EXPLORATION | INNOVATION | ENGINEERING | CRAFTSMANSHIP
Indian polar station Hamburg is a hub for the world’s greatest pioneers of experiment and adventure
Micro scanning Dan Sykes strikes a beautiful balance between science and art
Formula E An evolution in a new motorsport and the green technology defining its future
No. 1
Introduction
The world is full of amazing people. Amazing people doing amazing things. Here at Blohm+Voss, such people excite us because we subscribe to their philosophy and we share their values. Incredible people certainly think and act differently, but most important of all, they work tirelessly to hone their skills. They are inquisitive, humble and ambitious. They truly believe that only 'the best' will do, but they realise that 'the best' requires dedication, application, intelligence and skill, along with many years of hard work. In the relentless pursuit of perfection, their singular focus is to continually research, refine and reinvent. These people motivate us to challenge the norm and to look beyond the boundaries of conventional thought. They spur us on to seek smarter solutions, improved engineering and more efficient processes. They inspire us to develop new construction techniques and, ultimately, to build better yachts. Some might even say 'the best' yachts. In a world that seems increasingly obsessed with the superficial, the temporary and the meretricious, there is a lack of recognition for the achievements of extraordinary people. The thinkers, the explorers, the researchers and the craftsmen. This journal is therefore dedicated to them. It is a showcase for the awesome, throwing a spotlight on the incredible and paying homage to the outstanding. It celebrates the accomplishments of amazing people.
Patrick Coote, Sales and Marketing Director, Blohm+Voss
Blohm+Voss
At Blohm+Voss, these are the people we admire. We hope you enjoy reading their stories.
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Editor: Lauren Barker Creative Director: Gareth Procter Design: The Superyacht Agency Designer: Stefanie Hedermann Printed in the UK by Park Communications. Published by The Superyacht Agency hello@thesuperyachtagency.com www.thesuperyachtagency.com Many thanks to all of our contributors: Angela Audretsch, Olaf Bartels, Jethro Bovingdon, Julia Brandon, Joseph Giovannini, Don Hoyt Gorman, Marcus Krall, Scott Manson, Mark O'Connell, Guillaume Plisson, Sebastian Scotney, Karolyn Shindler and Tim Thomas. Š Copyright Blohm+Voss 2014. All rights reserved.
Selected contents
26 What lies beneath Dan Sykes, Micro-CT scanning specialist at the Natural History Museum in London, creates breathtakingly beautiful works of art through his incredible 3D images of scientific specimens.
06 Two men and a shipyard German yachting editor Marcus Krall looks at how innovative engineering and contemporary design were the key princples at Blohm+Voss, even 137 years ago.
38 Wired for colour Neil Harbisson literally hears colour. Born without the ability to see colour, he wears an antenna which analyses the visible spectrum and translates colour into vibrations that he can hear and feel through his skull, making him the world's first cyborg. 42 Visions of liquidity Zaha Hadid has emerged as one of the most charismatic of a new breed of high-profile architects, but not just because she produces monuments of unexpected and unorthodox beauty that exceed simple function.
79 A future of champions This year’s ShowBoats Design Awards celebrated the world’s newest innovations in yacht building that the next generation of owners will look to for inspiration. 52 Formula E: loud enough to turn heads Alejando Agag, CEO of Formula E holdings, is a racing fanatic, a former petrolhead and is absolutely certain that this new series will be a success. 86 Limitless Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner is possibly the greatest adventurer of our time and now inspires other enthusiasts to break life’s barriers in his role as roving ambassador for extreme sports.
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16 Antarctic adventure A new project by Hamburg’s bof Architects and IMS Engineers to design and build a polar station in the Antarctic further cements the city as home to some of the world’s greatest pioneers of experiment and adventure.
70 The horological genius Maximillian Büsser is the man behind world-leading watch manufacturer MB&F; known for its intricate, beautifully designed and micro-engineered timepieces that are created with precision to last the test of time.
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Two men and a shipyard
Hermann
Blohm+Voss
Blohm
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Ernst Voss
German yachting editor Marcus Krall looks at how innovative engineering and forward thinking design were the key principles at Blohm+Voss, even 137 years ago. Blohm+Voss 09
Hermann Blohm and Ernst Voss – two men of completely different backgrounds, but with the same ambition and drive to establish a shipbuilding business based on the English model.
Blohm+Voss
B+V = making history
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Left: The original Blohm+Voss shipyard in the late 1800s was founded by two men, Hermann Blohm and Ernst Voss.
Hermann, who was born in 1848, was initially able to contribute start-up capital of 500,000 marks to the business. Once establishing the business turned out to be more involved than at first thought, he added another 500,000 marks. Georg Blohm was not pleased that his son did not want to become a merchant, but accepted his decision and even helped him to secure shipbuilding and mechanical engineering apprenticeships and lent him what, in those days, were vast sums of money – even though he charged four per cent interest.
Although it all took place 30 years ago, I still remember it vividly. “Over there”, said my grandmother on one of our excursions to the Port of Hamburg, “they build the world’s finest ships.” I was amazed. Here in my home town? She pointed out the piers at the Blohm+Voss docks on the opposite bank of the Elbe. Such scenes inevitably remain etched in a young boy’s mind. In subsequent years I have repeatedly come across the name Blohm+Voss. Be it on tours of the harbour together with visitors, where captains always steered as close as they could to the shipyard. Be it in songs written and performed by local bands, which we danced to as 20-somethings not far away on the Reeperbahn. Or be it in the course of my career, during which I have written frequently about Blohm+Voss or when my friends have asked me – in vain – who exactly has commissioned a yacht to be built there. The essence of all those years, conversations and experience is that natives of Hamburg are proud of their local shipbuilder. It is one of Hamburg’s emblems, the hallmark of Europe’s second largest port and exudes a certain degree of aplomb that also stems from its long history. This story begins on April 5, 1877, when the ground was broken at the start of construction of the shipyard, which back then operated as the ‘Kuhwärder Schiffswerft’. The founders are Hermann Blohm and Ernst Voss – two men of completely different backgrounds, but with the same ambition and drive to establish a shipbuilding business based on the English model. In other words, there where seafaring and shipping played a much more important role, a country which both men got to know and grew to appreciate during their years of apprenticeship.
Blohm and Voss, as shipbuilders and mechanical engineers, had to contend with a number of difficulties in the years following the establishment of their shipyard – an only partially suitable site plus a lack of both machinery and staff. And, above all, they initially did not get any orders – Hamburg ship owners were anglophiles. It was not until 18 months after they had established their business that a consortium of fruit and vegetable growers ordered the 43-metre paddle steamer, Elbe. However, that initially did nothing to ease their precarious commercial situation. Therefore what Hermann Blohm’s nephew, Eduard Blohm, recounted about that time seems all the more remarkable. “Businessmen almost worshipped Blohm because he always paid on time. And it was always acknowledged that he did not play suppliers off against each other.” It was not until a floating dock was built and the first refit order (the coal-fired steamer St. Pauli) was completed that business started picking up at the shipyard. Even the English started to commission repair work at Blohm+Voss and the Hamburg ship owners came to trust the builder on their doorstep – that had taken 10 long years. 1887 was the right time to expand. With Senate approval, the company’s facilities increased fivefold in size compared with the ‘original shipyard’ and headcount increased from 1,200 to 2,500. A second floating dock was installed, enabling the
Blohm+Voss
Blohm was the better heeled of the two shipyard founders. As one of seven children of the successful Lübeck merchant, Georg Blohm,
Ernst Voss, on the other hand, came from a more modest background. He was born in 1842 as the son of a blacksmith and ‘had the benefit of’ a tough upbringing as a child and adolescent. At school he was in a class with 150 other children, whilst during his mechanical engineering apprenticeship, which he commenced aged 15, every working day lasted from 6am to 7pm, seven days a week. Like his as yet unknown co-partner, Voss also went to Great Britain, amongst other things to continue his education at what was then the world’s best shipbuilder, Randolph Elder & Co. In 1872 he returned to Germany and worked as an expert at the Chamber of Commerce, before he became acquainted with Blohm.
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company to even offer ship extensions and thus to attract the attention of foreign shipping companies. And the German Imperial Naval Office also became a good client. In 1901 the first large battleship built by Blohm+Voss, Kaiser Karl der Große, embarked on her sea trials. These trials only covered a couple of nautical miles because her captain steered her into shallow waters, however, the impact on the company’s history was colossal. For the first time the authorities in Berlin now grasped the fact that the Elbe had not been dredged deeply enough. The deepening of the Elbe, arranged at short notice, came at just the right time for Blohm+Voss – it enabled the company to build even bigger ships. Milestones from this prosperous and still peaceful era included the 94-metre / 96-metre four-masted barques Pamir (1905; sunk in 1957), Peking (1911, now New York) and Passat (1911, now Travemünde). However, there was even more demand for ships without masts, which can be principally attributed to the Frahm anti-roll tanks, which Blohm+Voss engineered and installed – effectively the precursors of modern stabilisers. Ship owners ordered large passenger liners, for instance Albert Ballin ordered the trio, Imperator, Vaterland and Bismarck, of which Vaterland had advanced by 1913 to become the flagship of the world’s merchant fleet of that time. She featured a Ritz-Carlton restaurant, a gallery of shops including a bank and a travel agency as well as a real swimming pool. Vaterland featured 752 suites, could cross the Atlantic with a total of 4,000 passengers and carried an exemplary standard of safety equipment on board – as a direct result of the Titanic disaster. Then the First World War descended upon Blohm+Voss too. Although the shipyard had no experience of building submarines and its facilities were also not really designed for this purpose, production was switched predominantly to submarines during this difficult period. A total of 98 submarines were built, plus a few merchant ships and torpedo boats; two battleships were still under construction by the time the war ended. Women and prisoners of war worked in the shipyard between 1914 and 1918 because many of the regular workers had been called up for military service.
Blohm+Voss
After the war was over but, of course, by no means digested, the shipbuilder had to bid farewell to one of its founders. Ernst Voss died on 1 August 1920 at the age of 78, while his co-partner followed suit 10 years later at the age of 82 after spending 50 years at the head of a global business. At the funeral, Hamburg’s Senior Pastor summed up as
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Ship owners ordered large passenger liners, for instance Albert Ballin ordered the trio, Imperator, Vaterland and Bismarck, of which Vaterland had advanced by 1913 to become the flagship of the world’s merchant fleet of that time. follows: “He was consumed by an overwhelming passion for his work and dedicated what he had. His greatest happiness was therefore that he could live to see how his sons were cut from the same cloth and made every effort to match his achievements.” Shortly before Blohm died, however, the most unusual order in the shipbuilder’s corporate history to date came rolling in. On Christmas Eve 1929, Mr and Mrs Cadwalader from New York placed an order by phone for the first Blohm+Voss superyacht, Savrona. The 4,500-tonne vessel with an LOA of 105 metres had her keel laid down the following year, and construction was mentored principally by Emily Cadwalader. The granddaughter of the builder of the Brooklyn Bridge was described by the shipbuilder as “remarkable”. She commented laxly on the fact that a global economic crisis was clearly looming, saying “keep it going”. When the twin-propeller steamship was then launched on 28 February 1931, she featured an interior and facilities that were unrivalled anywhere in the world. The items of furniture in the saloons were reproductions of the furniture found in famous French chateaux – they even copied the scratches found on the originals. Onboard facilities included a waste-incineration unit, egg boilers, which were operated using auxiliary steam from the engine room and even special flags, of which one for example signalled 'the owner is currently dining'. Savarona, which incidentally is still afloat today, kicked off a business for which Blohm+Voss is now justly renowned. Blohm+Voss has delivered superyachting icons, such as Lady Moura, Eco and Palladium, and more recently Graceful this year, which are all impressive in their own unique way. Brief profiles of some of them are detailed over the page. And one thing is absolutely certain – they will soon have company.
