LA76′s Romana Lilic wrote this article for ESCAPES magazine #7. Photographs by LA76, see the full photo gallery here.

Casa Gavión evokes an emotional reaction at your first encounter. The impact of its massive proportions, volumes, forms, textures and colors will not leave you unmoved, guaranteed. Before continuing to explore its spaces indoors and outdoors, we recommend that you take off your flip flops, as this home is best enjoyed barefoot. Then stretch your arms, open your hands, and get ready for a flood of sensations. Casa Gavión is literally a sensational home.

In an awarded architectural studio ColectivoMX, well known for their regionalism in home design, they had four principles in mind during the creation of this impressive nature conscious home; passive pollution of the area by using regional materials and local labor force during the construction, sensibility of the materials by using different textures and reinterpreting their usage, integrating the indoor and outdoor spaces, and thus maximizing the usage of the space, while keeping the home user friendly with low maintenance costs.

The concept of the home is based on its residents and the enjoyment of all the spaces, where exterior becomes equally important as interior, complimenting the great weather of 
Baja California Sur. All the spaces in Casa Gavión are looking to the exterior, with each room having its own garden or terrace.

Dining and living room open to the large terrace and patio with the pool and lounge area. Bedroom on the ground level looks to the cardon cactus patio, and the kitchen opens to the stone patio and the garden. Both master bedrooms on the 1st floor each have their own terrace, and on the 2nd floor there is a large terrace with 360 C views of the Sea of Cortez, adjacent golf courses and the majestic mountains, ideal for sipping wine at sunset and star gazing.

The key characteristic of this home and the essence for its name is the rock wall, “gavión”. While you will notice gavión at the sides of the federal highway between San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas, the architect reinterpreted its use and its excellent isolation features to protect the spaces in the home from the sun while at the same time making it function as blinds, letting the air through the wall and cooling the area.

The advantage of owning a home in Baja is being able to live inside and outside at the same time. When walking around, you will notice that this home is without windows: pocket doors have been built throughout the home, so when you are in, you can have them wide open and enjoy the fresh breeze, the salty ocean smell and the birds singing. Windows in Casa Gavión function as a security asset: you use your windows when you are not using your home. The orientation of the home, cross ventilation, pergolas and a rock wall ensure isolation within the home and eliminate the need to use the air-conditioning.

Eternal summer was one of the reasons for different textures, implemented in this home. Rock wall, pebble stones, gypsum, stucco, rustic plaster, fine plaster and wood are only some of the materials you will enjoy while walking around barefoot. In the main patio alone you can experience fine grass, beach sand, water, stucco and rustic plaster, which you can enjoy depending on your feelings and desires. Let your children play in the house and see how impressed by the textures they will be. The architect’s daughters are walking around barefoot with their hands stretched out, touching and feeling everything that surrounds them with great joy.

In the past, hearing the term “ecological home” we used to think of high construction and high maintenance costs. Luckily, with  advances in technology, acceptance of the eco standards world wide and with it also lower implementation prices, Javier Gutierrez confirms that the construction costs of this home didn’t exceed the construction cost of any regular home.

The home has been planed and prepared to help you save energy and money, while protecting the nature at the same time. Prepared system for solar energy will help greatly reduce the consumption of electricity. Grey water usage system is installed and ready to use. Ingenious planning of the pool, consisting of dipping pool, swimming pool and jacuzzi reduces the water consumption generally used in homes with pools. Besides that, the roof, which is the largest source of heat to any house, is isolated with thick high density foam, thus reducing the need for AC.

Hard to comprehend for anyone having experienced the summers in Baja, but proven true, is that in Casa Gavión you don’t need to use air-conditioning, even in the hottest summer months. The cross-ventilation, isolation, the mix of indoor and outdoor spaces, open pocket doors, ventilators and breeze assure a fresh wind through all the living areas. Even though, air-conditioners are set for days or moments too hot to handle.
Casa Gavión is truly a sensational home. It will tickle your senses and bring out emotions, every day, guaranteed.

