The partnership of Ian Douglas-Jones and Ben Rousseau has created the Legacy of the River Suite at this years Ice Hotel to commemorate the release of Disney’s new film, TRON: Legacy. You can follow the progress of the suite at the project’s website, Extreme-Design, as well as reading on after the break for additional photos and a brief description.
Inspired by the year’s most eagerly awaited movie release TRON: Legacy, design duo Ben Rousseau and Ian Douglas–Jones have just completed “Legacy Of The River” a cutting edge Art suite at this season’s Ice Hotel In Jukkasjärvi, arctic Sweden. The original and largest hotel on earth made entirely from Ice and Snow.
Following on from their headline installation at last year’s Design Festival at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum architect Ian Douglas-Jones and designer Ben Rousseau again join forces to create a unique project with a sustainable focus. Using futuristic lighting technologies that use negligible amounts of energy, concept architecture and styling taken from a combination of scenes from the forthcoming film, these two British designers will use this unique project as a platform to launch a new range of illuminated furniture and interiors products due out early 2011.
Ben Rousseau has already found global acclaim working in a wide range of areas, from bespoke furniture and interior products to the complete design of many commercial and residential spaces. His early shows with the Design UK community in London led to exhibits at the prestigious Milan Furniture Fair and opened the door to clients all over the UK, Europe and far a field as the royal family of Azerbaijan.
Ian Douglas–Jones mastered in Architecture at the Royal College of Art last year. He won numerous awards, secured a solo exhibition and guest edited The London Architecture Diary. ‘Post RCA Ben and I were introduced and first met at London’s ICE bar, we had been commissioned to do a lead piece for the London design festival of 2009 and our shared passion for cutting edge sustainable design was clear from the get go, so we have been collaborating on products and installations ever since.” And from all corners of the globe; since then Ian has worked out of London, Melbourne and now Shanghai. In his short career he has shown breadth of design skills from small bespoke furniture pieces to billion dollar developments to exhibitions and academic writing.
In keeping with the groundbreaking technology in Tron: Legacy, this year Ben and Ian will be testing the limits of new lighting technologies in pursuit of cutting edge design that has sustainability imbued from day one. The arctic conditions also set up the foundations for the Pilot to an exciting new TV series titled “Extreme Design” a design based program set against the challenges of working in extreme conditions.
‘We are both massive Tron fans, so the timing of the release of Disney’s new 3D high-tech adventure, Tron: Legacy, this month was absolutely perfect. The suite itself takes most of it’s influence from a nightclub scene in the film involving one of our favorite music artist Daft Punk, who wrote the score for the film” says Ian Douglas–Jones
“The entire film is a complete fantasy for us both with its high tech and futuristic design” says Ben Rousseau. Thanks to technical apparel from Oakley we could work efficiently in extreme conditions of -32°C.