Blohm+Voss
Top: Blohm+Voss had a team of 1,200 workers in 1879, when this photo was taken. Above: The shipyard today has state-of-the-art facilities in order to create world-class superyachts.
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A history of innovation
1920 Ernst Voss died on 1 August 1920 at the age of 78.
1901
1877 This story began on April 5, 1877, when the ground was broken at the start of construction of the Blohm+Voss shipyard. The founders are Hermann Blohm and Ernst Voss – two men of completely different backgrounds, but with the same ambition and drive to establish a shipbuilding business.
1880
1885
The first large battleship was built, Kaiser Karl der Große, and embarked on her sea trials which covered only a few miles as her captain steered her into shallow waters. For the first time, the authorities realised the Elbe had not been dredged deeply enough. The deepening of the Elbe came at the right time for +Voss as the company was now able to build bigger ships.
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1930 Blohm died in 1930 at the age of 82 after spending 50 years at the head of a global business. At the funeral, Hamburg’s Senior Pastor summed up as follows: “He was consumed by an overwhelming passion for his work and dedicated what he had. His greatest happiness was therefore that he could live to see how his sons were cut from the same cloth and made every effort to match his achievements.”
1905
1905 – 1911
Blohm+Voss
1913 Albert Ballin ordered Imperator, Vaterland and Bismarck, of which Vaterland had advanced by 1913 to become the flagship of the world’s merchant fleet of that time. She carried an exemplary standard of safety equipment on board – as a direct result of the Titanic disaster.
1920
On Christmas Eve, Mr and Mrs Cadwalader from New York placed an order for the first Blohm+Voss superyacht, Savarona. The 4500-tonne vessel with an LOA of 105 metres had her keel laid down the following year, and construction was mentored principally by Emily Cadwalader, the granddaughter of the builder of the Brooklyn Bridge.
1887
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1929
The launch of the 94-metre / 96-metre four-masted barques Pamir (1905; sunk in 1957), Peking (1911, now New York) and Passat (1911, now Travemünde).
With Senate approval, the company’s facilities increased five-fold in size and headcount increased from 1,200 to 2,500. A second floating dock was installed, enabling the company to even offer ship extensions and attract the attention of foreign shipping companies.
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1931 The twin-propeller steamship was launched on 28 February featuring an interior and facilities unrivalled anywhere in the world. The items of furniture in the saloons were reproductions of the furniture found in famous French chateaux – they even copied the scratches found on the originals.
Lady Moura, 105m 1990 This yacht, which still belongs to the owner who commissioned her, is one of the largest in the world at a gross tonnage of 6500 tonnes. Blohm+Voss and the designer responsible, Luigi Sturchio, incorporated hatchways in the hull and a sliding roof above the swimming pool back then – these were unheard of at this time. Project planning and implementation took five years. A Sikorsky helicopter is parked on board and facilities include a highly professional infirmary.
Marc Paris
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Eco, 73m 1991
Mark O'Connell
Eco is one of the most exceptional designs eve been launched. What is particularly striking are half-pipe windows in the superstructure which you of the pipework at the Centre Pompidou an were made in Gelsenkirchen. A so-called, and a unusual Combined Diesel and Gas (CODAG) c serves as her propulsion system. Twin Deutz M which each transfer their 3680kW of output to deliver a cruising speed of 18 knots. To reach h speed of 35 knots, the captain then activates a General Electric LM 1600 gas turbine, which po largest Kamewa waterjet ever built. Pure powe would, however, not have been enough to get E advised speed – Blohm+Voss also had to save The steel used to make the hull is therefore on thick as normal; the superstructure is even mad and only weighs 28 tonnes.
A, 119m 2008 A is perhaps the yacht that polarises world opinion the most. She was designed by Philippe Starck, who allegedly took just three hours one sleepless night to design her. “I wanted to shake the conservative yacht community up a bit,� he once said about his design. The extremely long foreship terminates in a bow that resembles that of a US Navy Zumwalt Class destroyer, while the superstructure resembles a windowed submarine conning tower. Fourteen hatchways have been incorporated in the hull alone, of which two are used to monitor docking manoeuvres. Since A has no bridge sponsons, her captain guides her to the quay with the aid of cameras.
1975
er to have e the mirrored remind nd which at that time, configuration MWM diesels, o waterjets, her top a 13800kW owers the er alone Eco up to the on weight. nly half as de of GRP
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Blohm+Voss 13
Above: Albert Ballin ordered Vaterland in 1913, which became the flagship of the world's merchant fleet of that time.
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M A R I N E
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Blohm+Voss
Antarctic adventure: The planning and construction of the Indian Polar Station
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A new project by Hamburg’s bof Architects and IMS Engineers to design and build a polar station in the Antarctic further cements the city as a producer of some of the world’s greatest pioneers of experiment and adventure, writes Olaf Bartels.
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Each polar station in the Antarctic is an object of prestige for the respective country, much akin to that of a billboard at the World Exposition.
B+V = new frontiers
When I met Andreas Nitschke of IMS Engineers and Bert B端cking of bof Architects, they were both still very excited from their recent trip to India. They participated in an Indian wedding ceremony that their Indian business partner, Shree Verma, arranged for his son and daughterin-law. The Germans travelled to India with their wives and office partners and their host provided them with clothing typical of northern India and the most hospitable of accommodations during their five-day stay. With the exception of a visit to the Taj Mahal, sightseeing was kept to a minimum, and even this experience paled in comparison to the impressions of an Indian wedding. Upon their departure, their Indian host proclaimed they were now part of the family. "That's the highest of accolades," boasted B端cking. bof Architects and IMS Engineers won an international competition to plan and construct an Indian polar station with mechanical engineers from m+p Consulting in 2006, and wanted to build the station at all costs.
Blohm+Voss
Nitschke was experienced in similar projects. He planned the German station Neumayer III for the Alfred Wegener Institute. At that time, the construction of this polar station was
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a technical challenge. The primary focus was on functionality, energy efficiency and safety. The station had to be warm and have a sufficient amount of windows to accommodate natural light in the summertime. Additionally, the station had to prove itself during snowstorms. The design and appearance of the station was subordinate to functionality and the expertise of an architect was regarded as not necessary. However, times have changed. The interest in research regarding natural resources has grown dramatically. Each polar station in the Antarctic is an object of prestige for the respective country, much akin to that of a billboard at the World Exposition. For Nitschke it was important to remain a step ahead, and he was pleased to have found bof Architects, a young office with a large predisposition for experiments and adventure.
Above: Andreas Nitschke of IMS Engineers and chief supervisor of NCAOR in the Antarctic, Joseph Silveira. Right: The building looks somewhat like a space station, which was a pure coincidence.
The building consists of 134 prefabricated modules, based on the principles of standard shipping containers.
B端cking and his partners were busy with the designs for office buildings and at the time were planning a new school which enlisted the efforts of the parents, teachers and students, an adventure of its own kind. B端cking and his colleagues dived into the new project headfirst.
Blohm+Voss
The architects and engineers jointly designed a complex for the Indian researchers consisting of 24 single and double rooms for the scientists, and generous social spaces including the cafeteria with its large panoramic window that captures the nearby Antarctic mountains. The complex includes a movie theatre and a lounge with yet another panoramic window allowing for tremendous views of the adjoining Antarctic sea visible from the site. The building consists of 134 prefabricated modules, based on the principles of standard shipping containers, stacked three storeys tall and clad with a metal panel envelope. The station stands atop columns that
prevent snow drifts from enclosing the station in the winter. The snowcat, a truck designed to move snow, has its own garage easily accessible at ground level. The air-conditioning is located on the uppermost level of the station, as is a roof terrace reserved for research and experiments in the summer months. That the building looks somewhat like a space ship is pure coincidence according to B端cking. He further asserts that the building was conceived in accordance with technical demands and climatic conditions in the Antarctic. I believe him, to a certain degree. The station's form is wind tunnel tested. The building's form undermines snow drifts and protects the station from being snowed in. The large windows not only account for a high quality of sojourn in the occupiable spaces, but also give the station its unmistakable look, and hence a high-quality appearance. That is architecture, and not a simple tin can.
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"When you design a building for
the Antarctic, you have to plan the assembly at the same time, perfectly!" Andreas Nitschke, IMS Engineers
Above: The design includes generous social spaces and a cafeteria.
Blohm+Voss
Left: The station was built to take in views of the Antarctic sea and atop columns that prevent snow drifts from enclosing it during winter. Right: Staff at the station are self sufficient for months at a time and help cannot readily reach them.
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bof Architects, IMS Engineers and the mechanical engineers at m+p cooperated on the project as a creative team. Nitschke is an experienced engineer. IMS has designed sluices, off-shore wind generator systems and research stations elsewhere in the world. They are specialised in the salvage of the booster rockets from the European Ariane carrier-rockets for research purposes. "When you design a building for the Antarctic," says Andreas, "you have to plan the assembly at the same time, perfectly. The workers are wearing mittens, keeping them from holding on to something properly. If it falls it's gone! One has to be aware of that when planning in the Antarctic. We need robust, technical systems and not high-tech systems. The staff are self sufficient for months at a time and help cannot readily reach them. They are not prepared for technical problems for extended periods of time. Things must be repaired easily and quickly with the simplest of resources. That is of vital importance." Andreas accompanied the construction material along its sea route from Capetown to the Antarctic. The construction material was prefabricated in Germany, transferred to South Africa and shipped with the workers, the machines and the provisions with a Russian freighter seaworthy for icy waters. And true to the phrase ‘the devil is in the detail’, the freighter got stuck in ice. Each day in the Antarctic summer is crucial.
“As a German perfectionist
I was continually challenged, I needed improvisational talent, patience and flexibility. The project was a good learning
Blohm+Voss
experience to learn those traits.”
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Bert Bücking, bof Architects
Ultimately a portion of the freight had to be flown with a helicopter on numerous flights to the site. For Bücking the particular adventure associated with this project was the communication and dialog with their Indian colleagues. The National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR) is located in Goa, where it is particularly warm by German standards. "We were welcomed in a very reserved manner,” says Bert. “I was rather surprised at first because I had come to know India for its hospitality. Our Indian clients made it very clear that they were not dependent on us and were capable of solving matters by themselves. Today I know they wanted to test us. They wanted to know who we were and what we were capable of enduring. We passed the test and ultimately worked together very well." Somewhat irritating for the planners were the arduous meetings that continued for days and nights in India, in comparison to the meetings which only lasted hours in Germany. The results were, however, always perfect. In the end a protocol and arrangements had been agreed upon that everyone abided to. "As a German perfectionist I was continually challenged,” recalls Bücking. “I needed improvisational talent, patience and flexibility. The project was a good learning experience to learn those traits.” The intercultural interface that Shree Verma provided was of substantial importance. The collaboration with their Indian colleagues increased in intensity. "Originally we were only partners, then we became friends, and now we have become family,” says Bücking. Each step in the process was celebrated and it reached its zenith with the invitation to the wedding. IMS Engineers, bof Architects m+p Consulting and m+p Consulting continue to collaborate on new projects. They participate in competitions for new polar stations as they arise. Brazil, Turkey, China and Korea want to build in the Antarctic, however, an Indian wedding ceremony is not to be expected.
