PRETTY THINGS: books

1.  “Belgische architecten en hun huis”, or Belgian architects and their home.  Since I’ve been photographing the home of some architects for our magazine Unité, this a subject that interests me a lot.  In this book, several well known architects are portrayed, followed by a reportage about their home. Buy it here.

2.  This little book with photos of Tamara Lichtenstein.  Available for only 8 euros at pogobooks, where you can find many other affordable little books with beautiful photos.

3.  “The solitude of prime numbers“, by Paolo Giordano.  I’ve wanted to read this for so long and now I’ve finally bought it.  Now all I need to do is find some time to dive into the story.

4.  This little book with the first one hundred photos by Angels & Ghosts.  (I’ve blogged about them before.)  Unfortunately it’s sold out.

5. Hedi Slimane: Anthology of a Decade.  It’s a collection of his photographs of the last decade.  I’m a big fan of his work so this should be good!

THINGS THAT MAKE ME SMILE

1. The ‘toy stories‘ series by flickr member fatheed.

2. This DIY for a lace lamp.  Very similar to the lamps I posted some time ago!

3. Pretty bird pillows.  Should be easy to make yourself too!  Via Imelda.

4. Desks of the rich and famous.  This one is Roald Dahl’s.

5.  500 marker drawings, by B.I.B. Studio.  This would be the perfect gift for one of my friends!

6.  Pretty collage.  I don’t remember where I found this, if you do, please let me know!

7.  Things organized neatly.

8.  Miss Moss put film and streetstyle together for le projet d’amour, more here.

9.  Dead drops: ” ‘Dead Drops’ is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space. USB flash drives are embedded into walls, buildings and curbs accessable to anybody in public space. Everyone is invited to drop or find files on a dead drop. Plug your laptop to a wall, house or pole to share your favorite files and data. ”  Fun project!

10.  A camera made out of lego!  It actually works and takes very pretty pictures!  More info here.

EXISTENZ MAXIMUM

This is my last post about our project week, I promise!  These pictures were taken during Existenz Maximum, looking at them makes me so happy!

all pictures taken by me

more information here (only in Dutch)

DIY: Existenz’ light elements

what you need:

  • an inflatable ball, something like a balloon or a beach ball, depending on the shape and size you want (we had beach balls with diameters up to 1m)
  • vaseline
  • wallpaper paste
  • a ball of white wool
  • lamp socket, lamp, etc.  (I’m not the biggest hero when it comes to electricity)

what to do:

  • inflate the ball to the maximum and hang it somewhere, where you can easily move around it
  • cover the ball with vaseline, this will make it easier to remove the ball afterwards
  • drench the white wool in the wallpaper paste and start twisting it around the ball, you need to make sure the circles are always around the biggest diameter of the ball, the threads that go around the entire ball will give the needed strength
  • keep circling the ball until the only spots that aren’t covered are triangles of about 3cm wide, our experiments have prooven that this is what you need to get a firm construction
  • let it dry for 24 hours
  • carefully let the ball deflate and get it out of the woolen sphere
  • insert the lamp socket and lamp, and try attaching it  (you might have to be a little bit creative here, sometimes you can find a hole in the construction that can lock in the lamp socket, or you might have to you use some wire or something else)
  • … and your arty farty light element is done!

If you have the space for such a big light element, you can attach several spheres from different sizes to a bike wheel, like we’ve done here.  But you can just drop the bike wheel and use one sphere as an eyecatcher in your room.

WORK IN PROGRESS

March has been all about renovating and decorating the abandonned orphanage in Leuven for our project week.  (More information about Existenz here.) Here are some pictures from the final week before it was finished and the Existenz Maximum Week started.

This is where we held our opening reception, jive initation and cocktail party.

The bar.

The hallway.

The garden.

all pictures taken by me

WORK IN PROGRESS

March has been all about renovating and decorating the abandonned orphanage in Leuven for our project week.  (More information about Existenz here.) Here are some pictures from the second week (out of three) we worked there.   The pictures are taken with an old analog camera I got from my grandparents as a birthday gift when I was little.  It used to belong to my great-grandfather and I’ve recently started experimenting with it again.  These are some photos from the first roll of film.

This would become or main ‘party room’, for the opening reception, jive lessons and infamous cocktail party.  (It’s free entrance but you have to be fast to get on the guest list, some people that didn’t make the list were litteraly climbing walls of four meters high to try and get in.  Insane.)

The stage in the bar.This is where we organised working with the masters (a workshop where you have the chance to work on a design together with experiencd architects), a quiz, lectures, a debat and so on.

Our gorgeous garden.

The entrance.

View from the bar into the hallway.

This was a wing of the building that we weren’t allowed to use since it’s in very bad condition.  That didn’t stop us from exploring it though!

all pictures taken by me

ROADTRIP TO FRANKFURT

Kapelle St. Bruder-Klaus by Peter Zumthor, located in the middle of nowhere, inbetween fields.


The breathtaking interior of Zumthor’s chapel.  I didn’t know what to expect from the interior, but it certainly wasn’t this.  A must-see.

Kunstmuseul Bonn by Shultes Frank architects.

Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt.

Siedlung Westhausen and Siedlung Römerstadt from Das Neue Frankfurt.  I enjoyed walking in between the small houses and big trees with their pretty shadows.

all pictures taken by me

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