An Interview With Revolution Producer, Robbie Antonio

by Madelaine D’Angelo, Huffpost

Design and real estate developer, Robbie Antonio is known for his visionary work and innovative collaborations. His latest project, Revolution, is a collection of limited edition pre-crafted homes and pavilions that seek to democratize design and architecture. The project unites over 30 of the world’s renowned architects, artists and designers to create exclusive, pre-crafted livable spaces. Currently, Revolution is collaborating with Kengo Kuma, Cluckman Tang, Campana Brothers and Pritzker Prize-winner Zaha hadid, to name a few.

One of the biggest collectors in the Philippines, Antonio’s passion for art has established him as a leading tastemaker, cultural influencer and patron of the arts.

How did you start collecting?
Robbie Antonio: I began collecting a decade ago. New York was a major influencing force that cultivated my experience in culture, art, architecture and design. I took every opportunity of free time to visit museums and galleries.

What was the first piece of artwork you purchased and when?
Robbie Antonio: My first piece of artwork was a map piece by Julian Schnabel.

Tell us about Revolution. What was your inspiration for the project? Who are you working with? What should we look forward to?
Robbie Antonio: Each pavilion and home is individually branded by its designer’s personal concept of spatial form and social function. The result is a diverse and global collection of architecturally-innovative, pre-crafted properties, ranging from functional pavilions to modular homes.

My inspiration for the project came from my own passion and experience in art collection. I wanted to make architecture collectible – but at an accessible price point. Revolution preserves the exclusivity of art collection and by introducing prefabricated technology, expands the potential of ownership.

Currently I’m working with some of the world’s top designers and architects, as well as collaborating with brands like Wallpaper* to sign designers.

Throughout 2016, Revolution will continue to debut new designs – both homes and pavilions – at select art fairs.

Two new architecture trends that you need to know about

by Property Report

Aquatecture at work: +31 Architects‘s Watervilla Weesperzijde houseboat in Amsterdam

Today, architecture is utilitarian and functional as professionals seek to find solutions to the various challenges of modern-day life. Check out these latest trends dominating architectural design right now…

Aquatecture

Floating architecture – or simply ‘Aquatecture’ – is a necessary subsection of design thanks to global warming and widespread housing shortages.

With rising water levels and continually diminishing land-based development areas, architects and city planners have been forced to explore the possibilities of building homes on the water, reports Dezeen.

Spearheaded and advised by the Dutch, whose homeland is dominated by water, many architects are now designing aquatic buildings, homes and schools that can function in both wet and dry spaces.

More: That’s one Godzilla-looking ‘vertical street’ in Seoul

“Given the impact of climate change, we can begin to think a lot more about the opportunity for living with water as opposed to fighting it and doing land reclamation,” says Dutch architect Kunlé Adeyemi, who has built a floating school in Lagos and a radio station in the Niger Delta as part of the African Water Cities project.

Other countries benefiting from Dutch expertise include Indonesia, the United States and the United Kingdom, where architects are exploring the possibilities of amphibious houses and prefabricated houseboats.

Prêt-à-Porter

Zaha Hadid’s Volu Dining Pavilion for RevolutionZaha Hadid’s Volu Dining Pavilion for Revolution

Portable structures are another new trend, whereby the structure functions as both a shelter and a work of art and can be installed wherever the owner desires. The recent Design Miami fair saw an entire series of these pavilions, designed by established and rising names in architecture, reports Telegraph Luxury.

“All architecture is bespoke,” said emerging Thai architect, Kulapat Yantrasast, who exhibited his own structure. “This is prêt-à-porter.”

More: 3 simple (and incredibly intimate) ways to spend a weekend in Japan

Other names who participated in the series include Zaha Hadid with the Volu Dining Pavilion, Ron Arad with his Armadillo Tea Pavillion, and Richard Gluckman with the Model Art Pavilion.

“Designing the pavilion gave us the opportunity to create something that is a sculptural object and a frame for the dynamic presentation of art,” explained Gluckman.

The man behind the series – dubbed ‘Revolution’ – is Robbie Antonio of Antonio Development. He said: “I think Revolution will be game-changing. It’s a new approach to architecture. It could extend to selling affordable off-the-peg homes by the world’s best architects.”

Prefab Pavilions by Zaha Hadid, Sou Fujimoto, Lenny Kravitz, and More

by David Sokol, Architectural Record

According to real estate developer Robbie Antonio, “You buy prefab for two reasons—it’s fast and less expensive.” But could a building type defined by affordability also be prized as a collectible? Antonio is staking Revolution Precrafted Properties on that premise. The new company is rolling out limited edition collections of factory-built houses and pavilions. Burnishing their pedigree, the structures were conceived by who’s-who in architecture—Ben van Berkel, Sou Fujimoto, Michael Maltzan, and others—as well as eminent product designers and artists.

