A Blue-Toned Café for Blue Bottle Coffee, and Other News

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Blue Bottle Coffee opens a blue-toned café in Japan designed to awaken the senses. 

For its first outpost in Osaka, Blue Bottle Coffee enlisted Tokyo-based studio I IN to interpret its brand DNA through custom blue glass accenting the warm wood café and a second-floor experiential space intended to invigorate the five senses. Bathed in vibrant blue light, and images and sounds that “fall from the ceiling,” the experience is the result of a collaboration with immersive design agency Panoramatiks. “It’s not just a concept, but a place that really stimulates the five senses,” I IN states. “The space has become a completely new café interior that offers a special experience while enjoying a cup of coffee.”

New York announces a multibillion-dollar climate resiliency plan for Lower Manhattan. 

Envisioned by the New York City Economic Development Corporation and the Mayor’s Office of Climate Resiliency, the Financial District and Seaport Climate Resilience Master Plan aims to fortify a one-mile stretch of the Lower Manhattan waterfront from rising sea levels and coastal storms—two environmental threats predicted to intensify in coming decades due to climate change. The proposal entails building a flood wall system that also serves as open public space. The project, which is estimated to cost between $5 to $7 billion and 15 to 20 years to complete, will safeguard 140 acres of Lower Manhattan, home to thousands of residents and one of the world’s most powerful financial districts. 

An endangered Elyn Zimmerman installation will be relocated to American University. 

A renovation project at the National Geographic Society once threatened a 1984 rock-and-water installation by Elyn Zimmerman, but a new agreement will see the public art piece move to American University. The installation, called Marabar, features a group of granite stones around a churning water pond. It first came under threat three years ago when the society told Zimmerman the work would impede their plans to build a new entrance pavilion. Instead of removing the piece entirely, National Geographic will foot the relocation bill. “It’s a piece that’s part of the history of landscape architecture,” Jack Rasmussen, the director of the American University Museum, told the New York Times. “A woman sculptor in the 1970s and 1980s who was doing this? It’s ground breaking.”

Set designer Es Devlin gets named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

The renowned artist and stage designer has lately enjoyed a rising profile, having recently been commissioned to create installations during Miami Art Week, the London Design Biennale, the COP26 climate conference, and Dubai Expo 2020. The award is the highest-ranking Order of the British Empire award and commemorates services to design; previous recipients include Ilse Crawford and Peter Saville. 

After cereal and computer chips, supply chain woes are coming for the color blue. 

Ultramarine blue—once more valuable than gold—ranks just below Whites and Blacks as the most popular color today—which, of course, supply chain issues have made it impossible to get. The combination of hyper-specific pigments and a global trade network makes artist paints uniquely vulnerable to supply-chain issues. “You have a constant flow of color moving around the world,” Cole says. “You have mined pigments from Italy. You have cadmiums being made in places that are all hard to get to, like India and Brazil. You have modern pigments being made in Germany,” says Pete Cole, president of the paint manufacturer Gamblin Artists Colors in Portland, Oregon. 

Twitter mercilessly mocks crypto community’s stolen Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs. 

Twitter is having a field day with the news that some of the oft-mocked Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs are being stolen. One of the most valuable digital collectibles on the market—some fetch upwards of a couple million dollars—along with Cryptopunks, the static monkey pictures have experienced a rash of theft recently. Though some are due to accidental listings on an NFT resale site like Rarible and others are from malicious hackers breaking into a cryptocurrency wallets by phishing email, the internet is widely mocking the irony of the acts happening in an environment of decentralization that that crypto community routinely touts as the solution to such incidents. See Highsnobiety’s roundup of the best Tweets. 

Today’s attractive distractions:

This autonomous “seedbot” is slowly turning desert soil into a lush landscape.

We’ve all heard enough of “no worries,” “you’re on mute,” and “supply chain.”

These lost photographs of ‘90s rave culture are revelling in far simpler times.

Scientists discover the fossil of history’s largest arthropod: a car-size millipede.