is a four storey building that sits on a hexagonal base rising to a square at the top. There is an associated plaza that will also become an important community focus.

Because the museum is non-collecting, it does not need traditional galleries to hold the collection. Therefore, its emphasis is on flexibility. Exhibits can be displayed in ways that vary according to the media, and the individual piece.

There is something of a metaphor here for the creation of the dynamic, creative, and responsive society that the museum seeks to inspire!
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