Welcome to the Kontra Atelier

Today I want to share another design company. This time we are focusing on interior design. I would like to introduce to everybody, Wonderwall Inc.

Wonderwall Inc. is spearheaded by Masamichi Katayama. It's the same company that's responsible for the A Bathing Ape retail store Busy Work Shop in Japan, London, New York and Hong Kong. In fact, Nigo and Bape was one of their first customers and some could say, their claim to fame.

They have since then gone on to design various retail stores as well as restaurants. From APC to the Tokyo Curry House, Wonderwall Inc's design concepts is all about breaking barriers while still taking in consideration everything that is important in any store. The Japanese are known for their focus on detail, it's the same ideals for Wonderwall. From the type of lighting, materials, proportions as well as the actual experience of the store, all these elements come into play in their designs.

I felt it was only appropriate that the first masterpiece I should present is none other than the atelier of Wonderwall Inc.

Next up is one of the first projects of Wonderwall Inc.. The Busy Work Shop in Harajuku, it was originally built during 1998, but it has been recently renovated.

BUSY WORK SHOP HARAJUKU

For the Bape store, after discussions with Nigo, we decided to create a store that felt like a town within a building with an American diner flair. However, for the top floor, a sense of playfulness was added with a colonial style resort inspired space.

They also worked on the offices of Ogilvy & Mathers in Japan, as well as the retail store for A.P.C. Homme in Daikanyama.

OGILVY & MATHER JAPAN

These offices are located on the 25th floor of a large office building. A great view of the Tokyo landscape is incorporated into a common space connecting each division which can be used as a lounge, with a variety of randomly placed chairs.

A.P.C. HOMME DAIKANYAMA

Creating an impression of a space that had some big changes to the interior without actually making changes was an important factor in this project. The space has been restructured while revering the fact that it was cherished for a long time, with a garden as the entrance, with different rooms and space each with it's own scenario of the A.P.C. world.

I felt it was only apt to end with another Bape store. This time we have the Bapexclusive store in Aoyama.

BAPEXCLUSIVE AOYAMA

For this project, Katayama wanted a coexistence of two opposing ideas; minimal and maximum. The ground floor is very minimal; a very controlled space made of pure-white grids of tiles. The second floor is a maxim space surrounded by walls of sneakers and floored with carpeting made of 10 colors. For the stairway which links the two floors, a lighting system and mirrors are utilized to change colors and allow the light to spill down to the ground floor. The conveyer belt for the sneakers on the 2nd floor is enclosed in a glass cylinder. The middle of the conveyer belt is open through the ground floor that allows one to view the rotating sneakers from below via the mirrored ceiling.

Store descriptions and pictures were courtesy of the Wonderwall website. You can see more of their designs and some bonus stuff in their website.

Hope you guys enjoyed this feature, I will try to share more cool stuff in the future.

I've always liked looking at nice things, whether it's girls, drawings, pictures, whatever.

Today, I shall share the office/laboratory of Under Cover in Tokyo, Japan. Now, what is Under Cover? Well those who follow Paris fashion shows should know the brand by now, headed by Jun Takashi. Well, no, I don't follow fashion shows, but I know Jun Takashi because of his streetwear background.

In the early 90's, Jun or Jonio as he is called, opened a shop named Nowhere in Harajuku. Together with his partner, Nigo, they sold limited and exclusive shirts printed and designed by themselves. And yes, it's the same Nigo who is the founder of the multi-million A Bathing Ape label.

Without further ado, here are the pictures of the UC office. Designed by Klein Dytham architecture (KNa). Pictures and text also courtesy of KNa.

Undercover Lab is a building, which is undercover. Not only is it tucked away in the back streets of Harajuku but the site is also very deceiving. A 10m long narrow driveway leads to a 12m x 12m site at the rear.

The building houses a studio, press showroom, and office. A 20m long hanger rail to show the entire collection of one season was required. This is housed in a black tube running along the only 20m straight line on the site, which extends out over the entrance driveway. This cantilevered tube extends the building's influence to the main street in a strong but stealth way.

