RE/Nude at Eye Level Art

When: Wed., April 13, 6-10 p.m.
Where: Eye Level Art, 103 Spring Street, Charleston, SC
Price: $20 (Also buy some art)

<—- Click the photo for more info.

Charles Towne Landing-Visitor Center

Cirular Congregational Church (Green Building)

What: National Women Build Week

When: April 30-May 7, 2011

When we were girls, we played house; as women, we build them!   That line rocks…Charleston’s Habitat for Humanity will be taking part in the National Women Build Week with several fund raisers and events taking place to help support the cause.

Find out all the info to get involved —>here<—

it is 2011 right?

So here we are, Modern in Charleston is live!  This has been a long time in the making and after many conversations, discussions, sweat and tears (well not really too much sweat it is spring and I have AC) MODinChs is officially, and finally,  up and running.  Welcome…this blog as a place to not only let you know what is going on in the design world of Charleston, SC but to also be a place for you to be heard as well.  Feel free to send emails, comment on posts, tell your friends, shout it from the roof tops (don’t blame me for the looks you get) about this site and what we are doing here.  Do you like the design process?  Let us know (we really dig it too)  Do you want to know more about that cool, contemporary building that just went up around the corner?  So do we!!!  Did you see a new piece of art that you just had to have?  We want to see it.  This site should be a constant conversation and we need you to make that happen.  I am looking forward to it.

Brad

This is Mac

“What a feeling walking up to Marion Square in Downtown Charleston to see the tents for Charleston Fashion Week 2011. All the months of practicing the styles and looking at the storyboards for all the designers was about to start. I had no idea how fast paced it was going to be. As I set up in the hair and make-up tent you can just feel the excitement in the air. Models running around practicing their walks, the smell of hairspray and red bull in the air. Each night we would go over the storyboards for each show to make sure the hair and makeup was in line with the vision of each designer and retail store. Then the organized chaos started. Models lining up for hair, then makeup, and then off to get dressed. After getting dressed it was touch up time or hairstyle change. All of this is happening hours before the first show even starts.

MODinChs looks forward to Mac’s point of view on Charleston’s Modern Style scene in future posts.

© Thompson Young Design

What do you get when you combine a couple who co-own a Graphic Design firm, a glass wall, a local architecture firm, a wood wall, and an empty building on Spring St.? A building with an old (but newly updated) outside, a new (but still some old) inside, and the new digs of the Graphic Design firm , Fuzzco. When recently married owners, Josh Nissenboim and Helen Rice, found the empty building located at 85 1/2 Spring Street, they knew they had found the new home for their expanding graphic design firm. If you have seen their work you can understand the need for more space. While they had a good idea of the type of space they were looking for, in order to make their ideas a reality they partnered with local architecture firm Thompson Young Design and the rest, as they say, is history.

© Thompson Young Design

“We found ourselves lucky enough to have clients that are some very talented collaborators,” says Jon Thompson. With the modestly scaled linear building, the basic concept was simple…create a public area to engage and transition from the street, and frame a private creative studio area that was separate from the public realm. The progression of public, semi-public, and private is made with two planar insertions perpendicular to the linear form of the building. Separating the public street from the semi-public front reception/conference room is a structural glass plane inset from the existing front stucco wall. Between the semi-public and private studio is a handmade, reclaimed mahogany planar wall, handbuilt by local woodworker, more like magical-wood-artist, Michael Moran. In order to get to where the graphic magic happens, you pass through one of two concealed hinge doors. Where they are able, the architects have chosen to expose the existing wood structure rather than cover it up. The architect, Simons Young, has also made a conscious design decision to stabilize the existing structure and pull the new storefront in slightly and allow the planar insertions to be subservient to the building, in other words clearly marking the past and the present.

While the mid-century building may or may not seem historically significant, the team feels that from a preservation and a sustainable perspective, reuse of as much as possible is the right thing to do. The result, a project that is a great demonstration of the potential of adaptive reuse and a reliance upon our existing urban fabric to enrich and enhance the character of a project, whether it meets the requirements to be considered historically significant or not. Plus, that glass plane against the white stucco and rich mahogany wood beyond, just looks really cool.

© Thompson Young Design

Fuzzco Office/Studio

Thompson Young Design

Clambank Construction

2011

technically you could say it is still docked but everyone is boarding (actually it’s under construction) and “preparing” for the maiden voyage.

Now that we have the cheesy nautical references out of our system, under construction is one of the newest designs of Brad Brown, an architect that heads up Brown-Architecture, in collaboration with Jacob Lindsey of Fabric UDO, the Flagship 2 (FS2). Located in a former television studio, or for you long time locals Ludens, and is soon to become office space designed for high tech companies here in Charleston.  The intent of the original Flagship was to act as a business incubator space and is managed by the Charleston Digital Corridor.  As these companies began to outgrow their fledgling status there was obviously a demand for larger digs.  Of note here is that virtually all of these companies saw incredible growth during the current recession and credit that in part to the design of the current Flagship facility.  The need for larger spaces, and the City of Charleston obviously not wanting these companies to move off of the penninsula, was the impetous for the creation of the FS2 concept.  Brown stated, “From the beginning the Digital Corridor director, Ernest Andrade, let us know that the idea behind FS2 is one that is forward thinking and progressive, and the design of the new space needed to reflect that.”  Unabashedly modern design in a City of Charleston facility…who would have thought?

Located almost at the corner of East Bay and Calhoun St. the hodge-podge building is rather non-descript and recedes into the background.  The only sign that something is afoot are the new aluminum framed windows, located in both the existing and new openings.   The current condition of the building(s), the result of mulitple “renovations” and additions, “Whoever built these renovations was obviously not following any codes, or common construction methods because not one of them makes any sense.” Brown added.  This was a major challenge for the design team, to seam-together the multiple layers of a building created over time into one cohesive whole.  Construction is almost complete and we are looking forward to the finished product.  Stay tuned…

Project: Flagship2

Design Team: Brown-Architecture + Fabric UDO

Contractor: Clambank Construction

Charlestonians have always had a unique sense of “style”.  Charlestonians are known to be mavericks, and Charleston is famous for a lot of firsts. We aren’t just a part of history, we make it! Our history is important, it’s what makes our city so special. Being modern is being a part of and fully embracing our contemporary world, even if it is in an unabashedly historic city.  Are you one of the artists, architects, interior designers, fashionistas,  graphic designers, or one who particularly enjoy what is going on in the design world of today?  If so then you are definitely Modern and we look forward to letting you know about the Modern in Charleston.