MINI LIVING 'Forests': spaces between spaces

 

 

At the London Design Festival which runs from tomorrow for a week, MINI is collaborating with Asif Khan, whose installation MINI LIVING “Forests” explores three interpretations of “spaces between spaces", better known as 'third places' (something that falls between work and home, often used by freelancers e.g. coffee shops). They are each designed to encourage specific uses: relaxation, getting together or productivity, using plants to improve city living.

“My response is inspired by the Japanese concept of ‘shinrin yoku’, which literally means ‘forest bathing’," explains Asif Khan. "It means every sense switches to absorb the forest atmosphere, what you hear, what you smell, even the feeling underfoot. On another level, we use plants as a tool to assert our personal space at its boundary with public space, whether on our desk at the office or at the perimeter of our home."

The three installations are located within walking distance of one another in Shoreditch, London, a deliberate contrast to Shoreditch’s urban setting. They are all rectangular forms, with walls made from several layers of transparent, corrugated polycarbonate. The green of the plants shines through the walls while from the inside, the materials of the walls offer a diffused connection with the outside world and, say the designers, "generate an intimate, private space amid the hustle and bustle beyond".

The three rooms that make up the installation differ in size and intended use. The Connect Space is a place for meeting up and catching up, the Create Space offers an ambience conducive to work (specifically for making pitches and presentations), and the Relax Space has lots of plants and provides a space in which to take a step back and relax. Visitors enter via the underside of the installation and there is a bench inside on which to take a breather. 

The MINI LIVING “Forests” installation is open to the public and available for use during the London Design Festival (17 – 25 September) at Vince Court, Charles Square Gardens, and the
Corner of Pitfield Street and Charles Square. --------------------------------------------------------

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The Brokedown Palace

A perfect post with Christmas coming up, the Brokedown Palace is an online shop selling worldwide from its shedquarters, a wooden cabin on the bank of the River Lea in Hackney Wick, London. Here's what they say about it all:

Everything we stock is inspired by cabin lifestyle, from essential survival kit to décor and clothes. This doesn’t mean it’s only for cabins – we believe you can bring a bit of cabin spirit into any part of your life. Cabin life is about being close to nature and this informs everything we do. 

If you're an ethical shopper, this is very much for you - items are made from, and packaged up in, ecologically friendly materials made in fair labour conditions, and the shop positively supports small businesses and traditional crafts. Indeed, stock is kept in a secure storage unit powered by 100% renewable energy sources.

In terms of shedworking, the cabin is made from FSC accredited slow grown Swedish pine, while the interior is made from reclaimed floorboards from a demolished Edwardian factory. The roof is made from recycled tyres and cardboard. The decking area is made from reused oak sleepers.

And last week they opened a store at the Boxpark pop-up mall in Shoreditch, a shopping mall made entirely of old shipping containers. They are in Unit 24 (see below).

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Total Office Design

Total Office Design: 50 Contemporary Workplaces is a new book by Helen Parton and Kerstin Zumstein published by Thames & Hudson (who will be publishing the Bookshelf book early 2012). It's a marvellous, well-illustrated look at interesting workplaces, none of which are boring, expensive or harmful to the environment (you'll recognise a few which have been featured on Shedworking over the years but the majority will be fresh delights).

The book - which is out now and available in all the normal places - is organized into separate sections featuring small, medium and large projects, each one fully illustrated with photographs, drawings and plans. It's as thorough a job as you'd expect from Zumstein and Parton who are specialist design and architect journalists, familiar to many of you from their work at onoffice magazine which is one of our daily reads.

We asked Helen to pick our four of the most shedlike entries exclusively for Shedworking and here they are:

Bearstech, Paris
This is an office of an IT firm Bearstech in Paris. The architect, Paul Coudamy, sourced scrap wood from skips around Paris to create a cave-like (or could that be shedlike) interior within an interior and a seriously cosy atmosphere.


YCN, London
This is the office of a creative agency that promotes design in Shoreditch. The designer, Tomas Klassnik, used inexpensive materials such as plywood, as often found in the shed, and plenty of surfaces on which to brainstorm. There was a real DIY ethos to this project, something any shedworker would be proud of!


Van Der Architects Studio, Tokyo
In order to think outside the box, Van Der Architects brought the box, or make the walls from an old Japanese house inside. The result is distinctly shedlike. The idea with the design of this office is to make the employees feel like it's a home from home, hence the domestic influences.


KK Outlet, London
Is it an advertising agency, is it a shop, is it a gallery space? Well this Hoxton Square space, designed by architects FAT, is all three. It's an intimate space, not much bigger than your average shed, and uses quite basic materials such as rubber flooring and ceramic tiling but nonetheless manages to be an inspiring working environment where great ideas are born.

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Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

Joe Dunthorne: carriageworker

Author Joe Dunthorne is one of the creative workers (I'll not use the term shedworker for reasons that will become apparent...) who works in Village Underground in Shoreditch which we featured last year. Dunthorne, author of Submarine, works in one of the refurbished carriages on top of a massage parlour. But as he told journalist Oliver Shah in an excellent interview at Shah's blog, he enjoys the sense of community working closeby to other creatives, saying:

“You get to speak to people, you get to say good morning and drink tea in the sunshine and chat and stuff, which I think is really important. I’m not convinced how well I would flourish in the shed at the bottom of the garden.”

Village Underground - carriageworking

The marvellous shedlike offices of Shoreditch-based Village Underground, which were on show over the weekend as part of Open House London, are highlighted by Bonnie Alter at Treehugger (where there are lots more photos). Covered with graffiti on the outside, slickly smart on the inside, these four ex-Tube carriages have been lobbed onto Victorian arches and turned into offices. Good Treehugger that she is, Bonnie points out that all the cars have carbon-neutral heat and power and are ecologically outfitted. The carriages/creative studios are part of what Village Underground describe as a new cultural space in the area. Shedworking at its finest. And at this rate we'll have to start up a new carriageworking site.

Studiomama - Beach Chalet

London-based Studiomama is owned by the designer Nina Tolstrup who also built a rather lovely beach hut at Whitstable. As she says in an article for The Guardian:

"I was brought up in Denmark, so being outdoors and by the sea is something that's ingrained in me. I live in Shoreditch, east London, and though we have a roof terrace, it doesn't really count as a green space, so the possibility of escaping is a real treat. That's another very Danish thing - when you get into the mould of family life, you get a summer house."

The hut is 388 square feet plus front and back decks, has a vast window looking onto the sea, a wood burner and contains children's bunk beds and a double bed on the mezzanine level. It was constructed by a local builder, on galvanised steel stilts to stop flooding, with the cedar shingles adding a Scandinavian touch (inside it is clad with sawn softwood).