The tube was made to look as anonymous as possible, almost like a shipping container where you have no idea of its contents. The tube also conjures up images of telescopes etc, which give the building a mysterious feel _ nobody knowing what quite is going on inside. So much so that some people may feel intimidated just walking under the tube if they are unannounced.

In the name of continuous learning, I spent the past few nights watching some classic films in the graffiti, hip-hop and b-boy scene. I started with Wild Style, then with Beat Street and finally Style Wars. Funny thing is that most of these films were released in between '82 to '84, I reckon the period looks like one of the key periods that catapulted the culture to the level it is currently. It is also the last few years of subway "bombing" as New York adopted more stricter security measures and harsher penalties to violators which lead to many graffiti artists hanging up their cans and pens.

Personally I feel that this change helped open up people to the artists themselves as they started to focus their work towards art galleries and shows, although some bombers might contest that the trains was the best medium for their work, I think art shows is something that was bound to happen when you start generating interest like they did in the 80's. While some might coin this as selling out, I simply think that it is evolution, albeit somewhat forced. It's funny how fast graffiti moved from being just vandalism and now it is considered to be part of modern and pop art. Artists like Keith Haring, Futura, Jean-Michel Basquiat, once the vandals of society and now their paintings probably cost more than the salary of the Mayor of New York.

It's great to see how the vibe of New York at the time was, it was like in the infancy stages and now it's fully grown. While I never really knew how it felt back then, watching these films at least gives me a glimpse of the culture's past.

For me, the really interesting insight I got was how influential the 80's were to the current generation. I can only wonder if our current generation can leave as great an impact as the past has done to us.

Found this very interesting documentary by BBC and VH1 on the blog of Earn Chen (of Surrender/Ambush fame). I only linked the 1st part, I'm sure you guys can find the rest :)

Hey guys, I'm looking to buy scrap papers like white bond paper, newsprint and carton/corrugated boxes. The more, the merrier and the best part of it all, I'm willing to do pick-ups! (Depending on quantity of course) :)

I'm also looking for a lot or warehouse to rent or lease. Looking at around 100sqm, around the Manila area. Willing to consider other areas as well.

Please feel free to message me here or contact me via YM: jason_qua. I'm almost always online.

Thank you homies!

Today I came across this awesome animation video representing an interview with John Lennon. It's a must see!

Here's the "official" description:
"In 1969, a young boy snuck into John Lennon's hotel room with his tape recorder and persuaded him to do an interview."

Banksy strikes againnnnnn.....

jasonqua.wordpress.com

more here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=559547&in_page_id=1766&ito=1490

You say you want a revolution, well you know, we’d all want to change the world.

http://jasonqua.wordpress.com/

Because the Internet 2.0 is oh so cool, the blog has moved and is active once again. Say hello: http://jasonqua.wordpress.com/

Here's the link to the new Iron Man trailer. Looks very promising, and I think Robert Downy Jr. fits the role of Tony Stark. It's madness! Plus I love how they used Black Sabbath's Iron Man in the trailer, dope song and nice intro to one of 2008's most anticipated movies.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/ironman/

I haven't had time to post pictures (I have tons but haven't had time to sort it out, it's all just lying around here somewhere). But anyway I'll be posting some music that doing it for me right now.

1st track is The Red, a great track from the Champion Sound album by the late, great J Dilla aka Jay Dee and Madlib, thus Jaylib.

2nd track is by Common, entitled Be from the album of the same name. One of his best albums by far.

3rd track is a track off Ghostface Killah's Fishscale album, Kilo featuring co-Wu-Tang member, Raekwon

The 4th track is from one of the, in my own humble opinion, greatest hip-hop albums of all time, Illmatic. Nas - N.Y. State Of Mind

Last track is by Jay-Z, from his "retirement" album, The Black Album. Dirt Off Your Shoulder, produced by Timbaland. The same Timbaland who produced the very awesome Justin TImberlake Futuresex/Lovesounds album (The Timbaland beats carried this album all the way). I don't care what people say, Jay-Z was one of the artists who influenced me into listening to Hip-hop way back in '97-'98.

This are some of the Hip-hop tracks that are playing hard on my playlist. I'll be doing more lists in the next few days for some of the other genres that has been in my rotation, a good mix of emo, indiepop, hip-hop and a whole slew of other stuff.