Areaware Cubebots 

Donald Rattner WA-AS-TA-HX-CU-1_1

Wiley Prefab Architecture

June 13th, 2013

The Free Universal Construction Kit

One of the theories behind open-ended construction toys like the ubiquitous LEGOs, or Tinker Toys, or Lincoln Logs, or Zoob, is that they are, well, open-ended – materially as well as creatively. By the latter we mean that there is no single, defined ‘end’ stipulated by the nature of the toy at the front end (except for the sort of  pre-defined sets that LEGO has come out with recently, like their famous building series). Instead, users can assemble, disassemble and re-assemble the pieces ad infinitum simply by re-arranging, adding and/or subtracting them.

The act of adding pieces relates to the first term referenced above, namely, that these toys are open-ended on a material basis – in other words, they can be manufactured in unlimited quantities, at least theoretically. Nothing about them or their production method needs to change and, as industrially produced objects, can be imagined to emanate from the assembly line without necessarily involving the human hand and its implications of mortality.

One aspect of these toys, however, is very much constrained, and that is the fact that the pieces from one toy do not physically connect to pieces from another. Until now, that is.

To remedy this long-standing limitation, the good folks at F.A.T. Lab and Sy-Lab came up with the Free Universal Construction Kit. Free, in that you don’t have to pay to get a download of the file used to manufacture this collection of connectors designed to unite an otherwise disparate group of leading modular construction toys. The only hitch is that you have to have access to a 3D printer, perhaps by acquiring one of the new desktop models being produced by companies like Makerbot, using an online service like Shapeways, or freeloading on your local university or institution.

What you’ll get after you run the file is 80 adapter bricks designed to interface with modules from Duplo, Fischertechnik, Gears! Gears! Gears!, K’Nex, Krinkles (Bristle Blocks) and Zome in addition to the ones already mentioned above, creating what its inventors call a “network of toys”. Explains one member of the team: “That’s really what every kid wants, an unrestricted set of tools to express their imagination physically.” Hey, some of us adults are kind of into it too!

Like most things worth doing, the kit’s design took a good bit of effort to finalize. Interestingly, with all the high tech tools at their disposal, at the end of the day a lot of physical trial and error with one prototype after another was needed to achieve the tolerances for things to connect properly. If nothing else, we are once again reminded that for all the shift to a technological perspective, we are still living in a material world (cue the music!).

Check out the video below to see the Universal Construction Kit in action.

Via Co.Design

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May 30th, 2013

Modular Architecture Hits The Beach

Among the many effects of Hurricane Sandy, the lack of suitable beach facilities surviving the storm threatened an important though seasonal component of the region’s economic and cultural health. Destroyed bathrooms, changing rooms, and lifeguard stations could have had a major dampening effect on the economic and cultural livelihood of New York City’s coastal recreation areas, such as Rockaway Beach and Coney Island, as well as many Staten Island and Bronx beaches.

Fortunately, the New York City government has teamed with Garrison Architects to salvage the situation with a series of modular beach facilities to be deployed this summer. The prefab pavilions, 35 in total, are being manufactured in Pennsylvania and will be delivered as single units to their respective sites. Conforming in size to interstate trucking limits, the pavilions will house comfort stations, lifeguard stations, and offices for Parks Enforcement Patrol and Maintenance and Operations Staff.

Built on pre-installed concrete piers, the pavilions will sit at or above FEMA’s revised Advisory Base Flood Elevations (ABFEs), which means a long ramp up and a terrific skateboard experience down. But if that’s the price we have to pay for having the pavilions make it through the next tsunami, then we say go for it.

Via Architzer

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April 18th, 2013

Planter Bricks: A 3D Printed Living Wall

Planter Bricks is a new concept for a living wall, and it’s really growing on us. Two aspects of the bricks distinguish them from the conventional definitions of this traditional building unit. First, the bricks are 3D printed, meaning they are digitally manufactured from computer files.  And second, they’re shaped to serve as containers for growing plants and vegetation when used to clad a building wall.

