In very small businesses, when you’re marketing your business, you’re really marketing yourself. Here’s advice for getting better at selling yourself and your business.
Month: August 2016
5 Holiday Marketing Tips to Capture Last Minute Shoppers
Don’t ignore last minute holiday shoppers. Use these 5 tips to get the attention of late shoppers and boost your store’s holiday sales.
Studio Pei-Zhu Unveils Plans for Performing Arts Center in Dali, China
Courtesy of Studio Pei-Zhu
Studio Pei-Zhu has unveiled plans for the Yang Liping Performing Arts Center in Dali, Yunnan, China. Located at a low latitude and high elevation, Dali features a dramatic terrain and a unique climate that create a boundless relationship between earth and sky. The project site is located in the heart of this landscape, on a fertile plateau between the Cangshan mountain range and Erhai lake.
In designing the Performing Arts Center, Studio Pei-Zhu has drawn inspiration from these natural variations in landscape and climate, employing a large canopy roof and a flowing form to invite users into the complex.
Courtesy of Studio Pei-Zhu
Graded topography and grassy hills draw theatergoers into an interior plaza, A “theater box” opens onto the plaza, transforming the space into an interior-exterior performance area. The blurred boundary between indoor / outdoor and landscape / stage also work to erase the psychological boundaries between performer and spectator.
Courtesy of Studio Pei-Zhu
Courtesy of Studio Pei-Zhu
The entire building itself is performative and accessible, as the building slopes down to create a stairway leading from the interior plaza to the building roof, opening up casual public space featuring views of the surrounding terrain.
Courtesy of Studio Pei-Zhu
Courtesy of Studio Pei-Zhu
The building’s materiality evokes the spirit of the surrounding mountains, while its unique woven facade allows light to penetrate into and through the building.
Courtesy of Studio Pei-Zhu
Courtesy of Studio Pei-Zhu
Courtesy of Studio Pei-Zhu
Construction on the Yang Liping Performing Arts Center is currently underway, with an expected completion date coming in 2017.
Courtesy of Studio Pei-Zhu
- Architects: Studio Pei-Zhu
- Location: Dali, Yunnan, China
- Design Principal: Zhu Pei
- Lead Designers: Edwin Lam, Shuhei Nakamura
- Project Manager: Virginia Melnyk
- Project Team: Han Mo, Gary Poon, You Changchen, Ke Jun, Wang Zheng, Ding Xinyue, Feng Chaoying, Wang Peng
- Theater Consultant: dUCKS scéno
- Structural Consultant: Fu Xueyi
- Mep Consultant: CCDI
- Project Year: 2017
- Photographs: Courtesy of Studio Pei-Zhu
Inefficiency Machines by Meret Vollenweider and Wasabii Ng highlight energy use in the home
Graduate shows 2016: in this movie, Royal College of Art graduate Meret Vollenweider explains how her interactive installation of human-powered appliances aims to stop people taking electricity for granted. (more…)
Nevada – USA (by Erin Johnson)
Nevada – USA (by Erin Johnson)
Business Cards – 10 Common Mistakes You Should Avoid
Business cards are still effective marketing tools. Be sure your business cards work for you by avoiding these 10 mistakes.
Diane Dufresne de Repentigny Art Center / ACDF*
© Adrien Williams
- Architects: ACDF*
- Location: Repentigny, QC, Canada
- Area: 1365.0 sqm
- Project Year: 2015
- Photographs: Adrien Williams
- Architectural Project Team: Maxime-Alexis Frappier, Joan Renaud, Martin Champagne, Maxime Boiselle, Mathieu St- Hilaire, France Perras, Christelle Montreuil Jean-Pois, Étienne Laplante, Guillaume Pelletier
- Structural Engineer: Dubé Beaudry et associés
- Mechanical And Electrical Engineers: WSP
- General Contractor: L’Archevêque et Rivest
- Landscape Archictect: BC2
- Scenic Consultant: Scéno Plus
- Artists: Jean-Paul Mousseau (lamp), Marcelle Ferron (stained glass), Richard Langevin (exterior sculpture)
- Budget: 6M CAD
© Adrien Williams
From the architect. With the Centre d’Art Diane Dufresne, ACDF Architecture has created a new arts centre for the suburban municipality of Repentigny, providing a dynamic core where residents can take in stirring arts and culture without getting on the highway to nearby Montreal. The centre’s architecture, including its siting, massing, circulation and materiality, are instrumental in reinventing the desired community image. It plays with notions of rootedness while gesturing to a vibrant future, instilling a sense of belonging and optimism. Familiar yet distinct, it invites visitors in and encourages long, lingering stays.
© Adrien Williams
With this project, the Municipality of Repentigny and ACDF conceived of the centre as a part of a larger master plan. It is the kick-off element to transform a once-sparse, underutilized park into a cultural corridor with thematic gardens, a civic plaza and a theatre. Part of the broader redevelopment scheme is to provide connections between previously disjointed, bungalow-lined streets. The design team positioned the building at the nexus of new walking paths, linking a main boulevard with surrounding residential lanes, helping to draw people to the site.
© Adrien Williams
Plan
© Adrien Williams
The building’s overall form further helps attract residents. The studio reinterpreted classical principles — a carefully proportioned colonnade in front of a calm reflecting pool, a monolithic materiality, and a solid, reassuring appearance — with its signature, contemporary sophistication. A number of the columns are off kilter to foster moments of encounter; the materiality is a glinting stainless steel; and the inner mass is sub-divided into three sinuous, Aalto-esque volumes, each of which conceals the centre’s multipurpose room, dance recital space and main gallery area. These spaces again balance functionality and flair. Each interior is understated to let the art shine, and was designed to optimize acoustics and lighting. Beyond contemporizing the façade, the building’s materiality deftly acts as a beacon — important, as the structure is set back from the nearby roads. The row of shimmering columns gleams in the sun, their reflectivity calling to passers-by as well as amplifying and dramatizing the surroundings, such as sunlight, vegetation, and seasonal colours. The qualities of the cladding also echo those of the bell towers of the Église de la Purification-de-la-Bienheureuse-Vierge-Marie, the oldest church in the Montreal region. To contrast the metal’s slickness, the three sinuous volumes in the interior are clad in locally sourced wood, which emanates warmth under an array of skylights.
© Adrien Williams
© Adrien Williams
The classic-meets-contemporary appearance helps establish a sense of familiarity and the porous circulation allows the public to weave through layers of the building, informally experiencing the art. Visitors can wander along through the newly landscaped forecourt, crossing a slatted wooden promenade that transverses the serenity of the reflecting pool (which doubles as a filter for storm water runoff). They can walk through the exterior colonnade, which also functions as an open-air exterior gallery, and absorb the creativity of the place without stepping inside the building. Or they can enter the interiors, and explore the galleries of linger in the interior colonnade.
© Adrien Williams
Importantly, the centre contributes to the community regardless of the time of day. At night, it acts as a lantern, activating the surrounding park, and making serene reflections in the pond — reflections that express a sense of temporality, and which will instil a sense of calm for years to come.
© Adrien Williams
Business Cards – 10 Common Mistakes You Should Avoid
Business cards are still effective marketing tools. Be sure your business cards work for you by avoiding these 10 mistakes.
What to Send to Your Email List
Advantages and Disadvantages of Self-Publishing
Self-publishing is a way for authors to get their work published without using a traditional book publisher. Learn the pros and cons of self-publishing here.
Sig Nordal 