Antonio likens the Revolution purchase process to ordering high-end Italian furniture, in that residences and pavilions are manufactured on demand and delivered several months thereafter. In that vein, he also acknowledges that his price point for the pavilions—starting at $35,000 and approaching half a million dollars, not including necessary corollary expenses—does not reflect economies of scale.

“I’m not in the business of producing widgets,” he counters, observing that the brand still democratizes high design for a certain consumer. “I wanted to give 10 to 20 people the privilege of collecting a particular designer or architect. If those people were to build a permanent custom home, it would cost three to five times more and take two years longer, so I think it’s a pretty solid value proposition.”

Also driving cost: Antonio’s pursuit of uniqueness. The Manila-based 38-year-old has previously leveraged well-known designers to differentiate permanent commercial developments. In turn, “I wanted to benefit the end user by emancipating architects and designers [from creating] simple shapes that fit in one container and install in X number of days.” The self-admitted design fan notes that he was familiar with Revolution’s roster of talent through these commissions, as well as personal studio visits.

Richard Gluckman, whose firm Gluckman Tang designed the $120,000 Model Art Pavilion (MAP) for Revolution, concurs that Antonio encouraged creative license, within limits. While Gluckman Tang decided to devote its pavilion to art display, “We were told that it had to be constructed by semi-skilled labor in the Philippines for $25,000 and ship in a 40-foot container,” Gluckman says. The 156-square-foot result is “something I could make myself.” The assembly of lacquered solid wood, plywood, and translucent polycarbonate nests into itself inside a shipping container, and unfolds on site.

Antonio officially launched Revolution in early December, by installing prototypes of Gluckman Tang’s MAP and Zaha Hadid’s VOLU Dining Pavilion—whose futuristic, coffered clamshell form is wildly disparate from the angular MAP—at Design Miami. He says he will continue targeting the collector market by unveiling further prototypes in 2016 at the Salone del Mobile, Frieze London, and other events, and market the brand separately to other developers for large orders.

Historic buildings and futuristic furnishings,
Miami’s mix of art and design

by Silvia Nani,

DesignMiami. In the collectors’ lounge, an enveloping shape in metal: solids and voids that design a “skin”, between unsettling luminosities and the reassuring warmth of wood. It is a futuristic dining room that Zaha Hadid has created for “Revolution”, 30 temporary living spaces based on the idea of ​​the real estate developer Robbie Antonio and curated by world-famous architects, designers, artists (Hadid the first, but Ron Arad, Daniel Libeskind, Lenny Kravitz).

There is all the new Miami in a project that holistically combines chosen creative areas, symbolic places where we spend our lives and their reinterpretation in a contemporary key. Recovered historic buildings, new architectures and others to come, interiors that translate today’s needs without forgetting their roots, art that becomes design and vice versa: all this is today a city that is now far from the stereotypes of certain films, full of palm trees, underworld and idle “billionaires”. Current Miami is a changing scenario, which culminates in the first week of December when Art Basel and Design Miami are concentrated, and the ferment of projects (and products) finally becomes tangible.

Forbidden to be deceived by the tensile structure that hosts it: Design Miami is the most important collectible furniture fair in the world. Exactly ten years of life, just under 40 galleries from all over the globe, among the buyers there are museum directors but also the jet-set. If Sylvester Stallone was ready to pose on a tubular and silicone seat by the Aranda/Lasch studio (New York) for the Gallery All (Chinese), the curators treat the pieces without being noticed: “I sold three pieces by Gio Ponti at the opening” , says Rossella Colombari of the homonymous Milanese gallery specializing in rare pieces from the 1950s. Here, nothing happens by chance: “We work with established clients. Our standard, thanks to the selection of the organizing committee, is very high, so even the occasional buyer is protected ”, she explains, “Collectors from all over America and new riches come to Miami in search of a cultural identity: for them, an impulse purchase is worthwhile. It is a unique scenario, unthinkable in Europe”. The great masters (from Prouvé to Sarfatti, to Carlo Mollino) but above all “artfully done” design (such as the furnishings by the Campana brothers inspired by the colored leather clothes of the Brazilian bandits of over a century ago) and the opposite, by artists of everyday objects: here the furnishings cross over various territories, cultural but also geographical (from South Africa to Korea).

