Great Design from Cheap Materials - 5

Ever since I saw the newly designed The Wright Restaurant in NYC's Guggenheim Museum I've been thinking about how this idea could be adapted for a church space.

The museum's site-specific artwork, by Liam Gillick, is of high-end custom extruded aluminum.  But it kind of looks like painted 2x4s, doesn't it?  Note how in the first photo you can see that the widths and depths of the pieces vary; as if some are mounted on their side and some on their edge.

Pick your colors, then mock your project up carefully using paper strips of varying widths on graph paper scaled to your wall size.  With a little planning, you too can have a site-specific work brightening up the children's or youth space using more thought than money!

[images by Andre Kikoski Architects]

Foldable Cardboard Furniture from Foldschool

Foldschool "is a collection of free cardboard furniture for kids, handmade by you. The downloadable patterns can be printed out with any printer." 

Follow the instructions (definitely try the sample first to learn the techniques); and the pieces are surprisingly stable and chic.  May not last forever forever but if recycled cardboard (4 mm single layer) is used the price is definitely right.  We've been renovating the nurseries at my own church and these are on my list for the next work day...

Cheap Fix - Linoleum remnant flooring

Above, a lineoleum remnant floor as a study model, partially laid, and completed. Via materialicio.us , this lineoleum is a surprisingly stylish fix for the church kitchen, or for nursery or youth areas where a hard floor is required. As indicated, make a quick study model before laying the floor. And use the 'real' linoleum, whose color goes all the way through and is highly scratch resistant, rather than the cheap plastic flooring sometimes referred to as linoleum.

It appears that the red linoleum has been used on the countertops as well...another 'cheap fix' which can be finished off with either a wood or aluminum trim piece on the counter's face.

In my neck of the woods, lino remants can be found at salvage yards and the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

Youth space DIY Round-Up

DIYable ideas for the youth room: (top to bottom) fluffy clouds made from coffee filters, tennis ball table (lots of hot glue needed), bicycle wheel table, and some funky lighting that looks to me like it is made of guttering that has holes drilled in and rope lights passed through.

Cheap Fix - Simple Wooden Trim

California-based Mars Hill Studios seem to have developed something of a formula for warming up spaces with the application of simple wooden trim. Utilizing raw, unimproved lumber (looks to me like simple pine 2 bys and 1 bys, perhaps waxed for luster), and incorporating the bolts and braces as features of the designs, most of these ideas are within the reach of a lay carpenter, and are especially well-suited to remodels of austere office or shopping space.

(Nice color choice on that purple/green hallway, as well. But at my church I wouldn't be able to *tell* anyone I was painting it purple and green. I'd have to pretend I was painting it a nice, nondescript almond color. Then afterwards, they'd like it, but before....well, the deacons might have a stroke if I mentioned purple and green in the same sentence.)

Great Design from Cheap Materials - 4

Hackenbroich Architekten used 1280 suspended ribbons of various lengths to create an exhibition stand for a social networking site.

via dezeen.

An interesting way to re-shape an existing space, and a good way to hide an ugly ceiling...length of ribbons, height from the floor, color and material could all be varied.

Great Design from Cheap Materials - 3

Though these light fixtures (fancy London restaurant) are by Tom Dixon (fancy London designer), I think they're really big stainless steel salad bowls. Perhaps Mr. Dixon has a sense of humor.

Available at a restaurant supply house near you. Or perhaps already in the church kitchen. Drill a hole, paint the inside gold (or not...I'm thinking not), add a single bulb socket fixture and you're away.

P.S. Note the impact that comes from a simple form when it is dramatically oversized and repeated. Just pointing it out in case you're not a designer sort of person.

Cheap Fix - Acoustics

This post is the first in what I hope will be a series of 'cheap fixes'...for those who have an existing, less-than-perfect building and limited funds with which to improve it. Which is most of us, isn't it?

I've recently become aware that the cardboard tubes used for concrete forms (and readily available at big box home improvement stores) are great for improving acoustics in a large, echoing room such as a sanctuary. That's them on the back wall of a worship space, above, from the website of edb sound acoustics. A quick google shows that this is apparently an accepted DIY procedure in sound rooms and the like.

The placement and size of the tubes changes the effect...they are cheap enough to experiment with for what best suits your sanctuary. Paintable to match the walls when you're done (as above), though the bright yellow label with block printing would be cool as-is in a youth space!

UPDATE: more details and photos of how this works can be found at All Church Sound

Fluorescent Lights Done Right

I usually hate industrial fluorescent lighting: unflattering, uninspiring, just blah. So I was impressed by this innovative design that varies the length and color temperature of the tubes and their placement along the ceiling to create an interesting and appealing lighting scheme. Cheap, efficient, and relatively easy to accomplish (lights like this just have one ballast, which could be installed along the ceiling in conventional fashion while the lightbox itself is shifted to fit into the staggered pattern). From Klein-Dytham again, they of the water bottles below.

more great design from cheap materials - water bottles

Walls made from water bottles, simply strung like beads on tension wires for the offices of Danone (they make Evian and Volvic water) by Klein-Dytham Architecture in Tokyo. If you look closely, you can see the frames that make it possible.

Other items could be assembled this way...I'm thinking rustic squares of recycled wood, children 's toys in a nursery...other ideas?

Nice design tie-in with the water bubble-y lighting, as well.

great design from cheap materials

Good design can be expensive. It pays its own dividends, though.
More on that later, but if you think that amazing things can't be done with even inexpensive materials........

....look what artist Tara Donovan does with styrofoam cups (bottom) and silver mylar sticky tape (tops). The mylar work is currently on exhibit at the Met. [photos via scoboco]

She also works with pencils, drinking straws, paper plates and tar paper, all of which can be seen at ace gallery.

I find these works inspirational because they are basically a repetition of simple forms using an everyday material. Labor intensive to be sure, but most churches have more wealth in hands than in money. With supervision and planning, a repetitive-form project is very doable by a church group.