Innholdsfortegnelse for September - October 2018 i Frame

WHEN I’M AWAY from home and staying at a hotel, I step out of the shower in the morning and – regardless of the location – invariably catch sight of a little sign next to the washbasin. An obvious appeal to my conscience, it asks me to consider reusing my towel in order to help the hotel ‘protect the environment’. My mind becomes a cauldron of conflicting thoughts. Sure, no problem. But do you really think a twice-used towel will help save the world? If so, why do you programme the television to come on automatically when I enter the room? Why is it often so hard to switch off the air-con? And that tier of pillows on my bed – I’m not going to use all six of them.…

6 a.m. CLAUDIO SACCUCCI: Are we morning people? We try to be. We usually wake up at six. It’s good to know the whole day lies ahead and you can start before everybody else. I’m Italian and Roxane is Dutch. We prefer a healthy breakfast – something like oats that have been soaked overnight. Lately I’m obsessed with grapefruit. I don’t know why it took me so long to discover grapefruit, but now I eat one every day. ROXANE VAN HOOF: I checked to see how many it’s possible to eat before it gets unhealthy – no more than three a day, in case you’re wondering. 7:30 a.m. CS: Before we leave the house, we go through the schedule for the day ahead, which we’ve prepared the night before. We…

HANNAH & JAMES LATE 2009 may have marked the official birth of JamesPlumb, but the gestation period began a number of years prior. James Russell and Hannah Plumb – born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Surrey, England, respectively – met in 2000. Both were studying fine-art sculpture at Wimbledon School of Art, working separately but helping each other out. ‘In hindsight, founding JamesPlumb represented a merging of our individual practices,’ says Russell. ‘Hannah was always about storytelling, animism and finding empathy with objects. I was focused on the sublime – on uncovering beauty in the everyday. Our early work together was defined by an aesthetic of combining found objects, antiques and broken things.’ Plumb fondly recalls a ‘shitty wire bin’ they once saw outside a church in Madrid. Yes, they admired…

QINHUANGDAO – A few images spring to mind when hearing the words ‘children’s eatery’: visions of cartoon-character cutouts, primary colours, perhaps a carnivalesque atmosphere. For Aranya Kids Restaurant, however, Wutopia Lab opted for a more mature ambience. ‘Gimmicky and childish design doesn’t interest every kid,’ says Yu Ting, chief architect at Wutopia Lab. It was one child in particular that inspired Ting’s pared-back aesthetic in Qinhuangdao, China. When experiencing various hospitality environments with his daughter, the designer was surprised to discover her aversion to colourful, cartoonish spaces. ‘There are already too many naive designs made by adults. Multicoloured rooms are no longer as attractive to children as we may think.’ Ting’s daughter mentioned two key factors for engaging youngsters: spatial variation and a leitmotif. ‘Since they’re so curious about unfamiliar…

MONTREAL – Headquartered in Canada, global multi-brand fashion retailer Ssense (pronounced ‘essence’, for those tempted to lisp the first consonants) began as an experiment in 2003. ‘I was completing my studies in computer engineering and built the platform as part of my thesis,’ says cofounder and CEO Rami Atallah. ‘My two brothers and I saw the potential of e-commerce and intended to merge digital and physical from day one. E-commerce was still in its early days, and many brands were reluctant to sell online. We decided to first open a store in Old Montreal, not far from where our new store stands. A few years later we launched ssense.com and have been simultaneously operating online and off ever since.’ Attalah realized that while e-commerce enables scale, it has its shortcomings…

Powerhouse is a research-driven collaboration that comprises Snohetta, Entra real estate, entrepreneur Skanska, environmental organization Zero, and Asplan Viak consultants. The group develops energy-positive buildings: projects that generate more clean, renewable energy over their lifespans than is consumed in the production of building materials, construction, operation and demolition. ‘The process goes all the way back to choosing where and for what you’re designing,’ says Snohetta’s Zenul Khan. ‘We need to be aware of every step we take from the outset. It’s more stringent, but we get much more sustainable results.’ Each party draws experience from the pool of experts, which includes engineers with extensive knowledge of materials. ‘We get high-quality materials within Powerhouse projects, because manufacturers that take steps to develop products with low embodied energies realize they need to…