Steps away, Art Basel, the epicenter, displays masterpieces of modern and contemporary art in museum-like density and draws an audience that then returns to the series of events on Collins Avenue, the thoroughfare that runs through Miami Beach behind the beach . The scenario this time is the 1940s hotels, which are reopening one after the other after complete renovations of the interiors. Last, inaugurated during Design Miami, the Faena Hotel (formerly Saxony Hotel from 1947), part of the project of an entire “district of the arts”, vision of the Argentine real estate developer Alan Faena: “It will be a complete experience of Miami: hotels and apartments from the warm interiors that recall the city’s golden age, a forum that will host projects from various disciplines, installations and performances, a bazaar where art will be on sale, the headquarters of a cultural association and some residential buildings,” he explains. Architectures by Rem Kolhaas and Norman Foster (some opening in 2016), hotel furnishings by director Baz Luhrmann who dosed 1950s furniture, colors and decorations in a kitsch-sophisticated style with consummate skill. Outside, on the beach, three installations link the hotel to Art Basel.

A few blocks away, the Nautilus, another recently reopened historic hotel, houses a permanent gallery of contemporary art canvases amidst elegant 1940s velvet lounges, a spectacular bar and tropical plants. Creativity that joins and complements each other, whether it’s the Pérez Art Museum (awarded this year for green architecture), Wynwood (neighborhood redeveloped with street art, abuzz with galleries and creative shops) or Craig’s private office-gallery Robins, founder of Design Miami, open to the public as a museum. Ocean and palm trees are still the ones from the movies, but the “billionaires” have become cultured. In the Miami of design.

Prefab Goes High End

by New York Times

Revolution Precrafted Properties is a company that aims to deliver “bespoke, collectible architecture” — small houses and pavilions — designed by big-ticket names within a few months of an order, anywhere in the world. The British industrial designer Tom Dixon created modules from a simple kit of parts — extruded aluminum frames that fit together like Lincoln Logs, panels of different materials depending on where the house might be built — that could be assembled easily by anyone in any location.

The Brazilian designers Fernando and Humberto Campana made a bamboo pavilion that is just under 60 square feet.

Daniel Libeskind imagined a biomorphic moon pavilion, a place, he said, “to contemplate the sky.” He envisions it being printed from a 3-D printer of some composite material, possibly fiberglass. Its size is flexible, he added. “It could be adapted from a pavilion to a working house, but right now it’s being planned for under 100 square meters,” or about 1,000 square feet.

This spherical greenhouse pavilion was designed by Sou Fujimoto of a material yet to be determined, though the architect did propose that inside, seats for people would perform double duty as pots for plants.

Gluckman Tang’s art pavilion is made from lacquered wood and translucent polycarbonate and will be offered in a range of colors. At just under 350 square feet, it can house a few artworks and several people. Or you might use it as a work studio or meditation space.

Eden is what Marcel Wanders, the Dutch designer, has called his house, which looks particularly Wanderesque because of the synthetic textile-clad columns. There’s a 645-square-foot one-bedroom model, with a deck that’s over 1,000 square feet; the two bedroom is under 1,000 square feet, with a nearly 1,200-square-foot deck.

Marmol Radziner, the California-based modernist architectural firm, has long been experimenting with prefab, having made 15 or 16 houses in their own shop, after Dwell magazine invited them to design a prefabricated house over a decade ago. For Revolution, said Ron Radziner, they presented a straightforward design modeled on projects they’ve already done with metal panels, aluminum doors and windows and timber floors. The basic one bedroom is just over 500 square feet; a two bedroom is over 1,000 square feet. This house comes furnished, with interiors by Kravitz Design

Ron Arad’s Armadillo tea pavilion is made from coated timber shells for outdoor use, and oiled hardwood, for indoor use. The basic configuration of five shells is just under 200 square feet.

The artist David Salle partnered with Aldo Andreoli, a principal of AA Studio in Brooklyn, to design a series of 12-by-24-foot modules with metal panels etched with work by Mr. Salle, a tilted roof for solar panels, a rain collection system and other energy-efficient designs.

Revolution Precrafted recruits famous architects and designers to create prefab homes

by Alan G. Brake, Dezeen

Design Miami 2015: Revolution Precrafted is aiming to “democratise high-design and architecture” with prefab structures by over 30 famous designers including Tom DixonMarcel WandersKengo Kuma and Zaha Hadid.

The new company launched by developer and art collector Robbie Antonio unveiled its first collection of limited-edition designs for prefabricated homes and pavilions during Design Miami last week.

