I know a bit late to put these pictures up, but I think it will be still interesting enough to see something from Mikser Festival. Multidisciplinary event which took place in Belgrade 25-29 of May. It took place at a breathtaking industrial complex on the Danube waterfront, only 700 m from the downtown.

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Hello Wood festival, what can you make out of 10 kilometers of pinewood planks in 1 week? Special task for participant of already traditional workshop which take place every year in small village of Hungarian country side, quite close to Balaton. This year event has grown and presented workshops in typo and film too. What could be the result of cooperation of the professions of architecture, typography and film?

50 students, 12 universities, 3 workshops, 10 kilometers of pinewood planks, 3 kilometers of print paper, 3 short films. Exhibition of the architectural wood installations, typography experiments and short films will be presented on 22 July, 2011 in Vigántpenend, Csórompuszta, Hungary

Photos courtesy of MOME line

Students of atelier K.O.V. at AAAD Prague has finished summer term, they worked with theme space and concept overlap from the object to the installation. Atelier is led by designer Eva Eisler.

The Křehký Gallery in Prague has recently, in the occasion of the actual Praise of Vienna exhibition, presented a new piece of its collection. Its name is Story Cabinet and it is a cupboard designed exclusively for Křehký by Maxim Velčovský.

“Every cupboard is a storeroom in fact. A household storage where objects are placed for various reasons ” explains the designer. His piece enables the user to create a unique system for storing stuff without getting lost in it. With regard to the minimalist design of the entire gallery space, Velčovský introduced a piece of furniture that would refer to old cupboards and that consist of basic geometrical modules. Thus, thanks to the chosen configuration of those sort of boxes, each object can find its own territory, its own world. At the same time, the feeling of the cupboard should be evoked by the classical socle and the upper ledge framing the boxes.

The particular Story Cabinet in the Křehký Gallery was conceived as a small storage unit where individual limited editions, made exclusively for the Křehký collection, would be displayed. The shape of the legs also represents a specific feature of a cupboard. Manufactured by Czech design legend Antonín Hepnar, whose entire work is bound up with the woodworking lathe, each leg is made according to the profiles of the gallery’s curators and founders, Jana Zielinski and Jiří Macek, whose heads then symbolically bear the burden of their collection.

The Křehký Gallery was based on the successful exhibition project of Křehký from 2007, which presented the most significant moments from contemporary Czech glass and porcelain in an emotional selection. Now, the gallery itself continues with the same philosophy, but does not represent only glass and porcelain pieces anymore. Křehký brings a very personal perspective of contemporary design, the home, and the world of objects in general through exhibitions and its own collection. In the curatorial selection, visitors will find primarily limited editions, original pieces, experimental projects, prototypes, and the products of brands exclusively represented by Křehký in the Czech republic, such as Artek, Driade, Moooi, Llladró or Lobmeyr. The concept follows up similar private galleries of contemporary design, such as the Moss Gallery in New York, the Vessel Gallery in London or Kreo in Paris.

Photos by Bara Prasilova

Students of atelier K.O.V. at AAAD Prague has worked on theme “treasury” (in wood) and “jewel” (any material) with an effort to go behind the border of traditional approach in shaping and material usage. Some of the objects has quite sculptural feel and works well in the space as solitaire pieces. Supervisor of atelier is designer Eva Eisler.

Regimantas Vegele designer from Vilnius, Lithuania has designed concept of device for inspection of flaws or levels of damage of all elements on the railroad. Device is using vision and laser inspection system together with ultrasonic transducers. Device sends data to system and all collected data are synchronized, GPS coordinates are attached to specific problem area on the track and operator can analyze and schedule maintenance for it. Watch illustrative video.

Images of development process:

Often we wonder why visiting a doctor, dentist or a lab makes us feel uncomfortable. One of the reasons must be the atmosphere and the interior of such places. On September 16th 2010, in Resavska street in Belgrade, a new Beo-Lab laboratory was opened. Interior design of this laboratory is signed by Belgrade design studio reMiks, led by architect Maja Lalić.

This is another lab within Beo-Lab chain of laboratories, spreading on 1300m2 in Resavska street. The lab was made according to world standards, and the goal was to make the offer, service and the quality of analysis to be on the level of leading world laboratories. The project was envisioned as “the project of complete laboratory”, in which the patient can get all the services within lab diagnostics scope.

