Beneath the Surface Blog

This week, the GPI Design team is working with fluted glass panels for a custom backsplash project (you can see the picture HERE). So we paid special attention to glass panel designs shared on Twitter. We are particularly pleased to see the following clear glass walls applied in these extraordinary buildings.  As always, enjoy and let us know your thoughts!

Panorama House Design: Glass Walls & Modern Interiors   "This breathtaking glass home, which was once a brick cottage, definitely has multiple WOW factors!" tweet via @DreamwallsGlass

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Vanke Triple V Gallery tweet via @ARCILOOK

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"Cube Court House by Shinichi Ogawa and Associates on@designmilk #design #architecture" tweet via @HRKzen

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Valentine's Day is coming up next week. This heart installation in the middle of Time Square tells it all. It's illuminated by transparent LED acrylic tubes.

"❤ Giant Beating Heart In New York City Celebrates Love ❤" tweet via @StoneSculptorJN

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On Valentine's Day, we are going to publish a video of a custom backlit onyx table that the GPI team just completed! It breaks our hearts that it's leaving the office soon.  Get excited and come back to Beneath the Surface next Tuesday!

TWeekly Archive is GPI Design's new blog column that updates every Friday to feature innovative and inspiring architecture, interior, and lighting designs that are shared through Twitter within the week. We always appreciate tweeps who constantly refresh our minds by sharing great articles, pictures, and videos. If you have something that you feel like sharing and want it featured on our blog, leave a link in the comment or simply @gpidesign on Twitter. We are always hungry for cool designs!

In design, it’s not always what you add, but instead what you take away that makes the biggest impact. Case and point: perforations. This design trend has been taking off in all areas, and can be found on interior walls, ceilings, building exteriors, and even furniture.

Unlike simply adding elements to create visual interest, this subtractive method uses the “less is more” philosophy to enhance aesthetics. The voids create dramatic and visually light spaces that not only look sleek and clean, but fresh and dynamic. Take a peek at some of our favorite uses of perforations below. 

Leave links to your favorite perforated designs and we'll add them to the image collection!

Images compiled by GPI Design

Individual image credits: PWSteel, TheCoolHunter, GoToInteriorDesign, DesignSpotter, DesignMilk, LouiseCampbell, InteriorShowOff, ChicTip

Come on, you must have dreamed about your Dream House. Neuschwanstein Castle? A Zen hut? This week, we are sharing four great examples of minimalist house we saw on Twitter. Let us know if you have any of the following reactions:

1. This is mine!

2. What am I? A monk?

3. Party time!

“House by Heran Caan Architecten #architecture #minimalism *so love this house! a beauty!” tweet via @bluevertical

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Minimalism in Morocco: Fobe House by Guilhem Eustache “This house is amazing.#architecture #minimalism” tweet via @iamacyborg

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Unique Minimalist C:Z House in Açores by SAMI-arquitectos  “Yes I would like to live in As Acores in a house like this. #architecture” tweet via @phractus

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“I like stark white #minimalist homes like this one: House of Seven Gardens #minimalism” tweet via @joshuamillburn

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TWeekly Archive is GPI Design's new blog column that updates every Friday to feature innovative and inspiring architecture, interior, and lighting designs that are shared through Twitter within the week. We always appreciate tweeps who constantly refresh our minds by sharing great articles, pictures, and videos. If you have something that you feel like sharing and want it featured on our blog, leave a link in the comment or simply @gpidesign on Twitter. We are always hungry for cool designs!

Structural wood designs were buzzing on Twitter this week! In these featured designs, the material is shaped, woven, formed, and layered into both spaces and objects.

Metropol Parasol: Largest Wood Structure in the World tweet via @threefiftyneuro

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Lucien Pellat-Finet Shinsaibashi / Kengo Kuma & Associates “It was a collaboration between fashion and plant-likened architecture.” tweet via @KUNGarchitect

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ICD:ITKE Research Pavilion / Oliver David Krieg, Boyan Mihaylov tweet via @DoreReam

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The Rise of The Designer Bakery  "The rise of the Designer bakery? A great business concept for town centres don't you think?” tweet via @PlaceShaper

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“some AMAZING detailing here, ONLY in Japan ‘GC Prostho Museum Research Center / Kengo Kuma & Associates’ ” tweet via @GintasReisgys

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TWeekly Archive is GPI Design's new blog column that updates every Friday to feature innovative and inspiring architecture, interior, and lighting designs that are shared through Twitter within the week. We always appreciate tweeps who constantly refresh our minds by sharing great articles, pictures, and videos. If you have something that you feel like sharing and want it featured on our blog, leave a link in the comment or simply @gpidesign on Twitter. We are always hungry for cool designs!

Twitter was abuzz this week with developments in design - looks like 2012 is off to a creative start!

