PUMA Mopion mixes city bike features, and cargo bike features, to make it sturdy. It comes with a super-size front carrier for heavy duty. Developed for city dwellers, Mopion features a light aluminum frame, making it a lightweight cargo bike weighing 22 kilos. The geometry holds the body in a slightly inclined, but still heads-up position for navigational ease and exceptional balancing.

PUMA pared down its bikes to their essentials and constructed a new bike line with careful thought of details that meet the needs of a unique consumer set. The Mopion is created for ease of movement, urban transportation, and individual appeal. Smart European design is blended with typical urban American design and has resulted in a new Trans-Atlantic bike. Its PUMA Bike line is designed for urban mobility and finds innovative solutions for the everyday annoyances that come from maneuvering bikes through urban obstacles. "Mopion defies the expected", writes KiBiSi in their press release.

The name Mopion derives from an island in the Atlantic Ocean, symbolizing the new Trans-Atlantic approach and balancing PUMA’s European heritage with American popular culture. The colors are inspired by vibrant island colors and will be available in white, black and in the bold color combination magenta/blue/lime, at the Eurobike and Interbike shows in September 2010, and is available from spring 2011.

Here are the Images of Mopion

PUMA Mopion cargo bike

About

KiBiSi
KiBiSi is a Copenhagen based idea-driven industrial design firm founded by designer Lars Holme Larsen of Kilo Design, architect Bjarke Ingels of BIG and brand consultant Jens Martin Skibsted of Skibsted Ideation. Each partner contributes with skills from within his specific field and providing KiBiSi with cutting edge knowledge and knowhow within the fields of architecture, design, furniture, electronics, transportation, contemporary culture and lifestyle.

PUMA PUMA is one of the world’s leading Sportlifestyle companies that designs and develops footwear, apparel and accessories. It is committed to working in ways that contribute to the world by supporting Creativity, SAFE Sustainability and Peace, and by staying true to the principles of being Fair, Honest, Positive and Creative in decisions made and actions taken. PUMA starts in Sport and ends in Fashion. Its Sport Performance and Lifestyle labels include categories such as Football, Running, Motorsports, Golf and Sailing. Sport Fashion features collaborations with renowned designer labels such as Alexander McQueen, Mihara Yasuhiro and Sergio Rossi. The PUMA Group owns the brands PUMA, Cobra Golf and Tretorn. The company, which was founded in 1948, distributes ist products in more than 120 countries, employs more than 9,000 people worldwide and has headquarters in Herzogenaurach/Germany, Boston, London and Hong Kong.

Biomega
Biomega is a premium urban bicycle brand. They design and develop bicycles along with related accessories. Biomega is committed to creating a paradigm shift in the way society imagines transportation by making ‘furniture for urban locomotion’, developing bicycles so beautiful that they compete directly with cars and imbue our cities with new meaning. Biomega brings social innovation, design thinking and urban lifestyle to the world of bicycles, that start in urban functionality and ends in high design. The brand features collaborations with PUMA and renowned designers such as Marc Newson, KiBiSi and Ross Lovegrove. The company, which was founded in 1998, distributes its products in more than 20 countries, and has headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark.

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The design for the High Holborn branch features adaptations of the classic black, pink and walnut brand palette, as well as new materials and features, including a pink-screened baking area, which underlines product transparency by opening up the baking process to customers; elements of bespoke furniture; grey ceramic ‘Royal Mosa’ tiling and the Bourellec Brothers’ ‘Clouds’ wall hanging, used in two of the café’s seating zones.

‘Much of our client’s business involves customers consuming food and drink on site rather than to take away,’ comments project head Brendan Heath from SHH. ‘Unlike many other operators who rely on a rush of grab & go take-away business, Apostrophe seeks to attract customers to its stores throughout the day by offering free WiFi and complimentary newspapers, as well as playing carefully-selected background music. The aim is to have a busy but relaxed and inviting ambience, where people genuinely feel at ease and are happy to spend time.’

The existing 155 sq m site for the new outlet was an empty shell, created as part of a series of upgraded retail units within an overall building refurbishment scheme. The site was challenging as it was long and narrow, so all operational issues had to be carefully considered by the operator, together with the SHH team. A planning application for the signage and fascia treatment also had to be submitted to and was subsequently accepted by Camden Council. The solution for the site involved a careful division between operational and customer areas in order to avoid constriction in the narrower rear zone along with several seating zones were created.

Fascia and projected signage were both needed to give the narrow site as much visibility as possible. The main sign is in black with an overlaid pink brand sign with text in white and black, along with Apostrophe’s tagline – ‘the accent is on taste’ - in white.

Client Amir Chen of Apostrophe talks about the project and says: ‘I found working with SHH enjoyable and easy. There was seamless interaction between their design and architectural teams, with both providing construction inputs into what was a fairly challenging brief. In particular, my desire to achieve a highly-designed environment within the operational and budgetary constraints of our market was met with enthusiasm and a practical approach.’

Here are the Images of Apostrophe

Photography by Francesca Yorke

About SHH

SHH is an architects’ practice and interior and branding design consultancy, formed in 1992 by the three principals of the practice: Chairman David Spence, Managing Director Graham Harris and Creative Director Neil Hogan. With a highly international workforce and portfolio, the company initially made its name in ultra-high-end residential schemes, before extending its expertise to include leisure, workspace and retail schemes. The company’s leisure CV includes McDonald’s breakthrough Oxford Street flagship restaurant, winner of 6 international design awards; new concept Teaspoon tea rooms in Russia; school dining areas for The School Food Trust and award-winning leisure centres for LA Fitness and 37°. SHH’s work has appeared in leading design and lifestyle publications all over the world, including VOGUE and ELLE DECO in the UK, Artravel and AMC in France, Frame in Holland, Monitor in Russia, DHD in Switzerland, ELLE DECO in India, Habitat in South Africa, Contemporary Home Design in Australia, IDS in Malaysia and Architectural Digest in both France and Russia, with over 100 projects also published in 50 leading book titles worldwide.

