Match of the Day and ITV studio design

In 2010 I enjoyed posting on the BBC’s studio for the FIFA World Cup in Cape Town.

That space was not without controversy, for various reasons, and neither was the BBC’s move to Salford last year. The Media City complex received a carbuncle award from Urban Realm, not necessarily for its poor aesthetics but more for its lack of ambition.

Last summer, flagship Saturday night football programme Match of the Day moved to a new studio, which has been used throughout the 2011-12 season.

The lighting and visual feel of the studio and graphics have a neon nightclubby feel to them and are a bit ‘in-your-face’. I like the angular feel and the chairs for Lineker and the pundits. It looks like the Kruze Chair by Boss Design.

The studio is flexible, apparently, as series producer Ian Finch told the BBC’s Ariel blog:

Guest post: hygiene in hotel bathroom design

Sanitaryware manufacturer Laufen provides insight into how new technology can help hotels with cleaning efficiency and whole-life costs.

The specification of sanitaryware and furniture for the hotel bathroom is an important element of the overall design of the space, not only in terms of its design and aesthetics to please the eye of the guest, but also on a practical level to ensure that it works in terms of housekeeping too.

By investing in a quality, trusted brand of sanitaryware hotels are not only investing in products that will meet the high expectations of their guests but also ensuring they are getting a durable product that will last the test of time.

One of the main considerations in hotel bathrooms is ease of cleaning, something that is provided by Laufen’s award-winning surface finish LCC (Laufen Clean Coat). This innovative finish seals the tiniest pores of the ceramic glaze, making it hygienic and extremely easy to clean.

Laufen also offers a simple ceramic shelf to co-ordinate with many of its sanitaryware ranges, including its news Palace and Living Square washbasins which have been designed specifically with the hotel bathroom in mind. The ceramic shelf sits below the basin, providing handy open storage for towels and toiletries while being easy to wipe clean.

Above- Laufen’s Living Square washbasin, which can be specified with the manufacturer’s hygienic Laufen Clean Coat.

Slip testing explained, by Karndean Designflooring

Karndean Designflooring is a leading supplier of commercial flooring, and here explains the slip testing standards that designers must bear in mind when specifying flooring in public areas – Pendulum testing and Ramp testing.

In 2009, seven million people were absent from work because of slips and trips and according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), flooring is one of three controllable causes of these types of incidents.

Statistics like these not only emphasise the need for flooring solutions that are thoroughly slip tested and accredited, but they also highlight the importance of developing a method of slip testing that is accepted on a global scale.

Mike Cheetham, Global Technical Director for Karndean International explores the two most common methods of slip testing and explains how the UK flooring industry would benefit from one worldwide technique.

“There are two commonly accepted forms of slip testing. Karndean use both methods to ensure that that the slip accreditation that accompanies each luxury design product is simple to understand and can be easily compared both here in the UK as well as in Europe and the USA.”

Pendulum Testing
The pendulum test is the method of testing preferred by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for the assessment of floor slipperiness in dry and contaminated conditions.

The test uses a mechanical simulator to recreate the action of a person slipping. The imitation heel replicates a standard rubber shoe sole and when swung across the test surface, gives a measurable skid distance, showing how slippery the flooring is.

Accreditation is given according to how far the swinging ‘foot’ skids and each floor covering is awarded a Pendulum Test Value (PVT).

“PVT ratings range from zero to 36+ and equate to a high, moderate or low slip risk,” explains Mike. The following table shows how a PTV relates to the chance of slipping as a ratio to 1.

Risk, in 1:	PTV	Slip Potential
1,000,000	36+	Low
100,000	34	Moderate
10,000	29	Moderate
200	27	Moderate
20	24	High
2	19	High

Guest blog: sustainable timber flooring options

This piece comes courtesy of Mark Iscaro, director of First Angle, an architecture and interior design practice in Victoria, Australia. Mark is also active on twitter; follow him @First_Angle. Mark looks at six flooring types and appraises their sustainability from the specifier’s point of view.