The Bed 42 is a materialization of multiple explorations by Manadaº. By mixing a bed and a desk in one product, they explore the flexibility of use of everyday objects; keeping always as a priority the aspiration to create quality products that are both sustainable – in an economical, social and environmental way – and timeless in their design.

“We do believe that what makes a design timeless is its constructive consciousness;” says Manadaº partner Alejandro Tapia. “The design approach has a lot to do with it becoming timeless,” adds the architect and Manadaº partner, Katarina Alatzia. “Certified solid wood gives us that; it is a noble material that ages properly and is environmentally sustainable. That is part of a timeless design,” finishes Alejandro.

The design of the Bed 42 reflects the creative DNA of the partners’ nationalities, from one side the precision that characterizes German design, and on the other side the handcrafting skills of Mexican artisans. The bed has been manufactured in 4 weeks without any machine fabrication by using 2 inches certified solid walnut wood and local handcraft labor.
 The young duo is one of the players in the up-coming young Mexican design scene, and the Interior Innovation Award 2012 is definitely a confirmation that they are on a right path in their search for sustainable and timeless design.

The imm cologne is the most important fair in the furniture market. Right from the beginning of every year the trade fair presents the new international furniture trends and surprises with numerous marketable innovations. The broad range on offer is combined with high standards of quality and an excellent presentation of the products. The fair also provides an effective platform for young designers. The trade visitors value that the trade fair’s pronounces business atmosphere and high standards of organization and services. The days of the fair that are also open to end-consumers, provide to the exhibitors ample opportunities for product and market tests, while the consumers find information and suggestions on the trends. In close connection with the extensive program of events that will take place all over the city of Cologne, imm cologne becomes the center of the international world of furnishings and design for a week.

FOR PRESS INQUIRIES please contact: Romana Lilic,  info@LA76.com
The Bed 42 Photographs in Hi-Res and Low-Res download at http://ow.ly/8x9Xn , password: manadaPRESS

See another project by Manadaº Architecture: Qi Urban Lobby

Disclaimer: LA76 is a media relations company for Manadaº Architecture.

The main design concept derives from the existing kindergarten’s lack of play equipment. The new façade eliminates this weakness by offering a play element along all three exterior walls: it consists of dark brown roughcast and timber slats revolving around their vertical axe. The slats are the color of natural wood on one side but painted into nine different bright colors on the other side.

The toy slats offer shade for the windows, as well as provide for children’s play and learning: as the children manipulate the colorful wooden planks they get to know different colors, experience wood as a natural material and constantly change the appearance of their kindergarten, all at the same time. Children rarely get the opportunity to connect with their kindergarten in such a way, to play with it and change the way it looks, as is the case with Kekec.

Playrooms are compact but allow for the furniture to be arranged in various formations. Daylight floods the interior from three sides as well as from the roof. Located between the two playrooms, washrooms have large glass openings, which visually increase their volume as well as ease tutor supervision.

Wardrobes in the narrow changing room are made from pure natural wood and have pull-out boxes for shoes in all the colours of the façade, which also serve as a bench, hence functioning as a space saver. Although modest in size, Kekec shows a clear example how a problem solving architecture can supplement and enrich anonymous existing structures within the very limited budget.

We love Dara’s dreamy photographs, and I hope we’ll soon see her images published in some storybook for children or for dreamers like us.

More of Dara’s work: website, flickr, Facebook. Until December 25, 2011, you can buy her prints (great Christmas present I’d say).

I still haven’t got used to celebrate Christmas in the sun. The temperatures in Cabo at this time go around 26ºC during the day, and 19ºC at night, … not bad for a winter I’d say. The great thing is that you can spend December days at the beach, and it is wonderful.

