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".

Let there be light 2

Following on from previous blog entry, we moved on to instal light fitting to the corridor.

from the day of photoshoot

The corridor has a finished ceiling of 3.4m, it is 1.7m wide and 11.5m long... something one would not expect in an ordinary house (but then again, who said Seatondale is an ordinary house?).

opening up the package to understand the wiring requirement

cutting the cable housing which was too long..it came with 2.5m and we only need 1m 

threading through the base plate

fixing the base plate

the assistant has to hold the light fitting while the electrician does the wiring

 assistant: "quick...I can't hold this anymore....!!"

the assistant also needs to stablise the electrician on the high ladder

 finally the first fitting is up, then we need to ensure the fitting is levelled on all sides

"...a bit lower there..." 

starting up the second fitting installation.. first measure the centre of the fitting

inside the ceiling there is no adequate structure to hold up the fitting, so we need to add an extra support (timber piece) to make sure the fitting is not only supported on the plasterboard (the plasterboard is not strong enough to hold the weight of the fitting)

making sure the timber is at the right place

this time the assistant knows to place the fitting on his head rather than holding with his hands..this way it is easier

this one was relatively fast in installation

 two down, one more to go

cutting the ceiling

careful.. careful....

 

checking if all corners are the same distance from the ceiling (the red thing on the light fitting is the level)

 

...and if all corners are the same distance from the floor (with construction, especially old houses like Seatondale, it is very likely that walls are not straight ceilings are not levelled, to name a few)

lets tuck this wire in..

after almost 4 hours the 3 light fitting are finally installed!

Let there be light

On Saturday we were finally able to instal light fitting to Seatondale.

To contrast and enhance the oldness of Seatondale, we have selected the sleek fittings from Kreon in the corridor, and modern yet soft fittings from Axo Lightecture range in the major rooms.  Throughout all the rooms we have designed new joinery with integrated light....which shall be explained in another entry.

The entire installation took 5 very long hours........

So, on the day, we started out with the light fittings inside the major rooms.

first, remove the original light fittings..

make sure we have the right length of cable, so that the light suspends at the height we want (we decided that the bottom of the light is to be in line with the top of the existing doors)

do majority of the cabling first to minimise amount of work on the ladder

up it goes!  Quick lets connect the cables

screw in the base plate through to the ceiling substrate

connecting the suspension wires and putting in the light bulb - the central cable is only for electricity, it is not strong enough to carry the light fitting.

wrap up the light again to make sure it stays nice and clean until the construction is over

Going on to the next room...

This time it is quicker because we have done it once already

Voila!

Up to here it took about 1 hour for the 2 fittings.

Installation for the corridor lights to be continued in the next post....

Deep..

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

Cover

 

To see or to be seen

After attempting to take photos ourselves, we finally decided to organize a professional photoshoot for Uchi Lounge.
Today we did the first round of the "empty space" shots, and will come back for "patronized shots" later in the week.

It is a bit of a dilemma...
We architects depend on photographers to record and showcase our architectural work, and we have certain visions we would like to present through photography. At the same time the same architectural work, when seen through different eyes, can be interpreted differently. There exists a fine balance between "make sure our vision is communicated" and "freedom of interpretation from fresh eyes".

I guess I am still curious about how others view our work.. Looking forward to the photos.

Painting and patching and painting..

Slowly but surely, Seatondale restoration is approaching a project milestone. 

Today (public holiday? What public holiday?!) the painters will wrap up by completing the 3rd coat of paint, leaving only the final coat and touch up to the timber work to do after the timber floor is polished.
Originally the interior was painted in a non-descriptive yellow, and touch of beige to the cornices.

The space was dim and aged.
We wanted a colour which will bring freshness and brightness into the space, something neutral to complement the new timber floor. After literally tens of colour studies, we settled on a subtle yet sophisticated combination of white and grey. 

 

...Here began our quest of THE white and THE grey....

Before we paint the entire house, we asked the builder to test the colours on a small area.
Paint samples always look different on the colour chips, the A4 brush out, and an actual wall, albeit being the same colour... Unfortunately the result will not be known until the completion, but we do our best to avoid any (unpleasant) surprise.

Here we go, the base coat!
With such huge walls, the painters must be getting a good workout!

After the first coat, the painters went around the timber work carefully with a brush rather than roller.
Timber works required a different kind of paint, and generally with slightly more "sheen" than the walls for ease of maintenance (leaves less finger marks on doors etc).

So this is where we are at today, the 3rd (final) coat....
I can hardly wait for the next step: floor polish!!!

Seatondale calm

We have been working on internal restoration of Seatondale for quite a few weeks now.
Today it was the third day of joinery installation. With a 200-year-old house and its 3.4m high ceiling, we designed 3.1m tall modern sleek joinery units to complement the scale of space, but contrast with the building's age.
This meant a longer onsite installation process due to the physical dimension and weight of the units; but thanks to the offsite prefabrication we are still in control of the timeframe.
The joinery doors will be installed after the timber floor is sanded and polished. This is to prevent any potential damage to the joinery door during the polishing process.

As the client is now in Sydney to celebrate Chinese New Year, we were invited to stay for dinner after a long day on site.
With the amount of time we have spent on site, the bond between us and the client's family has grown stronger... Just look at how the client's dog, Timmy, has befriended Yoshi....