Patricia Urquiola Brings Milanese Style to The Room Mate Giulia Hotel in Milan

I once had a dream that I lived inside a modern art gallery which is essentially what the Room Mate Giulia Hotel in Milan is, except you don’t find yourself in a college dorm when you wake up. When Room Mate employed designer Patricia Urquiola to dress up the interiors, she took the complete creative freedom to design a different kind of hotel experience. While the hotel is only steps away from the Piazza del Duomo and the Vittorio Emanuele gallery, you don’t need to step outside your room to experience a taste of Milanese culture; it’s right inside.

The same pink marble that’s found in the Duomo of Milan can also be found in the hotel lobby.

The use of terracotta bricks in Milanese architecture is a practice also found in the hotel, except with a cool tridimensional effect. Rich shades in terracotta, blues, greens and pinks exude a warm, welcoming atmosphere. (No snobby attitudes or bland walls here!)

Cassina Contract was asked to custom make all the furniture, including made to measure beds, tables, sofas, desks, bathroom dressers, mirrors and curtains.

Throughout the hotel you can find artwork and photographs from Milanesi artists, photographers, and illustrators, a reflection of the creative culture of the city. Geometric patterns are also a reoccurring motif in the interiors.

What: Room Mate Giulia Hotel
Where: Via Silvio Pellico 4 20121 Milano, Italia
How much?: Rooms and suites start at approximately $208 per night. You can stay in any of the 85 rooms of the hotel, which are divided into four categories: Standard, Premium, Deluxe, and Junior suite.
Highlights: A modern home-away-from-home hotel that reflects the Milanese culture right outside the building
Design draw: Every inch of the hotel has been carefully considered to create an authentic experience, from the materials of the walls to the artwork on the walls.
Book it: Visit Room Mate

Photos by Ricardo Labougle

from Design Milk http://design-milk.com/room-mate-giulia-hotel-milan/

KLIO Brings 4K Digital Decor Into the Home

A Play of Dependencies: A Lamp For Communication

Everyday, most of us go to work in an office, where we sit in a shared space, while working on individual projects. We communicate mostly online, screens in front our faces, despite working towards the same common goal.

A Play of Dependencies is meant to help foster a healthy work environment, communication, and in-person interaction. Designed by Maya Pindeus and Johanna Pichlbauer, this lamp is actually a set of three table lamps that encourage engagement and interaction between coworkers. It is operated by two people, and needs either Agreement, Competition, or Cooperation to close off the electric circuit and make the lamps light up. A classic example of a group effort.

from Design Milk http://design-milk.com/play-dependencies-lamp-communication/

With or Without: Jay Shinn

No, it’s not a U2 song. With or Without is a solo exhibition by Jay Shinn at the Louise Alexander Gallery, where his multifaceted birch wall sculptures and neon lights explore the theme of illusion. Colorful and organic, these dodecahedral pieces create an interesting semblance of 3D form. The exhibition also includes a selection of his neon works, which explore the relationship between light and line. By bending and displaying neon lights in a particular way, it creates a similar illusion that transcends dimensions.

The exhibition is running in Porto Cervo, Italy until 14 September 2016.

from Design Milk http://design-milk.com/without-jay-shinn/

Castor Design: Particle Accelerator

Castor Design produced a “Particle Accelerator” for a recent installation at the Design Exchange in Toronto this past July. I’m sure you’re either saying a what?! or, you’ve immediately pictured CERN’s Large Hadron Collidor. Well, essentially Castor Design took the idea of the particle accelerator, and applied it to light. Based on research by physicist JJ Thomson at Cambridge in 1897, who is credited with discovering the electron while passing a cathode ray between two electrodes in a glass vacuum tube, Castor explores the nature of electricity and light.

Castor’s particle accelerator is a beautiful hand­blown glass tube that sits atop a black marble base, covered with an overhang. It’s outfitted with machined electrodes, and its transformer and vacuum are presented alongside, housed in custom component boxes.

I can’t explain it as eloquently or as scientifically accurate as they have, so let me just turn it over to them to elaborate:

When electrical current is activated and a enough of a vacuum has been formed within the tube in order for electrons to travel without striking a molecule of gas, low­​mass particles accelerate to 30% of the speed of light. These electrons strike other atoms and give off light as they settle to their original energy levels.

The light first appears in arced shape, and quickly stabilizes and “flows” in a straight line across the centre of the tube. This beam of light bends around a magnet when one is placed beside the bottle, indicating the presence of the electron.