The structure of the polar station
Containers
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Research base
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Fabrics Wallpapers Trimmings
www.dedar.com
Curation
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Jamie Medlin
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Neil Harbisson
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Dan Sykes
Blohm+Voss
Art is constantly evolving – whether it's one artist's breakthrough, or partnering with science to recreate art's future. It is through challenging ourselves that we create future masterpieces.
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What lies beneath: a beautiful balance of science and art 30
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Š The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London.
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Dan Sykes, Micro-CT scanning specialist at the Natural History Museum in London, creates breathtakingly beautiful works of art through his incredible 3D images of scientific specimens. Working at the cutting edge of technology, the machines Dan uses are changing how we see the world and our understanding of it, writes Karolyn Shindler.
Blohm+Voss
Below: Dan Sykes is a Micro-CT scanning specialist at London's Natural History Museum.
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Among the great treasures held by the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London’s South Kensington are 185 glass sculptures – exquisite models of invertebrate sea creatures created by father and son Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka in the late 19th century. They range from microscopic animals recreated as small, fragile spheres, seemingly of exquisitely spun sugar, to jellyfish – delicate, graceful, as if frozen in motion as they drift on an unseen sea. Their craftsmanship has never been equalled, nor their technique fully understood. To investigate their structure – critical to their conservation – and also to discover more of the Blaschkas’ techniques, the models are being MicroCT scanned in the Museum’s Imaging and Analysis Centre. Last year, Dan Sykes’s 3D scanned image of a Blaschka jellyfish became a highlight of the Royal Photographic Society’s International Images of Science Exhibition, and received wide acclaim. And no wonder. What Dan created was a magical three-dimensional transparent image, which revealed previously unimagined details of its innermost structure. CT at present cannot record colour, but using the different densities of the glass, Dan added false colour, based on the materials of the model. On the click of a mouse, Dan emphasised key parts in shades of turquoise, green, lemon, purple, blue. There was scientific purpose in what he did, but the colours were based on his artistic decisions. What Dan creates balances beautifully between science and art. He is a specialist in MicroComputed Tomography (CT) scanning, which uses X-rays to reveal not only every detail of the surface of an object, but what lies beneath. It is a technique that is non-invasive, non-destructive and of huge importance in a vast range of subjects – palaeontology, geology, zoology, medicine, botany, biology, archaeology, art, forensics – not simply in understanding the specimen itself, but in the potential applications of the knowledge acquired. And that can be anything from lifesaving techniques in medicine, to groundbreaking advances in engineering.
There are few imaging centres that work on such a broad range of materials and subjects as the NHM’s does – most specialise in a particular field – and Dan loves the variety of the work. “There are not many people who get to look at art, deep-sea fish and meteorites within their job!” says Dan. It is not just the intrinsic interest of the extraordinary specimens he deals with that fascinates him, it is, he says, “the ability to cut across disciplines and join them together and see what the common themes are”. He has recently been involved in a medical project for the British Heart Foundation, scanning the circulatory system of a rabbit, while that meteorite he scanned is from Mars. The power of Micro-CT scanning is that it can show a virtual dissection of a specimen, slicing it through to reveal what is inside – something that could not previously be achieved without destruction of at least part of a valuable specimen. “Many meteorites contain minerals present as glass,” he says. “Within this glass we find bubbles, which may contain Martian atmosphere. We can use CT to locate bubbles that aren't connected to the outside of the meteorite by cracks, which implies that the Martian atmosphere – potentially from millions of years ago – is preserved inside.” And that, says Dan, “means that instead of breaking the meteorite to discover what it contains, researchers have characterised it virtually, so preserving the museum’s collections.” Working in such an inter-disciplinary area, what, I asked him, had happened to his ambition to be a new Jacques Cousteau? “I actually find that I prefer this”, he says thoughtfully, “because it would be very hard not to love this job”. On the wall above his desk is one of his 3D scans. It is the head of a lizard, but the 3D imagery has given it a mesmeric quality that raises unexpected questions. “I don’t think I’m the most philosophical of people”, Dan
Blohm+Voss
Dan’s enthusiasm for this Aladdin’s cave of subject matter is almost tangible. He is tall, slim – and at the age of just 23, slightly to his surprise, finds himself running the NHM’s Micro-CT Lab over this year as maternity-leave cover. It was a career direction he never expected. “When I was five,” he says, “I knew that I wanted to be a marine biologist – I don’t know
how I even knew what they were at that age." He persuaded his parents to take him to aquariums and every summer holiday he would go rockpooling with his father. He learned to snorkel and saw his future as a modern-day Jacques Cousteau. He studied marine biology at Southampton University, and for part of his Master’s degree, spent time at the Natural History Museum, MicroCT scanning the marine animals he was studying. After university, he returned to the imaging department as a volunteer, and after just two months, was offered a post there.
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Above: X-rays are used to reveal not only every detail of the surface of an object, but what lies beneath.
Š The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London.
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Š The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London.
Below: 3D transparent images are created by adding false colour to emphasise key parts of the structures.
B+V = hidden beauty
Dan's work shows the intricacies of life forms in startling and beautiful images. The result is art but the purpose is science.
© The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London.
Above: The beauty of nature is so complicated, that complex technologies are employed to grasp it.
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says with a laugh, “but it does make you start to think about how these things are”. He pauses for a moment. “There’s a huge complexity in how that lizard has evolved, and how its anatomy functions as a whole, but in that image you can see quite a simple structure behind it. I think it portrays a lot of the beauty of nature, but it is so incredibly complicated that we have to employ complex technologies to get a grasp of it.”
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Dan’s work shows the intricacies of life forms in startling and beautiful images. The result is art but the purpose is science. And that lies behind the glorious glass Blaschka models. Leopold Blaschka came from a family of Bohemian glassmakers. In the 1850s, his wife and father died within two years of each other and heartbroken, he sailed for America. On the way, the ship moored in the Azores and it was observing the grace and delicacy of sea creatures as they moved in their natural habitat that inspired Leopold. Invertebrate sea animals were notoriously difficult to study – once they are preserved in spirit, they lose their shape and colour. Students and scientists had largely to work from drawings or, if they were fortunate, from aquariums. Blaschka’s models changed that. On his return to Europe, Leopold re-married and had a son, Rudolf, who later worked with him. Leopold began to make glass models of plants and flowers, and then anatomically accurate models of marine life, and sold them to universities and museums, including the British Museum, of which the NHM was originally a part. When Rudolf died in the 1930s, the secrets of their craft died with him – they had trained no one else.
Dan is full of admiration for their work. We look at a 3D image of an exquisite glass sphere that is currently on display in the NHM’s Treasures Gallery. It is actually of a microscopic creature, a radiolarian. The scan has revealed the complex inner structure of the model, and emphasised the fragile spines that radiate around it. “These models display an almost unbelievable level of fine detail,” says Dan, “especially for the time they were made.” It is the Blaschkas’ ability to maintain the scientific integrity of the models, while creating something beautiful that Dan finds so inspirational, and he sees parallels between his work, and theirs. “They were taking something that people couldn’t see and didn’t have access to and creating a beautiful, anatomically accurate depiction of it. It was a simple, clear but crucial step between taking the science and creating an artistic impression that is then used for education and training. I work with researchers to scan their specimens and produce an artistic image, and that is often also used for public outreach, to show people how these things work – something that they would not be able to see in any other way.” He makes the process sound simple, but the main part of this work is after the scan. “Scanning itself”, he says, “is only going to be an hour or so, but then there is the actual processing and rendering of images and analysing data. That’s the tough part. Some people can spend months working on just one scan, because they want to highlight something very specific that’s hard to model” – much as the Blaschkas would have done when they began their precise, intricate work. This is the field in which Dan Sykes wants to be and where his ambitions lie – in the future development of Micro-CT scanning. On the horizon are colour and 4D scanning, the fourth dimension being movement and time, the ability to scan something in motion and then produce moving models of how it works in three dimensions. This, he says, “is just fascinating”, and the potential extraordinary. Science underlies everything he does, but art does too. The Blaschka models were described by a contemporary as ‘an artistic marvel in the field of science and a scientific marvel in the field of art’. The 3D imagery of Dan Sykes is not a million miles away from that.
THE SUPERYACHT MARINA IN THE MEDITERRANEAN
www.vilanovagrandmarina.com
The captain of canvas It takes Jamie Medlin months to meticulously encapsulate the ocean’s natural ebbs and flows. As a result, he is in high demand in the superyacht world for creating individual, flawless artworks for owners and their yachts. Words by Julia Brandon
Forming the deepest natural harbour in Western Europe, Falmouth is an unassuming, picturesque fishing town on the south coast of Cornwall, England. It’s famous for being the start or finish point of various round-the-world record-breaking voyages, but it’s also responsible for shaping the formative years of accomplished marine artist Jamie Medlin who took great inspiration as a young Cornishman from the ever-changing scenes, shifting lights and dancing winds of the local area.
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A prolific and versatile artist starting out with illustration and fine art (skills which he believes form the basis of his style today), Medlin is to date preeminent in his chosen subject matter. Twentyfive years ago it was Falmouth’s Working Boat fleet — perfectly proportioned gaff-rigged cutters adorned with colourful topsails — that first caught his imagination and still drive him to produce breathtaking works of art, beautifully exemplified by Grace and the fleet from the Falmouth Classics, 2010. Now married and a father of two, he is in near constant demand for private commissions from the owners of some of the world’s most spectacular superyachts, including two paintings of the largest privately owned clipper ship The Maltese Falcon, two of Eric Clapton’s Va Bene and recently one for the owner of the J-Class yacht, Velsheda.
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At the top of his game and with nothing to prove, Medlin’s steadfast passion for his craft is apparent: “I’m always keen to start a new painting — I have the best job I could imagine, so I would feel foolish to not be enthusiastic.” He emits a genuine fervour for capturing, with oil on canvas, the grace and beauty of vessels at sea, driven by a need to do justice to “the stunning sight they create”. After many years of continued success with Christie’s in London he has risen to global acclaim with paintings described by the auction house as “evoking memories of the golden age of yachting”
and “modern masterpieces”. In 2012, Return of the J-Class was auctioned off for £127,500, shattering the guide price of £30-£50,000 and becoming the second most expensive artwork ever sold by a living marine artist (although Medlin is quick to highlight that his commissions can start from considerably less). His photographic style based on detail and accuracy requires intense scrutiny before the seeing is believed. Every inch of his billboard-sized canvases are festooned with the most impressive minutiae, from translucent salt spray splattering the skipper’s face and opaque sails silhouetted by dazzling sun-rays, to vast, brooding cumulonimbus clouds and powerful, thrashing oceans. Created using a montage of many photographs put together to achieve the most pleasing composition, the best light and stunning action, Medlin flawlessly encapsulates waves, bow wash and wakes, all of which add to the intensity of his work, and make the finished product as striking as possible. “You can’t always take the perfect photo,” he explains, “either one boat is obscured by another, or spectator boats get in the way, but hopefully I can paint one!” He invests himself wholeheartedly into every one of his paintings, and it’s this zeal, emotion and belief that give his work soul. It takes Jamie on average three months to finish a piece, but it can take him up to five months for the larger pieces. Parting with them can be bitter sweet. “Classics of the Squadron and Mariquita – Pendennis Cup were two of my best,” he remembers. “The first is still local so not lost, though the second sold at Christie’s and I may never see it again.
www.fulanodetal.com
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Above: Jamie Medlin flawlessly encapsulates waves and bow wash in this painting of Mariquita during the Pendennis Cup.