Christmas decor here is adjusted to the desert. Instead of decorating a ‘regular’ Christmas tree, we like to decorate our elephant trees, or torote trees. At my favorite Cabo San Lucas resort Capella Pedregal, they decorated 17 elephant trees, they invited different designers and collaborators to decorate each of the trees. One tree is decorated with 350 whales, which were made by each of the employees! I especially loved this idea!

So, whether Cabo San Lucas will have you party through the month of December in downtown (check out the list of Cabo nightlife here), at the beach, in the desert, in your home, or at the neighbor’s (like our neighbors who organize poker parties in their backyard every Tuesday), have a wonderful festive December, you deserve it!

Monica Khemsurov wrote a piece on them for SightUnseen, and I’m sharing it here with you:

Between the two of them, Julie Ho and Nicholas Andersen had designed clothing, jewelry, movie sets, music videos, and Martha Stewart shoots, plus dabbled in painting, drawing, pattern-making, sewing, and crocheting before teaming up creatively in 2008. Ho had even been a studio assistant for Tom Sachs, making foam Hello Kittys with a medical scalpel (and slicing open her hands almost weekly in the process).

So it took a particular kind of alchemy for the pair to decide that — out of all their talents and interests — they would devote their days to making paper party decorations, the kind you’d expect to find in a dollar store if they weren’t so uniquely beautiful. “With our backgrounds in set design and prop styling, Nick and I always loved transforming spaces for our friends’ parties,” says Ho. “We saw how it changed people’s moods, and that’s when we had the idea. We started it as an art project, making party objects like a piñata, blindfold, and necklace.”

As Confetti System, the pair have since built a business around such festive accoutrements, constructing shimmering backdrops for United Bamboo fashion shows and decking the halls of Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O.’s birthday party. Last winter, their Mylar-fringed piñatas and party hats became an Urban Outfitters capsule collection, and later this month, the band Beach House will embark on a six-week tour with custom sets crafted by the duo. They make everything themselves, spending hours slicing 20 x 30-inch sheets of tissue paper into streamers with a rolling fabric knife, or distressing cardboard piñata bodies so they take just the right amount of time to burst open, spewing out handmade confetti in various shapes and colors.

It’s a labor of love for Ho and Andersen, who say they’re primarily motivated by a desire to sculpt things with their hands. Ho grew up in New York taking tons of extracurricular art classes and soaking up inspiration from all the shelter magazines her father brought home from his job as a color corrector. She studied fine art at MICA, where she met the friend who would eventually introduce her to Andersen; he had been raised in Hawaii, his grandmother in charge of the original Jams factory.

“I grew up visiting her there, looking at all the fabrics and helping her sew and clip threads,” Andersen says. “My parents had a company that made sails and sailboat cushions. Everyone was always making everything all around me.” Among many other shared obsessions, the pair bonded early on about the fact that they had both kept curated, rotating collections of things on their bookshelves as kids. Now they keep a collection of inspirational objects at their Manhattan studio, which they share with graphic designer Alex Lin, and which they offered us a glimpse at on a recent March afternoon.

Frank Gehry is, at 82, America’s most celebrated living architect. His designs, including the Guggenheim Bilbao and Disney Hall in Los Angeles, are all technically challenging and unmistakably his. Gehry’s creative process famously borrows from artists; less well known is his fierce commitment to budgeting and the architect’s role as project manager.

"When I interviewed Frank Gehry for HBR, he had recently bought an iPad. Every time he mentioned a building, he'd pick up the iPad and swipe until he came across a good photo to show me. This slideshow is an approximation of that experience: a sampling of Gehry's work, accompanied by his words." Katherine Bell. Photo credit: Dave Lauridsen

HBR: Tell me about starting your own firm.

Gehry: I’m not a businessman, but the business model I set for the office turned out to be a good one. It’s simple: Don’t borrow money. Pay everybody. Nobody works for free, ever. It was difficult financially for the first few years. At the beginning I had to do all the work myself. And then it was hard to get experienced people. They had families; they didn’t want to work with a struggling young architect. So I couldn’t get the technical help we needed, and we suffered for it. Buildings leak when you don’t have enough construction experience.

