Container Guest House

The container guest house stands as the first successful reuse and adaptation of the shipping containers. It is designed by  Poteet Architects who are known for their sustainable & adaptive reuse of existing buildings. The design serves as a guest house, the space is small yet well designed perfect for family/friends who are visiting. The main problem with reusing containers as living spaces was that it traps heat, but Poteet Architects were able to solve this problem through installing a green garden on op of the roof that acts as insulator & and a cooler at the same time. The interior walls of the container are covered by spray foam and bamboo plywood. The architects were committed to sustainability all the way; the container itself stands on a foundation of recycled telephone poles. The deck is made of recycled soda bottles (HVAC equipment pads). The exterior light fis=xtures are blades from the tractor disc plow. The roof garden is fed from the waste water of the shower in the bathroom. Sustainability all the way.

 

JR Photo-Graffiti

JR as he would like to be known is a Parisian Photographer who found his camera in Paris Subway and from there decided to make the world  his gallery. He exhibits his colossal Prints of human faces on buildings, buses, monuments. Each work has a statement, a message that would contribute as a step to turn the world around, or rather inside out.

“I wish for you to stand up for what you care about by participating in a global art project, and together we’ll turn the world…INSIDE OUT.”   JR

His identity, for security reasons, is unknown. Another Banksy that proved  through graffiti we can send large messages that all people can see and read. Today he is a winner of the TED Prize 2011, and his work proves to be worthy of the award.

One of his famous projects is “Women Are Heroes”  2008 a project underlining the dignity of women who are the target of conflict. Several Monumental Photo of women were plastered on houses and buildings in Africa, Brazil, India & Cambodia.

Another interesting Project is “Face 2 Face” 2007. In this project JR posted HUGE portraits of both Israelis & Palestinians face to face  in eight Palestinian and Israeli cities, and on both sides of the security fence/separation barrier.

As he remains anonymous and doesn’t explain his huge full frame portraits of people making faces, JR leaves the space empty for an encounter between the subject/protagonist and the passer-by/interpreter.

This is what JR is working on. Raising questions...

 

Ai Weiwei: Can Art Alter Society ?

“If you don’t Speak your mind, then who are you”    Ai weiwei

Ai Weiwei is a chinese artist known for his continuous criticism and provocation of the chinese government. He was detained yesterday and most of his work was confiscated. He had several clashes with the government if not personally at least on the world-wide web. His blog was always under watch and continually firewalled. You might remember his Tate Modern’s Sun flower installation where he covered the whole ground with hand crafted porcelain sun flower seeds. Each Seed was individually painted  by the town that once made porcelain for the imperial court. Whats absurd about the story is that the town was saved  from bankruptcy by making those seeds. The purpose of the installation was to explore the “made in china” phenomenon and the mass production exports coming out from china. Each seed represents a work of art, represents a person’s source of living and yet the whole picture blurs this fact as it does in the real life exports from china. We fail to see the hands behind all those mass productions. The work also questions the place of art in the chinese society; how a town that was once famous for its porcelain works ended up  making thousands of seeds if not millions to save itself from poverty. The effects of the world trade on the chinese culture.

Photo Courtesy of the Tate Modern Museum

Also another interesting project was the “Study in Perspective” series from 1995 to 2003 where he captured his middle finger in front of political buildings in Beijing, Berlin, Paris, Washington DC and Hong Kong.

Photo Courtesy of Ai Weiwei

“Map of China” 2003 is another controversial work where he assembled a 50 cm tall extrusion of the map of china from the salvaged wood of the demolished Qing dynasty temples. The “map” was assembled without one single nail through a traditional method of jointing.

An interseting Documentray made by Alison Klayman: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ai-wei-wei/ai-weiwei-story/

For the Love of Golden Books

If you think books are only for reading, well, think again!! Boston-Based Designer Ryann Ovelline’s new dress is entirely made of recycled pages from stories,specifically stories that were used to make us sleep when we were kids. Yes ! Children books.  Although it’s not something you would want to wear, but in case you did, you will attract a lot of  toddlers and kids.