01.

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

—Antoine de Saint-Exupery

02.

The Eames Plywood Elephant.

While the Eames Plywood Elephant may not seem like the beginning of a serious idea, it represents an important step in the development of the moulded plywood technique. Together with the Plywood Chairs, the sculptural animal came to symbolise a new era within the modern design industry and plywood soon became a favoured material for other furniture designers around the world.

—via Vitra

03.

NK Woodworking & Design.

Craftsperson Nathie Katzoff uses his background in ship woodworking and restoration to create striking wooden bathtubs. With his team at NK Woodworking & Design, he produces custom pieces that mimic vessels you’d find on the sea—although this time, they contain the water.

—via My Modern Met

04.

Volvo Design System.

The Volvo Cars design system covers the fundamentals of grids, typography, colour, iconography and photography. By consistently using this system, it provides purpose and cohesion to every interaction that customers have with the brand. Along with a set of simplified principles that can be used in your daily work.

—via Volvo

05.

Sir Terry Farrell.

Back in 2019, Monocle’s Josh Fehnert sat down with architect Sir Terry Farrell whose postmodern pastiche of styles include the MI6 building and the Breakfast Television Centre in London. His six-decade career has veered from masterplanning city blocks to building train stations in China. He talks about his life before architecture, the buildings he remembers most fondly and living in a former Spitfire factory.

—via M24

06.

Lofi Cafe.

Tune in to lofi.cafe to focus, work, study, or relax. You'll find a curated selection of live lofi stations pulled directly from YouTube, all housed in a beautiful online player with retro themes backgrounds. Created by Fabrizio Rinaldi and Marianna Di Vito the site also includes a Pomodoro watch for you to work/take a break using the famous productivity technique.

—via lofi.cafe

07.

Hansaviertel Berlin.

The Hansaviertel was almost completely destroyed by bombing raids, particularly after 1943. Of the 343 buildings, about 300 lay in ruins at the end of the Second World War, and the rest were badly damaged. As an inner-city expanse of rubble, the Hansaviertel was to become a symbol of Berlin’s will to renew itself. In 1952, 53 architects from 13 countries were invited to take part in a competition. All of the architects were advocates of the modern western ideas of “Neues Bauen” (“New Building”), including Alvar Aalto, Werner Düttmann, Egon Eiermann, Walter Gropius, Arne Jacobsen, Oscar Niemeyer and Max Taut, as well as the Dutch architectural firm Van den Broek & Bakema. In 1956, the Hansaviertel was redeveloped according to their designs.

Thank you to Present & Correct for leading us to this.

—via Hansaviertel

08.

How Architecture Impacts Our Mental Health.

Made for Channel 4 True Stories Black History Month 2020, spoken word poet LionHeart has spent three years researching the effects that architecture can have on our mental wellbeing. This short documentary is a call to arms for the nation to start taking note of our surroundings.

After social anxiety led him to introversion and silence, the brutalist architecture of London’s Barbican Estate inspired Rhael ‘LionHeart’ Cape to find liberation in poetry. Learn about his story on the Welcome Collection site.

—via YouTube

09.

The Natural Order of Things.

A recent walk in an ancient woodland for a new project inspired us to share a few thoughts on the impact of wildness and geometry in the buildings we make.

—via Hyde + Hyde Architects

Thank you for reading our newsletter.
A curation of good things.
We hope it has inspired you.

Hyde + Hyde Architects
www.hydearchitects.com