Created by Emerging Objects, a design and research subsidiary of Rael San Fratello Architects specializing in 3D printed objects for the built environment, Planter Bricks would be very difficult to create by hand or require expensive machinery to produce or reproduce.  One reason is the variety of shapes that the bricks exhibit; many vary in size and shape, with differently sized cavities and diverse profiles. Arrayed randomly across an expanse of wall the irregularly distributed pockets of vegetation suggest the free and unpredictable character of organic growth itself.

During construction, the bricks can be assembled in a load bearing cavity wall, installed as a traditional masonry curtain wall on a steel or concrete frame, combined with traditional bricks in new walls, or retrofitted for existing walls.  Indentations in the bricks accept water much like weep holes, while a network of drip irrigation lines built into the cavity of the masonry wall irrigate the plants, the water pumped up from below or gravity fed from a cistern or water collection device on the roof.  Edible plants and fragrant herbs with shallow root systems such as rosemary can be harvested through openings in the wall.

Because the manufacturing process requires no dies or molds, products can be mass-customized rather than mass-produced, taking advantage of the flexibility and speed computer-aided manufacturing provides. It’s also an environmentally sensitive manufacturing method in leaving little or no waste behind.

Planter Bricks benefit the environment in other ways as well. The plants they contain buffer sound, help filter surrounding air, and mediate a building’s micro-climate through evapotranspiration and pollution conversion. We’re already feeling a bit better just writing about it!

Via Urban Gardens

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April 4th, 2013

Kickstarchitecture: Containers For Detroit

If shipping containers by their nature connote industrialism, it stands to reason that re-purposed shipping containers would be associated with post-industrialism. What more appropriate place, then, to see these newly favored architectural units used than in Detroit, symbol par excellence of a post-industrial America?

Perhaps anticipating the incipient re-birth of this tragically downcast city, a project to build a 36-room boutique hotel and creative space to be located in the city’s Eastern Market is underway. As a first step in the development, organizer Shel Kimen, a former NYC design and marketing guru who returned to her hometown a few years back, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for erecting two containers to serve as a temporary community center.

Set to open for Flower Day when some 200,000 visitors flock to Eastern Market, the center (dubbed First Container) is imagined by Kimen and design form KOOP AM as a lounge space complete with couches and Internet access. More than that, it’s an opportunity to share stories and foster the local business community, which has been coming back to life in recent years. Programming for First Container will include “lunch and learn” events for market workers to share experiences as well as contribute to an oral history project to document the Market’s legacy. At the end of its six-month installation, First Container will be moved three blocks to the lot housing the future hotel. There it will sit until it is incorporated as the first of many containers that will make up the hotel lobby.

To help the cause First Container needs to raise $37,000 in a mere two weeks. Check out the video below, then consider funding this community storytelling project on Kickstarter.

Via Cool Hunting

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March 7th, 2013

CHECK IN TO THE HOTEL IKEA

The masters of modular merchandise are making the move into the hospitality market with the equally mega-corporation Marriott International. IKEA has announced that it will be partnering with the global hotelier to create a new mid-market (read: small rooms) hotel brand. It will be called Moxy, which is great because now we can use more words that start with M!

But…in a strange twist the hotels will NOT use IKEA furniture for the interiors (what, they’re not affordable enough? won’t stand up to the kind of pounding guests will subject it to?). Still, there’s some consolation and thematic continuity in the deal insofar as the hotels will be built using high-rise modular construction techniques. Whew – we were worried there wouldn’t be any reason we’d want to write this post!

Via Wall Street Journal

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February 14th, 2013

WHEELS UP: TEN MODULAR BIKE STANDS

The signs are everywhere: bicycles are the wave of the future when it comes to moving people around towns and cities. Their sustainability, moderate space consumption, and inducement to healthy exercise makes them an ideal fit for the kinds of humane habitats people are longing for in the 21st century. But with their increased use comes some happy problems, of which the most ironic is perhaps the lack of…parking. Trying to address this shortcoming inevitably brings up a host of other issues that also need to be addressed, such as security, the successful integration of bike storage with the urban landscape, cost management, and aesthetic appeal. Sounds to us like a job for designers!