Special attention was given to creating an inspiring ambient for employees and the visitors. Interior design task was given to several times awarded architecture studio reMiks, led by architect Maja Lalić. The whole creative concept of the new Beo-Lab laboratory came from the mutual wish of both design team and the investors, to make this new medical premise more human, adjusted to the visitors, and to psychologically make them more comfortable with usual discomfort related to visits to similar institutions.

Light and simple space, enriched with the accents of vibrant colors in shape of murals and graphical symbols for different activities done in the lab, radiates with freshness and positive energy. This is how the new premise in Resavska street completes almost “mission impossible” – to make the blood tests and visits to the lab a pleasant experience, even for the youngest visitors.

Having a modern visitor in mind, a visitor who wants to be informed of the content and quality of services, reMiks applied transparent compartments between the zones for the visitors and working premises where analyses are done. This is another architecture gesture towards disclosing scientific procedures done in Beo-Lab laboratory and bringing expert staff of the laboratory closer to the citizens.

The space is architecturally adjusted to children and elder people. Special attention was given to equipping the lab, in order to create optimal conditions for people with disabilities:

• a system for automatic call to patient (a patient can follow the queue on the monitor), thus avoiding crowded waiting room
• a special elevator for people with disabilities, people who cannot move easily and elder patients
• parts of the waiting room adjusted to children, with special approach to taking samples

In this new and modern lab, Beo-Lab offers complete services in the field of laboratory diagnostics: biochemistry, microbiology and pathohistology. It is equipped with new analyzers and apparatus of latest generation, making it possible to do all modern generation analyses. This is the only private laboratory in Belgrade with new diagnostics apparatus and the only one in this part of Europe having the latest generation apparatus for immunohistochemical coloring of tissue. All apparatus are connected with integrated software, thus thoroughly controlling the quality of samples analyses and minimizing errors. Beo-Lab laboratory is accredited and certified in accordance with ISO 15189:2008 standard for medical laboratories.

Location:  Resavska street 60, Belgrade
Original content: Designed.rs

Final post from series of reports from this year designSUPERMARKET is ended by profile photos of exhibitors, to match designers with their products or projects.

designSUPERMARKET is open and here we have couple of photos from the event.

The Hungarian program of Wood Festival was similar to the Danish Woodfestival held in 2009 in Copenhagen. Last year Peter Pozsar, the curator of the Hungarian event got in touch with the Danish organizers and entered his students to the next competition. Due to financial problems the Danish festival was not held, so They at MOME line – design works thought that they could organize a parallel event with Hungarian university students.

The pinewood planks were used up down to the last centimeters as the first Hungarian Wood Festival came to an end. Not only the four required installations were finished but there was enough material left from the 4 kms of planks, offered by Jaf Holz, to experiment with some more structures and even to make a wooden Újirány logo. The cut-off bits and pieces, instead of going to the rubbish, helped warm up the participants, who were chatting around the campfire on the closing night.

Students from three universities (Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design and University of West Hungary Institute of Applied Arts) formed four groups to work for a week under the supervision of a group leader each on structures exciting from the point of view of both architecture and art. All the pieces were in some way related to the environment of the host location, Csongrad Art Camp, which provided both accommodation and plenty of inspiration.

Peter Pozsar’s group, sawing the 1000 m of planks into shorter and longer pieces, built a nest into the shroud of one of the younger trees. From there, snaking around its immediate environment, they continued with the structure to form a quadrilateral cave, as an allegory of the two housing archetypes. They chose an exciting way of securing the structures: instead of nails, they used strings running through drilled holes to hold together the planks.

Andris Huszar’s less spontaneous, but more virtuoso group created a 3m egg-shaped structure, which will work as a tumble-up after being loaded it with sandbags: it will return to its original position, no matter how animated the swing is.

Not surprisingly, the most risky experiments were conducted by group leader, architect and inventor Aron Losonczi: his group left the planks their original size to create a multistorey-high structure stretching far up towards the sky. Their other installation was a grid capable of bridging large distances – its strength was even tested on location.

We can say, however, that the most popular piece of the festival was the 17 meter dinosaur, made by Gabor Miklós Szoke’s group. The peaceful herbivore was made based on a smaller model in only three days, by spontaneously screwing together planks of various sizes. Its head and tail is detachable, therefore we can welcome the dinasaur at the Design Week together with the other installations.

The Wood Festival was organized by MOME line – design works and Ujirany Architects.
MOME line – design works: www.momeline.hu
Ujirany Architects: www.ujirany.com