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The art is in the detail
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Above: Stephen Wiltshire is renowned for his city panoramas that were created from memory after spending 20 minutes above in a helicopter.
For London-born artist Stephen Wiltshire, drawing is the air that he breathes. Putting pen to paper is more than just a hobby, or even a method of channelling his imagination, it is what he most truly identifies with, writes Julia Brandon. greatest challenge yet — he has mastered the art of recollecting exactly what he sees on a vast spectrum. Across perfectly proportioned landscapes he not only accurately details the number of buildings for miles at a time, but also the number of windows in each building, specific design elements for each archway, the positioning of the sun, or a crane working in the background. More than just looking at the panorama, Stephen really sees it.
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Above: The drawings can take up to five days to complete and when done, they reflect how the artist saw the scene.
“I can see everything I want to remember,” he explains, with his smaller impulse sketches taking a mere half hour while his larger panoramics can take up to five days at a time to finish. “Sometimes I remember a scene I liked that I saw earlier, or even movies. I can play them back and watch them whenever I like. I need to remember lots of information and all the details. Then draw for days, sometimes five days in a row all day. When I complete the view, it shows how I saw the scene.”
Largely famous for his 10 city panoramas that were created from memory after spending just 20 minutes flying above in a helicopter — a task that Stephen deems to have been his
“I became a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2006 and got my medal at Buckingham Palace, and I opened my gallery in Central London the same year. I am very proud of my work,” he says.
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Completely mute as a small child, and diagnosed with autism at the age of three, Stephen Wiltshire formed an affinity with drawing early on. “Drawing was my way of expressing myself,” he says, a tool for communicating, but also a powerful language that soon began to amaze and inspire. He found the linear structure of buildings and fine architectural details particularly captivating — “I like how busy modern cities are, rush hour, taxis, square avenues and tall buildings” — and his mature grasp of perspective and scale soon began to emerge. Finely detailed pen and ink street scenes energetically translated onto paper, at first scribbly in style but later honed with mind-boggling precision, have always been Stephen’s signature style. Most interestingly of all, he draws the lot by heart.
Stephen’s early fans included the late British Prime Minister Edward Heath who bought his drawing of Salisbury Cathedral created when he was just eight years old. Now in his fourties he has travelled the world over on private and public commissions, published four books of his drawings, been featured in roughly 40 television documentaries, commissioned by some of the most influential global brands and in 2011 received an Honorary Life Fellowship from the Society of Architectural Illustrators. And the accolades keep on coming. But while the sensational attention and praise that Stephen now receives gives him the selfconfidence to continue doing what he does best, it is important to note that Stephen is a celebrated and accomplished artist irrespective of his autism. Originally a means for communication and self-expression, Stephen’s work is today the product of a dedicated artist in demand whose ambitions keep on growing.
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Above: Justin Bieber's 'Baby,' as seen in Neil Harbisson's mind with the help of his eyeborg.
Wired for colour Neil Harbisson literally hears colour. Born without the ability to see colour, he wears an antenna which analyses the visible spectrum and translates colour into vibrations that he can hear and feel through his skull, making him the world's first cyborg. Words by Don Hoyt Gorman
Neil Harbisson is an artist, who, in his 20s, as part of a creative drive to address his inability to perceive something so fundamental as colour, led a team of university engineers to develop a device that would allow him to experience the frequencies of light that we know as colour. “When I was young, I actually didn’t believe colour existed,” he says. “I had no way of sensing a stimulus that everyone else takes for granted. Now, with this device, I can perceive the full breadth of the colour spectrum that normal humans can see, as well as into the infrared and ultraviolet ends of the spectrum, which no human can see. It’s opened a whole world to me.” Over the past decade, the antenna has evolved in both hardware and software, and is now permanently attached to the back of his head via a chip that triggers the vibrations that interact with his sense of hearing. It makes him, he insists, the world’s first cyborg. He’s named the antenna his ‘eyeborg’.
A problem arose when Harbisson wanted to transpose sound into colour. “You need a different scale, otherwise F would be invisible, meaning there would be some notes with no colour.” So Harbisson created two scales: Pure scale, and the musical scale. Look at the cutting edge of fashion and design today and you’ll spot the trend that’s trailing a decade behind Harbisson. Wearable technology, the next stage of our ongoing drive to connect ourselves to the internet of things, is but a half-measure compared to the lengths Harbisson and others are going. “All of these devices are about providing us with enhanced abilities,” Harbisson explains. “What I’m doing is working on enhancing our ability to actually sense.” As part of Harbisson’s Barcelona-based Cyborg Foundation that promotes the creative thinking and technology behind technological sensing like the eyeborg, others have experimented with building new senses. One artist is connected to the world’s networked seismographs and feels
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Via the eyeborg, Harbisson experiences the closest thing to the frequency of light as possible. He hears and feels the frequency of the light waves transposed into a corresponding audio frequency. Infrared is very deep sounding, low frequency, while ultraviolet is a piercing, high frequency. “For me, solar radiation sounds like it ought to feel: painful.”
The entire visible spectrum of light fits within one octave: At the low end, the musical note F is infrared, with F# marking where visible red starts. The visual spectrum ascends to D# which is violet and E which is ultraviolet.
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Part of what makes Harbisson so inspiring is his refusal to accept the terms of constraint as they applied to him.
Above: Martin Luther King Jr.'s most famous speech 'I had a dream', as interpreted by Neil Harbisson.
The thing about cybernetic body parts is that they are in constant evolution. Software and hardware can be upgraded, so that in the reverse of human ageing, the older a cyborg gets, the better her senses will be. In Harbisson’s case, he is looking forward to submergible hardware that will permit underwater sight, recharging the chip with his own blood circulation and an articulated antenna that moves under the power of his own thought. the intensity of earthquakes whenever they happen by means of a vibration at the back of her arm. A finger amputee has developed a ‘fingerborg;’ a prosthetic finger with a camera in the tip that at first, simply took pictures, but soon will provide feedback directly to the hand. “Imagine being able to point your finger in the dark and sense infrared light,” says Harbisson. “That will be possible.”
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“When you compare human senses with that of other animal species, you see how limited we actually are,” he says. “It would change a lot if others could sense the ultraviolet spectrum for instance, as I can. I can look into the sky and sense the level of UV rays, and know if it’s safe to sunbathe.”
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While Harbisson’s understanding of colour via the eyeborg is actually now more extensive than what is possible with the human eye, it’s still not the same as seeing actual colour—a sense he will never be able to activate or understand. “I sense colour through bone conduction. That gives me an entirely new world to explore. If I hear music now I also feel my understanding of colour, and in fact I now dream in my sense of colour, which means my brain is generating signals that I can recognise only because of the technology that I’ve used to teach myself the perception. The technology and my brain have become one.”
The interest in cybernetics, now that Harbisson himself is out there actually living the experience and talking about it, ranges from slightly horrified curiosity to eager uptake. The younger the person, Harbisson says, the more likely it is they intuitively grasp the potential of working with technology to acquire new sensing abilities. “People my age who are interested in trying to develop cybernetics for themselves seem to suffer from a kind of fear. They’ll say they want to do it, but they rarely do. But younger people see technology as a tool. They’ve seen their parents use the iPad and they’re the ones who want to stop using their hands and start applying the technology to their body.” When given a set of constraints, clever people tend to admit them and innovate within the boundaries of what’s available to them. Part of what makes Harbisson so inspiring – he was a featured presenter at TEDGlobal2012 – is his refusal to accept the terms of constraint as they applied to him. His eyeborg is so much a part of him, he persuaded the Spanish government of his homeland that it was part of his body and therefore had to appear in his passport photo. In every sense he is an artist, pioneered a new way of experiencing the world. But he is also something more: a true guru, transcending his life’s own barriers and in so doing, illuminating an impossible world of colourful potential beyond.
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Above: For the past decade, Neil Harbisson's antenna has evolved in both hardware and software and is now permanently attached to the back of his head via a chip that triggers the vibrations that interact with his sense of hearing.
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V isi o ns o f Liquidity
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Her friends don’t call her landline anymore. Texting is best because in any one month, architect Zaha Hadid has museums and stadia and towers breaking ground, under construction, or opening around the world. The architect is as perpetually airborne as the anti-gravitational buildings she designs to float in the air, writes Joseph Giovannini.
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When clients hire Hadid, she virtually tattoos her buildings not only with innovative vision but also with her signature – cities collect a ‘Hadid’ as museums acquire a ‘Picasso’. Hair streaked with green, wearing pleated Issey Miyakes, billowing Romeo Gillis or constructed Yamamotos, she brings identity to her buildings.
Previous: The architect's LunaTable. Photograph by Jacopo Spilimbergo. Left: Architect Zaha Hadid. Photograph by Brigitte Lacombe.
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Many international architects are called to create the iconic monuments that today advertise upand-coming cities and institutions that want an international profile, but few deliver masterpieces with the same regularity as Iraqui-born, LondonBased Zaha Hadid. Fresh from her triumph in Baku, Azerbaijan, where last November she opened her Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center – as billowing as a cumulus cloud – she recently spent two weeks opening her Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul, Korea, and the Jockey Club Innovation Tower in Hong Kong. Both are large buildings enveloped in devilishly difficult complex geometries that signal the ambitious cultural and commercial aspirations of Asian cities actively competing for prominence in the new global economy.
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Hadid has emerged as one of the most charismatic of a new breed of high-profile architects, but not just because she produces monuments of unexpected and unorthodox beauty that exceed simple function. When clients hire Hadid, she virtually tattoos her buildings not only with innovative vision but also with her signature – cities collect a ‘Hadid’ as museums acquire a ‘Picasso’. Hair streaked with green, wearing pleated Issey Miyakes, billowing Romeo Gillis or constructed Yamamotos, she brings identity to her buildings. When her Museum of XXI Century Art (MAXXI) opened in Rome in 2009, every other public bus had her portrait plastered on its back, as though ‘60s La Dolce Vita actress Anita Ekberg were storming into town again.
But 30 years ago, when she was starting out, the 20-something architect was toiling in the vineyards obscurely, working outside the architectural mainstream in a rented London muse house while she taught at the Architectural Association after her own graduation. Students, friends and other designers were deployed at boards in every nook and cranny of the two-floor cottage, crowding even the single bedroom with drafting tables. “I had to hide out in the bathroom if I wanted to think,” she remembers fondly about her salad days. She turned the drafting boards upside down when she invited everybody back for take-out dinner or a barbecue: “There wasn’t enough room inside, so I barbecued on the street,” she recalls. Even then her generous personality filled the room: a mimic with perfect pitch, she performed hilarious impersonations, usually at someone’s expense. On the threshold, she crooned smoky cabaret songs in a throaty voice somewhere between coloratura and Lauren Bacall, her audience wheezing with laughter. At ease in a spotlight of her own creation, she was a big fish in a small pond. The pond, and she, would soon grow proportionately. In 1983, she and her well-fed team working in the muse house produced the spectacular winning entry for The Peak, a men’s club in the heights over Hong Kong, and the shard-like structure, its floors splaying in the air like an exploding rock crystal, required new eyes to see: it represented a physics of beauty that dared conventional
Top and left: The architect's Museum of XXI Century Art opened in Rome in 2009. Photograph by Iwan Baan.
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conferred the Praemium Imperiale for architecture on Hadid. In 2012, Queen Elizabeth named her a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In the midst of all the accolades, not to mention the work of the eponymous office she was running, she would still text her friends to find out how a sick child was doing, or where a son or daughter was going to college. Did they need a recommendation?
