DESIGNS FROM JOE DOUCET, BRAD ASCALON, HIVE PUBLIC SPACE, LOUIS LIM, AND DYAD REVEALED
Times Square Alliance on Mar. 29 revealed an exciting first-look at the product of its new design initiative. Entitled Times Square Design Lab (TSqDL), the inaugural activation will bring new ideas for public space onto the plaza during this year’s celebration of NYCxDesign. Designers Brad Ascalon, Joe Doucet, Louis Lim, DYAD founded by Doug Fanning, and Hive Public Space have presented their solutions to briefs for seating, signage, and book display. Their innovations embody New York’s creative spirit and provide unique solutions for an improved pedestrian experience in the destination that boasts 350,000 to 450,000 visitors a day.
‘Island Collection’, a seating concept by Brad Ascalon, will provide a tranquil refuge through a simple, yet multipurpose modular system incorporating storage and planters. DYAD’s poster holder, ‘Re: Post’, refers to traditional community signage with a structure that borrows from kick-boxing for a resilient and attention-getting display. Another seating design, by Joe Doucet, entitled ‘The Village’ is characterized by large-scale, colorful enclosed pods fostering a sense of home and congregation and providing a distinguishable landmark for familiar faces to meet on the plaza. Urban design and placemaking consultancy Hive Public Space presents shelving and seating in the form of a curvilinear bookcase, named ‘Title Wave’. This piece integrates a bench into a bookcase for the area near the Strand Bookstore in Times Square. Known for his work exploring the ideas of play and interaction in design, Louis Lim designed ‘Drop Sign’, a signage system with a teardrop shape that allows it to respond to wind or touch, attracting attention as it rebounds.
“To inaugurate the Design Lab, Times Square asked great New York City designers to develop innovative ideas for improving one of the world’s most iconic public spaces, building on permanent transformations such as the red steps and the pedestrian plazas, and temporary transformations through design and public art”, said Tim Tompkins, President of the Times Square Alliance.
The ingenious works of these distinctive designers are a new phase in the Alliance’s efforts to have Times Square serve as a design laboratory for public space. Previous temporary installations have included its annual Valentine’s Heart Competition, Juergen Mayer’s XXX Times Square with Love, Vestre’s April Go furniture, and Times Square Arts. Times Square Alliance is working with 6¢ Design to create the Design Lab, and together they will make the plaza a new venue to celebrate New York’s design community and varied talent. Times Square Design Lab pieces are due for reveal on the plaza in May 2018 in conjunction with the Design Pavilion activation, which will act as a hub during NYCxDesign.
About Times Square Alliance
The Times Square Alliance works to improve and promote Times Square – cultivating the creativity, energy and edge that have made the area an icon of entertainment, culture and urban life for over a century. Founded in 1992, the Alliance keeps the neighborhood clean and safe, promotes local businesses, manages area improvements and produces major annual events including New Year’s Eve, Solstice in Times Square and Taste of Times Square. As the custodians of Times Square, the Alliance works every day to improve the quality of life for the neighborhood residents and businesses while driving economic growth in New York City. www.TSQ.org
About Brad Ascalon Studio NYC
Brad Ascalon’s eponymous award-winning studio was founded in 2006. The multidisciplinary designer specializes in furniture for the contract, hospitality and residential markets, as well as lighting, packaging, and other consumer products. With a reductive approach to his craft, Ascalon believes in design that is uncomplicated, rational and manages to find the perfect balance of form, function and concept. Ascalon’s work has been exhibited around the world, from the global design hubs of Milan, Paris, London, Cologne, Stockholm and New York, to Chicago, Los Angeles, Guangzhou and Moscow, where in 2013 he was singlehandedly invited to represent American design with an installation at Moscow Design Week. Through this approach, coupled with a strong understanding of strategy-driven design opportunities for his clients, Ascalon is widely regarded as one of the leading American design voices of his generation.
About DYAD
Established in 1994 by designer Douglas Fanning, DYAD’s work examines the space between two points—from history learned to the future imagined. Drawing from art, design, and architectural avenues, Fanning continually pushes the boundaries between form and physics to create clean, fluid, yet uncompromisingly daring pieces. Tapping into his fascination with interpreting architectural concepts into physical form, Fanning’s exploratory work hinges on the intersection between balance, proportion, and beauty. Rendering these ideas out of a combination of metal, glass, and stone adds a sculptural materiality to his work, which has attracted some of the most prestigious architecture and interior design firms in the country. Each piece is designed and crafted in Fanning’s Brooklyn studio, where he also operates his custom fabrication company.
About Joe Doucet
A designer, entrepreneur, inventor, and creative director, Joe Doucet is one of the most sought-after creative talents working in America today. After graduating from the Art Center College of Design, Doucet quickly began exporting his vision into product, furniture, environment, and technology, to find solutions for daily and societal challenges through design. His work deftly hybridizes function and visual appeal while conveying layers of meaning and message. Doucet’s work has been exhibited globally, including the London Design Museum and the Biennale International Design in Saint-Etienne. He has received numerous international awards, including a World Technology Award for Design Innovation and multiple Good Design Awards. In 2017, Doucet was named the Winner of the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award as Product Designer—the highest Honor in his field.
About Hive Public Space
Hive Public Space is an urban design and public space design consultancy that goes one step further into the economic and operational aspects of public spaces, their activation and placemaking. They believe in the idea that cities are complex urban systems that function laterally at multiple scales, and that public space is a major component in that system. Hive Public Space’s goal is to transform the urban environment, by setting up public space for urban, economic and social vitality, so that it becomes productive. Using a multidisciplinary approach, they bridge design, placemaking, and research to create resilient cities and environments that are socially inclusive and have the ability to self-sustain and transform over time. Hive Public Space was co-founded by Architectural and Urban Designers Alexandra Gonzalez and Racha Daher. For Title Wave, they are collaborating with Bill Sarnecky, an architect, furniture designer and educator.
About Louis Lim
Since graduating from Cooper Union in 2011, Louis Lim has been working as a designer and maker for Studio ai. Louis Lim’s sculptures and designs explore ideas of function, utility and play. His works explore how objects evolve from their intended utility through human interaction, yet also augment the way we live and perceive the world. He is the founder and current leader of Makingworks, the furniture and product design division of Studio ai. As its namesake suggests, during the physical process of making, works of art and design emerge. Yet, “works” are never complete, never static; they persistently change through the way humans use and live with them, through the memories and meanings they derive from them. Works simultaneously augment the way that everyone thinks and lives. It is through Lim’s thorough understanding that designing and creating are such reciprocal processes, that he strives to continually explore work that engages with an audience.
About 6¢ Design
6¢ Design, under principal Victoria Milne, is specialized in systems of delivering design and eager to help serve people through innovative design policy and thoughtful implementation. The firm delivers concrete design solutions and develops macro-scale design policies with a particular expertise in the public sphere. These services are united through a conviction that an excellent built environment fosters positive civic values. 6¢ calls on Ms. Milne’s over ten years of experience in developing design policies, managing public art, and heading a design studio for the City of New York in the Department of Design and Construction. In 2013 she started Built/NYC, the city government’s first program to commission custom furnishings from NYC designers.