ping_mag - Yule Heibel on Diigo

28 Jun 08

Architecture of Change - Sustainability and Humanity in the Built Environment (PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things”)

Ping Magazine interview with Berlin-based Kristin and Lukas Feireiss on their book, _Architecture of Change - sustainability and humanity in the built environment_, regarding the "conscious contradiction in the title — changing and sustaining. But how can I change and sustain at the same time? This challenge is what we try to put across."

QUOTE:
There’s more to architecture than its simple purpose of shelter or protection, a cast to architecture. However they are creating social environments, urban spaces and the public spaces where people actually interact. So they are the catalyst for social interaction, for society to work in. This is a big topic and we can go from dictatorial architecture to that of social engagement.
(...)
This book gives a broad overview of what’s possible in sustainable building practices or social practices in architecture. So it ranges from economically speaking very simple, modernistic architecture to very free-flowing, avant-garde forms; from small, private houses to school buildings to skyscrapers, to federal buildings. It’s not restricted at all to one certain section. And secondly it comprises all these ideas that are in a state of research or initiative.
UNQUOTE
Bonus: gorgeous pictures/ illustrations.

Wouldn't mind having a copy of this book!

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pingmag ping_mag architecture sustainability design

20 Mar 08

Architecture in Tokyo: Omotesando Steet II, Pt II - PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things”

Part 2 of a fascinating trek down Omotesando Street in Tokyo, which seems studded front to back with "starchitect" buildings.

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architecture omotesando ping_mag tokyo

04 Mar 08

Excusado Printsystem: Street Art in Colombia - PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things”

Feast your eyes...! Ping Mag does it again: the street art featured here is Manet for today, is Courbet for contemporaries, is Beckmann for boys (and girls), is Frans Hals and Velasquez for very heavy kids of all persuasions, is just fantastic.

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bogota colombia excusado_printsystem grafitti interview ping_mag street_art

- Is it a car (an American car?), or is it a barracuda ready to eat you alive? - on 2008-03-04
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- To have fun. To do what we wanted, when we wanted, where we wanted. It may seem hard to believe, but we strongly believe in work as fun and fun as work. We have never been comfortable with the idea of having a boss, a set schedule, this sort of working lifestyle.
- - - incredible image: pattern (surface) and outline -- but an outline that gives real depth ...in turn patterned/ surfaced - on 2008-03-04
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- What makes the Santa Fe quarter ideal for that?
  
  Santa Fe is an old, marginal neighbourhood in downtown Bogota, plagued with problems such as prostitution, stealing, drug dealing and child abuse.
  Throughout 2007 we worked to reclaim this space: a place where we could offer an element of diversity to the neighbourhood and share another reality with its inhabitants for a few days.
- How did you get all these street artists together?
  
  That’s what makes Desfase interesting: the gathering of people with different intentions, images, techniques and lastly languages all using the streets as a common space.
  Our challenge is to offer interesting and sufficient spaces for them, to inspire work and dialogue. Both the friendliness that the streets generate and the interest that many urban artists have in meeting and visiting other places helps us achieve this. Additionally, we rely on the institutional and private support from those that have believed in our project.
- How tough are the controls on graffiti in Colombia in general?
  
  Over here, street art is not such a big phenomenon. Even though the city has lots of free spaces for graffiti and advertising, there is no rigorous control on this art form and its diverse manifestations.
  In this way, the street art scene is very peaceful.
- That’s great to hear! But still, do the police take sprayers in?
  
  This rarely happens. We have created a peaceful street art environment: in abandoned spaces, we can paint freely – even during the day. As a result, most graffiti and street artists do it this way.
  
  However, if they take you in, many things can happen. Sometimes you can talk to them, explain what you’re doing and nothing bad happens – they let you go and finish what you were doing. At other times, they may detain you for a few hours and take note of your ID. And, in the worst-case scenario, they’ll take you to a Permanent Justice Unit (UPJ) for twenty-four hours.

26 Feb 08

The Many Facets Of Tomoko Sawada - PingMag

This is beautiful, and incredible. Tomoko Sawada works, I guess, at the interstices of art and acting, a whole new calibre of performance art perhaps? It's incredible stuff, at any rate. "Who is she?" asks the article. Obviously so talented that it's easy enough to want to look, but tricky enough to make you think.

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art avant_garde japan performance_art ping_mag tomoko_sawada

28 Jan 08

Boogie: Bleak Street Lifes (PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things”)

Interview with "Serbian photographer Boogie [who] grew up in the war-torn region of former Yugoslavia, documenting protests and the disturbing portraits of skinheads. After moving from Belgrade to Brooklyn in 1998, he started observing New York’s bleak street side of life with monochrome shots. Distinctively, his work isn’t emphatic. He doesn’t judge. He is more reporting on a not so distant universe with a fine eye for detail - and a lot of guts. He showed PingMag his depiction of Brooklyn gang life and junkies." Boogie notes: "'This whole life is a bunch of choices you make and they just made a couple of wrong ones,' says photographer Boogie about his series on junkies in Brooklyn."

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boogie brooklyn drug_addiction gangs interview nyc photography ping_mag street_life

They liked me and I never judged them. Because who am I to judge anyone? That junkie, or a gangster, it could’ve been me and you. This whole life is a bunch of choices you make and they just made a couple of wrong ones.

It came to the point where I would just go to their houses, hang out, and they were doing whatever they would do, had I not been there. It’s the moment every photographer lives for - when you become a fly on the wall…
- I guess one question might be whether society is "allowed" to make choices for them by demanding they go into rehab, or whether their right to choose (which inevitably includes stealing and degradation of others to support their habit) is paramount. It's alright for an artist like Boogie not to judge, but that's not an option for people who are victims of the junkie's crimes. Maybe we won't have an acceptable answer until the proposed vaccine against drug addiction is on the market...? - on 2008-01-28
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28 Dec 07

BankART: Creating Art Spaces in Yokohama: PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things”

- description of re-purposed spaces (esp'y banks no longer in use) for creative space (Yokohama)

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architecture creative_cities creative_spaces japan ping_mag redevelopment repurposing yok yokohama

24 Dec 07

PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things” » Archive » Mafuyu’s Knitted Homes

- this is terrific: Mafuyu Murakami knits, passionately. She knits all kinds of beautiful things, including houses you can wear. Really. Reminded me of a line in The Avengers' episode, "Something Nasty in the Nursery": Steed & Mrs.Peel have to burst in on The Arkwright Knitting Circle, run by an ex-CEO who directs a dozen grandmothers in knitting projects. "What are they knitting?" Steed asks casually as he & Emma chase the bad guy. "A bungalow," answers the shaken Mr. Arkwright. Mafuyu, needless to say, is way past the starter bungalow stage already!

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knitting mafuyu ping_mag tokyo

- I love this -- a hat?, a crown? -- but it's fingers, so it reminds me of gloves, but it's a crown, and the fingers look like flames ...wearing jeweled rings! - on 2007-12-24
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