Turning page

Our project Streetology has been included in German magazine, Page, as a leading examples amongst other international projects to show how the celebration of a vending machine culture and a new creativity has taken the idea further into new sales concepts for stores, marketing and communication all over the world (projects from Amsterdam, Okinawa, Frankfurt, US to Sydney.)

Here is a translation of the article for the curious, courtesy of my lovely German friend Nataly:

"Analog Info Graphic"
The shop design for Streetology in Sydney makes reference to the vending machine concept.  Olivia Shih and Yoshihito Kashiwagi who are running the Architecture Office Facet Studio in Sydney have come up with a concept where T Shirts are displayed in transparent tubes. They are sorted by colours and stacked in 2,550 vending tubes. When a customer buys a T Shirt in green all green T Shirts drop down a spot, effectively creating an analog info graphic display; the bar with the most purchased colour is decreasing the fastest.
The shop design, in cooperation with Simpson Design Associates and Agency babekuehl is celebrating a democratic attitude/ Zeitgeist expressing what is popular on the street - as the name says "Streetology".

Let there be light 2

Following on from previous blog entry, we moved on to instal light fitting to the corridor.

from the day of photoshoot

The corridor has a finished ceiling of 3.4m, it is 1.7m wide and 11.5m long... something one would not expect in an ordinary house (but then again, who said Seatondale is an ordinary house?).

opening up the package to understand the wiring requirement

cutting the cable housing which was too long..it came with 2.5m and we only need 1m 

threading through the base plate

fixing the base plate

the assistant has to hold the light fitting while the electrician does the wiring

 assistant: "quick...I can't hold this anymore....!!"

the assistant also needs to stablise the electrician on the high ladder

 finally the first fitting is up, then we need to ensure the fitting is levelled on all sides

"...a bit lower there..." 

starting up the second fitting installation.. first measure the centre of the fitting

inside the ceiling there is no adequate structure to hold up the fitting, so we need to add an extra support (timber piece) to make sure the fitting is not only supported on the plasterboard (the plasterboard is not strong enough to hold the weight of the fitting)

making sure the timber is at the right place

this time the assistant knows to place the fitting on his head rather than holding with his hands..this way it is easier

this one was relatively fast in installation

 two down, one more to go

cutting the ceiling

careful.. careful....

 

checking if all corners are the same distance from the ceiling (the red thing on the light fitting is the level)

 

...and if all corners are the same distance from the floor (with construction, especially old houses like Seatondale, it is very likely that walls are not straight ceilings are not levelled, to name a few)

lets tuck this wire in..

after almost 4 hours the 3 light fitting are finally installed!

Let there be light

On Saturday we were finally able to instal light fitting to Seatondale.

To contrast and enhance the oldness of Seatondale, we have selected the sleek fittings from Kreon in the corridor, and modern yet soft fittings from Axo Lightecture range in the major rooms.  Throughout all the rooms we have designed new joinery with integrated light....which shall be explained in another entry.

The entire installation took 5 very long hours........

So, on the day, we started out with the light fittings inside the major rooms.

first, remove the original light fittings..

make sure we have the right length of cable, so that the light suspends at the height we want (we decided that the bottom of the light is to be in line with the top of the existing doors)

do majority of the cabling first to minimise amount of work on the ladder

up it goes!  Quick lets connect the cables

screw in the base plate through to the ceiling substrate

connecting the suspension wires and putting in the light bulb - the central cable is only for electricity, it is not strong enough to carry the light fitting.

wrap up the light again to make sure it stays nice and clean until the construction is over

Going on to the next room...

This time it is quicker because we have done it once already

Voila!

Up to here it took about 1 hour for the 2 fittings.

Installation for the corridor lights to be continued in the next post....

Deep..

Streetology has been published in the Mexican lifestyle magazine, DEEP.

Cover

 

To see or to be seen

After attempting to take photos ourselves, we finally decided to organize a professional photoshoot for Uchi Lounge.
Today we did the first round of the "empty space" shots, and will come back for "patronized shots" later in the week.

It is a bit of a dilemma...
We architects depend on photographers to record and showcase our architectural work, and we have certain visions we would like to present through photography. At the same time the same architectural work, when seen through different eyes, can be interpreted differently. There exists a fine balance between "make sure our vision is communicated" and "freedom of interpretation from fresh eyes".

I guess I am still curious about how others view our work.. Looking forward to the photos.