And here they are: ten innovative bike stands that also happen to be modular (you knew that was coming, didn’t you?). Why modular? Because it completely makes sense. Since bicycles tend to follow a consistent pattern in their overall shape and arrangement of parts, a bike rack lends itself to the use of a single repetitive storage unit that can be multiplied in rows ad infinitum (that means, like forever). For reasons of cost, or available space, or projected needs, a modular bike rack can be tailored in size to suit whatever context it may be applied to. No more being undersized or too big too fit − it’s a planner’s dream!

Okay, so let’s roll them out…

Bicycle Security by Grant Howarth
Sadly, as more bikes get used more bikes get stolen. With that in mind, Scottish designer Grant Howarth has popped up with an innovative design called “Bicycle Security” that doesn’t simply provide a proper parking place for bikes but strives to keep them safe from thieves as well as collateral damage. The vertical orientation of the stand makes it particularly useful for use in tight quarters, such as on sidewalks and alongside buildings. And Howarth’s accommodation of advertisements on the side panels of the multi-unit designs shows a common sense approach to the need to fund these urban amenities.

 

My Parking Zone
“My Parking Zone” by Korean designer Hojoon Lim is a smart parking stand that not only provides bike storage but also serves as a solar-powered charger for portable devices, a weather forecasting station for finding out if you’ll be rained on while cycling home, and refilling station should you run over a field of smashed windshield glass and pop a hole in your tire. Oh and did we mention that it has a bench where you can rest and refresh yourself for the next leg of your journey?

Long-term Bicycle Parking Station
As “My Parking Zone” suggests, the need for multifunctional installations is acute in fast growing urban environments, where space is at a premium. Israeli designer Yinnon Lehrer meets this need head on with his innovative bicycle parking station intended to provide useful facilities within a network of bike lanes. Of special interest to us is that the structure is devised as a kit of prefabricated and recyclable parts.


Unlike most modular bike stands, this design features a flexible, two-storey configuration that can accommodate a range of functions on each level, from bike stands to public washrooms and shower facilities, from lounge areas to food services. This would allow municipalities to choose from a menu of potential uses that will best suit their constituents’ needs.

PITIN
Displayed at the ZERO exhibition during Tokyo Design Week, the “PITIN” from Muu Design Studio, a Tokyo-based store, is a novel bike facility that actually invites you to stick around the rack for a while rather than lock up and walk way. Here’s how it works: you ride (slowly please) your bike right up into the stand, then sit on your seat as you eat lunch or work on your laptop, thanks to a deep tabletop positioned for the biker’s easy access. Well, that’s different!

ZIG
Sometimes simple is superior. Developed at Virginia Tech’s College of Architecture and Urban Studies, the “ZIG” by designer Catherine Worsham is a versatile modular furniture unit that its designers say can be arranged to serve as a bike rack, a bench, and edge fencing. Honestly, we’re not quite sure about the fencing part, and the bench seems a little wobbly. But the bike rack? No problem!. Exhibited at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in Milan, Italy as well as the Cologne Furniture Fair and ICFF in New York, the ZIG is lasercut from 10 gauge steel.

Marguerite Bike Rack
This design stands out from the crowd by virtue of its 1) moving parts and 2) inspiration in organic nature. Taking a cue from the natural world, Italian designer Yoann Henry Yvon’s design features several rows of bike racks resembling flower petals growing out of a flower’s ovary. We like the fact that the petals can swivel on their base, which adds some helpful flexibility when it comes to actually wrapping a lock through a bike and its stand.

Lean Bike Rack
It’s all good to say people are going to ride bikes around town instead of cars, but you still have to know where you’re going. Addressing this issue, designer Alex Diener has come up with an innovative bike rack called “Lean” that doubles as a map stand. We’re not so sure the map function is all that necessary in the age of smartphones and GPS, and maybe Mr. Diener sensed that too, because he also designed the stand as a piece of street furniture where bikers could repose for a spell without necessarily locking up their bikes. Guess that’s why he didn’t call it “Map” instead.