Above: Tela shelving designed for T Mobile. Photograph by Jacopo Spilimbergo. Right: Stuart Weitzman's shoe salons were worthy enough to receive the Zaha Hadid touch.
construction: “No more complicated than highway engineering,” she clarified matter-of-factly. The building wasn’t built finally, a casualty of the developer’s financial difficulties. But the new architectural paradigm was widely published, and the design set a precedent for a way of thinking about architecture as fragments flying energetically in a three-dimensional force field. In the context of the historical post-Modernism that was then the fashion, she was pointedly looking to the future rather than the past. Hadid commented, “We just couldn’t move forward as cake decorators.” In 1988, she was the only woman in the Museum of Modern Art’s Deconstructivist Architecture show, curated by Philip Johnson, which arguably changed the course of contemporary architecture. She then started to build her first projects, such as the famous firehouse at Vitra in Weil am Rhein, Germany, an illusory composition in concrete that mixed forced perspectives to create a visual conundrum. She went on to the Bergisel Ski Jump in Innsbruck, shaped like a monumental comma curling against the sky; several breathtaking funicular stations, also in the mountains of Innsbruck; and her critically acclaimed Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, her first American project, a stack of loft-like buildings bundled together horizontally like logs.
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The projects earned her the coveted Pritzker Prize for architecture in 2004, bestowed on the stage in the Hermitage that Catherine the Great built for herself – somehow an appropriate venue for the first woman to win architecture’s Nobel.
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With the Pritzker seal of approval, but armed mostly with her talent and an inspired team, she has since become unstoppable, riding her success across the globe. In 2009, Prince Hitachi of Japan
The roots of Hadid’s vision are still on display in Studio 9, the office she opened after the muse house in 1985 in a lofty classroom of a former government elementary school in a brick Victorian building in Clerkenwell, then an overlooked section of East London. As organised as a field marshal, Hadid has since commandeered the whole school, with hundreds of architects at work on their computers as though at sewing machines in a hightech factory. But Studio 9 retains the original aura of an artist’s studio, sometimes with a changing selection of her large-scale paintings on the wall, overlooking the desks that are arranged in four orderly rows. Zaha’s desk has always been near the window at the far end, but still part of the office pool: she would often answer the phone herself. This room was the eye of the creative storm in the early days, where she and her colleagues in the heat of the creative moment brainstormed, devising plans, and painting late into the night. She may have cultivated sprezzatura, giving the impression that she doesn’t work all that hard, but from the beginning she imposed a punishing work schedule on herself, and expected long hours from her colleagues in the office, who were in any event already driven by the idealism of her vision. No getting off early on Friday for a weekend ski trip to Switzerland. Just off the classroom is a smaller room, an inner sanctum lined with tomes on Malevich, Tatlin, Lissitzky, Rodchenko, Leonidov, architects of the Russian Avant Garde who informed her early years. Their visions had emerged around the time of the Russian Revolution but ultimately went largely unbuilt, condemned by Lenin and then Stalin. Hadid decided that she would develop, and build, their unconsummated vision. Among many other lessons she culled from these studies, Hadid absorbed their sheer beauty, which she factored into her design DNA as one of her vision’s most appealing arguments. Beauty perhaps was not discussed in school, but for Hadid, it mattered. Starting with the Russians, she set her own unusual path, a pattern that has persisted as she pursued a practice based on research into the new – whether new forms or new materials or new urban strategies. The complexity of her designs demanded the computer long before the computer became a fixture in architecture offices. Hadid always maintained a strong relationship to
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the Architectural Association, and attracted its freshly minted graduates, adept at the keyboard, as well as ambitious idealists from around the world. At a certain point the influence of the computer and its ability to smooth even fragmentary forms into curving shapes encouraged a shift in her architectural approach toward liquid forms and liquids spaces. The most recent triumphs include the swimming stadium for the 2012 Olympics, and the Cultural Center in Baku, both shell structures with beautifully arching shapes. But her recent design for Blohm+Voss, with an elasticised web superstructure and streamlined hull, is possibly the most concrete indication that her aesthetic has changed, from an architecture that occupies the air to an architecture equally at home in the water: her aerodynamic architecture has become, in a sense, hydrodynamic – visions of liquidity. Recently, she has applied the approach at very large scale. Last year, she won no less than the competition to build the 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium for the 2020 Olympics in Japan, a huge building that signals Hadid’s escalation from a boutique practice to a firm operating at a much larger scale. She has also bought the former home of London’s Design Museum, a large warehouse, which means that Hadid has now joined the big boys, other international architects operating at very large scale from their offices along the Thames. What is remarkable is that she has not diluted the intensity and complexity of her early work as she translates her abstractions to much larger commissions. By now, her fame has already lasted well beyond Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes, and is well on its way to a full lifetime, largely because it is based on talent at the service of vision, and not on celebrity. But please don’t call her a starchitect. She’s the one and only Zaha. Left: The swimming stadium for London's 2012 Olympics was designed by Zaha Hadid.
Hadid has emerged as one of the most new breed of highprofile architects.
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charismatic of a
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Project Jazz, 90m Star architect Zaha Hadid developed the 90-metre project, Jazz, derived from a 128-metre draft design that she sketched out for one of her existing clients. “However, this mega-prototype,” says Blohm+VossCEO Dr. Herbert Aly, “was too extreme and could at best only be built if an unlimited budget was available.” So there was an agreement between Hamburg and London on a reduction of 38 metres and yet Jazz achieves a visual impact that in yacht terms can at best be matched by Philippe Starck’s M/Y A and Sir Norman Foster’s M/Y Ocean Emerald. The superstructure looks almost skeletal and here Hadid was inspired by underwater flora. The styling is in line with her maxim, “the most important thing is motion, fluidity, a nonEuclidian geometry where nothing is repeated” – which is continued in the interior. There is almost no occurrence of corners and right angles. Construction of Jazz would take between 40 and 48 months.
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Above and left: The styling of Project Jazz is in line with her maxim of motion, fluidity and a non-Euclidian geometry where nothing is repeated.
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Above: Project Jazz was a prototype developed with Blohm+Voss, but never produced. Below: The interior of Project Jazz contains no corners or right angles.
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Formula E: loud enough to turn heads Blohm+Voss 57
Alejandro Agag, CEO of Formula E Holdings, is a racing fanatic, a former petrolhead and absolutely certain that this new series will be a success. Jethro Bovingdon explores the evolution of the motorsport and the new technology of ‘green’ electric power that will define the future of Formula E.
The promised land of genuinely usable electric vehicles still seems tantalisingly out of reach. In the last year or so great strides have been taken, of course. US-based Tesla, under the leadership of their renegade and trailblazing owner Elon Musk (he also runs a space rocket company), launched the superb and highly acclaimed Model S. BMW’s innovative but affordable i3 also looks set to become a real success. However, in a vast global car market of around 82 million units, EV sales are but a pinprick. You only need to look at the highest levels of international motorsport to see that the electrification of the car is really gathering momentum, however. At the iconic Le Mans 24-hour race all of the leading protagonists – Audi, Toyota and Porsche – are fielding cars featuring hybrid technology (where a conventional combustion engine works together with electric motors for added performance and efficiency). Formula 1 has also adopted this technology and due to the massively accelerated pace of development born of competition, the benefits will soon be felt in the cars that all of us drive.
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Left: CEO of Formula E, Alejandro Agag.
It’s little wonder then, that a new racing formula that utilises electric power alone has been created. Known as Formula E and with races scheduled against the backdrop of some of the most recognisable cities in the world, it’s both a huge gamble and a fascinating leap into the unknown. Alejandro Agag, CEO of Formula E holdings, is a racing fanatic, a former petrolhead and absolutely certain that this new series will be a success. “What made us take on this project was that we felt there was the space and the need for this,” he explains. “The technology needs a platform to develop and there’s also a need in the market for a new kind of motorsport – focusing on electric and sustainability. ”
According to Agag that’s set to change. And quickly. “You remember the big mobile phones 25 years ago? ” he asks. I can sense it’s a line he’s used before to explain the way this technology is changing. “Well, that’s where we are now with these racing cars if you compare them to the electric cars that will be racing around the world in 25 years. Or even five years. They will be like a new iPhone, but if nobody ever built those big early models
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Put like that it’s easy to instantly buy into Agag’s confidence. But there are hurdles. The technology is in its infancy and motor racing fans are a conservative bunch. Many just want to see the fastest, closest racing possible and hang the ‘sustainability’. Many more might accept Formula E’s green message but will find adapting to their beloved sport playing out with the hushed whoosh of electric motors instead of a howling internal combustion engine very difficult. Agag flips that logic and suggests the new noises associated with electric racing cars might become a part of the appeal. “We are looking for a much more futuristic sound. A little bit like Star Wars pod racers, or the Tron movies, ” he says with a grin. “The level of sound will be lower – in the region of 75-80dB. That’s still loud enough to make for exciting racing but quiet enough for us to be able to compete in these city centres.”
The locations for the races will be truly spectacular and no doubt envied even by Formula 1 organisers. The inaugural season kicks off on 13th September in Beijing and stops off in Malaysia, Rio de Janeiro, Punta del Este in Uruguay, Buenos Aires, LA, Miami, Monaco and Berlin before the season closer held on the streets of London on 27th June 2015. For this first season the 10 competing teams (each with two drivers) will use identical cars, the Spark-Renault SRT_01E. Designed and built by Spark Racing Technology in France but in collaboration with iconic racing names such as Dallara, Williams Advanced Engineering and McLaren Electronic Systems, the car produces 270bhp in qualifying trim and around 180bhp for the hour-long races – with a limited number of ‘push to pass’ boosts up to full power to spice up the action. It looks like a real racer and with extensive use of carbon fibre and aluminium it’s light, too. Just 800kg including the driver. However, compared to the 1000bhp or more machines that run at Le Mans or 800bhp Formula 1 cars, the performance is of a more modest scale.
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“In history we see that motorsport has created many advances in technology and we want to continue that.” Alejandro Agag
then we wouldn’t have the iPhone, the Galaxys. So we want to be that group who makes the first moves.” To reinforce the point, Formula E will become an ‘open’ formula after the first season, allowing each team to develop different cars, energy storage systems and power units and massively accelerating the rate of evolution. “The main benefit of the open formula is for the technology to evolve,” Agag begins. “In history we see that motorsport has created many advances in technology and we want to continue that. The open championship will also be very attractive to the big car manufacturers. They want to take this challenge and progress their own ideas.” As well as finding new and converting old motorsport fans to the thrills of electric racing, it is the manufacturer involvement that will ultimately decide Formula E’s fate. Motorsport was, is and forever will be an incredibly expensive thing to do and Formula E will be no different. To run a team will cost in the region of €3 million per season initially, but if a technology arms race is born when the series switches to an open formula, you can multiply that several times, and only big manufacturer’s could stomach that cost. For reference it’s estimated that the top Formula 1 teams spend around €250-million per season to compete near the front.
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Below: One of the Formula E models pictured in Vegas. Right: Expect the race cars to hit top speeds of 300kph.
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The Box Circuit, Beijing
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The lap begins with a brilliant overtaking opportunity. After a short straight the cars will be trying to outbrake each other into this slow right-hander and the wheel-to-wheel action will continue into the following left.
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This fast chicane will demonstrate the car’s agility as they flick right-left-right and call upon the aerodynamic downforce to squeeze the tyres into the track surface and provide incredible grip.