Historically, the revival of craft has coincided with major social and economic change. At the turn of the 19th century, architects and designers across Europe and North America instigated the anti-industrial Arts and Crafts movement. Today, in the midst of a prolonged digital revolution, designers are once again turning to craft in search of authenticity and a closer connection to the creative process. Although the use of age-old techniques, materials and styles enriches the work of designers and fuels their powers of imagination, the relationship is a two-way street: designers revitalize neglected or obsolete practices by propelling them to the forefront of modern design. A prime example is fashion brand Didi Textiles, an initiative of Anna Heringer and Veronika Lena Lang, who have their designs hand-tailored in Bangladesh by workers…

656 stools were re-released to line the runway of the Prada show 0.5 kg is the weight of one Inflatable Stool, which approximates the weight of a soccer ball 64 × 50 × 45 cm is the size of one fully inflated stool 19,680 seconds represents the amount of time it took to inflate all 656 stools featured at the Prada show 1960 was the year Verner Panton used transparent plastic and air to design the Inflatable Stool oma.eu prada.com verpan.com…

In the lead-up to each issue, Frame challenges emerging designers to answer a topical question with a future-forward concept. Involving both travel and dining out – activities that typically generate a deluge of waste – the hospitality industry is in need of a radical rethink. Hotel guests are starting to stoke the fire: Greenview’s 2017 ‘Green Lodging Trends Report’ noted a drastic increase in queries about carbon offsetting from overnight visitors. In line with this issue’s hospitality-themed Frame Lab (see p. 149), we asked five makers to share their visions for the industry’s future.…

BERNARD BERNARD TSCHUMI: ‘Where did I grow up? I was never in one place. I was born in Lausanne, but my parents lived in Paris as well. I travelled a lot between those two places as a kid, and that’s the interesting part of it: one was a small, extremely peaceful, nature-loving town, and the other a big city. The fascination with big cities has never left me.’ ‘At the age of 17, I found myself here in America as an exchange student. At the time, my interests were geared more towards literature and philosophy, but I was outside my own culture in the States. I spent ten days in Chicago during a Christmas break in 1961. The city was much tougher, rougher and more powerful than it is today.…

SUBODH BORN IN 1964 in Khagaul, a town in northeast India, and currently based in New Delhi, Subodh Gupta is best known for his work with everyday objects, especially stainless-steel cooking utensils. Imbued with symbolic meaning found in everything from religion and spirituality to socioeconomic inequality, the shiny pots and pans are elevated, through the process of aggregation, into works of art. Significantly, these flashy utensils were unaffordable for Gupta’s family during his upbringing. Gupta’s decision to use this material as his trademark chimes with his passion for cooking and, in his wider practice, with the video works he’s made about the rituals of cooking and eating. Many of his sculptures featured in Adda/Rendez-Vous, Gupta’s retrospective at the Monnaie de Paris. What prompted you to use stainless-steel kitchenware for your…

GHENT – Located on the ground floor of a large oval building complex erected in 1906, the XYZ Lounge is the realization of a culture and living concept supported by the Liedts-Meesen Foundation. Featuring a bar, a screening room and a lounge, the project also includes a mezzanine for small exhibitions and presentations. Designed to encourage dialogue and discussion on a wide range of subjects, the XYZ can be seen as a kind of contemporary literary salon. The salon – a gathering of the intelligentsia for the purpose of discussing and illuminating topics of interest – dates back to the early 17th century. An international version initiated in 2008, CreativeMornings, carries the tradition forward, as do MoMA’s Research and Development Salons. Part of this revival, the XYZ Lounge in Ghent…

TOKYO – Boxes, pleats and plants are key ingredients of Akihisa Hirata’s ‘organic’ residential project in Tokyo. The house-cum-gallery consists of casually stacked geometric volumes separated by voids. Attached to the openings are ‘pleated’ window frames that function as balconies and terraces. Greenery planted in these outdoor spaces intermingles with volumes, voids and openings to produce a three-dimensional entity whose organic structure can be compared to the way a tree grows. Tree-ness House is part of Hirata’s long-term investigation into possibilities for making ‘living architecture’. Since the start of his independent career in 2005, Hirata has been on a quest for viable alternatives to the homogeneous space developed by 20th-century modernists. Using the generative principle of ‘pleats’ – a seedlike design methodology that refers to the growth of a plant…

