Brunette in Scandinavia

Friday, July 15, 2011

Robyn Obsession

Anyone surprised by this obsession can leave now.

Study Tour is over - Back to reality

Time for some serious sleeping and then some serious DESIGNING.

Last day of Study Tour left us at the Ikea Headquarters to get a tour of the testing facilities, museum, model making shop and warehouses. Sadly we couldnt take photos but we did get to meet some of the in-house design team including Marcus Arvonen.

"IKEA PS MASKROS imitates a dandelion ready to be scattered by the wind. And when lit, the shadows on the walls resemble just that - the room dissolves and transforms. Like when the sun shines through the trees. The pendant lamp is a real mood enhancer, decorative and riveting even when switched off."

-Designer Marcus Arvonen

Also we ate meatballs (Obviously.)

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Moderna Museet

Tuesday consisted of a quick stroll around the Moderna Museet (Stockholm), which may be one of my favorite Museums I've seen so far - despite not having a typical design wing.

The Museum was layed out essentially in two parts - Architecture and Contemporary art. The Contemporary side was primarily photography (really bizarre photography) but the architecture side was pretty good.

Its pretty funny because on my first study abroad to Pontlevoy, France, My friends Tyler, Evan and I did this really dumb project building a Pico Cricket drawing machine as a warm up for our big final projects.

This machine (DaVinci-Style) at the Moderna Museet kicks our Drawing Machine's Ass.

In the architecture wing there was this really nice exhibit (admittedly I don't know what it was about) but the use of space was great - It was excellent inspiration for a TEDx Lobby or an interactive piece. It was nice because not only is it informational (Unless you're lazy like me apparently...) but sort of interactive and sculptural. It also has the strong transformative impact in a large space with little actual material that we always talk about when designing for TED.

Each of the planes was made up of a 1/2'' piece of ply wood cut at angles and then rejoined along the edges. They were hung from steel cable will minimal stoppers under each piece. The effect was awesome.