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A tricky corner that’s faster than it looks. Overtaking looks possible here but it will require real bravery. Set against the iconic National ‘Bird’s Nest’ Stadium it will be a stunning spectator spot.
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The cars will reach around 140mph as the sweep in front of the stadium and driver’s will be hoping to use their ‘push to pass’ temporary performance boost to pull off high-speed passes here. Another prime overtaking spot, the Formula E machines will be braking hard from close to top speed for this tricky left. The final corner and the final chance to make a move before another breathless lap begins. With identical cars and closely-matched drivers don’t bet against the first race coming down to a final corner showdown between two or three competitors. Who’ll make it through first? We can’t wait to find out.
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Left: The Beijing Box Circuit is the location of the inaugural race in September 2014. Below: When the action starts, the city of Beijing will come alive with the sound of live motorsports.
The innovations derived from F1 over the years in terms of materials, drivetrain and electronic safety systems have been incredibly significant. However, Formula E has the potential to realise the biggest prize of all: To accelerate the evolution of personal transportation to a near-zero emission model. All of the big car manufacturers know this is the new battle ground that will define how they perform in the coming decades and Agag admits they are having “lots of interesting discussions with all the big players”. Already he’s projecting some quite astonishing numbers. “In a period of 25 years, Formula E could be responsible for an additional 45 million electric cars being on our roads,” he drops in casually. It’s a jaw-dropping claim but there’s no question that the stars are beginning to align for this fledgling racing series. “The attraction of electric vehicles is huge – we are shocked by the cities welcoming us,” says Agag with a refreshing honesty, almost as if he’s still taking it in himself. “But a lot of cities want to be cleaner, to create a nicer environment in which to live. So when they get an opportunity to showcase electric cars in their city they open the door.”
Will the fans join Formula E on those city streets? Initially they will, of course. Novelty value will see to that. The key is whether the racing is exciting enough to hold the public’s attention in the long term. Agag is once again armed with all the answers. “In cities 200 or 250kph is already a very high speed. But there’s so much more. The limit is simply battery technology,” he rues. “Our electric motor weighs 16kg and produces nearly 300bhp. We could put four motors next to each other and only have 64kg and over 1,000bhp. The problem is we don’t have the energy to feed those motors. But as soon as we have the energy to feed them.” Noise or no noise, those are the sorts of numbers that any motorsport fan will buy into. Racing cars zipping past their window at 300kph might even persuade younger people to avert their gaze from their tablet or phone for long enough to create a new generation of motorsport fans, too. The promised land just got a little closer. And a whole lot more exciting.
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Graceful
The latest yacht launch from Blohm+Voss is M/Y Graceful – a beautifully engineered build delivered in May 2014. Jonny Horsfield of H2 Design created the interior and exterior designs for the 82-metre yacht and here he describes the unique attributes of the design project.
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Photography by Jeff Brown
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in design
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M/Y Graceful is a very appropriate name for this superyacht; she is the epitome of graceful. Within the elegantly modern but restrained exterior, the client specified a fully functional helideck which involved the challenge of integrating a large platform within the existing styling. The exterior encloses a unique interior layout. The main feature has to be the incredible 15m x 3m indoor swimming pool located where the main salon would normally be. With a hydraulically operated floor, this room can be turned from a pool house into a cinema within minutes.; a truly unique feature. The yacht boasts two full-size owner suites, one of which is located on the lower deck that has a large folding hull door in the side that can fold down at anchor to reveal a stunning beach platform. The interior is classic and grandiose in style but avoids feeling dark and oppressive with the use of light
timbers such as rippled maple and sycamore and myrtle and birch burls, combined with warm but muted colours for the fabrics. The classic style is timeless and I think this is also reflected in the exterior design. A yacht that is not trying to be fashionable or trendy, but instead gives the client a beautifully crafted work of art that will provide years of satisfaction and reliability.
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Our team spent many hours searching the marble yards of Verona to find the right marbles and onyx for the bathrooms, in order to complement the intricate woodwork throughout the yacht.
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Opposite page Top: M/Y Graceful has a fully functional helideck which involved the challenge of integrating a large platform within the existing styling. Below: Jonny Horsfield of H2 Design.
Right: The main feature of the yacht is the 15m x 3m swimming pool located where the main salon should be. Below: M/Y Graceful has an elegantly modern but restrained exterior.
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harbouring a dream
The story of Hamburg's Elbjazz Festival could not be told without the partnership of Blohm+Voss, writes Sebastian Scotney. Blohm+Voss 69
Left: The glamour of the Elbjazz Festival is a stark contrast to the machinery at the Blohm+Voss shipyard.
"Before we welcome Dianne Reeves,” said Tina Heine, “there's a lady here who wants to say hello.” The Director of Elbjazz Festival was speaking from the main outdoor stage at the Blohm+Voss shipyard in Hamburg, introducing a soloist who doesn't normally turn up at music festivals, let alone perform. The 91,000-ton MS Queen Elizabeth happened to be in the next dock, and Heine's words were code for the vessel's captain to let off several tuneful blasts of the ship's whistle.
“What a view it is from the artist's perspective, the port in all its seafaring industrial beauty. Surreal, enjoyable...unique.”
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Jamie Cullum
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Hearing those sounds echoing round Hamburg harbour, to the delight of a crowd of several thousand, is just one of many good memories Heine and the Elbjazz team has collected over the past five years. There has been enormous passion and planning involved transforming Heine’s bold and unique vision to create a jazz festival at port of Hamburg into a reality. Other port cities in the world also host major jazz festivals – Cape Town and Rotterdam, for example – but what sets Elbjazz apart from the rest is that it utilises the port, admitting the 15,000 people who visit the festival each year into a magical setting and to a place normally closed to the public. Hamburg-based journalist Stefan Hentz (Die Zeit, Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Jazzthing) sums this up as follows: “For the people of Hamburg, the wharf is something we feel – emotionally at least – belongs to us. Yet for many years it was somewhere we couldn't go. The Elbjazz Festival has been the means by which a wall separating us from part of our heritage has been removed.”
From that point, it wasn’t difficult to get Blohm+Voss on board. “When you think you have a good idea you tend to blah-blah about all the time to everybody. So I'd talked about the concept, the festival, the harbour, about how getting Blohm+Voss involved would be great, to good friends and to family." “After six months of trying to get a meeting, it was the day before Christmas 2009. We'd already planned a festival without Blohm+Voss, when I got a call from Dr. Herbert Aly, one of the CEOs: 'I have an hour,' he said. Well, I dropped all of my Christmas errands and went to meet him. We talked for five hours solid, about music, life, jobs, and ships. He thought it was a crazy idea; but he liked it. I'm sure that's when it clicked.
Below: The Timo Lassy Band perform at the Elbjazz Festival in Hamburg.
“In February, with three months to go, we got the go-ahead: we could do events on the wharf. Now, five years later it feels like a close partnership, it's an important event in their calendar. They invite people from all over the world.” That idea of creating a unique destination for visitors as well as building a programme which puts well-known names – Jamie Cullum, Gregory Porter, Hugh Masekela – alongside the young, the unknown, the unfamiliar, the way out, is important. The festival makes a virtue out of the fact that the range of jazz is so wide to bring people in touch with different kinds of music. Stefan Hentz sees this as a real strength: "Elbjazz uses the charm of the festival, the whole experience in an unfamiliar place to bring audiences to music they wouldn't normally hear. An out-there, original, important artist like Norwegian guitarist Stian Westerhuis has no fan base in Hamburg. There could be a risk he might play in a club to just 15 people. At the festival he gets to make an impact, and to play to a proper crowd.”
B+V = Hamburg's finest
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Above: One of the openair stages set amidst the superyacht cranes.
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The statistics show that Heine's efforts to bring new audiences to jazz, in which the setting plays a big part, are bearing fruit. “In our marketing analysis, 50 per cent of the visitors tell us they have never been to a jazz festival before.”
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People also comment that the stages look superb, that they are carefully located and well made. Elbjazz is definitely about the whole experience, and not just the music.
The musicians appreciate the festival too. Danish bassist and bandleader Jasper Høiby has played at the festival twice: “Elbjazz really stands out, it's a special festival. It' spectacular the way they set it up in these unusual places.” And how would he describe playing in the Alte Maschinenbauhalle? “Wow yes, that 50-meter high ceiling, those massive pipes, such an unconventional place. You don't have to try to create atmosphere there, because the surroundings are so amazing.” Gregory Porter echoed this too. He told us he just loves the “unusual setting – and the enthusiastic crowds." Jamie Cullum still remembers the special view he got when – as he does – he climbed up on top of the lid of the grand piano at the 2013 festival: “What a view it is from the artist's perspective, the port in all its seafaring industrial beauty. Surreal, enjoyable...unique.”
Superyacht berths from 30m to 150m MEDITERRANEAN | CARIBBEAN | MIDDLE EAST | ASIA
www.cnmarinas.com
The horological genius
Blohm+Voss
World-leading watch manufacturer MB&F is known for its intricate, beautifully designed and micro-engineered timepieces that are created with precision to last the test of time. We meet the dynamic man behind the brand, Maximilian B端sser: a keeper of time, a creator of history, and a believer in dreams coming true.
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Words by Scott Manson
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For those uninitiated in the world of high-end horology, the name Maximilian Büsser and Friends, or MB&F, won’t strike any chords. Indeed, the fact is that non-watch types generally assume Rolex to be the pinnacle of timepieces. Those with a little more knowledge might cite Patek Philippe or Vacheron Constantin as brands beloved of collectors, which is true enough. However, the most clued-up watch geeks covet the startling pieces that emerge from the MB&F stable, each a masterpiece of design with a sticker price to match that of a top-of-therange Ferrari. The company produces around 250 watches a year and sells every one of them. Indeed, so popular are they that collectors of certain models have to register on a waiting list to be in with a chance of owning a piece of history. It’s telling that Büsser doesn’t call them watches – they are ‘horological machines’ – with each release seeing him gather together experts in their field, hence the ‘& Friends’ tag, to collaborate on both the design and the movement that drives the watches. In the secretive world of watchmaking, this acknowledgement of artisans is both unusual and refreshing.
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The result is boundary-pushing pieces such as the Horological Machine No 3, with its frog-eyed aesthetic, or the No 5, which channels the design style of sports cars from the 1970s. More recently, MB&F has even produced pieces that more closely resemble traditional watches – although still
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“When I was young I was very lonely and dreamed of having friends. In fact, the ‘&Friends’ name came from this situation. I loved to sketch and doodled cars my whole childhood.” Maximilian Büsser
offering the highest levels of build spec – such as the Legacy machines, while also neatly nodding to highend pocket watches of a century ago. With the latter, the finishing is overseen by a man named Kari Voutilainen, who is considered one of the greatest movement artists in the world. For Büsser, his brand’s success, and the worldwide acclaim for his machines, represents the realisation of a childhood dream. “When I was young I was very lonely and dreamed of having friends. In fact, the ‘&Friends’ name came from this situation,” he explains. “I loved to sketch and doodled cars my whole childhood. If you look at my HM5 model you can see that influence – it’s a holistic tribute to car manufacture.” Büsser completed a degree in microtechnology – “I was terrible at it, though” – and was set to join Procter & Gamble, before a chance meeting with someone from watch brand Jaeger-LeCoultre. He was convinced to join a company that was close to bankruptcy – a hangover from the 1970s ‘quartz crisis’ that saw premium mechanical watch brands’ sales slump as cheap quartz-driven watches became more popular.
Above: Head of MB&F, Maximilian Büsser.