When it comes to being sustainable with your flooring, there are many options available. Some you would be well aware of, others you may not know about, and even those that you might believe are sustainable, which actually are not. So how do you determine what flooring is for you? Well, first you need to understand what is out there to choose from.

The list of sustainable and supposedly sustainable flooring is a long one, including bamboo flooring, recycled timber flooring, regrowth timber flooring, cork flooring, linoleum flooring and rubber flooring. So let’s take a look at these flooring options and see what the pros and cons are.

Linoleum Flooring
Now I know what you’re thinking– linoleum isn’t timber. Amazingly it is, as linoleum is made from pine resin, ground cork dust and wood flour amongst other natural ingredients. Created over 150 years ago, it has been a constant in domestic settings, and more recently has begun to be seen as a sustainable alternative to other types flooring.

It durable and comfortable, as well as being biodegradable, and is possibly the most cost-effective flooring around, but it doesn’t have the beauty of a natural timber floor.

Link: Compare lineoleum products on ESI.info

Bamboo Flooring
Bamboo flooring has in recent times hit the headlines as perhaps the most sustainable of flooring options. It is cost-effective, easy to install and has all the beauty of timber floors. There are numerous styles and options to choose from, ranging from natural-finish, strand-woven through to darker, char-finished styles.

The main issue with bamboo flooring is that the glues used in its construction are generally not good for the environment with most using formaldehyde. The use of low-VOC in bamboo flooring is yet to occur, making it a good choice but not a great choice. Other questions with bamboo flooring are its manufacturing and a lack of fair trade agreements. So although a somewhat sustainable option it is probably the least sustainable of all the timber flooring options out there.

Bamboo flooring: list of UK suppliers on ESI.info

Iconic bookcase: Penguin Isokon Donkey

The Penguin ‘Donkey’ has been a piece I have been fascinated with ever since I saw it on show at the V&A many years ago.

I’ve been looking at Modernist furniture quite a bit lately, and this piece is another good example.

Jack Pritchard’s Isokon company was one of the few British examples of a firm truly devoted to Modernism. In addition to building London’s Lawn Road Flats, in Hampstead, Pritchard employed a succession of continental Modernists to work for his furniture company. These included the Germans Walter Gropius and Arthur Korn, and the Hungarian Marcel Breuer, as well as the Viennese emigré Egon Riss.

image used with permission from ‘halfbeak’ on Flickr. click on the image for more furniture and architecture pictures

Above the original Isokon Penguin Donkey, is seen in an authentic setting, Jack Pritchard’s Isokon house in Blythburgh on the Suffolk Coast. Commissioned by Jack Pritchard and ISOKON, designed by Egon Riss. The Donkey was produced in 1939 in a very short run, so it is a rare item.

Clocks, time and the meaning of happiness (with due respect to Dave Gorman)

It may be an empirically verifiable fact or it may be an urban myth given status by constant repetition, but according to Dave Gorman (presently appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe) it is a truth recognised by marketing departments and photographers of clocks everywhere that happy clocks sell better than ones that aren’t.

Big Gums Smiley Face large wall clock on CafePress.co.uk

Now, a happy clock is a clock that is smiling at you, the corners of the lips upturned in a parody of human contentment. Think ten minutes past ten* (or its mirror image ten minutes to two). Strictly speaking an unhappy clock would show twenty minutes past eight or twenty minutes to five, but for marketing purposes we can think of it as any clock that isn’t happy.

* Eight minutes past ten to be precise, but you would have to see the show to get than one explained.

Can this be true?

Cycling and interior design: can they be combined?

Owen P is in charge of this blog. Can his love of cycling and his job as interior design editor for ESI.info be combined?

My discovery of Bike Furniture Design says ‘Yes’.

The preeminent designer and producer of fine, hand-crafted, contemporary / modern furniture made from recycled and reused bicycles since 1990.