Design-Miami_Prefab-housing_dezeen_sqa
The design for the prefabricated Sphere Greenhouse pavilion, by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto

Revolution Precrafted aims to harness the benefits of prefabrication, which include low construction costs and build times, to make aspirational architecture more affordable and collectible.

“With a network of cutting-edge technologies and cost-efficient production systems, Revolution is democratising high-design and architecture by introducing designed spaces in exclusive collaboration with industry leading creatives,” said the company.

Design-Miami_Prefab-housing_dezeen_sq
Tom Dixon’s prefabricated house design for Revolution Precrafted is called Block, and uses a scaffolding system that can be infilled with local materials

Among those who have created prefabricated house designs for Revolution Precrafted’s range are LA architect Marmol Radzinger, British designer Tom Dixon, and Dutch designer Marcel Wanders.

SelgasCano, the Spanish architecture studio behind this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, have also designed a house. There is also a design by American painter David Salle in collaboration with New York firm AA Studio, which recently overhauled a building in Tribeca to create a new creative hub.

Prefabricated housing by Marcel Wanders
Eden, a prefabricated house design by Dutch designer Marcel Wanders, has glazed walls and a roof supported by fabric-wrapped columns

“The core appeal of prefabricated structures is the freedom from location and construction constraints; however, the result is often monotonous, homogenous design,” said the company.

“Revolution Precrafted Properties reinvent this model by creating unique, high-design spaces that transcend geographic borders and excite the senses.”

Architects Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumaker, created the Volu Dining Pavilion for the company, which was shown at the Design Miami fair.

Dining pavilion by Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher at Design Miami 2015
Zaha Hadid and Patrick Schumacher’s Volu Dining Pavilion was shown at Design Miami

The clam-shell shaped structure is made from laser-cut and perforated steel surfaces, aluminium box sections and timber loops.

Other pavilion designers include London-based Ron Arad, Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto and Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind.

Prefabricated housing by David Salle
The prefabricated house design by artist David Salle with architects AA Studio also features extensive glazing

There are also pavilions by Brazilian design duo the Campana brothers, Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, German architect Jurgen Mayer H with Wallpaper magazine, LA architect Michael Maltzen, and Amsterdam architecture firm UNStudio.

The pavilions are expected to cost between $35,000 (£23,000) and $450,000 (£296,000), while the houses will start at $250,000 (£164,000), with the most expensive expected to exceed $450,000.

They are designed to be transportable should the owners wish to move them after they have been assembled, and are all between 50 and 250 square metres in size.

Prefabricated housing by David Salle
Salle’s own paintings will hang inside his prefabricated house design

Libeskind’s ReCreation Pavilion features a 3D-printed roof, which can be specified in custom colours and textures. According to the architect, the pavilion is intended as a creative refuge.

David Salle and AA Studio’s residence – called the Desert Art House – was inspired by the landscape of West Texas and offers unobstructed views out, with an open-air breezeway that separates the living areas from the bedroom. Two end walls feature digital prints of paintings by Salle.

Prefabricated housing by Daniel Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind’s pavilion will be constructed by 3D printing the roof structure

Wanders’ prefab house is called the Eden Project. It features a large roof covering both indoor and outdoor living areas supported by columns wrapped in synthetic textiles which would be woven by artisans in whatever region the buyer chooses to place the home.

Sphere Greenhouse, by Sou Fujimoto, is designed to hold people and plants with seats that also serve as plant holders. The spherical design is meant to evoke the cosmos, according to Fujimoto.

Gluckman-Tang_Design-Miami-2015_Prefab-housing-company_dezeen_936_1
The Model Art Pavilion by New York architects Gluckman Tang was also displayed at Design Miami

Block by Tom Dixon uses a kit of parts of stilts with metal infill panels. The interiors are covered entirely in cork, creating a contrasting softness compared with the rugged exterior.

The Model Art Pavilion by New York architects Gluckman Tang was also displayed at Design Miami. It is designed to fit in a shipping container and was conceived of as a transportable gallery with a tilted roof to protect the art from direct light.

Originally from the Phillippines, Robbie Antonio, 38,  started off working for his father’s firm Century Properties before founding his own company in New York. He specialises in “super-luxury” developments and collaborations with famous architects and celebrities.

Prefabricated housing by Gluckman Tang
Gluckman Tang’s prefabricated pavilion is designed to fit inside a shipping crate and act as a portable art gallery

He also has a reputation as an art collector and has described his new company’s prefab structures as “bespoke, architectural collectibles”.

Revolution Precrafted intends to introduce additional designs at art and design events throughout 2016.