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“My idea of great design is something that comes from being totally selfish – a rage against the machine, or a rebel yell, if you will.” Maximilian Büsser “What I found at JLC was a sort of surrogate father and family. I adored the job and worked hard to make it a success,” he says. Today, Jaeger-LeCoultre is regarded as one of the finest and most successful watch brands on the planet, thanks in part to the efforts of Max and his team.
B+V = precision
He was then headhunted by Harry Winston Rare Timepieces and appointed MD at the unprecedented age of 31. The company was also in the doldrums but, seven years after Büsser joined, the company had grown from $8m to $80m in annual sales thanks to his innovative designs and limited editions, such as the groundbreaking Opus series. “I thought they were insane to appoint me at that age,” he says. “But I worked night and day to save the company, with an eight-person team, and picking up a stress-related ulcer along the way.” The problem was though, that despite a big salary and industry acclaim, Büsser felt strangely unfulfilled. “I just wasn’t enjoying it. I felt bad about complaining as I was making a lot of money, and I came from a family of modest means,” he says. “My dad passed away in 2001 and I realised, a year later, that I didn’t really know who he was, or whether he had any regrets. That got me thinking about whether I would have any regrets if I passed away now.”
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Left: The No 5 channels the design style of sports cars from the 1970s.
The damascene moment came when Büsser figured out that his role had become that of a marketer, rather than a creator. He was someone who sold products – albeit luxury ones – based on focus group findings, rather than following his muse.
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That once-a-month pizza treat with my girlfriend tasted better than any Michelin-starred meal. Today, I’m still trying to hold on to that feeling.” With each piece requiring three years research and development, 18 months machining and two months of assembly, virtually all of MB&F’s profits are ploughed back into the company. A new watch is released every year and Büsser also experiments with more esoteric offerings, such as mechanical music boxes and clocks. Top: The Fire Frog design offers the highest levels of build spec.
“My idea of great design is something that comes from being totally selfish – a rage against the machine, or a rebel yell, if you will. That just wasn’t possible in the Harry Winston environment. My parents were honest people and it felt like the life I led was just trampling on their values. In business you have to smile while someone is screwing you and I just started thinking ‘what am I doing?’ So I got out while I was still number one.”
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His next move was to set up MB&F, although he had less than half the money required to get the project off the ground. Despite investing his entire savings of £500,000 in the operation, it was soon eaten up with operating costs and the company was effectively bust by May 2007.
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“It was totally insane. I would never take those risks today,” he says. “Luckily in June 2007 we sold two pieces, which was just enough to keep us going. The thing is, though, that I come from a family with no money so it was relatively easy to live like a penniless student again, eating the cheapest meals. I was used to five-star restaurants from my Harry Winston days but this lifestyle change helped me regain my taste.
“I still live on the edge. I’m an adrenalin junkie, always trying to do something different,” he says. “Creativity is a muscle that you can work and tone and selfish creativity is art. MB&F is both my autobiography and my psychotherapy. It’s a constant evolution imagined by a group of free thinkers.” It’s taken a long time for this horological genius to realise his potential and face down his childhood fears and, despite his near obsession to continually create, he regards himself as finally fulfilled. “I was not a happy youngster but I am now a happy man,” he says. “I’m happy because I’m free. I considered myself a loser at the age of 18, but now I like what I have become.”
A future of champions Words by Tim Thomas
This year’s ShowBoats Design Awards not only celebrated the finished works by the world’s best superyacht designers, but also the newest innovations in yacht building that the next generation of owners will look to for inspiration. Blohm+Voss 83
It is one of the truisms of the superyacht industry – as with many others – that the final stage of any project is ‘the decoration of non-participating members’. Fortunately, the annual ShowBoats Design Awards – organised by Boat International Media and held this year at Swarovski Crystal Worlds in Wattens, Austria – aims to correct that. With the finalists decided by a handful of experts and the winners selected by a judging panel comprising superyacht owners, designers, naval architects and industry specialists, the Awards recognise the top talent behind the best yachts launched in the past 12 months. Heading the winners’ lists this year was the Columbus 40S Hybrid. This innovative yacht was awarded three times, picking up Neptunes both for her interior design and holistic design as well as the environmental award thanks to her efficient hull form and her hybrid diesel electric propulsion system. “The brief was to create a line of innovative yachts that are sporty and fast yet highly efficient and at the same time as comfortable and quiet
as traditional displacement yachts,” says Sergio Cutolo of Hydro Tec. “The success we have achieved with this collaboration is an incentive to do better, to go even farther and to dare with new proposals.” There was similar success for the sailing yacht Inukshuk, which picked up awards for both interior design and exterior design and styling. Her nature-inspired interior incorporates not only a spiritual connection to the favourite wilderness of her owner, but goes as far as incorporating that wilderness into her interior elements, where the pigments of native lichens and flowers have been used in part to create her colour scheme. For interior designer Adam Lay, of Adam Lay Studio, the project was a leap into the unknown in more ways than one. “Neither the broker nor the client had met me before the project,” he explains, “so there was a huge leap of faith on all sides. We were determined that the connection to the owner’s favourite place would be more than just ethereal, it would be physical.”
Columbus 40S Hybrid
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Interior Design, Semi-displacement Motor Yachts Holistic Design, Motor Yachts; Environmental Protection AwardYachts 60m+
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Inukshuk Exterior Design & Styling, Sailing Yachts; Interior Design, Sailing Yachts
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The Finot-Conq designed performance sailing yacht Nomad IV scooped the naval architecture award for sailing yachts, demonstrating that it is possible to combine ultimate performance with a degree of superyacht comfort. The brief for the 30.48m project had been to create the world’s fastest cruising 100-footer, while reaching its maximum speed without heeling more than 12 degrees. The naval architecture sub-committee singled out the Finot-Conq design for its fresh approach to problem solving and application of technology such as water ballast. “Our response to the owner’s unusual design brief,” says Pascal Conq, “has created an exciting yacht with proportions that set her apart from today’s 100-foot landscape. She is a very wide boat for maximum righting moment and below deck living spaces and she features hard chines for her entire length.”
It was a good night too for the Andrew Winch Designs studio, which picked up three awards including the exterior design and styling award for the magnificent 99m Madame Gu, and two separate awards for tender design – one for the Compass Yachts open tender to Madame Gu, and the other for the Hodgdon Yachts limo tender to the 62m Sea Owl. The last two Neptunes rewarded individual talent at both ends of the career scale. Terence Disdale was recognised for his contribution to superyacht design with the Lifetime Achievement award, while newcomer Raphael Laloux was awarded Young Designer of the Year for his innovative take on the SWATH concept with Project Symphony – certainly a talent to look out for in the future, and one perhaps who might one day take home a Neptune for a real project.
Raphael Laloux for Project Symphony Young Designer of the Year
The winners
Madame Gu Exterior Design & Styling, Displacement Motor Yachts 60m+
I-Nova Interior Design, Displacement Motor Yachts 30m to 59.9m
Apostrophe Exterior Design & Styling, Displacement Motor Yachts 30m to 59.9m
Safira Naval Architecture, Motor Yachts
Cary Ali Exterior Design & Styling, Displacement Motor Yachts 30m to 59.9m
Chopi Chopi Interior Design, Displacement Motor Yachts 60m+
Seahawk Holistic Design, Sailing Yachts T/T Madame Gu & T/T Sea Owl Tender Design Terence Disdale Lifetime Achievement Award
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Cacos V Exterior Design & Styling, Semi-displacement Motor Yachts
Nomad IV Naval Architecture, Sailing Yachts
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Designing furniture for the world’s most prestigious superyachts.
www.davidsonlondon.com DESIGN CENTRE - CHELSEA HARBOUR
Limitless Blohm+Voss
More than eight million people worldwide tuned in to watch Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner complete his historic feat live making him one of the greatest adventurers of our time. While Baumgartner now claims his daredevil days are over, he will go on to inspire other enthusiasts to break life’s barriers in his new role as roving ambassador for extreme sports.
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Words by Scott Manson
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“Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve loved seeing the world from above, if my mum was wondering
Left: Felix Baumgartner is now a roving ambassador for extreme sports.
where I was, all she had to do was look up. I was probably in a tree. I climbed a lot of trees because I always loved the bird’s-eye view. ” Felix Baumgartner
It was one of the enduring images: one man in a spacesuit, looking out at the edge of his tiny capsule, the whole of Earth arcing beneath him. The man leans forward and instantly shrinks from view. For a generation who had grown up with the boom in extreme sports, this was a defining moment. The daredevil in question was Austrian BASE jumper and skydiver Felix Baumgartner whose role in the Stratos project was the result of five years of investment from sponsors such as Red Bull and Zenith watches, with the latter’s Stratos timepiece – a modern update on an old diving watch design – keeping perfect time throughout despite the freefall acceleration to speeds of 1,342kmph, the massive air-pressure gradient and even the –62ºC temperature at Baumgartner’s record-breaking jump altitude of 39km.
His sense of adventure was clear from an early age, with a youthful Felix being the child that always had to climb higher, faster, than any of his friends. “Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve loved seeing the world from above,” he says. “If my mum was wondering where I was, all she had to do was look up. I was probably in a tree. I climbed a lot of trees because I always loved the bird’s-eye view. As soon as I turned 16, I went to the local skydiving club and learned how to skydive. And from that moment on, I was addicted.” At the age of 18 he joined the Austrian military and trained as a skydiver going on, as a civilian, to set a record for the highest
parachute jump from a building (Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Towers) in 1999, as well as recording the lowest BASE jump ever (29m) from Rio’s statue of Christ The Redeemer. In 2007, he also became the first person to jump from the 91st floor observation deck of the then-tallest building in the world, Taipei 101 in Taipei, Taiwan. Oh, and he skydived over the English Channel in a ‘wing suit’. His biggest fears, though, were around the ‘known unknowns’ of the Stratos jump, with hazards present from launch to landing. If the balloon failed within the first 6oom, for example, then there would be no time to deploy a parachute. During freefall, the concern was around the shockwaves that would hit him while approaching the speed of sound. Thankfully, the air is so thin in the upper stratosphere that these shockwaves were minimised. Unsurprisingly, the preparation was painstaking and meticulous. Blohm+Voss
Before he jumped no one, not even NASA, knew what would happen to him when he broke the sound barrier, becoming the first human being to do so unaided. His suit could rip,
his oxygen fail, his parachute freeze or the sheer speed of the drop could physically damage him. As it happened, ‘fearless Felix’ came through his experience unscathed, becoming a worldwide hero in the process, with more than eight million people watching his jump online.
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B+V = pushing boundaries
“I have an incredible travel agenda,” he smiles. “It used to be that sometimes I’d get recognised back in Austria where I grew up, but now people are calling my name on the streets of New York, Moscow and Dubai. It’s pretty amazing. And then there are those moments that completely blow me away — like when the secretary-general of the United Nations asked me to pay him a visit to discuss how I might work as a role model for young people. That’s an honour I never would have dreamed of.” And while a typical ‘day at the office’ doesn’t really figure in Felix’s life, there are certain things that global superstardom haven’t changed. Regular exercise is key, as are pleasure trips piloting his helicopter to visit family and friends.
“I did eight practice runs in a vacuum chamber and three runs in a thermal vacuum chamber, which simulates the low oxygen/low pressure/low temperature environment of the stratosphere,” he says. “I also made numerous jumps from nearly 30,000 feet and countless more jumps from lower altitudes to get accustomed to skydiving in the pressure suit. Also wearing the suit, I devoted many hours to training in a vertical wind tunnel, and even made bungee jumps from a high crane to practice my step-off from the capsule.” And while strength and conditioning training was key, Felix’s mental state was also under close scrutiny. Little wonder when a moment’s hesitation or deliberation could mean the difference between life and death.
