Retro Space 4.0
Denna text är inte översatt till svenska och endast tillgänglig på engelska.Sound and Vision in Hilverum was interested in buying Retro Space arcade cabinets for their museum.
This request demanded an extra durable version of the Retro Space cabinets.
The new cabinet is fully re-engineered in folded aluminium sheets. The cab is fully modular, perfectly recyclable and gets prettier from a little use.
DIY Arkadkabinett
Denna text är inte översatt till svenska och endast tillgänglig på engelska.By the end of January 2013, Dutch Dame Garden asked me for a new series of arcade cabinets. They had to be finished within 1.5 month, to have it shipped to the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco from March 25th-29th. They wanted a new design with their beloved silhouette. The new version should be easier to carry, transportable as flat pack and when possible a lot cheaper.
The new cabinet can be assembled DIY with a standard 4mm hex wrench, just like IKEA furniture. De parts are made from white laminated poplar plywood for light weight and nice finish. At the top the cabinet holds 2 smoked plexi sheets to protect both screens at the front and the back. The Dutch Game Garden wants games to be visible on two sides for their Indigo shows. It allows a more passive group of visitors to just look at the games being played. The bottom part is filled with 2 matte white sheets of plexi. If you put multi-colour LED lights inside the bottom part, you can illuminate these sheets with any colour you like. The version that is showed here does not have any controls on the control panel. This is because companies that show games at Indigo bring their own controls. They make games for all platforms like Playstation, Xbox, iPad, PC etc, so there is no standard set of controls.
At the moment we are finding out the best way to sell this version to those who are interested in a DIY arcade cabinet.
Brittisk Hyresvärd
Denna text är inte översatt till svenska och endast tillgänglig på engelska.Colaboration with bureau ZZEF
For more information check out:
M+ M- ???
Denna text är inte översatt till svenska och endast tillgänglig på engelska.Redesignme.com is a website where designers are challenged to create new designs for certain products.
Garton Jones used redesignme.com to search for a redesign of the Ativa 10 Digit Desk Calculator.
I'm always puzzled by the fact most calculators still function like the early 1970 designs. A time when chip logic was very expensive, and the amount of components was kept to a minimum. Today's standard micro controller is way more powerful. So my primary goal was to create a new set of basic functionality.
Which means I had to redesign the layout of the buttons first. The design itself continues proved ingredients like injection mould plastic, the perfect shape of PTT's Zurich telephone and modern white OLED matrix displays.
My own challenge was to make the design in one hour on a Friday afternoon.
The result: a top 3 note among 109 redesigns. "Your redesign was part of my top 3. Very well done! Yours sincerely, Charlie Garton-Jones"
Lost in Navigation
Denna text är inte översatt till svenska och endast tillgänglig på engelska.Tokyo is a breathtaking city. Most metropolises have 1 urban railway network. Easy. Tokyo, the biggest metropolis on Earth, is a lot more complex.
The city has 2 official subway companies, the national railway operates several lines that can be considered metro lines as well, and there are tens of private operated railways that serve may areas just outside the central part of the city. Another problem is that many transfer stations use different station names on each line connected.
Creating a understandable subway map for this city is extremely complex. Should it be schematic, or geographic realistic? When is it easier to have a short walk than to switch lines?
This metro map for Tokyo only shows the most important lines for visitors of the city. That is already 25 lines! All distances are realistic, and the connections to Airports and Shinkansen trains are clearly visible. The parks that give a good orientation in the grey urban mass of Tokyo are visible. Icons show the most important landmarks. Matching the million neon lights the map is drawn in a night situation with the lines as glowing neon tubes.
The map is printed on 100x75 cm photo paper in a limited run, an can be ordered. Send an e-mail or call if you are interested to order.
Pac Man LACK Hack
Denna text är inte översatt till svenska och endast tillgänglig på engelska.One of the most popular IKEA products is the LACK coffee table. It is so cheap, it must be hollow.
I opened the tables, I built in a retro TV computer game by Jakks and added real arcade controls to this game. This way the TV game has a longer life and the Ikea LACK is no longer the boring classic every household owns.
Thanks to Lara Verlaat for Playin Pac-Man.
Öl?
Denna text är inte översatt till svenska och endast tillgänglig på engelska.ZZEF asked me to photograph 2 projects designed by Johan van den Berkmortel for the architecture portfolio of ZZEF.
One project is a beer cafe at the monk brewery Koningshoeve and the other is the Bavaria House in Helmond.