CITY QUITTERS Creative Pioneers Pursuing Post-Urban Life This book sheds light on what rural life can be like today, through the stories of 22 creatives who took the plunge and moved out of the city. €34 WHAT I’VE LEARNED Twenty-eight Creatives Share Career-defining Insights Inspirational interviews with world-renowned designers and architects shed light on the experiences that have influenced their lives and work. €29 NEW WAVE CLAY Ceramic Design, Art and Architecture This book unpicks the zeitgeist and aesthetic of an exciting discipline with intelligence, insight and indulgence. €39 GRAND STAND 6 Designing Stands for Trade Fairs and Events A testament to the breadth and variety of stand design and a must-have reference tool for interior designers, architects and branding experts. €69 THE OTHER OFFICE 3 Creative Workplace Design The…

4.5 trillion litres is the annual amount of water consumed by hotels worldwide Source: US Green Building Council $4 billion is the annual cost of energy used by the global hospitality industry Source: USGBC $7 is the amount saved for every dollar invested in programmes for reducing hotel-kitchen food waste Source: World Resources Institute 29% is the percentage of participants in a 2017 survey who said their hotel had a green roof Source: Green Lodging Trends 65% is the percentage of travellers in 2017 seeking green accommodation Source: Booking.com 90% of the global hotel sector needs to reduce emissions by 2050 to meet its Paris climate target Source: International Tourism Partnership…

THE USE OF MOVABLE components has long been a challenge for designers and architects. From the modular rooms in Gerrit Rietveld’s Schröder House of the 1920s to the telescoping shell of The Shed, a building in Manhattan by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (scheduled to open in 2019), adaptable space assumes a prominent role in innovative projects of all scales and functions. Even so, tedious procedures and unsustainable mechanisms have prevented the phenomenon from becoming ubiquitous. With these thoughts in mind, when designing the interior spaces of Circl – a multipurpose pavilion in Amsterdam’s Zuidas district – DoepelStrijkers directed all its technological efforts towards the realization of a lighter, friendlier system of partitions that open, close and shift at the push of a button. As its name suggests, Circl celebrates the…

You studied law in Tel Aviv. Now you live in Amsterdam, where you run EHPC, a hotel development and management company. What’s the story? LIRAN WIZMAN: I think the word ‘hotel’ puts you in a box, when hotels today are about so much more than just the hotel. The hotel is an element of what we do, but it’s not the main event. Our focus at EHPC is to create spaces that are specific to the cities they’re in. We never go to a city and think, let’s put a hotel here. What drives us is more local. It’s more about realizing a collection of venues – restaurants, bars, gyms, shops, et cetera – that connect to the neighbourhood. They just happen to have a hotel above them. You currently…

IN 2014, four years after a fortuitous encounter with dressmaking, Marta Ferri founded her couture atelier in Milan. In the same year, she began a fruitful collaboration with Italian furniture company Molteni. ‘As a textile consultant,’ she says, ‘I designed a new palette of colours and fabrics for the company’s furniture offerings. My work for Molteni includes Materia, Gea and the most recent collection, Trama.’ While Ferri’s upholstery collections draw inspiration from people, nature and processes, her fashion designs are informed by her work with and research into vintage textiles and upholstery fabrics. Marta Ferri pauses to reflect on the relationship between dressmaking and her association with Molteni, her creative process, and the similarities between dressing a person and a chair. How did your passion for textiles come to life?…

As urban populations rise, the call of the wild grows louder. Studies and campaigns like 30 Days Wild, an initiative of The Wildlife Trusts, show that daily contact with nature improves human health and happiness. And even though we can’t always be trekking in the mountains or surfing the waves, designers are paying attention to these activities and inviting nature to enter our residential and commercial spaces. Aided by manufacturers, they use materiality, imagery and form in products that reference land, sea and sky. Their inventive work weaves Mother Nature into the fabric of interior design. A dramatic blue dégradé is the essence of The Abyss, a rug available from Illulian. It is one of two new models belonging to Marina, the brand’s series of rugs dedicated to the nautical…

SERVICE DESIGN – A prediction made at the 2017 World Economic Forum was that by 2030 individuals would no longer own anything. Brands are responding to the continuing rise of collaborative consumption by designing products that appeal to multiple temporary users rather than to a single owner. Tapping into this growing post-ownership mindset, new furniture brand Kamarq offers a flexible subscription model that lets members order and update their furniture and home decor without entering into a long-term commitment. While allowing customers to refresh their interiors with vibrant and versatile designs, Kamarq also joins the circular economy. Instead of making new designs, the company repairs and revives worn pieces before putting them back into the rental programme. In addition, the products are made from 100 per cent recycled, eco-friendly materials…