“I feel like a normal guy who is very fortunate to have had some extraordinary experiences. I still wear jeans and T-shirts, and I still like working on my car. The important things in my life haven’t changed,” he says. For those looking to emulate his achievements, though, he advises caution, not just for the dangers inherent in the sport, but also because of the effect it can have on your personal life. Like any obsession, it has a danger of overwhelming everything. “Back in 1996 my BASE jump teacher Tracy Lee Walker said something that did not make sense to me at the time. He told me, ‘You'd better think twice about this sport as you will lose your girlfriend, your job and your money’.
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“I studied the science and technology of the mission very carefully,” he says. I needed to understand how everything functions, and I needed to know every checklist and procedure, so that I could react quickly and appropriately in any situation that may have arisen.”
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But when you’ve been so high, does the everyday reality of life back on terra firma still hold any thrills? For Felix, the new role of roving ambassador for extreme sports sits comfortably on his broad shoulders.
Top left: Baumgartner faced freefall acceleration to speeds of 1,342kmph. Right: A typical day in the office for the extremist meant being escapsuled for long periods.
“I did eight practice runs in a vacuum chamber and three runs in a thermal vacuum chamber, which simulates the low oxygen/low pressure/low Felix Baumgartner
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temperature environment of the stratosphere.�
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I started anyway and after a few months my girlfriend and I split because she didn't like it. Still, at least I had my job and my money,” he says. “A few months after that I went for a BASE jump on a really low bridge. If you take a low bridge, someone else has to hold your parachute as it does not have time to open on its own naturally. Tracy said this should always, always be a skydiver or a BASE jumper. I ignored him and asked my brother to do it instead. What happened? My brother let go of the chute too early, I crashed into a power line, broke my foot, lost my job, lost my money! Even when you think you're smarter than those teaching you, remember they've seen everything – so you'd better listen.” Felix is a man who’s learned to love what we have been taught to fear and someone who is driven by the singleminded pursuit of doing something that no one has ever experienced before. In a cynical age where it feels like there are no more mountains to climb, or destinations to discover, it takes someone of Felix’s mettle to show how a pioneering, boundarypushing spirit can unite the world in rapt attention. And while he now claims that his daredevil days are over, it seems too hard to believe that Felix is a man who can walk away from glory and get on with the job of living. There is a tattoo on his forearm, in Gothic lettering, which reads ‘born to fly’. This is one eagle whose wings can never be clipped.
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Left: The moment of touchdown that was watched live by eight million people around the world.
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When your life is busy and challenging enough, Lockton Private Clients ensures your world is covered with an outstanding level of personal service When your life is busy and challenging enough, Lockton Private Clients ensures that helps you to manage the complexity of risk, simply. your world is covered with an outstanding level of personal service that helps you toLockton manage the complexity of risk, simply. We don’t think in terms of traditional insurance Private Clients is a dedicated team within the Lockton Group of companies; the world’s largest,Private privately owned broker Lockton Clients is ainsurance dedicated teamwith within global revenues of $1 billion. the Lockton Groupinofexcess companies; the world’s largest, privately owned insurance broker with With a regional presence, our clients benefit from global revenues in excess of $1 billion. our network of contacts in all major international destinations. With a regional presence, our clients benefit from our network of contacts in all major international destinations.
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secrets of the artisan Words by Angela Audretsch
The three directors at Eidsgaard Design, Peder Eidsgaard, Ewa Eidsgaard and Ben Harrison, discuss what makes the art of the artisan so important when pushing the boundaries of design to create innovative spaces. Blohm+Voss 99
B+V = bespoke craftsmanship
compares the relationship between designers and suppliers to that of brokers and clients. “We are very unwilling to share our contacts; so protective. Everyone wants to be the first person to discover a new artist and do a project with them, then once their name is out, it is on to looking for the next big thing.”
Blohm+Voss
The meaning of the word ‘luxury’ has been undergoing an evolution for some time now. Where once it simply tended to mean expensive things that could be enjoyed by a privileged few, at the core of luxury today is uniqueness and exclusivity, with value derived more from quality craftsmanship, superior design and culture. More than any other realm, the world of high-end design – specifically private jet, superyacht and premium residential interiors – is built on this developed definition of luxury. “Bespoke is everything we do, from the door handles to the feature walls, from the minutiae to the massive,” says Peder Eidsgaard, co-founder of Eidsgaard Design, a London-based studio that specialises in superyacht, jet and residential design. “But it is the involvement of artisans, craftsmen and specialist outfitters that brings all our projects to the next level.”
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Like most design studios, Eidsgaard, which has worked on more than 30 private jet, superyacht and residential projects since its inception in 2005, has a black book crammed full of artists and craftsmen and women who are skilled in everything from glass blowing to marquetry, carpentry to ceramics. “Ask any designer and they will tell you that finding new artisans to work with is one of the best parts our job,” says partner Ben Harrison, who
While this hunt for hidden talent can mean that some more distinctive artists have a shorter shelf life in the world of luxury design – their style being so unique that their instantly recognisable work becomes a flash-in-the-pan trend – there are companies and craftsmen that studios like Eidsgaard turn to time and time again to produce pieces. For Harrison, this comes down to a couple things. “We need to know that the people we work with really understand the quality our projects need,” he stresses. “Silverlining are one company we always know we can rely on. When their stuff arrives, it is faultless. They won’t ever let something go if it isn’t completely perfect.” He explains that what makes Silverlining, a company that is renowned for its work on the most elite interior projects, even more exciting to work with, is its ability to innovate and come up with creative solutions, something that Eidsgaard highly value in the artisans they work with. “Take Based Upon,” says co-founder Ewa Eidsgaard, who focuses heavily on the interior design of the studio’s projects. “We use them a lot and so do a lot of other people. But Based Upon are very interesting because they are constantly developing. They are a collective of real artists.” Started by twin brothers Ian and Richard Abell in 2004, Based Upon’s large-scale artworks and furniture can be found in some of the world’s most exclusive residences, yachts and galleries. She describes a piece that Eidsgaard commissioned for one project that featured Japanese cranes using real feathers, metal and resin – an example of Based Upon taking its unique use of material to the next level. “It was a really special piece of art.”
“ Everyone wants to be the first person to discover a new artist and do a project with them, then once their name is out, it is on to looking for the next big thing.” Ben Harrison
Traditionally high-end design relied on rare natural materials like marble and exotic wood to create the expected sense of opulence. However, shifting notions of luxury and the continuous pursuit of the unique has not only led to a new generation of innovative material hybrids, like Based Upon’s metallic and resin surfaces, but new ways to use classic natural materials. As a result, Eidsgaard is constantly following material innovations and new applications for materials. “We recently found a guy who drills very fine holes in wood and then backlights it,” Harrison reveals. “Imagine thousands of tiny drilled holes making trees with leaves when light is behind it, it’s totally magical. And instead of traditional lights, you can combine this with a new kind of backlit panel for a uniform light.” He describes a large-scale residential project in Beijing where the Eidsgaard team is looking at using this artist’s work as one wall panel in a corridor to give the impression of walking through a forest. A significant part of the value of bespoke pieces often lies in the intrinsic connection the clients have with their origin and meaning. Someone else might consider them beautiful but only the client can appreciate their genuine beauty since
Left: A Helen Amy Murray design for Eidsgaard. Below: Silverlining produce flawless, perfect finishes.
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“You can’t just ask for a table or a lamp. But with creative minds, it is important not to be too constraining. Give them space and they can create incredible things we could not have even imagined.” Ben Harrison
it was made for them. “One of our clients loved driftwood,” recalls Ewa. “So we found this couple in Canada who beach combed, picking up wonderful pieces of weathered driftwood on the beach where they lived. They created a beautiful table base and a glass manufacturer in Italy made a beautiful top to go on it. It is one of a kind.” She describes another client who requested a collection of bespoke plates by their favourite ceramicist, resulting in every single plate being different – not easy to design storage for but entirely unique to the client.
Blohm+Voss
When asked whether Eidsgaard give open briefs to artisans and craftsmen or prefer being very specific, Harrison says that the trick is to balance the two. “We have to make sure that any piece fits within the design style so direction is key,” he stresses. “You can’t just ask for a table or a lamp. But with creative minds, it is important not to be too constraining. Give them space and they can create incredible things we could not have even imagined.” He admits that he often finds that he ultimately enjoys working with the most difficult artists the most. “They are the ones who make you want to tear out your hair because they are so completely creative; they probably don’t even listen to what you say,” he laughs. “But often those are the best results. Something completely unique that comes from creative freedom.”
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Above: Silverlining's pearl square drawer handle design marks the epitome of classic taste.
The team’s enthusiasm for the artisans and craftsmen and women they work with is palpable as is their respect for the incredible skills they all have. For Peder, being surrounded by the creative energy of these artists during a project is inspiring, bringing a new dimension to Eidsgaard’s work. “As a designer, your eyes are always open to what is around you for inspiration,” he says. “I feel incredibly privileged to be working in an industry where we are afforded the luxury of using these kinds of people. In the renaissance you had patrons who patronised great artists like Michelangelo and to an extent, the super wealthy clients that we have are the patrons of today’s artists. They are allowing the continuation of these skills which would otherwise be lost.”
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Social diary
B+V Ski Cup, Kitzb端hel
Blohm+Voss
Blohm+Voss hosted the inaugural Ski Cup in Kitzb端hel, Austria, earlier this year. Skiers from the superyacht community had the opportunity to take to the slopes of the famous Gaisberg World Cup Race Course. The slalom competition was suitable for skiers of all levels and provided a great afternoon of adrenalin-filled entertainment and good natured competition with prizes awarded for speed, style and enthusiasm.
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SuperyachtDESIGN Week, London
Blohm+Voss
Blohm+Voss were gold sponsors for this year’s SuperyachtDESIGN Week which saw more than 450 guests attend. From leaders in design and naval architecture to builders and suppliers, Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour came alive over three days with debate, engaging discussion and networking opportunities. Along with learning exciting developments in sister industries, delegates were given a number of opportunities to network and share experiences. Evenings offered additional opportunities to catch up with peers with ideaworks hosting a VIP drinks reception on the first evening at its London Experience Centre, followed by the party on the second night.
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Social diary
Blohm+Voss
Zaha Hadid launch, Hong Kong
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Zaha Hadid’s collaboration to design a new superyacht with Blohm+Voss received remarkable interest from yachting enthusiasts throughout the Asia Pacific region. To celebrate the collaboration, Zaha Hadid and Herbert Aly, CEO and Managing Partner of Blohm+Voss, joined guests from across the region at the SEVVA Club, Hong Kong. Based around the sculptural form of a master prototype conceived for a 128m yacht, The Unique Circle Yachts by Zaha Hadid Architects for Blohm+Voss is a family of five individual 90m yachts that creatively explore the design philosophies of the master prototype within the technical requirements of a fully-engineered yacht design.
Mountain Lodge Dinner, R端bezahl The Blohm+Voss mountain dinner was held in a remote lodge known as the infamous R端bezahl-Alm. A private funicular was arranged to take guests up from Hartkaiserbahn to the Mittelstation R端bezahl and then the guests, many of whom wore traditional lederhosen and dirndls, hiked the last 200m with torches and fire beacons to light the way. An Austrian feast with schnapps, traditional Austrian entertainment and dancing got everyone into the Tyrolian spirit.
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