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The counterpart to OMA's architectural practice, AMO, has developed an educational programme for Strelka, which will open its doors to students in October. Reinier de Graaf (partner, OMA and director of AMO) and Michael Schindhelm (cultural advisor and writer), both co-authors of Strelka’s educational program joined the discussion after the keynote presentations. Strelka and OMA are both in sync to reconsider architectural education and to transform the Biennale programme – its lectures, exhibitions and workshops – into educational opportunities for students and the general public.

Strelka founders Alexander Mamut and Ilya Oskolkov-Tsentsiper argue their ambition to raise the standard of architectural education in Russia through a new research platform in the heart of Moscow. Rem Koolhaas introduced Strelka’s educational team – drawn from AMO’s global network of collaborators – and presented the research agenda which is based on 5 interconnected themes that are critical worldwide and particularly urgent in Russia:
• Design
• Energy
• Preservation
• Public Space
• Thinning

Here are some Images of Workshops and Lectures:

Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist

Peter Cook

About

Strelka
Strelka is a postgraduate institute dedicated to developing new perspectives on critical issues in contemporary Russia. At its campus in Moscow, Strelka works on bringing together architects, writers, designers, and media professionals in a relationship of creative interdisciplinarity. Each year, the institute’s researchers explore subjects of particular importance to Russian cultural life, from the preservation of cities and the dispersal of populations to the future of energy and virtual space.

The institute’s Steering Committee includes Sergey Adonyev, Dmitry Likin, Alexander Mamut, Ilya Oskolkov-Tsentsiper and Oleg Shapiro.

AMO
The counterpart to OMA's architectural practice is AMO, a design and research studio based in the company's Rotterdam office. While OMA remains dedicated to the realization of buildings and masterplans, AMO operates in areas beyond the traditional boundaries of architecture, including media, politics, sociology, renewable energy, technology, fashion, curating, publishing, and graphic design.

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With 31 years of experience in the city, Foster + Partners aspire to bring its understanding of urban design and knowledge to create a new cultural quarter with public spaces and buildings in Hong Kong.

“City Park belongs to the people of Hong Kong. What we have done is taken our years of experience here, listened to what people need and created a setting for a new world class cultural district that expresses the hopes and aspirations of the city. It will be the most extraordinary international destination – a new landmark on the world’s cultural map.” says Spencer de Grey, Head of Design, Foster + Partners.

City Park is estimated to achieve a carbon-neutral rating with a synergistic system of high-efficiency and low-consumption infrastructure. The low-energy design includes district cooling/heating, grey water recycling, energy recovery systems for sewage, recycling, a waste-to-energy scheme and the generation of local, low-carbon electricity and provision for solar & wind energy generation.

Chief Executive, Foster + Partners, Mouzhan Majidi says: “The West Kowloon Cultural District is an ambitious project to create a dynamic new district with a rich mix of spaces for everyone in Hong Kong. Our approach is to create a masterplan where the boundaries between living, working and playing are blurred, public space is welcoming and lively, and the quality of urban life is substantially improved. We look forward to carrying out further work on this exciting endeavour.”

Here are the Proposal Images

Proposals will be exhibited at the Hong Kong Convention Centre and other venues around Hong Kong until December 2010. The public will be invited to comment before the final masterplan design is implemented.

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Strategy is of primary importance because it helps you to state your own beliefs and objectives, study the market, and then concentrate on creating something unique. My strategy is my philosophy. I need a philosophy so that my clients always know what to expect from me. This is the only way to build trust.

MBA
You don’t need to be “business savvy” but you need to market yourself and what you stand for. I am always trying to put out a message that my firm stands out for certain values –such as bringing people back to nature and closer together, and creating environments where people can express themselves. I do this in practically the same way, as a company will market a consumer product.

Analyzing Projects
I usually take quite a long time analyzing a project. At the beginning of my career as an architect it was taking even longer. I once lost a very important and desperately needed client, because she could not see that we had to spend many meetings talking and analyzing her requirements, before even producing a single drawing.

Inspiration
I spent my childhood summers living in a house next to a stream, in an idyllic landscape covered with pine and plane trees, on the top of Troodos Mountain in Cyprus. The beauty of the landscape filled me with the passion that could only be expressed by attempting to recreate the beauty of nature and at the same time satisfy our basic human needs of living in comfort and safety.

Process
The working process of each project I design is practically the same. Of course there are different requirements, after all an architect serves different clients and works on different building sizes and types. But, I always design as if I am the client. As if the building will be occupied by myself. The design process I went through when I was designing “My house in Lemesos”, I use in all my projects.

It has been challenging to work on different disciplines (architecture, exhibition and museum design, stage and TV design, interactive sculpture and installations) and always attempting to draw from one and bring the lessons learned into the other. Designers should express themselves by introducing principles from other disciplines and cultures into their designs to assist them in producing original solutions. At the same time, I would urge them to concentrate on constantly testing new ways of doing things, and take risks.

Culture
Different cultures have different values and beliefs and they do things in different ways. In each culture I work in, I have to accommodate for those values and beliefs. I discovered that there is no right and wrong way of doing things. There is only a different way. In other words a different strategy based on those beliefs. Working in a culture different than mine, gives me an edge, because I bring with me a unique set of ways from my own culture that can produce original solutions to problems in another culture.

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