Victor Gruen and Associates, various projects in Los Angeles "After architecture school I found a firm whose politics were similar to mine. It turned out to be Victor Gruen, which was doing some of the first shopping centers, as well as low cost housing and city planning. I worked there for five years. The buildings I was working on are very uninspiring. I see them, still. They're in LA, so I have to live with them. But the experience I got was enormous." Photo credit: USC Digital Library.

You’ve said that one of the reasons the Guggenheim Bilbao is a great building is that you had a great client. What makes a client great?

It’s a collaboration. I’d say it’s 50/50. The client has got to be willing to talk to you. Imagine you get a job with IBM, you’re working with an executive vice president, and he shows the model to the president, and the guy says, “What the f— is that? That won’t work with my work.” So I only accept jobs where I work with the decision maker.

Danziger Studio (1964) "The architects in LA were very critical of what I was doing. I did the Danziger building as a box, just a little box. And they came out against it. It was stupid. But the LA artists loved it. They hung around, and they started inviting me to their soirees, and I got to know them. They became like family. And I loved their way of working. It was more direct and visceral. I started mimicking it, not consciously, but I started working that way. " Photo credit: Michael Moran.

How do you balance your clients’ desires against other concerns?

The client hires you, so the client is the priority. But you can’t just build a building based on what the clients say, because their vision is based on what’s normal. How do you get out of the normal? You’ve got to question everything. Spend time with the user group. Glean all the information you can. And then throw it all away and begin to play.

Gehry Residence (1978) "I only had $50,000 to do it. I had an idea, and I did it. I wanted to build a new house around the old house, and that's what I did. It looked strange to everybody, but later they all realized there was something going on. " Photo credit: Getty.

How do you go about solving design problems?

I’m like a pussycat with a ball of twine. It goes over there, and he jumps over there. It falls on the floor, and he goes there. I’m opportunistic. Once I understand the problems, I try things. I see what works and what doesn’t, and then I try again. When it looks like something I’ve done before, I abandon it. I have learned to trust my intuition.

Museo Guggenheim Bilbao (1997) "In Bilbao, the mayor, the president of the Basque Country, the minister of commerce, the minister of education, and the cultural minister were trying to rebuild their town. They wanted a building that would do for Bilbao what the Sydney Opera House had done for Sydney. I said, I can't guarantee you I can do that, but I'll try. It was interesting, from a business standpoint. There were three architects in the competition. Arata Isozaki did a seven-story oval. Mine looked weird. And Coop Himmelb(l)au's was halfway between Isozaki's and mine. You'd think the conservative choice would have been Isozaki. But if they'd picked that, they wouldn't have gotten what they wanted. So I turned out to be the conservative choice, strangely enough. " Photo credit: Sydney Pollack.

I’ve heard you have unusually strong feelings about budgeting and project management.

Cost control is a big deal for me. In the construction industry, 30% of the money spent is wasted. That’s why it’s important to value engineer as you design. It’s easy to do now—we use software that’s precise to seven decimal points, so there’s no chance of a mistake. You can get a good sense of how much a building will cost and whether the budget is real. And once you’ve set a real budget, it behooves you to stay there. You have to manage the information and the relationships with the construction people. You have to control the project through to the end, really control the goddamned thing, because it’s your design. Nobody else knows how to do it.

Walt Disney Concert Hall (2003) "When we did Disney Hall, the contractor they were using came to my office with the board of directors. They looked at the models. They were all gaga. And they turned to this guy and said, 'What do you think?' And in front of me, in my office, he said to them, 'It's beautiful, but you can't build it.' Well, it's built. And that guy's out of business."

What’s your succession plan?