1. Milano Lounge Chair

Milano Lounge Chair - © Andy Gregg / BikeFurniture.com

Austerity, interior design, Russel Wright and recession

I came across an interesting piece by Michael Cannell in The New York Times from earlier this year on austerity chic which talks about the impact of the Great Depression on American designers, and introduced me to Russel Wright, who was, apparently, ‘the most popular American designer of the era.’

I went to the The Russel Wright Design Center for more information.

Russel Wright revolutionized the American home and the way people lived there. His inexpensive, mass produced dinnerware, furniture, appliances, and textiles were not only visually and technically innovative, but were also the tools to achieve his concept of “easier living,” a unique American lifestyle that was gracious yet contemporary and informal.

There are some nice images there.

American Modern Furniture, 1935

Oceana Wood Line, 1935

Silver Flatware, 1935

Wood and cow hide chair, 1932

Apparently Cannell’s piece caused some controversy in the design community (for example Design Hates a Depression) although support comes from Ernest Beck in his review of the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (May 2010 in New York).

It’s impossible to place these designers and what they are doing on a definitive time line, to say whether the gloomy economic climate and national sour mood pushed them in these directions, or whether they are demonstrating a natural evolution of ideas. What was clear, however, was that poking through the mass of furniture, lighting, materials, rugs and wall coverings at the show this year was a glimpse of design aiming for something new — a new sense of relevance.

Behind bars: the interior design of prisons

Reading the thoughts our sister blog, External Works, on Crime and the City I was wondering whether the interiors market had much to say about criminality.

Looking around I found some interesting resources on prisons.

Halden Prison, Norway

• Halden Prison, Norway

The picture above is one of a set which provoked much ‘Can you believe it?’ chatter on the web.

Time magazine has a good piece on the facility which opened in April 2010.

The 252 inmates at Halden will be living in 12-square-meter rooms, equipped with LCD TVs, modern furniture, and 2-square-meter showers.

The prison’s cultural center features a recording studio, library, winter garden, manufacturing workshops, fancy classrooms, state of the art gymnasium, as well as a laboratory.

Halden cells and facilities are decorated with genuine paintings that cost a total of $1 million.

Whilst some reports are much given to fulmination of the ‘Who says crime doesn’t pay’ sort, the telling statistic that in Norway only 20% of prisoners end up back in jail after release, compared to between 50 and 60% in the UK usually appears as well.

Leoben Prison, Austria

• Leoben Prison, Austria

These are quotes from an interesting article in the New York Times.

Here’s a striking building, perched on a slope outside the small Austrian town of Leoben — a sleek structure made of glass, wood and concrete, stately but agile, sure in its rhythms and proportions: each part bears an obvious relationship to the whole.

I asked Hohensinn [the prison designer] what he would do if, contrary to fact, it were conclusively proved that prisons like his encouraged crime rather than diminished it. Would he renounce the design? He shook his head. “The prisoners’ dignity is all I really care about,” he told me.

• Mercer County Detention Facility, Celina, Ohio

It’s interesting to contrast the first two approaches with the new county jail in Celina, Ohio. The new 110-bed facility replaced the existing jail which was built in 1939 to house 24 prisoners.

The sentiments expressed chimed with the Norwegian and Austrian projects.

“The building was simply locking people in a cage,” Grey [the local sheriff] says. “The ability to provide rehabilitation programs was minimal, although the punishment component certainly was there.”

“They forget that eventually we will release them back into society, so it is important that we at least attempt to teach them life skills,” Grey says.

Yet the piece makes no mention of the physical environment from the prisoners’ perspective. Instead the focus is on automation, security and operational costs.

The new facility is operated with direct-supervision and state-of-the technologies, such as centralized video surveillance, video visitation and video arraignment capabilities, were installed.

Officers at the inmate booking counter can readily view inmate/officer movement in the vehicular sally port, through the intake process, and into the housing unit. Similarly, officers stationed in the central control room can view inmate movement and activity within each housing pod.

“Inmate hygiene areas were finished with ceramic tile floors, special glazed masonry walls and stainless steel ceilings, all of which require no maintenance,” Williamson says.