Interior Design

Skim Milk: Strelein Warehouse by Ian Moore Architects: a converted warehouse tweet via @designmilk

Exterior Design

COFCO Tianjin Showroom / L&A Design Group: dual layer hexagon shape glass façade tweet via @ArchDaily

(for more hexagonal design inspiration, read our blog post about this geometric trend)

Lighting Design

Sky-Mimicking Ceilings: LED lights tweet via @trendhunter

Technology

Google Cooktop Ushers in An Era of Smart Stoves tweet via @designbuzz_com

Furniture Design

5 Creative Bookshelves to Kick Off the New Year tweet via @DesignUpdates

TWeekly Archive is GPI Design's new blog column that updates every Friday to feature innovative and inspiring architecture, interior, and lighting designs that are shared through Twitter within the week. We always appreciate tweeps who constantly refresh our minds by sharing great articles, pictures, and videos. If you have something that you feel like sharing and want it featured on our blog, leave a link in the comment or simply @gpidesign on Twitter. We are always hungry for cool designs!

As we voyage into 2012, the hexagonal geometric form is appearing everywhere. The way in which this relatively simplistic form can be manipulated into patterns, textures, and overall structures, makes it a popular and versatile choice for a graphic aesthetic. Here are some of our favorite uses of hexagons that create truly dynamic and intriguing designs.

While most often treated as a flat plane in graphic motifs, the spatial possibilities of the hexagon shape are most interesting when it is extruded or modeled into three dimensions.

Images compiled by GPI Design, individual image credits: TheCoolHunter, ArchitecturalDigest, DesignMilk, TrendLand, Tang Chan via Flickr

Lists are contagious.  So are criticism and analysis in the design industry. Here are our favorite compilations that recap this year in culture and design - strange, surprising, innovative, and projects gone awry.

Time’s most surprising pictures of 2011 tweet via @trendplanner

From the world's largest home to tiny printers, here are the strangest and silliest designs of 2011 tweet via @TreeHugger

11 most meaningful architecture moments of 2011 tweet via @bligh

Design Week’s review of the year in retail design tweet via @Design_Week

Azure 2011 in Review: Hits and Misses tweet via @AzureMagazine

For the National Cancer Institute project which we’ve been working on for months, GPI had the pleasure of presenting our mock-up of the very unique backlit wood system last week in Washington, D.C.

Above: Initial project rendering by HOK

Over three years ago, Bill Hellmuth of HOK envisioned these unique backlit feature walls to bring light and texture to the long lobby hallways at the main entrance to the National Cancer Institute.  To translate the initial rendering of the backlit wood lobby feature walls to the photographs of the mock-up taken just last week, there have been countless hours of coordination between the surface, structure, and lighting elements. Our team has become quite captivated with the project.

Above: Mock-up photograph by GPI Design

The surface was the driving element in the conceptual design of the wall.  GPI Design sourced an exotic Redwood burl (yielding large panels), sliced the wood to under half of a millimeter and laminated between glass.  The seamless LED backlighting environment keeps the wood surface as the primary visual focus, pouring through the translucent wood material in an unexpected pairing of the newly redefined material with backlighting illumination.  Next came the custom structural hardware components engineered to hold the wood and lighting systems safely and in a complementary relationship.  The majority of this testing and detailing has occurred internally, communicating with the project team in D.C. via shop drawings and conference calls, so there was much anticipation built up over the unveiling of these illuminated wood panels.

Above: Mock-up installation progress

The GPI Design crew spent a full day assembling four of the wall panels to demonstrate our system (over 250 panels will be installed in the final project).  The mock-up was designed so that pins, joints, lighting controls, and accent lighting were all crafted to represent their appearance in the final installation. As the project team (owner, architect, lighting designer, general contractor) in D.C. arrived to the mock-up the next morning, sentiments of quiet contentment and satisfaction were in the air - a successful review with great dialogue generated.

Above: Mock-up review meeting

It’s creative surfaces and great project teams like these that make us fall in love with our job all over again.

THANK YOU to: HOK, MCLA, James G. Davis Construction Corporation, TSI Architectural Metals, Cleveland Marble, and The JBG Companies

Sears Tower by SOM

Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright

New Museum by SANAA

Marina City by Bertrand Goldberg

Wait a second. Aren’t those just stacks of knives, old books (and a weird wig), stereos, and ceramic bowls? Why do you put names of iconic modern architectures next to them?

Yes, indeed, the materials presented are very normal household objects. But the architect/designer of this installation project, Luis Urculo, has just turned normal into wow. In his recently released short video “Covers” (below), a female model carefully reconstructed 10 world-renowned buildings using everyday domestic objects. Every move of the performance and the placement of each object are carefully calculated and manipulated to achieve the best replication of the original architecture.

According to Urculo’s Vimeo description, the concept of “Covers” is inspired by the many musical song covers where “the original is revisited to create something new”. Urculo ventured into this particular art form to create both a contrast and a link between people’s perception of great architecture and common things.

You can watch the whole video here:

Covers/Luis Urculo from Luis Urculo on Vimeo.

Image Credits: luisurculo’s photostream on Flickr

Though it’s not a brand new emerging movement, the idea of facets has really caught on in all aspects of design. We have been and still are seeing a strong shift towards geometric prism motifs through all different media, a lot of which we find very inspiring and intriguing. This phenomena, while not necessarily cutting edge, is on trend so we think it’s worth noting.  Here are a few favorite faceted images that get our creative juices flowing.

The geometry and materiality of these pieces, along with the potential for voids, create infinite possibilities for interactions with light.  What themes are inspiring you today?

Images compiled by GPI Design, individual image credits: Design Milk, Design Stores, TrendHunter, Dezeen, ApartmentTherapy, Trendir, TheCoolHunter