Link About It: This Week’s Picks

The world's deepest pool, Scotland's haunted toy store installation, new iPhone features and more from around the web

Artist Rachel Maclean’s Haunted Toy Store in Scotland’s Jupiter Artland In the forests of Jupiter Artland—the 120-acre outdoor sculpture park near Edinburgh—Scottish artist Rachel Maclean installed an eerie, graffiti-covered toy store with upside-down attributes aplenty. The sinister structure houses unsettling doppelgänger dolls, as well as Maclean’s new 10-minute animated film, which explores the pressures upon youth (from self-esteem to consumerism and predatory behavior) through the …

Nintendo Museum to Open in Former Playing Card Factory

Kyoto’s defunct Nintendo Uji Ogura Plant will host the Japanese video game company’s forthcoming museum, tentatively named Nintendo Gallery. The site, constructed in 1969, used to produce playing cards and Hanafuda (a traditional card game, referred to as “the battle of the flowers”). The company—whose hardware includes Game Boy, Wii and Switch, and whose games range from Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong and Legend of Zelda to …

Discussing the Ace Hotel Kyoto’s Design + Inspiration with Roman Alonso of Commune

The 213-room property is an ode to craftsmanship, with a focus on harmony in design and atmosphere

In any other year, we would have joyfully visited Kyoto’s new Ace Hotel close to its opening (which occurred in June), but as such a trip isn’t possible yet in 2020, we opted for a virtual tour. What’s immediately clear is this lovely hotel balances the Ace’s familiar laidback, minimal style and ethos with craftsmanship and materials utilized in traditional Japanese architecture—an appealing, subtle amalgamation …