Heath Ceramics and House Industries are launching Heath house numbers, three-dimensional clay tiles celebrating the legendary Neutra and Eames fonts.

The Heath artisans are uniquely qualified to create a three-dimensional ceramic representation of House Industries’ two-dimensional typographic world. Each clay tile is glazed in a matte finish with a raised, unglazed number. As with all Heath tiles, Heath house numbers are pressed, hand-glazed, trimmed, and kiln-fired. They fuse simple, crisp lines, geometric forms and rich glazes in bold and classic colors. The two companies designed the tiles to be modular and easily integrated within a Heath tile installation, as well as to be displayed on their own with the use of a beautiful, modern track system—available in either salvaged teak or stainless steel.

“Bringing the Neutra and Eames-inspired fonts to life in clay form is so exciting to us,” says Heath Ceramics Creative Director Catherine Bailey. “Forming these beautiful and refined type-shapes out of an imprecise material, like clay, creates a fantastic contrast. The finished piece becomes as interesting as what’s likely to be housed inside the homes where the numbers preside.”

Richard J. Neutra was a rare personality whose character combined an uncommon aesthetic ability with a profound sense of civic responsibility. His physio-psychic architecture linked living spaces to their surrounding landscapes, physically and intellectually enriching the entire being. Impressed with Neutra’s design sensibilities, House Industries consulted with his son and partner, Dion, to produce Neutraface—an extensive font family based on the lettering that adorned many Neutra buildings. Since first releasing Neutraface in 2001, House Industries has continued to expand the family of typefaces with alternative, condensed and slab-serif styles.

Charles and Ray Eames are among the most important American designers of this century. House Industries worked closely with the Eames family for over ten years to gain access to some of the more obscure archive materials, to seek approval for the designs and to get a feel for what Charles and Ray would have wanted in a font family that bears their name. The Eames Century Roman family has eight different weights, from a distinctively delicate thin to a bombastic extra black. Corresponding italics are on double duty with their subtle nod to Ray Eames’ handwriting style while also providing an accompaniment to the Roman styles. Keeping with the Eames philosophy of balancing form and function, House also developed a special stencil version of the heaviest weight of the text family.

The Neutra numbers (3x6 inches) are offered in museum black and mid-century white, while the more playful Eames numbers (4x4 inches) are available in bright yellow, paprika, and museum black.

The Chicago Clean Air Design Challenge is a regional design contest to address issues of air quality in two of Chicago's most affected neighborhoods- Pilsen and Little Village. Residents of Pilsen and Little Village live below two coal powered plants that regularly emit lead and other toxins into the air. High rates of asthma and other air-quality illnesses are pressing concerns for the residents of these neighborhoods and for much of Chicago. This is the critical environmental concern of the moment in your city and you are a designer.

What will you do about it?

They want to find out what designers in industrial design, graphic design, interior architecture, architecture, and public space design will envision to address issues of respiratory health, raising awareness, and improving overall quality of life for the people who live (and breathe) in neighborhoods nestled amongst the coal burning power plants.

They encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration and submissions can come from a class, a group, a partnership, or an individual.

Goals of the contest:
• Use design to empower individuals through information, tools, spaces, etc to help them protect themselves while Fisk and Crawford continue to operate and until they are forced to shut down.
• Use design to raise awareness and mobilize individuals to take action.
• Use design to better educate people in the Pilsen and Little Village communities about the health effects of airborne contaminants caused by the coal plants.
• Use the contest and the exhibition/awards ceremony as a media event to raise awareness throughout Chicago about the negative impacts of the coal plants in Pilsen and Little Village.

The Air We Breathe will culminate in an exhibition of outstanding submissions and awards ceremony at a gallery in Pilsen.

More details at DesignMakesChange.com

Deadline: April 18 2011

Yossi Milo Gallery is announcing an exhibition of photographs by Ezra Stoller (American, 1915-2004).

Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright, Bear Run, PA
Gelatin Silver Print - 1971

A pioneer in the field of architectural photography, Ezra Stoller was commissioned by architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Paul Rudolph, Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Marcel Breuer and Richard Meier, because of his unique ability to capture the building according to the architect's vision and to lock it into the architectural canon.  His photographs convey a three-dimensional experience of architectural space through a two-dimensional medium, with careful attention to vantage point and lighting conditions, as well as to line, color, form and texture.

Seagram Building, Mies van der Rohe with Philip Johnson, New York, NY
Gelatin Silver Print - 1958

Ezra Stoller was born in Chicago in 1915 and graduated from New York University in 1938.  He worked briefly with the photographer Paul Strand in the Office for Emergency Management before being drafted in 1942 into the U.S. Army, where he taught photography at the Army Signal Corps Photo Center in Long Island City.  During his long career, he also photographed factories and technical facilities as well as residential projects.  In 1961, he became the first photographer to be awarded the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal. His photographs have been exhibited internationally and belong to numerous museum collections.

TWA Terminal at Idlewild (now JFK) Airport, Eero Saarinen, New York, NY
Gelatin Silver Print - 1962

Ezra Stoller's gelatin silver prints include images of architectural interiors and iconic landmarks.  Based on his background in architecture and industrial design, Stoller used a large-format camera to photograph monumental 20th century buildings, including the Guggenheim Museum, the TWA terminal at Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy International Airport), the Seagram Building, the Salk Institute, Yale Art and Architecture Building and Fallingwater.  In addition to well-known photographs of these locations, the exhibition will include lesser-known photographs of small homes and guest houses which provide a fresh look at the masterful eye that established Stoller as the preeminent photographer of modern architecture.

Yossi Milo Gallery 
525 West 25th Street - New York NY 10001
Exhibition from January 6 to February 12 2011

Benjamin Garcia Saxe wins the World Architecture Festival 2010 in the 'House' category with 'A Forest for a Moon Dazzler' (Guanacaste, Costa Rica).

Main view at night

This house for my mom Helen is the culmination of a lifelong dream to construct a place where my mom, my brother, and I can be together. My mom first moved away from the city and built her own home out of tree trunks, mosquito nets and tin. She then placed her bed in a corner of this house to watch the moon as she went to bed, and told me that she remembers both my brother and I every night as she watches the moon. The new home then became reinterpretation of her old self made dwelling by providing her with a view to the moon and a very open plan that captures an internal garden whilst giving her security when she sleeps.

Main entrance view

Side View Bedroom

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Australian designer Esan Rahmani together with Mukul Damle have designed 'Bamboo Pavillion', a synthesis of sustainable ideas for a communal shelter for disadvantaged populations around the Indian Ocean Rim.

Bamboo is already used in Asia and Pacific regions as a building material due to it's adaptable qualities to make roofing, flooring, water and drainage pipes and be used as structural members.
Bamboo is renewable, inexpensive and with it's light (hollow) physical characteristics it means minimal energy is used to transport it which makes it a highly sustainable resource.
Using smart joinery and efficient use of bamboo, there is no need for the use of other materials to construct the shelter.

The structural members also act as a system of interconnected pipes (bamboo) which collect and channel the rain water into a central basin where it is filtered and stored for use.

The shelter is designed with quality of life in mind. Solar access is therefore the central focus of the communal living area, where it is maximised by a radial funnel shaped opening in the structure. And in sleeping areas operable shades allow light in, provide natural ventilation and let the inhabitants gaze at the stars at night. The roof is tiled using quarter cuts of bamboo similar to traditional terracotta tiles.
In plan the design allows for a large communal living space surrounded by bedrooms and amenities.