As gas molecules undergo more collisions inside the bottle, emission wavelengths appear separated out into plasma bands, demonstrating the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. More columns indicate that the electrons’ energy in a given state is less defined. When the vacuum dissipates, the plasma reaches its extinction point and scatters.

View it in action:

from Design Milk http://design-milk.com/castor-design-particle-accelerator/

Handwoven Hammocks for the Perfect Nap

Colombian-born Yaiza Dronkers Londoño was raised in The Netherlands but never forgot her roots. Handcrafted ‘hamacas’, the Spanish word for hammocks, have always been a part of Colombian culture but with the armed conflict in the country, the hammock-making tradition has mostly faded away. Looking for a way to help support the artisans there, she formed MAKA, which merges contemporary designs with traditional weaving techniques. The hammocks are available in three handwoven designs in various colors.

The Poncho design was inspired by the traditional Colombian woven ponchos and it combines two different artisanal weaving traditions with bold colors.

Looking to create a blending effect, the Frangipani design was made using a new way of weaving.

Inspired by Pablo Picasso, the Pablo P. design features minimalist stripes in either black or grey that are woven in alternating thicknesses.

from Design Milk http://design-milk.com/handwoven-hammocks-perfect-nap/

Shades of Grey goes International

It’s the last day of the August updates and I hope you will forgive me if I indulge myself a little and revisit this post about my book. There is a small update as you will see from the picture above. At the beginning of the month, I received the above copies; it has been translated into French, German and Italian. The latter of which, said my publisher, sounds like a rather fine wine.

The German one has a lovely new cover although, for some inexplicable reason, the spine is bright green. Go figure as they say.

Since it was published, way back in February, it has featured in dozens of local newspapers, The Mail on Sunday, The Lady, Hello!, The Sunday Mirror and Homes and Antiques. It was also mentioned in Grazia, Marie Claire (both the English and Italian versions) as well as the online version of Brazil Homes and Gardens. It has been a wonderful experience and, just so this post isn’t all about the past, I can tell you that I am discussing my second book AS WE SPEAK. Oh yes, look out for details of that one….

Now I’m not going to wang on and on about it. Actually I am, a little bit. But, hell, you know, it’s a little bit exciting. Before I tell you about how this book came about (for those of you who read this post when it was first published in February you can bow out in one sentence) I would also like to say – since this post is all about me (!) that the blog has been nominated for an award. I won last year so perhaps it’s not my turn this time, but, if you have enjoyed it as much this year and have a spare second to click a link, then that would be very kind. You can vote here it’s an enormously crowded category and I would be thrilled if you wanted to vote. If not, then that’s fine too. Now on with the story…

It’s been a long time coming this book and this post is a little bit about not giving up on stuff. Only not that preachy because God knows I give up on stuff all the time. Especially the dream of holding the plank position for more than 20 seconds.

Like many journalists we all want to write a book. It’s something to do with the external validation. And, possibly, something to do with the idea of writing something longer than 800 words. Anyway, an early foray into fiction made me realise that that wasn’t for me. I actually can’t make it up. Not with any degree of conviction.

image ©Ryland Peters & Small

That meant I had to draw on real- life experiences. And people. Which looked like a pretty fast route to the libel courts. So the fiction was out.

The next attempt came during my early freelance career when I signed up to an agency writing health features. I was approached by an agent who had found a surgeon who needed a ghost writer. Yes, I though. Ghost writing, that could work.

“What is his speciality,” I enquired casually.

“Vaginal plastic surgery,” came the reply.

image ©Ryland Peters & Small

I kid you not. Reader, I interviewed five thousand words out of this surgeon before admitting defeat and fleeing headlong over to the property department. I haven’t written a health feature since. And I’m not aware of that book being on any best seller list either.

It was a while before I re-entered the book proposal market. A few years later another idea was warmly received about two weeks before the financial crash of 2007 when anyone who wasn’t either a celebrity or an established author was considered to be a high risk and politely rejected.

image ©Ryland Peters & Small

I carried on plugging away at my job. In 2012 The Mad House opened its doors. I wrote in my diary: Blog. Business. Book. In 2014 I launched madaboutyourhouse.com my interior consulting business. And today, two years later, the book Shades of Grey is in all good bookshops (to coin a phrase).

I hope you will enjoy it and find it useful. There will no doubt be some of you who might have preferred the other book. You’ll have to track that down on your own.

image ©Ryland Peters & Small

As ever, I thank all of you for reading my blog and anyone who does buy the book. I enjoyed writing it. I hope you will enjoy reading it. Or at least looking at the pictures.

 

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from Mad About The House http://www.madaboutthehouse.com/25584-2/