Meaningful Design in a Logical Way

Facet Studio has been included in Shanghai's Designer & Designing magazine as one of the practices of outstanding young architects.

Multiple projects have been covered, including: Streetology, Blu Creativity, Watermoon, M House

The interview was named "Meaningful Design in a Logical Way", which I thought was apt for our approach and the Chinese translation was true to the original.  Overall, happy with the article.
And I must say it is flattering to know that people that far away are interested to hear about what we think of design and philosophies..

 

 

 

 

Cover of Designer & Designing Issue 65

A bit more on other projects....

Rounding up some recent publications....

Hospitality:

Powerful imagery of Uchi Lounge has a strong presence in WORKshop issue 08.

Nice to read in the blog of our structural engineer for Uchi Lounge: "...It is interesting how tight budgets and great architects drive great engineering."

I guess true creativity spark when being confined by restrictions...

 Cover of WORKshop issue 08

Watermoon is published by Chinese publishing house Sandu (available via PageOne) in "Taste It! - Innovative Restaurant Interiors".

It is also published by German publishing house Gestalten in "Let's Go Out! - Interiors and Architecture for Restaurants and Bars".

Watermoon was completed in 2010 May.

In the retail / hospitality world, where fitouts require constant renewal, Watermoon is considered an "old project".  Yet it continues to be picked up by publishing houses and gathering attention.  I think this says something about our consistent attitude towards architecture (permanence) and interior (transience).

Cover of "Taste it!"

Cover of "Let's Go Out!"

Retail:

Sneakerology and Streetology continue to gather attention after their completion in 2010 / 2011.  The design took place in 2009.

Again, they should be considered "old projects"....but still looking refreshing and stunning (hopefully I am allowed to say that myself...).

We consider longevity of design = ultimate sustainability 

"Brand Spaces - Branded Architecture and the Future of Retail Design" published by Gestalten (Germany)

  

  

Retail Design International Vol 74 No 5 (US)

First time published in China

Last month, we have received the first book we were published in from China.

The "M2 Interior Design 4" book is a hearty publication of international design projects, and we are proud to be listed amongst some fine interior design projects.

 

 

 

Turning page

Our project Streetology has been included in German magazine, Page, as a leading examples amongst other international projects to show how the celebration of a vending machine culture and a new creativity has taken the idea further into new sales concepts for stores, marketing and communication all over the world (projects from Amsterdam, Okinawa, Frankfurt, US to Sydney.)

Here is a translation of the article for the curious, courtesy of my lovely German friend Nataly:

"Analog Info Graphic"
The shop design for Streetology in Sydney makes reference to the vending machine concept.  Olivia Shih and Yoshihito Kashiwagi who are running the Architecture Office Facet Studio in Sydney have come up with a concept where T Shirts are displayed in transparent tubes. They are sorted by colours and stacked in 2,550 vending tubes. When a customer buys a T Shirt in green all green T Shirts drop down a spot, effectively creating an analog info graphic display; the bar with the most purchased colour is decreasing the fastest.
The shop design, in cooperation with Simpson Design Associates and Agency babekuehl is celebrating a democratic attitude/ Zeitgeist expressing what is popular on the street - as the name says "Streetology".

Deep..

Streetology has been published in the Mexican lifestyle magazine, DEEP.

Cover

 

Italian

Our first publication in Italian!

Cover

First page of the article

Interior Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) Gala Party

Further from the last post on IDEA Awards, here is a bit more detail on the Gala Party.

Interior Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) promotes and rewards recent work in interior design and product design in Australia.  This year has been the biggest yet with over 400 submissions across all categories.  

It is one of the most noted annual award program in Australia.  The award ceremony took place at Ivy Sydney last year (2010), and ACCA Melbourne this year (2011).  Names of the winners were kept secrete until announcement at the Gala Party, although the shortlisted submissions were published in (inside) Magazine since August.  We flew down to Melbourne with two shortlists - Emerging Designer and Retail Design: Sneakerology/ Streetology - and were excited to be awarded Winner for the Retail Category!

People attending the Gala Party have all dressed up beautifully for the event, and arrived early for a glass of champaign before the actual ceremony.  I think we were the only Asians attending.

There were all these "mannequins" standing on poles while we entered the theatre for Award Ceremony..... then they started spinning as if there was no such thing as gravity! (ok by then I realised they were real people...) Not sure about the theme of this performance, but hey, it did a great job in hyping up the atmosphere!

The ticket was $145 per head, and was completely sold out with approximately 500 people attending.  It was quite spectacular.

