Johnston Marklee completes "democratic by nature" green-metal tower in Phoenix

California studio Johnston Marklee has completed Ray Phoenix, a residential building in Arizona clad in a mint green metal facade, the colour informed by the surrounding desert.

Located just outside of Phoenix's downtown, in the city's Roosevelt Row Arts District, Ray Phoenix contains 401 apartments across 26 storeys and was designed by Johnston Marklee in partnership with architecture studio Lamar Johnson Collaborative.

The building was meant to  "enhance the Phoenix community by making art, architecture, and design highly accessible to its residents" and was is co-developed by New York developer Ray and Kansas-based developer Vela.

It...

Markus Brunetti’s Monumental Photos Venerate European Ecclesiastical Landmarks

For a little more than two decades, Bavarian photographer Markus Brunetti has scoured Europe for its most impressive basilicas, monasteries, duomi, and other striking ecclesiastical landmarks. Working closely with collaborator Betty Schöner, with whom he travels around the continent in a firetruck that has been converted to a photo lab, the pair snap thousands of images of each structure in meter-by-meter detail, often over the course of several years.

Through a meticulous editing process that includes layering and arranging each shot into composite images, Brunetti creates precise, high-resolution views of the facades that we never experience in real life. Perspective is...

Foxes

New York Design Week Is Here, May 14–20

Each year for one week in May New York becomes one of the most design-saturated cities on earth. NYCxDESIGN Festival runs May 14–20, and whether you're a trade professional, a design tourist, or just someone who likes to wander into interesting spaces, there's no shortage of reasons to leave the house.

Dozens of events are spread out across Manhattan and Brooklyn, with programming ranging from major trade fairs to intimate gallery exhibitions, talks, tours and workshops.

We're looking forward to the SHINE exhibition, NYCxDESIGN's official festival exhibition, running the full week at The Seaport. Curated and designed by...

Ikonstudio releases historic furniture by Louis Kahn and SOM

Canadian design outfit Ikonstudio has launched its inaugural collections of historic furniture, which were designed by SOM and Louis Kahn.

Launched to align with NYCxDesign and Chicago Design Week, Ikonstudio's SOM Collection and Louis Kahn Collection comprise designs that were originally designed for the architecture studios' projects and now reimagined for the public.

Ikonstudio was founded by David Feldberg, owner of Canadian design studio Teknion, who said that the aim of the collections is to bring underutilised concepts from historic projects into the present.

He distinguishes this from an act of simple nostalgia.

"Ikonstudio is not about...

Countryside ( May 2 )

A Clever Add-On Spout for Camping Vessels

This clever little gizmo is an add-on spout, for camping vessels that lack one. It's made out of lacquered Beech, and was created by Taiwanese craftsman Child Wood Lee.

They're sold through online vendor Pinkoi and run about USD $80 to $90, depending on which animal shape (shark, whale, goose) you opt for.

David Chipperfield Design's Plywood Bathtub

When it comes to high-end bathtubs, you've got your enamel-coated steel or cast iron, or stone. Wood is reserved for Japanese-style soaking tubs. But now David Chipperfield Design, the industrial design arm of the UK's David Chipperfield Architects, has created this Tambre tub out of Okumè plywood. (Okumè is an African hardwood used to make high-end marine-grade plywood.)

Tipo-Z basin by Roberto Palomba for Ideal Standard

Dezeen Showroom: designer Roberto Palomba worked with bathroom brand Ideal Standard on this pedestal basin designed to have a statuesque presence in the bathroom.

Tipo-Z's base and basin share a tapered silhouette and are available in black or white and a choice of glossy or silk finishes.

Forming part of Ideal Standard's Atelier Collections, the monochromatic sink is made from fine fireclay, a durable ceramic-based material, which lends itself to technical precision, resulting in sharp, defined edges.

Palomba referenced the brand's Zeta basin – a broad sink released in the 1950s – in Tipo-Z's...

Alessandro Stabile's Beautiful Areo Chair for Kristalia

The iconic Thonet chair, designed in the 1850s, never really had a spiritual successor. Michael Thonet's mastery of both material (Beech) and production process (steam bending, then placing in cast iron molds to hold tight curves), yielded something both easy to manufacture and easy on the eyes.

In the following century, Mies van der Rohe and Marcel Breuer made tubular-frame chairs out of steel. But while these were considered classics in their own right, the production technology at the time simply couldn't match Thonet's extreme bends. The 20th century chairs, though designed 60-plus years after Thonet's, seem...