A Floating Pool In New York

We desperately need one of these Floating Pools outside our studio.

+ Pool is an initiative by a group of architects and designers to build a floating pool in the rivers of New York City… and they need your help. The project was launched with the ambition to improve the use of the city’s natural resources by providing a clean and safe way for the public to swim in New York’s waters. This site is the culmination of Concept Design for + Pool and they are looking to build a team of interested organizations and professionals to continue the development of the project into a buildable proposal.

Their next step is to partner with local cultural, developmental and environmental groups to raise public and private interest, identify civic potential and approach the municipality, while working with engineers, planners and specialists to refine the social and ecological performance of plus pool.











Source :- Plus Pool

Obsessions Make My Life Worse And My Work Better

Obsessions make my Life Worse and my Work better by Sagmeister Inc.

The day after the official opening of Event 2: Urban Play, Stefan Sagmeister's graphic piece of art turned out to be completely gone!

The work, called 'Obsessions make my life worse and my work better', was built from 300.000 cents and laid out by a hundred and fifty volunteers during eight days at the Waagdragerhof, Amsterdam. On Sunday night, local residents noticed two persons sweeping up the coins and so they warned the police. The police came on site and put all the coins in a big bag, just to be on the safe side, and gone was the work of art! It was all in the game that this project wouldn’t stay, but that the police…

The Dutch newspapers picked up the news pretty well, with headliners such as 'Police accidentally destroys piece of art' (Algemeen Dagblad) 'Police sweeps away coins art' (Parool).

Sunday morning the 21st of September, the police unintenionally cleared and secured a piece of art exisiting of 1 euro cents, after a report of copper theft. Police officers came across a large amount of coins spread all over the park. To them it was unclear who owned the money and why the coins were spread over the park. In collaboration with the calamity service of the municipality they have collected the approximately 260,000 pennies and stored them at a police office. Meanwhile it turned out that the police knew of this art project, but that the information had not been passed on to the police officers on duty. Meanwhile the police has returned the coins.'

Based in New York, United States Stefan Sagmeister is the founder of Sagmeister Inc. a purposely small graphic design company based in New York. He was trained in Vienna as a graphic designer and continued his studies at Pratt Institute in New York. After some adventures around the globe he established his own studio there and started designing mainly for the music industry. On his website, Sagmeister states: ‘We design all things printed, from posters, brochures, books and annual reports to identity systems, perfume packaging and CD covers.’

In the year 2001 he took a year off from his studio – a year without clients – and in this leap year went back to his old diaries and started to draw out some ‘things that I have learned in my life, so far’. When he returned back to work Sagmeister embarked on an ongoing project based on sentences from these diaries. For the typography he used a great variety of materials and sites, writing three-dimensionally on objects and surfaces. Most of the executed sentences can therefore be termed: staged typography.

‘Obsessions make my Life Worse and my Work Better’ is one of these sentences, an elaborate design that consists of 300.000 eurocent coins and will be laid out on a 20 x 42 meter square in Amsterdam. It is potentially a self-destructive piece. The coins represent a certain value, but the design is also of such beauty that it challenges the passer-by. Will they leave it intact because of it’s beauty? Will they start to make a design with the cents themselves









































Source :- Droog Via Sagmeister

World's largest barbecue - the ‘God-grilla’

World's largest BBQ 'God-grilla' that can cook 1,000 sausages at once An engineer has spent three months and £10,000 creating the world's largest barbecue which weighs two tonnes and measures a whopping 16ft across.

The gargantuan BBQ - understandably dubbed 'God-grilla' - is so big makers say it could be used to simultaneously cook 1,000 sausages, 500 burgers or (if you prefer) two whole cows.

It's the brainchild of 31-year-old Jack Henriques who runs the Bespoke BBQ Company and says he already has plans to make a bigger one.

However you might want to think about it before ordering one to outdo your neighbours… it takes 14 bags of coal to ignite and can heat up to 500 degrees centigrade.

Speaking of the big BBQ, Jack said: "The BBQ is fitted with hinged panels at the back to allow access to add more logs to the fire.

"It is fitted with seven separate coal trays and has the capacity to cook seven whole lambs at once."

While the God-grilla is the largest fixed barbecue in the world, there is truck in the US called the Big Taste Grill which has been converted into a touring BBQ.

Human Domino World Record

The world's longest human domino chain 10,267 Chinese students smash human domino Guinness World Record It might look like all these people have fallen asleep out of boredom, but these Chinese students are taking part in a human domino challenge.

More than 10,000 students took part in the unusual activity, which smashed the Guinness World Record of 9,234 students set in Singapore in 2000.

Themed on 'hug the nature, kiss the grasslands', the aim of the event was to encourage Chinese citizens to take part in more exercise.

Chinese basketball star Mengke Bateer threw a basketball to the first student in the line who became the first human domino in the challenge.

The event took place in Ordos, in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, northern China, earlier today.

The 10,267 students broke the record in one hour and 10 minutes, authorised by certified officers of Guinness World Record headquarters.

Artist Recreated Scenes from Sticky Tape

An artist has recreated scenes from some of his favourite movies in stunning detail - using nothing more than brown parcel tape.

At first glance it appears they could've been made using state-of-the art computer software but this 'Tape Art' is created by layering strips of ordinary brown tape on to a light box.

The box is then illuminated to reveal the picture in all its splendour.

Scenes from classic films including Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers '39 Steps' and 'Spellbound' have been recreated in such detail they almost look as if they could be the original film strip.

Artist Mark Khaisman said using tape in this way was just another way of painting.
The 51-year-old said: "The work is made from layer upon layer of translucent packing tape, applied to clear Plexiglas and placed in front of a light box to give the image shadow and depth.

'I see my tape art as a form of painting.' says Ukrainian born Mark Khaisman. He studied art and architecture in Moscow, and now lives and works in Philadelphia USA where he creates his striking Tapeworks canvases

He previously worked on stained-glass windows before taking up the more unusual medium of parcel tape.

But, despite seeming to be very different types of art, Mr Khaisman said they were both examples of what he calls 'painting with light'.

The idea for tape art actually came from his 51 year old wife Elena, an art teacher, who had been teaching her pupils how to create pictures with masking tape.

He said: 'About five to six years ago I was thinking about other ways of painting with light.''My wife was doing an art project with kids using colour masking tape and that gave me an idea.'

'I tried to use translucent packing tape on backlit material assuming that it might work, and it did.'

'My art is a conversation with light, I started it like a traditional stained-glass artist, but with tape.' Mr Khaisman uses around three rolls of 100 metre packing tape and takes up to a week to create just one extraordinary picture.

Different shades are created by building up the thickness of the tape, the darkest sections of the pictures can require up to 10 layers of tape.

Incredibly, Mr Khaisman doesn't sketch out the image first but, instead, works directly onto the light boxes, using photos and film stills as a reference.

He said: "I chose scenes from my favourite films, I particularly enjoy Hitchcock's work.
'I use photographs, I start by blowing them up to actual size to get proportions right and then I simply build the image.'

Mark's original tape works, which are about four feet in height, are being snapped up for as much as £6,000.

Mr Khaisman said he had been inundated with emails from all sorts of people intrigued by his work.

He said: 'I get a lot of of "wows" from people and even once got an email which simply read 'You sir are one hell of an artist...thanks for doing what you do.'