For more on the design, construction and operation of prisons, try Correctional News.

Gallery: Books and bookcases

If you have a books / book storage mismatch and draw the line at going along to Ikea to buy another Billy Bookcase (now 30 years old) then here are some fresh ideas from designers out there.

1. Sit and read them

Cabinet Chair Bookcase

The Cave

The Cabinet Chair Bookcase from Ontwerpers
This bookcase was first designed to be a commercial information desk for places like hotel lobbies and libraries, but its unique design has caught on with modern furniture enthusiasts. It is also popular for its relatively compact size and because it can hold books and other items all around you, while you surf the web on the built-in monitor keyboard.

The Cave
Everyone loves the idea of curling up with a book – but how about within a bookcase? The Cave is a combination bookcase and lounge chair design that provides a comfortable, cozy and visually secluded place to wrap yourself in your favorite volume and read for a while with a soft overhead light.

2. Move them about

Circular Bookcase

Literatura Bookcase

Archive II by David Garcia
ARCHIVE II, a round wheel book archive, functions as a nomadic library, where the user can travel with his own books. Once still, it creates a room for meeting and inspiration, generating a special acoustic echo for the reader inside the wheel.

Literatura Bookcase
An ingenious answer to a perennial problem: lack of storage space. The Literatura provides a mobile storage unit on the front which is on wheels. This can be wheeled along the track on the base to access the storage units immediately behind.

3. Climb on them

StairCASE

Stairway to Heaven

The StairCASE by Danny Kuo
A smart solution for people with limited space (or a lot of books!). It’s a standard bookcase where each shelf is actually a box that slides out allowing it to become stairs. Just slide out a shelf and you can easily reach the top shelf without a ladder.

Apartment stairs by Levitate Architects
We created a ‘secret’ staircase, hidden from the main reception room, to access a new loft bedroom lit by roof lights. Limited by space, we melded the idea of a staircase with our client’s desire for a library to form a ‘library staircase’ in which English oak stair treads and shelves are both completely lined with books. With a skylight above lighting the staircase, it becomes the perfect place to stop and browse a tome.

4. Rely on Ron

Bookworm Bookshelf

The USA Bookshelf

Bookworm Bookshelf by Ron Arad
Bookworm is a shelving revolution. A colourful, transparent, flexible bookcase with which you can express a little personal creativity, when deciding on how to figuratively shape and fix the shelf to the wall.

Oh, the Farmer and the Cowman Should be Friends by Ron Arad
A bookcase inspired by the map of the United States. It’s OK, nobody appears to understand the title.

5. Customise your storage solution

Timber frame bookcase

Bookshop bookcase

Bespoke circular bookcase by Blue Ridge Timberwrights
A Virginia hybrid timber frame, this home was inspired by the design of a circular cottage the owners had seen while traveling in Europe.

Vagabond Bookshop bookcase by Smansk
An unusual bookcase design that based around the concepts of proximity distance and multi-dimensionality. The idea was bring the outside world into the shop. A map of the local area provided the basis for the floor pattern, which continues up the walls in the form of a shelving system able to accommodate guides to all the world travel destination.

6. Reuse them

Book Wall

Book Planter

Book Wall by Jan Van Hoof
If you think of throwing out your used books, think again. Aside from giving or donating it to the less fortunate ones, Dutch designer Jan Van Hoof has exhibited a wall made of cut-up books. The idea the designer has will not only provide new excellent and artistic design but rather, it helps a lot in making our garbage bin free from those bulk books that we intended to throw. In this way, Hoof does not only create a masterpiece of art but he also made a step closer to a cleaner and greener environment.

Book Planter by Gartenkultur
Designed by an Italian company, this nice planter is made of thick books or a stack of comic books. The book is drilled to create a hole as a place for mesh net and some dirt and an isolation material is used to cover the book, so it wouldn’t become wet. This planter is very suitable for small plant such as bonsai.