Ubicycle
This design takes a page from the dynamics of automobile use by reasoning that the easier it is for people to use a bike the more likely they are to actually do it. The Dcontinuum modular bike racking station is therefore as much an architectural or product design as it is an economic model for encouraging bike use by promoting bike sharing. Users get access to bikes by obtaining a key card with their account information and credits stored on it, which they can then use to pull out a bike from stations scattered across a locale. Bikes are left at their destinations for others to access. Kind of like ZipCar for bikers.

Bikes and Chill
Multi-functionality goes a long way. The designer firm Aaarchitecten BV, in coloration with UQ Design, has conceived a space-saving yet functional bike garage called “Bikes and Chill” that integrates public seating with bike storage. (Guess these folks missed the lesson about parallel construction − wouldn’t it have sounded better if it had been called “Bike and Chill”?)

Made from RFC, each module is cast in the shape of a seat with a large canopy extending to the rear. When joined together the canopy creates a shed for slipping parked bicycles underneath. Modules can be arrayed in different configurations and cast in different colors to suit the context.

Tree Guard Bike Stand
Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time: combine a tree guard with a bike stand, and make people and trees happy together! Designer Antonio Meze apparently thought so, and came up with this design for an intriguing urban amenity that combines a long-time street fixture with one of newer vintage. We think the concept has merits, but first it needs a few tweaks. For one thing, trees need soil, and don’t rise out of rain-swept concrete plazas as the rendering suggests. Putting bikes on the root pit may not be the best thing for the tree, although admittedly one might use a grate to protect the soil. But even before that, pleeeaaaase come up with a new paint color!

via Design Buzz

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January 31st, 2013

CONTAIN(ER) YOURSELF IN THIS HOME

Out of many prefab house concepts we’ve seen lately, this one stands out. And folds out. Created by New Zealand based architect studio Atelierworkshop, the house is an attractive reincarnation of a prosaic shipping container. Just like a regular container it ships anywhere in a truck or a helicopter, can be placed easily on a site and makes for a comfortable habitat. (The family in the pictures count as many as four people, though two of them are quarter-size humans – for now.)

The interior fits bunk beds, a master bedroom, dressing room, kitchen and bathroom. The space can be zoned with dividers for increased versatility. Exterior canvas screens provide privacy when needed. And, if you’re not perched in a parking lot, you can pop out walls to expand your living space into the great outdoors.

The container house is environmentally sound and self-sufficient, though we caution about placing it in just any greenfield you might come across. Besides harming the environment, squatters rights just don’t cut it anymore with the authorities!

Atelierworkshop is looking for partners to mass produce the concept. Know anybody?

via Shoebox Dwelling

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January 24th, 2013

MICRO MODULAR HI-RISES: TALLER AND SMALLER

The apartment of New York City’s future, as the city imagines it, has all the amenities of modern life: wheelchair-accessible bathroom, a full kitchen, space for entertaining and access to a gym, communal lounge, front and back porches and a rooftop garden — all in 250 to 370 square feet.

The most heartwarming part for us? The 10-story tower will utilize modular construction, becoming Manhattan’s first apartment building to do so. That means units will be prefabricated in a factory environment, then stacked on top of one another like LEGOs. As usual these days, Manhattan is behind the curve set by culturally astute Brookyn, which has already stretched modular architecture to the limits with the country’s tallest hi-rise modular tower.

The scheme came about as a result of a competition to design and build an apartment tower composed entirely of micro-units, 55 homes the size of hotel rooms that Mayor Michael Bloomberg (he of the seven homes all the size of McMansions) hopes will be the first in a wave of tiny apartments aimed at addressing the city’s shortage of studio and one-bedroom apartments.

Small as it might be, the winning design was chosen for the way that it maximized light, airiness and storage space through the use of 9-foot-high ceilings, large windows, lofts and Juliet balconies.