When I reached my sixties, I separated my fee from the office fee so the office would grow up with a culture of working within a normal fee range. Now we’ve got this well-honed machine. Six or seven young people in the office are good enough to take over. We talk about it a lot. My guess is some will splinter off and the rest will figure out how to use the well-honed machine in their own way.

IAC Headquarters (2007) "Glass is made flat, shipped to the site flat. When you want it curved, you build a frame that's torqued, and you just torque it into place. But you have to know how much you can torque it without breaking the seal. On Barry Diller's building, we discovered that when the double-layered glass is being manufactured, four suction cups on the assembly line pick each sheet up to take it to the next station. When we watched the process, we saw that the edges sagged six inches without breaking the seal. The insurance company added a cushion of safety and guaranteed the glass up to a four-inch sag, and then we added an extra half-inch to be safe." Photo credit: William Paterson.

Spruce Street (Beekman Tower) (2011) "I've built a lot of stuff, and I know what things cost. I know if I make a curve, I've got to account for it. Beekman's got all these curves, but it came in at the same price as any New York building. We eliminated change orders on the curtain wall. That's a big deal. No change orders. That saves a lot of money. " Photo credit: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times.

Constructed with an organic wooden core within a rigid rectangular frame, the building is a metaphor for rock or ice that’s eroded by natural forces like wind and water. Spanning 75 sq. m., the structure provides a warm shelter for school groups and visitors to the region, while preserving spectacular views.

‘Natural, cultural and mythical landscapes form the basis of the architectural idea,’ say Snøhetta architects, who focused on the durability of building materials to withstand the harsh climate.

The pavilion sits about 1250 m above sea level, overlooking mountains in Dovrefjell. Dovrefjell is home to wild reindeer herds, musk oxen, arctic foxes and a variety of endemic botanical species. A long history filled with travellers, hunting traditions, mining and military activities have left their mark on this land. Today, modern tourism and recreation continue to shape the cultural landscape of this place. Dovrefjell also holds significant importance in the consciousness of Norway.In Norway, the area is the focus of many legends, myths, poetry, music and pilgrimages to celebrate the eternal and mystic qualities of the space.

The project was commissioned by the Norwegian Wild Reindeer Foundation.

Source: Frame magazine and e-architect

It is widely known mexicans make fun of dead in every opportunity they have. And it is also said that “chicano” community allies with dead to laugh of “gringos”, but in the markets, in the offerings, in the stores and department stores across Mexico a ghost always floats: the ghost of Halloween.

Both the Day of the Dead and Halloween have common origins but very different social functions. To be able to analyze it without prejudices we will have to know first the history behind both holidays, and how these have transformed through the years.

Almost without exception, Mexicans (and a lots of foreigners as well) think that Día de los Muertos is a pure Mexican tradition that should remain intact, far from Halloween, trying to forget the old and ancient relationship between Mexico and the States. Some come, some go, merchandise and ideas move on both territories, as an untraceable quantity of signs that make the imaginary collective even more complex.

Halloween is a holiday that surfaced as we know it today in the United States, and today is related with plenty of commercial activity: massive costume sales, candies, horror movies and any other kind of exotic and dark paraphernalia related to death and “the world of the dead”. However, it’s origins trace back to the Celts and Druids (in France, Ireland, The U.K. and part of Spain), who in the last days of October (Oct 31 to Nov 2), celebrated “Samhain” or the end of the summer and the start of winter, a time of the year related back then to the dead of people due to cold weather.

Halloween shares dates with “Día de los Muertos”, because it was believed that in these dates the boundaries between live and dead blurred. Spirits wandered, and the entrances of houses had vegetables carved with scary faces to keep away the bad spirits. Because of tradition, people visited each house in the community and gave away food in exchange of praying for the souls. Streets used to get filled with candles to guide good spirits, and the people used costumes to disguise from the evil spirits.