 

When the ceremony reached the peak, it was announced: "Winner for Retail Category is.....Sneakerology/ Streetology by Facet Studio!!"

We were so excited, shook hands with people sat around us and headed towards the stage... which was quite far from where we sat..... and I had to noticed that Yoshi was too excited and forgot to put down the beer bottle he was holding the entire time..... which followed us up the stage, went to photoshoot for the Winners behind the stage (the photo on the top) and back to our seat.

I think we were too nervous that Yoshi had forgotten how to smile and luckily I barely remembered...

 

Although the trophy is physically quite light, to us, it is as heavy as gold.

 

To find out more on Sneakerology/ Streetology, check out our website:

Sneakerology

Streetology

Winner of IDEA Awards 2011!

Facet Studio has won the IDEA Awards 2011 - Retail category!

The winners of Interior Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) 2011 were announced on November 25 at the IDEA Gala Party at ACCA in Melbourne.
We decided to attend last minute, flew down to Melbourne from Sydney at 6:45am..... very exhausted by the end of the night.  Well, turns out it was all worth it!

It was an interesting experience, and I will try to cover more on the event in the following blog entries.

Announcement on Australian Design Review website

The trophy..  it says "Retail WINNER Sneakerology/ Streetology by Facet Studio"

Whilst I am still waiting on some photos from the Award organisers, feel free to check out the web coverage here:

IDEA Awards official website
Australian Design Review

Here is a little on IDEA Awards extracted from the Awards official website:

The Interior Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) showcase the best of Australian design. The prestigious awards program receives hundreds of submissions from across Australia each year and is recognised by the design community as the country’s pre-eminent design awards program.
...

This year was our biggest yet, with over 400 submissions across all 14 categories.

We are very excited and honoured to have been recognised amongst all the great projects, and a big "thank you!" to everyone who has made this project possible.  We will continue to deliver projects of high quality, and contribute to the architectural profession.

French

Our first publication in French!

What is it with French? Somehow everything seem so much more romantic when written in French.... although regrettably I can not read French.

Cover - Sites Archi

"Streetology - The Tube of the Year"...sounds like we are getting some award!

 

and some mention of Sneakerology, as Streetology's minimalist sibling...

Contemplating "-ology"

We have received our copy of the very first issue of Casa+Living magazine from Malaysia!  With both Sneakerology and Streetology included.

I quite liked the way Angeline from the editorial has written about and annotated our projects.. The article is titled: "Because Sneakers Are a Specialised Study of Their Own - 因為運動鞋也是一門學問", which captured the idea behind Sneakerology.

Basically, we were quite stuck for inspiration at the beginning of the design process. Back then, the shops had no names, we were obscurely designing a teeshirt shop and a sneaker shop. It is when we pressed the client to name the shops, and he decided on "Sneaker-ology" for the sneaker shop, we were finally able to capture a glimpse of a world that we were about to create - where sneaker advocates can learn about history and design of their loved sneakers, much like a museum, where knowledge can be gained.  Therefore each shoe is displayed in their own box, equipped with their own light and own assigned number, to draw attention to their individuality yet together the 281 shoes in a homogeneous system create a space of illuminance and euphoria.

From there we also named the teeshirt shop "Streetology".  It is a shop to reflect the study of street trends by visualising the commercial activity within the store - the stocks are on display; when one item is bought, it disappears from the display, hence creates a pattern as the result of demand.

Thank you Casa +Living magazine for the opportunity to participate in your very first issue ever, and I wish all the best to your publication!

Glossy Streetology

We have received a somehow peculiar coverage for Streetology in Gloss Magazine, Brazil.

It is not our usual market or media of promotion, but I must say, I am really glad that our projects have good appeal to a wide range of people and markets!

One of our concept for Streetology was to "visualise commerciality", and to have the shop as a visual reflection of the street trend - This in a way reassures us what we were doing was on the right track.

 

Happy Day at Facet Studio

Today we have received ANOTHER parcel from Korea...!

  

me and SooJin trying to pull the snug-fitted content from its envelope..

It is the Korean magazine - BOB!

Sneakerology + Streetology.... woohoo~

Sneakerology and Streetology have been featured in the Korean Magazine, BOB, under the "New & Spot" section.. check out p.114-115!
 
Beautiful coincidence is that our new staff JJ, with a commendable hobby of weekend cake-baking, has brought in one of his creations.. just in time for celebration!

fresh lemon zest and cheese cake.....

pretty

yummy!  Thank you JJ (left)!