“We have a shortfall now of 800,000, and it’s only going to get worse,” Mayor McMansion said during the news conference announcing the winning team, a partnership between Monadnock Development, Brooklyn-based nARCHITECTS and a nonprofit that serves creative arts professionals, the Actors Fund Housing Development Corporation. “This is going to be a big problem for cities with young people.” Actually, for any city with people.

Forty percent of the units will be affordable (a relative term), restricted to tenants earning no more than $77,190 a year, with the rest at market rate. Rents start at $914 a month for those earning up to $38,344 a year, well below Manhattan’s average studio rent of $2,000, and go up to $1,873 for those making $77,190 (where did they get that number from?) or less.

If the interior renderings are any indication, the micro-units are designed to appeal most to young professionals, perhaps to a young academic: a person who requires lots of bookshelves for scholarly tomes and hosts the occasional dinner party. (In other words, the architects who made the renderings.)

“But there’s another side to the person — he or she likes to surf and so on,” said Eric Bunge, a principal at nARCHITECTS. Thus the bright-green surfboard, depicted in an interior rendering as stowed in a large loft storage space. (Okay, architects who surf.)

But he was quick to caution that the micro-units could be for anyone, from retirees to the nurses at nearby Bellevue Hospital Center. Apart from the kitchen and bathroom, the space is designed to be flexible, he said: “It’s all about appropriating your space, really.” We think he means that the space is flexible.

The announcement was made at the Museum of the City of New York, whose new exhibit, “Making Room: New Models for Housing New Yorkers,” displays the winning proposal alongside a different 325-square-foot micro-unit model that features an electric toilet that doubles as a bidet; Italian shower fixtures; a Murphy bed that pulls down over a hot-pink sofa, a flat-screen TV that slides to reveal extra shelving and a coffee table-cum-ottoman that deconstructs into four stools. (Tenants: please consult our catalog of space saving products here.)

As for whether people would consider living in one, the answer on the streets of Kips Bay, perhaps predictably, seemed to depend on whether you asked a Manhattan dweller or a suburbanite.

Cataline Vincent, 26, who works at Bellevue, said she had struggled to find affordable rentals on her $40,000 salary. “In New York City, space is limited, and we’re willing to settle for what we can get,” she said. “In New York, people will live in a garbage can!”

Others were quicker to turn up their noses.

“I wouldn’t keep a dog in that size room,” said one woman, indignantly.

She declined to give her name, but she said she lived in New Jersey. (No jokes, please.)

via The New York Times City Room Blog

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December 20th, 2012

Annual Top 10 Sustainable Modular Designs

When we judge a product’s sensitivity to the environment, we often focus on its physical properties — what it’s made of, how much energy it consumes, and what kind of impact it will have on the landscape if it’s discarded. Less commonly thought about is how a product’s formal qualities — its design — can contribute to the goal of sustainability.

Consider modular design, which refers to the combination of standardized and interchangeable parts, or modules, to form larger compositions. LEGOs are probably the best known example of a modular system of design, but many other products reflect the same idea.

In what ways does modular design support environmentalism? To answer that question, start by asking yourself when the last time was that you or your child threw out any LEGOs. Because modular products by definition encourage reuse and renewal rather than disposability, they serve to reduce waste and consumption. So does the fact that you can usually acquire modules “by the piece,” which allows you to gather just the right quantity of product that your budget, or your space, allows — and then to add more if circumstances change later.

As a practicing architect, I was introduced to the concept of modularity when commissioned to design a group of prefab cottages for a resort project. The premise of designing an object, architectural or otherwise, within a limited predetermined palette of standardized units struck me as opening a rich vein in creative possibility. I soon began to explore modularity as manifested in a variety of artistic disciplines, which in turn led me to discover that there was no single resource for art and product design exhibiting the modular characteristics of mutability, flexibility and interactivity. MODULE R was born to fill that gap.

The MODULE R catalog now numbers over a thousand pieces, and out of that assortment I’ve pulled out a half-dozen works of sustainable modular design to demonstrate that something which looks good can also do good. A few more examples which we don’t carry because they’re either just too big or are still in a concept phase round out our top ten list of sustainable modular designs for the year.

