DZINE inspires

Our Halloween display has become a source of inspiration for the team at Remodelista. To achieve a similar look for your own personal Halloween display try blending traditional Halloween decorations like skulls and crows, adding elements from your home like the candelabras, and of course what would be a Halloween display without gourds and pumpkins!

Take a look at Remodelista's post below. 

http://remodelista.com/posts/accessories-ghoulish-decor

Zanotta - La poesia del design - Design poetry

This video was produced by Zanotta SpA and was presented at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco during a lecture organized by DZINE and the Furniture Design department at CCA.  Take a look below:



Zanotta - La poesia del design from DZINE

American Store Windows

DZINE was featured in the September issue of the highly recognized international design magazine DDN Design Diffusion News.  The article Vetrine Americane - American Store Windows, by Luciana Cuomo, takes a look at some of the Italian furniture brands in the windows and store displays of the top seven furniture showrooms for the North American market.  Two images of DZINE's Boffi studio, one being a full page spread are included in the article.

 

Halloween Display at DZINE

With Halloween right around the corner DZINE has become festive!  In the window of our Norbert Wangen K2 display we have decorated in the Halloween spirit. Using traditional Halloween decorations, accessories from around the showroom, and some found objects we have created our own DZINE Halloween.

Take a look at the photos below or come on in and see it for yourself!

Trick or Treat!

Lissoni designed Studio M hotel in Singapore

The new Studio M hotel is situated on the Singapore River, just a short walk from the Clark Quay district.  The hotel reception is the symbol of this project and is fitted out to resemble a modern temple with glass walls.  The guests are welcomed in this evocative space which accommodates two imposing sculpture tables, white painted metal islands, over one of which hangs a five-meter high over sized lamp in steel tubing. 

In addition to redefining the entrance and outfitting the room interiors, the work also envisages the design of the public areas.  A large open space, situated on the second storey, becomes a multi-functional area to include the hanging gardens with palms, bamboo and mirrors of water, the pool, the lounge area, the bar restaurant and also the areas given over to fitness, meditation, and relaxation.

The ventilation was left intentionally simple and natural in the garden through the use of wooden ceiling fans, so highlighting the desire to bestow the feeling of a protective and relaxing atmosphere, in Stark contrast to the frenzy of city life.

The interiors of this floor are organized to combine the simplicity of the wide and open surfaces with the elegant refinement of original and apposite articles, mixed furnishings ranging from vintage to colonial, from multi-ethnic to contemporary.  The lounge-restaurant area is fitted out with freestanding cooking stations and includes a modern take on the English pub, a bar overhung by a large cloud-like fiberglass lamp which casts an aura of light similar to that of an oriental lantern.  The ceiling is covered in anthracite colored bamboo cane.

The duplex rooms with separate bed and living/office areas connected by stairs are conceived both for rest and for work.  Large windows overlook the river, the internal garden and the city skyline, the main point of reference for this project.    

Text courtesy of Lissoni Associati.

Splendor in the Grass

by Jamie Gross for The New York Times T Magazine.

The San Francisco Patient and Resource Center, or Sparc, is not your average pot club. There’s no peephole or scary-looking security guy, no skunky couches or blackened windows. Instead, a collegiate ‘‘community liaison’’ stands by the door answering questions from passers-by and checking membership cards and paperwork. (There’s no fee to join, but you need a doctor’s recommendation to enter.) And with its minimalist oak tables and benches, and jazz on the stereo, Sparc could easily be mistaken for a Japanese teahouse. Welcome to the medical marijuana dispensary of the future.

‘‘Cannabis buyer’s clubs’’ began cropping up in San Francisco in the late 1990s, after Proposition 215, which passed in California in 1996, removed criminal penalties for people who grew or possessed cannabis for their own medical use. Since then, a hodgepodge of legislative enactments and judicial decisions has more or less legalized the medical use of marijuana; today Sparc is one of 24 licensed dispensaries in San Francisco. In November, residents will vote on Proposition 19, a statewide ballot initiative that could legalize marijuana for recreational use in California.

Sparc’s founder, Erich Pearson, has legally grown cannabis in Sonoma and San Francisco Counties for the past 12 years, selling it to medical dispensaries and supplying it for free to critically ill patients in hospices. (Marijuana has been shown to alleviate nausea, neuropathy, pain and insomnia, and to stimulate appetite.) Two years ago, wanting more direct contact with patients, he decided to open his own dispensary, and in the process created a new model for marijuana distribution.

Pearson enlisted Sand Studios, a local architecture firm, to design a space that would help ‘‘remove the stigma around cannabis and make people feel marijuana is normal.’’ After all, as he acknowledged, ‘‘if we’re asking the government and citizens to allow medical cannabis, we have to show them a model they can feel comfortable with.’’

The designer Larissa Sand toured a handful of Bay Area dispensaries to gain a better understanding of the business. (‘‘Nothing against marijuana, but fine wine is my drug of choice,’’ Sand said.) While she was impressed with the sense of community and professionalism among growers and retailers, she found most dispensaries lacking when it came to aesthetics. ‘‘There was nothing current,’’ she said. ‘‘I wanted to create something beautiful, to elevate the product and give it the proper milieu.’’

To that end, Sparc is spare, modern and well lit. Vaguely bong-shaped lights made of borosilicate science glass drip from the ceiling. Steel shelving holds dozens of apothecary-style wood boxes, each containing a different strain or form of lab-tested cannabis. Along another wall, a similar rack displays baby plants for sale. The sales counter is made of local oak, with inset glass-topped drawers exhibiting buds, salves and edibles like snickerdoodle cookies and ‘‘cosmic caramels.’’ According to Sand, such attention to detail sends a message to regulators and members alike that ‘‘this isn’t just some backyard moonshine.’’

Of all Sparc’s design moves, Pearson is proudest of the facility’s semitransparent facade — a cascading grid of steel and glass patterned loosely on marijuana’s DNA and peppered with clear aquamarine panes. It was inspired in part by the Twin Peaks Tavern, a still-extant gay bar in the Castro that is said to have been the first in America to have clear windows (rather than blacked out) when it opened in 1972. ‘‘A glass facade represents transparency, legitimacy and a sort of coming out of the closet,’’ Pearson said. ‘‘It lets people know we’re not afraid of anything, that there’s no shame in it. It’s therapy for a lot of people.’’

Martino Zanotta visits the California Academy of Sciences

During Martino Zanotta's trip to San Francisco, he visited the California Academy of Sciences where DZINE had placed the Cumano table from Zanotta.

The Cumano table was designed by Achille Castiglioni in 1978. He was inspired by the archetype models of folding ironing tables for outdoor use which date back to the late 1800. In redesigning this table, Castiglioni concentrates his attention on the particulars and details, to improve and exalt the product’s functionality.

The outdoor table consists of an enamelled metal top that is supported by three steel rods. A rotating joint moves the legs so that the table may be folded flat. After folding, it can be put away or hung up on the wall with a specially designed wall peg that comes with the table.