New at Pentagram
New Work: M&T Bank
Lorenzo Apicella was asked to design a new flagship branch building for M&T Bank that would capture the essence of M&T’s core values with a design that would endure well into the future, differentiating M&T from its competitors with a distinct and compelling image.
It was agreed that this flagship branch, located in West Seneca, New York, would be the model for all future branch construction and renovation. As an architectural prototype the branch design needed to be adaptable to variable future site conditions and business needs. It also had to meet M&T’s environmental goal of having a low carbon footprint, consuming as little energy as possible and producing minimal amounts of waste. The completed building is anticipated to achieve an LEED Gold rating.
New Work: Robert Welch
To mark the 40th anniversary of the establishment of Robert Welch’s Chipping Campden Studio Shop, Lorenzo Apicella was asked to undertake a major redesign of the space.
Pentagram has a long history of involvement with Robert Welch Designs having developed the graphic identity in the early 1970’s and designing the first mail-order catalogues as well as the book Hand and Machine.
The Glass House and Farnsworth House Inspire ‘Modern Views’
Philip Johnson’s Glass House and Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House established one of architecture’s great formal dialogues. Both were designed and built during the same period—the Glass House between 1945 and 1949 (in New Canaan, Connecticut), and the Farnsworth House between 1945 and 1951 (in Plano, Illinois)—and Johnson and Mies were inspired by and responded to each other’s work, resulting in a pair of Modernist masterpieces. Both homes have been designated National Historic Landmarks and are now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Glass House was given to the trust by Johnson in 1986 and opened to the public in 2007 (with identity and visitors center designed by Pentagram), and the Farnsworth House was saved at auction in 2003 and came under the management of the trust earlier this year.
Modern Views: A Project to Benefit the Farnsworth House and the Glass House is a new yearlong initiative to raise $1 million to help preserve the residences. The trust’s Center for Modernism asked 100 artists, designers and architects to create works that continue the dialogue between the two iconic designs. Among the participants are Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Thom Mayne, Daniel Libeskind, David Adjaye, Tadao Ando, Richard Meier, Michael Graves, Cesar Pelli, Ken Smith, Vito Acconci, Maira Kalman, Robert Morris, Ed Ruscha, Yves Behar, Annie Leibovitz, Constantin Boym and Pentagram’s James Biber and Paula Scher.
The works will exhibited in New York and Chicago this fall, culminating in an auction in each city. Proceeds from the auction will be used to restore the Brick House at the Glass House site and to repair damage to the Farnsworth House from a 2008 flood. Modern Views is being underwritten by Sotheby’s and was introduced at an event at the Four Seasons earlier this month.
Paula Scher’s print, titled Modernism USA, uses the footprint of the two houses at various scales to construct a map of the United States. The design will appear on the cover of a book of the collected works for Modern Views, to be published this fall by Assouline.
James Biber, who designed the visitor center for the Glass House, was inspired by the homes’ relationship to their environments: the Glass House is built of dark materials and is close to the earth, while the Farnsworth House is white and seems to float above ground, a world in itself. Biber’s drawing, called There It Begins, takes its title from a 1959 quote by Mies: “Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins.” The drawing brings the two “bricks,” or houses, together.
Preview: Israel Museum
The renewed Bronfman Archaeological Wing of the Israel Museum designed by Daniel Weil and John Rushworth opens on 25 July following over five years of work. The Archaeological Wing originally opened in 1965 and has been redesigned and restored by Pentagram as part of the whole scale renewal of the entire museum campus.
Angus Hyland and William Russell Featured in .Cent Magazine
.Cent is a magazine which celebrates originality, ingenuity and inventiveness within creativity; the process, the people and the product. For each issue the magazine works with a different Guest Editor who picks a theme around which all contributions are based. The “Sense of Purpose” issue was edited by Keith Reilly, Creative Director of Fabric and Matter who sought contributions from Angus Hyland and William Russell with whom he had previously collaborated on the Matter nightclub.