Architectural pavilions have become a fixture of art and design festivals and fairs. Recent examples include an entry folly made of architectural models at Design Miamia white structure surrounded by curtains in Seoul, South Korea, and a steel and glass kiosk in Paris by the Bouroullec brothers.

Revolution Precrafted Properties and ETN Design/ Revolution Pavilions

by Premier Guide Miami

Revolution is a collection of limited-edition prefabricated living spaces including pavilions and homes, conceived by design and real estate developer Robbie Antonio in exclusive collaboration with more than 30 of the world’s preeminent architects, artists and designers. The pavilion series will launch at Design Miami/ 2015 with Zaha Hadid’s curved VOLU Pavilion and Gluckman Tang’s structured Model Art Pavilion. Each pavilion and home is individually imbued with its designer’s personal concept of spatial form and social function. Robbie Antonio has developed commercial, residential, cultural, and civic projects around the world with artists, architects, and designers. ETN Design is a new venture from prominent New York-based art dealer Edward Tyler Nahem.

Design Miami/ is the global forum for design. Each fair brings together the most influential collectors, gallerists, designers, curators and critics from around the world in celebration of design culture and commerce. Occurring alongside the Art Basel fairs in Miami, USA each December and Basel, Switzerland each June, Design Miami/ has become the premier venue for collecting, exhibiting, discussing and creating collectible design. For more information, please visit www.designmiami.com

Zaha Hadid Unveils Volu, Dining Pavilion at Design Miami

by Arqa Network

 

The architects Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher have designed a dining pavilion in the shape of an open clam shell.

Hadid and Schumacher’s team used computer design to create the pavilion, which is constructed from laser-cut perforated surfaces of steel, with aluminum box sections and wooden ties.

“ Defined by digital processes, the pavilion has been developed in such a way that its components are separate curves ,” said the London-based studio.

Volu appears to be made of one continuous piece, and features an oval roof that slopes down over diners like a mushroom cap. The 3.2-meter-tall skeleton structure is cut into irregularly shaped sections that form a pattern across the roof and supporting stem.

The pattern is repeated on the floor of the 20-square-meter pavilion, although the gaps have been filled in with wooden planks.

” Composed of a series of structural bands that pick up in the spine and in expansion above, the pavilion pattern is guided by varying structural loading conditions ,” the studio said in a statement.

“ Through analysis of the geometry under load, the structure and skin of the canopy have been digitally optimized to remove unnecessary material, resulting in the lightest possible design solution – following an organic structural logic that recreates many of the the same principles found in nature. 

The structure houses a circular wooden dining table, accompanied by three curved benches that can accommodate up to ten people.

The piece has been commissioned by property developer Antonio Robbie for his Revolution project, which invites international architects and designers to create prefabricated living spaces.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/u7mCk2_ERII

Source >  http://www.dara.org.ar/index.php/zaha-hadid-presenta-volu-pabellon-comedor-en-design-miami/

Wallpaper Partners with REVOLUTION on Design-Led Prefabricated Homes

 

Wallpaper*, the international design, fashion and lifestyle title, is set to collaborate with design development platform REVOLUTION on a range of design-led prefabricated homes and pavilions targeting a global market.

Wallpaper* will be tapping into its black book of connections to recruit six established architects to design pre-crafted structures that are in keeping with the Wallpaper* aesthetic. REVOLUTION – whose CEO Robbie Antonio has a background in prestigious property developments in the US and the Philippines as well as possessing an extensive background as an art and design collector – will produce the collectible properties.

The project will encompass mass-market design-led prefabricated homes, as well as a high-end offering that allows customisation and bespoke design. The project will also produce designs for a series of pavilion structures, designed for temporary and non-residential use.

Marcus Rich, Time Inc. UK CEO, says: “Wallpaper* is an authority in design. It holds an enviable position in the design world, and it is this reputation and ability to attract top talent that makes this project very exciting.”

“By uniting so many architects and designers under one unique platform and making their vision available to a wider market, REVOLUTION is rethinking the way we approach luxury, high-design real estate,” says Robbie Antonio.

Joe Ripp, Time Inc. Chairman and CEO, adds: “Time Inc.’s brand portfolio engages passionate audiences across the globe. Partnering with REVOLUTION to create Wallpaper*-branded prefabricated homes expands our business into a new vertical and creates another touch point for serving these engaged consumers.”

Wallpaper* and REVOLUTION will be producing prototypes of each design, which they will launch at selected events on the international design calendar.

This new partnership follows the launch of Wallpaper* U.S. Bespoke Edition in November 2015 and reinforces Time Inc.’s strategy to extend its existing brands into new areas of growth.

Source: http://www.wallpaper.com/