Jonathan Olivares Design Research

Olivares Aluminum Chair

Jonny23 — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:58:51 +0000

2012
Knoll
The OAC is an outdoor stacking chair made with a thin, body-contoured cast aluminum seat shell that introduces a heightened level of comfort in metal seating. The chair’s paint is integral to the design, yielding a matte finish, which is scratch and UV resistant, as well as smooth to the touch. The design is available in a wide range of colors, and the inner portion of the seat shell can be painted a second color for two-tone variations. Weatherproof materials, and a solid build and weight make the chair ideally suited for well-trafficked outdoor applications.

Photos © Yoo Jean Han / Domus

Photos © Jonathan Olivares

Sequence

Jonny23 — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 20:28:25 +0000

2012
Lars Müller / Instigations: Harvard GSD 075
An essay written for Instigations: GSD 075, a book which explores the people, events, objects, and ideas at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, published on the occasion of the school’s 75th anniversary, and edited by Mohsen Mostafavi and Peter Christensen. Exploring links between the field of Industrial Design and the GSD’s past, I uncovered a cluster of disparate ventures by designers from the second generation of American modernists, which collectively reveal that the winter of American modernism was in fact very warm.

A 1965 gas station program for Mobile Oil by Eliot Noyes who graduated from the GSD in 1938; the 1969 Design Research retail store by Benjamin Thompson who served as Department Chairman from 1964 to 1968; and some since proven hypotheses for reducing visual pollution and increasing quality of life in cities by George Nelson and the 1973 class he taught at the school, encouraged respect for the individual, educated communities, and incited physical enjoyment. Reflecting on these works and the values they promoted, was an enjoyable and enlightening adventure.

La Table des Matières

Jonny23 — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:58:30 +0000

2012
Nouveau Musée National de Monaco
La Table des Matières is a library, forum and social hub, designed by JODR for NMNM. Positioned at the entrance to the museum’s Villa Paloma, the room offers an informal environment to reflect on the museum’s exhibition, education and horticulture programs. A framework of wall-mounted templates, inspired by blogs, allow the museum’s curators, education coordinator and gardener to regularly post books, videos, plants, useful tools, descriptive texts and news for the visitor, and allow visitors to leave comments and their contact information for the museum.

Photos © Daniele Ansidei

Seated at tables within the space, visitors can utilize the room’s resources, learn and discuss. The room’s southern wall bears a view of the Mediterranean Sea and the room’s northern wall is host to the Work of The Month, a revolving work of art, selected by the museum’s curators. Translated literally La Table des Matières means table of contents, but the French term implies a broader arrangement of raw material or matter. The room serves as an index of the museum’s activities, and was designed as a resource of materials that further the museum’s goal of nurturing and developing the skills necessary for understanding and discovery within the community.

Chaise for Hallingdal 65

Jonny23 — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 22:24:47 +0000

2012
Kvadrat
The Chaise for Hallingdal 65 was designed for the Hallingdal 65 exhibition, put on by the Danish textile manufacturer Kvadrat in celebration of their classic textile. The Chaise was imagined as a piece of furniture intended only to hold a piece of fabric. Considering how a roll of textile would find comfort and sit most naturally, the chaise allows the fabric to drape between a post that secures the roll itself and a rail that allows the end of the material to hang. The structure is made of aluminum castings and extrusions, and plastic fittings.

Materials: Hallingdal 65, sand-cast aluminum, aluminum profiles, cardboard tubing, plastic fittings, hardware.
Height: 84″ / 213.3 cm – Width: 60″ / 152.4 cm – Depth: 96″ / 243.8 cm cm

Photo © Angela Moore

Photos © JODR

Today’s Walls

Jonny23 — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:48:29 +0000

April, 2012
Apartamento
This exploration into contemporary wall construction looks at how and why drywall became the building industry’s standard and how it lacks the texture, craft and aesthetic qualities that characterized so many of the walls of past civilizations, like stone walls, shoji screens and lath walls.

The Outdoor Office

Jonny23 — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 20:58:50 +0000

February 25 – October 14, 2012
The Art Institute of Chicago
Curated by Zoë Ryan, John H. Bryan Curator and Chair of Architecture and Design
The Outdoor Office is a project conducted at JODR to explore outdoor work settings for education and business environments. While portable work tools enable new kinds of workspaces, free from indoor constraints, HVAC and lighting pose financial and environmental burdens. The Outdoor Office seeks to address these problems by exploring new types of outdoor furniture and architectural elements, that could exist in an adjunct or complementary relationship with the traditional indoor workplace. This exhibit is the first public viewing of this work, and was realized with the generous support of the Architecture and Design Society and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

The research in the exhibit includes a scene from the TV show Twin Peaks where detectives brain storm in the woods, photographs of Harvard Yard and Googleplex where work is done outdoors on cafe chairs, and an image of a Plan International disaster relief office in Haiti. This research and the three hypothetical designs for outdoor workspaces are displayed on 12’ x 8’ billboards. The images of the designs shown are photographs of 1:15 scale models built at JODR.

Each design explores a different scenario: a group business meeting, individual work, and a small class. The design work focuses on adapting existing indoor work scenarios for outdoor conditions and imagining work scenarios that could only exist outdoors. In all cases establishing shade and privacy was a crucial element, as was building in appropriate materials. The designs are made with recycled rubber flooring, wood-plastic composites, UV resistant shade cloth and cast and extruded aluminum. A series of components were developed as the basis of an outdoor office furniture system, a system that can be permanently or temporarily installed for a variety of work situations.

Useless: An Exploded View

Jonny23 — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:07:21 +0000

October 2 – November 27, 2011
EXD’11 / Lisboa & MUDE
Designed and curated for the Portuguese design biennial EXD’11, this exhibit explores the varied causes, manifestations and effects of uselessness in the design, production and disposal of contemporary products. A forty meter long display table, flanked by chairs, allows visitors to sit, study, read the exhibit guide, watch videos, and discuss. Conceived as a three dimensional library, the exhibit envisions the design museum as a dynamic place for social exchange and debate.

No understanding of useless is possible without some notion of what can be considered useful. Like any set of opposites, they largely define one another. After working on this exhibit for the better part of six months, we didn’t find anything that is truly, 100% useless, as even the most horrific and mundane objects serve some purpose to someone, somewhere. Passing judgment on what constitutes useful vs. useless requires a political stance, and though we have taken one in curating this show, the aim of the exhibit is to allow the visitor to form his or her own stance about what is and what isn’t useless.