Låg bandbredd
Denna text är inte översatt till svenska och endast tillgänglig på engelska.When the design of Retro Space was finished, we needed a matching website.
Because of the presumption that Retro Space could become a hit on the internet, we tried to make the website as small as possible. We did not want the website to crash on bandwidth problems.
Matching the style of the retro games, the website is designed in pixel art. All elements except some product shots are GIF images in 4 colours. It's just like the early years of internet when bandwidth was scarce.
I never promised you a rosegarden
Denna text är inte översatt till svenska och endast tillgänglig på engelska.An abandoned commercial plot in the centre of Heteren had to be filled with 19 apartments. Contractor Kuijpers had moved to the city limits and the housing corporation "Woningstichting Heteren" had 4 outdated senior-citizen houses on the adjacent plot at the Rozenpad street. The combined plot connects a traditional village street with a seventies extension to Heteren. The housing coorporation asked me to design the modernist block fitting the seventies area.
I designed this appartment block as employer of Bouwkundig ontwerp- en adviesburo van Zeist BV
Lilla sjöjungfru
Denna text är inte översatt till svenska och endast tillgänglig på engelska.When we visited Copenhagen, I was surprised by the complex metro map for the very small network. It should be possible to draw a map easier to understand and graphically more appealing to visitors.
I designed a new metro map that shows the relation with the city. It combines all trains with different schedules on similar routes to bring back overview.
Autonomous work
BBQ XL
Denna text är inte översatt till svenska och endast tillgänglig på engelska.Frank en Chantal van den Eijnden asked Johan van der Berkmortel and me to design an extension to their house in Beek en Donk. It was supposed to replace a decrepit shed and to add a new veranda with a fireplace. Two L-shaped entities frame the view into the deep garden. The brick element contains the chimney and acts as a bench. The wooden part contains the new shed, a log storage and a tool shed, and continues into the ceiling of the veranda.
This assignment is done in collaboration with Johan van den Berkmortel.
Okänd modernismen
Denna text är inte översatt till svenska och endast tillgänglig på engelska.For most tourists the city of Faro in southern Portugal is nothing more than an entrance by plane to the Algarve. Which is a pity. The biggest city of southern Portugal is probably the only one giving room to creativity. You will not see kitsch appartment blocks for Dutch and Germans, but subtile shaped private houses for the Portugese themselves. You will see images that remind of modernists like Gerrit Rietveld, Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier. You will wonder wheter MVRDV got inspiration here, or if Portugese architects checked out work of the Durch architecture firm.
Spökevärld
Denna text är inte översatt till svenska och endast tillgänglig på engelska.Detroit is a weird city. The city disappears slowly and turns back to nature. Not caused by war or disaster, it vanishes because of economic irrelevance. De automotive industry moved towards the Mexican border. Jobs are gone. The city renders useless. The General Motors headquarters still shine as a major highlight downtown. Perhaps as an icon for the glorious past.
These photographs are taken during a trip of the USA and Canada in the autumn of 2005.
Myrstack
Denna text är inte översatt till svenska och endast tillgänglig på engelska.Hong Kong has little room to built. There is a small piece of land to build on between the water and the mountains. The only option to house the millions of citizens is to use efficient towering blocks. Some area's have a FAR (floor to ground area aspect ratio) of 5 to 10.
Leksakerstad
Denna text är inte översatt till svenska och endast tillgänglig på engelska.Brandevoort is one of the big suburban extensions according to the governmental document Vinex. Under supervision of Rob Krier, the city of Helmond tried to mimic the classic Dutch canal city for its big extension. Modern legislation on parking and the fact that a family in a suburban plan like this needs 2 cars to reach all daily facilities, resulted in weird interiors for the urban blocks. The gardens are petite, and most space is used for the cars.
Blå kuvert
Denna text är inte översatt till svenska och endast tillgänglig på engelska.The Dutch Tax Administration feels like a family business. The atmosphere is open and relaxed. The organization is responsible for the total financial administration of The Netherlands Ltd. Dutch citizens expect professional civil servants. The office at the Quintax location in Apeldoorn expresses the two faces of the Dutch Tax Administration. The building looks severe and mimics the impregnability of Fort Knox. But internal, the building is totally transparent. Walls are exceptions, and voids open the floors to improve contact between employees.
At JHK Architects, I was responsible for the concept of the building. I also worked out most of the technical details.