Hyland contributed an exploration of fractal forms, while Russell provided his “recipe for concrete.” Both designers provide quotes linking their contributions to the theme chosen by Reilly because he feels that a sense of purpose is fundamental to great art, rather than art that simply replicates. Russell states that, “Function, or sense of purpose, is critical to my work but never the complete story.” For Hyland, “A sense of purpose is required to find true meaning buried in these abstract forms.”
This issue is available now. Click here for stockists and to purchase.
Continue reading "Angus Hyland and William Russell Featured in .Cent Magazine"
New Work: Mothercare
John Rushworth and Daniel Weil have designed the branding and packaging for All We Know, a new range of baby toiletries for Mothercare. The creation of a coherent and focused sub-brand enables Mothercare to draw on its reputation as a trusted brand whilst adding new elements that help to differentiate these products from the competition. The All We Know range contains natural extracts, is suitable from birth and has been tested by a panel of midwives.
M&T Bank Opens New Signature Branch
M&T Bank officially opened its newest branch at Southgate Plaza in West Seneca, New York, this week, the first branch built with a contemporary new design by Pentagram Partner Lorenzo Apicella serving as a model for future branch construction and renovation.
The new 9100 sq ft building was constructed to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards (LEED) established by the U.S. Green Building Council and will soon be LEED registered. LEED is a rating system distinguishing high-performance buildings with less impact on the environment. The project was designed by Apicella and his team in San Francisco and London. Local AOR’s were HHL and Kideney.
New Work: 20 Launceston Place
William Russell has undertaken a sensitive and careful remodelling of a Grade 2 listed building in Kensington London.
The building had been extended organically over the last hundred years to the point where little of the original remained barring the staircase. The project involved stripping away and cleaning up the space in order to create a four-bedroom home with large entertaining spaces.
More pictures of the house after the jump.
New Work: Vertical Zoo
The word “zoo” was first coined in the 19th century, but the concept of a man-made landscape of fauna is as old as human domination of the earth. The ancient Greeks had menageries, as did the Chinese and Roman empires, but the first historical reference to a “vertical zoo” might have been the medieval one in the Tower of London. Today 80 percent of the world’s zoos are located in cities, and a vertical zoo seems as inevitable as a vertical farm. A new competition in Buenos Aires, Argentina asked architects to design a vertical zoo for a location in a natural reserve on the city’s riverfront. Organized by Arquitectum and TodoObras magazine, the brief was to design a structure that would become a new urban landmark, one that would accentuate a growing area of the city and at the same time complement the natural character of the reserve. James Biber has designed a vertical zoo that is an urban take on Charles Darwin’s evolutionary tree of life, a phylogenic arrangement of species in vertical formation.
desigNYC: A New Design Resource for New York
In the midst of the financial crisis our friend Ed Schlossberg of ESI Design gathered a group of designers and design thinkers together to consider how to connect the NYC “design-impoverished” with all the designers who wanted to contribute in some meaningful way to the city. It was, at its core, a group looking for ways design could make NY a better place. At the time it seemed the least we could do and, in spite of the “recovery,” it still is.
Design is one tool for solving problems, but often it is characterized as the decoration on top of the cake (or even on top of the icing on top of the cake). For us it is, to stretch a simile nearly to its breaking point, the whole cake; recipe, layers, presentation and taste. With a sense of optimism that seemed almost anachronistic we met over a period of months in the ESI offices to formulate ideas for New York.
desigNYC was the result.
desigNYC is fundamentally a tool for connecting those organizations in need of design with those designers in need of an outlet for their sense of civic pride and engagement.
desigNYC is our attempt to put design back in the set of tools a city has to solve problems.
desigNYC is aimed at creating a civic design resource for New York.
desigNYC is in its beta testing now and we encourage all organizations in need of design to apply here. The deadline is November 30.
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