Tegu Magnetic Blocks
Modular design implies play, and play starts with childhood. So it’s not surprising that many children’s toys are modular, and foster the kind of open-ended free play that stimulates mental development. One of our favorites, Tegu blocks are fabricated from sustainably sourced, eco-friendly Honduran hardwoods and assembled by local craftspeople.

AMAC’s Rhombin Desktop Storage and Play
Who says play has to stop with childhood? AMAC’s Rhombin Desktop Storage units are bins in the shape of equilateral triangles, and are designed to stack as well as cluster together in limitless configurations. Made in California using Cereplast, a plant-based bioplastic.

Honeycomb Trivets
Hexagons are one of nature’s most pristine modular forms (think honeycombs) by virtue of their ability to abut without leaving any gaps between them. Speaking of honeycombs, these colorful silicone trivets are free of BPA, lead, latex, phthalates and other harsh chemicals, and are 100 percent recyclable.

Shigeru Ban 10-Unit Modular Furniture System
Have a seat—or a table, or bench, or pew. Designed by famed Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, you can make all of these from the 10 L-shaped modules that come in the package. Modules are made from UPM ProFi, an environmentally innovative composite fashioned principally from recycled paper and plastic.

MIO Paperforms Wall Paneling
Who said walls need to be flat? Transform a space with environmentally friendly PaperForms sculptural wall tiles. They’re a lightweight and recyclable paper product that can be left natural or painted. Tiles are 12 inches square and come in three styles, each with a boldly projecting three-dimensional motif.

Untitled Modular Art
Mark our words: co-creative art is the wave of the future. But don’t wait that long to get on board. Trevor Elliott’s Untitled Modular Art system gives people a painless way of being their own artist, with no training required. Simply connect pieces of reclaimed wood embedded with magnets to each other to form beautiful tableaus suitable for ogling by friends and family.

Ze O Ze Modular Shoes
Thanks to a young industrial designer, Daniele Bekerman, ladies may one day finally be able to say au revoir to the mismatched shoe blues. Her Ze o Ze is a modular shoe concept that envisions footwear with adjustable and interchangeable parts so that a person can swap out heels and bodies, change colors, and modulate styles from casual to formal.

Praxis Modular Guitars
As different in concept as it is in appearance, the Praxis Modular Guitar is a bold new vision for electric musical instruments. Guitar components are not only designed to be swapped out at will, but they’re also intended to be made from recycled, salvaged and upcycled materials using community workshop tools.

(Re)Plant Collection by Art Terre
The great outdoors is fertile ground for modular design these days. Take Art Terre’s (Re)Plant Collection, which is an expandable system of planters suspended vertically in a chain of steel ladder steps and cables. The hanging apparatus is recycled PVC textile material salvaged from the automotive industry. (Re)Plant works equally well indoors.

World’s Tallest Modular Building, Brooklyn, New York
Topping out the list of this year’s most significant modular designs has to be the new 32-story apartment building by SHoP Architects that’s just starting to rise in downtown Brooklyn. Modular homes, classroom buildings and commercial structures have long been part of the landscape, but this project represents the highest profile test yet of the boundaries of modular construction. And since high density development is by many measures the greenest form of human habitat, it appears modular architecture has a huge potential to advance the quest for sustainability.

Images courtesy of Tegu, Module R, Shigeru Ban Architects, MIO, Trevor Elliott, Daniele Bekerman, Praxis Guitars, Art Terre, and SHoP Architects.

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November 26th, 2012

GIFTS FOR ARCHITECTS (AND PEOPLE LIKE THEM)

 

 

ABOVE: Roy Toy Log Cabin Sets. Designed by Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright’s son (!).

We admit to having a soft-spot for architects. After all, we’ve been one since…well, never mind.