Christians, always syncretic, grouped Samhain and started to call it “All Hallow’s Eve” or “All Saints Eve”, where a mass service was given in honor of the dead. Popular culture in The United Kingdom and Ireland continued the tradition to celebrate Hallowe’en on the night of October 31st, and here is where a lot of legends’ manners and traditions surfaced: the carved pumpkins, the costume and the famous “trick or treat”. Time after, this tradition traveled over the Atlantic and not only settled but flourished in the States.

Now getting back to Mexico, where the cult of the death is one of it’s more cultural characteristics. Origins go back to pre-columbian era, where in the ancient Mexican beliefs, the soul of men was immortal, and depending on which way the person died, they would go to specific places of the underworld (Omeyocan- for those killed in combat; Tlallocan- for the water-related dead; Mictlan- for those dead by natural causes). Those died by natural cause, had to travel a long 4 year journey to Mictlan. They where buried with a dog to be their companion in the trip and most of their belongings, useful for the long journey to Mictlan.

In the 10th month, ancient Mexicans celebrated “Ueymicaihuitl”, when they remembered the dead. When the Spaniard Colonization arrived, Cristianism again applied its very own syncretism to this festivity, transforming it into “Día de los Muertos”, on November 1st and 2nd, together with the “Día de Todos los Santos”.

Today “Día de los Muertos” is not an exclusive religious celebration, even completely non-religious groups set up offerings and altars to remember the dead. And let’s keep in mind that in Mexico each element of the altar has a symbolic and specific function: Candles- to guide the dead; Cempasuchitl flower- to symbolize light and glory; “Pan de Muerto” (Traditional sweet bread of Dia de los Muertos)- food and to remember the corporal remains; and Copal- to indicate solemnity and the openness to the mystic world.

Reality is Mexican traditions for the Day of the Dead and Halloween have merged because of globalization and intercultural exchange. For many, one represent resistance and the other dominance. However, Mexican offerings integrate more and more Halloween elements; media and marketing have done the same. Globalization and Halloween undermine the ancient Mexican cultural heritage? We don’t believe that, and at the same time we don’t consider them that antagonistic. Both are different forms of showing tribute and respect to death and the dead; they both celebrate the only possible certainty of humans: Death.

Ironic or not, every year it is more and more common to see traditional “Día de los Muertos” offerings in the United States. Both celebrations complement each other. More pumpkins in Mexico and more “Pan de Muerto” in California. And while Mexicans are the ones who take away their traditions, these are not rare to get popular like tacos, mariachi, and so on… Traditions are open to time: they generate new aesthetics with orange and purple colors, paper decorations and costume parties with tequila. Popular culture is alive, and that’s why it constantly changes.

Outspoken Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, currently confined to Beijing, is opening an art exhibit in Taiwan that focuses on the political significance of his inability to attend. The “Ai Weiwei Absent” solo exhibition, curated by Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) displays a total of 21 (sets) works by the artist from 1983 to the present. These include 100 photographic works from the 1983-1993 New York East Village Period and 1993-2001 Beijing East Village Period and Ai’s most recent work, created specifically for TFAM, “Forever Bicycles.”

This installation piece is made up of more than 1,000 bicycles and will be shown in a display area that is 10m high. Its layered labyrinthine space creates what appears to be a moving abstract shape that symbolizes the way in which the social environment in China is changing. This is also the most bicycles Ai Weiwei has ever used in a single work and is certain to become a focus of attention during the exhibition.

Also on display will be “Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads,” huge bronze animal heads infused with historical dispute and sentiment. These large shapes are imbued with such a sense of both texture and volume that they have an immediate impact on the viewer and are certain to generate much discussion in the art community.

The whole exhibition is titled “Absent” and Ai says his personal absence from the museum will give the exhibit special meaning. As he says for the topic and for the exhibit, the absence “is a part of my art, my portfolio and my cultural state.”

The exhibition runs from October 29, 2011 to January 29, 2012.

The British magazine Art Review recently named Ai Weiwei as the most powerful artist of 2011.

Photo credit: Pichi Chuang/Reuters