Maybe it’s something in the way this species is wired, but there is a propensity for architects to experience an affinity for design objects possessed of certain qualities. As might be expected, we tend to gravitate towards things that incorporate acts of assembly, structural comprehension, spatial reasoning, composition, three-dimensional configuration, and beauty. So when it comes to buying us stuff for holidays, celebrations or personal occasions, we’re actually pretty easy to shop for since you can quickly hone in on those classes of objects that are most likely to please us.

That said, we thought we’d help you out during the holiday season with a short list of pieces in the MODULE R catalog that will satisfy not only the professional architect, but builders, interior designers, craftspeople, furniture makers and those from the allied trades and disciplines associated with the construction of the built environment. Oh yes, and the people who love them!

ABOVE: Architectural Standard Unit Blocks by Melissa and Doug.

Blocks

Perhaps no product better embodies the architect’s mindset than blocks, and no legend better connects the two than the story about Frank Lloyd Wright and Froebel Blocks. Wright recalls in a letter than when he was 9 years old his mother, who was central to guiding him towards a career in architecture, bought him a set of wood blocks that had a huge effect on his mental development. While he did not name Froebel’s design specifically, it is not unreasonable to identify this ground-breaking invention of the mid-19th century as the most likely source for the mother’s gift.

ABOVE LEFT: Fröbel Blocks by Friedrich Fröbel. MIDDLE: Cubicus by Peer Clahsen for Naef. RIGHT: Gochi House Blocks.

The connection between blocks and architecture seems self-evident. It’s also no coincidence we speak of building blocks both literally as small, cubic bits of mass and figuratively as representing the foundation of something. Many children like to play with blocks; an architect is just a kid who never stopped doing it.

ABOVE: Model Container Homes. Think of them as a starter home for the architecturally minded. Collector’s pieces suitable for display on your architecturally designed mantel or tabletop!

Miniature Buildings

Think of miniature buildings as a busman’s holiday for architects. When we haven’t had enough of the real thing at work, we can always retreat into the fantasy world of diminutive architecture. Freed from the constraints of time, money, weather and building inspectors, miniature buildings allow us to indulge in pure imagination and speculation. We especially like them because we can literally get our arms around them, and because at the end of the day they will still belong to us.

ABOVE: Dollhouses by Brinca Dada. LEFT: Edwards House. MIDDLE: Dylan House. RIGHT: Maison Collection of Interior Furnishings.

ABOVE: Elemen’tary Interchangeable Screwdriver Sets.

Tools and Hardware

Architects love to build, so it’s no wonder they admire the implements people use in the act of construction. One of our favorites is the Elemen’tary Interchangeable Screwdriver Set. The history of this product is a familiar one. An English gentleman was looking for a professional quality screwdriver for cabinet making that was comfortable, simple and durable. Not finding it, he started a company to get them produced. And here they are. Made in England, which once upon a time made the world.

ABOVE LEFT: WordLock. MIDDLE: Switch Modular Pocketknife. RIGHT: Pivot Power.

ABOVE: Eames House of Cards. Inspired design from Charles and Ray Eames.

Fun and Games

Hey, architects just wanna have fun! A classic architect’s toy is the Eames House of Cards. Designed by famed American designers Charles and Ray Eames, the newly reissued version of their House of Cards was created by selecting 32 images from their pattern and picture decks of 1952. The cards celebrate what the Eameses saw as familiar and nostalgic objects from the animal, mineral and vegetable kingdoms. Included in the images are many vibrant patterns and fabrics from assorted cultures. Six slots on each card interlock for building your own Casa of Cards.

Cookware, Books and More

This is just a sampling of the kinds of things architects and their colleagues enjoy. Check out some of these links on our store site for architecturally minded cookware, books and more!

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Mission

MODULE R is a concept store focused on transformable art and design. We collect pieces from all over the world that are customizable, reconfigurable, expandable, stackable, interchangeable, interactive and modular. Our catalogue includes accessories, books, furniture, children’s playthings, cookware, jewelry, lighting, storage systems, space dividers, floor and wall coverings, and artwork. In bringing this collection together – and authoring this blog – we hope to promote flexible design as an ideal way of making things in an age that prizes personalization, multi-functionality, economy and experience.

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