TECHNOLOGY – We’re all familiar with the Wi-Fi symbol, which represents the transmission of data via radio waves. The system, though, is struggling to meet growing demands. High-resolution video content, smart devices, VR and AR all chew through bandwidth, leading researchers to look for alternatives. In 2011, University of Edinburgh professor Harald Haas proffered a solution: Li-Fi. With around 2,600 times the capacity of the radio spectrum, Li-Fi wirelessly transmits data at high speeds through the imperceptible flickering of light. With radio out of the picture, interior walls could be thinner, and an office’s online security could be measured by light leakage. The first commercial Li-Fi system was unveiled in 2014, but it wasn’t until early 2018 that the technology began entering the mainstream. Philips declared itself the first global…

You want to tackle food packaging? BASTIEN CHEVRIER: It’s omnipresent these days, and the excess is absurd. Who needs clementines cut, peeled and packed in plastic – or biscuits individually covered in plastic film, put in a plastic tray, enclosed in a cardboard box and wrapped in an outer layer of plastic film? How do you propose changing the situation? Recyclable materials are one solution, but I want to make packaging edible and eliminate waste completely. Nature already does this by giving fruits and vegetables skins that protect them from diseases and physical damage, so why can’t we do the same? Have you figured out how to do it? My idea is to incorporate packaging into the meal. I’d use edible, organic capsules made from a series of proteins. Each…

1944 Born in Lausanne, Switzerland 1969 Graduates from ETH Zurich after studying in Paris 1976-81 Works on a series of drawings that are published as The Manhattan Transcripts in 1981 1982-98 Works on the architecture and urban design of Parc de la Villette in Paris, which was declared a 20th-Century Landmark by the French Minister of Culture in May 2017 1988-2003 Serves as dean of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University in New York City 2001-09 Designs and builds the Acropolis Museum, Athens 2003-12 Designs and builds the Alésia Museum and Archaeological Park in central France, a complex commemorating the battle between Caesar and the Gauls in 52 BC. 2012 Publishes Architecture Concepts: Red Is Not a Color, a monograph that features Tschumi’s insights into…

THE FUTURE often arrives in an unlikely form. On a wind-swept January day in 1985, for example, British inventor Clive Sinclair unveiled his electric vehicle: the Sinclair C5. The single-seat, low-slung three-wheeler had a washing-machine motor, a lightweight plastic chassis, and a battery with enough power to last from 11 to 25 miles. Although critics panned the Sinclair C5, which was also a commercial flop, it can be argued that Sir Clive’s thinking was correct, even if his execution was slipshod. He was genuinely ahead of his time, and the same can certainly be said of MINI, a strong player among car brands currently looking for alternatives to the combustion engine. MINI is set to launch its all-electric series-production model in 2019. We caught up with the head of MINI…

SHENZHEN – According to Joey Ho of Pal Design Group – the brains behind 52 Arts, a children’s art centre in Shenzhen, China – the project’s biggest challenge was ‘to convince the client to cut down on the number of classrooms in favour of open spaces’. Designed for kids from three to 12 and located in a shopping mall, 52 Arts offers extracurricular activities that include painting (both Chinese and Western), pottery and other crafts. By abandoning the classic classroom model, Pal freed up the 700-m2 interior to express what Ho calls ‘the entire art atmosphere’, complete with fanciful elements, fluid organization, exhibition areas and startling splashes of colour. ‘In my opinion, educational spaces usually pursue a faulty concept based on fulfilling all the requirements of the educator,’ says Ho.…

SCHWÄBISCH GMÜND – For many of us, the ‘office of the future’ conjures up images of rampant, robotic technology. But Alexander Fehre, founder of the eponymous studio, says that ‘it will be less like Minority Report and more about a variety of spaces for working in – whether tailored to collaboration, focused tasks, or being close to your family’. Not surprisingly, then, variety animates the lively 3,200-m2 space that the Stuttgart-based outfit produced for German steering-systems manufacturer Bosch AS. The brief asked for a scheme that would reflect the company’s new work philosophy. Like an increasing number of businesses, Bosch is adopting ‘agile’ work practices in order to achieve the kind of innovation needed to take the car industry into a new, post-carbon era. Born in the software sector, ‘agile’…

AS THE PACE OF MODERN LIFE accelerates dramatically, people are turning their homes into personal sanctuaries, wisely leaving the hustle and bustle of work and social activities behind. In this scenario, the bathroom is no longer a secondary functional area, but an important space of relaxation and wellness. Such changes in use are illustrated by a move in the sanitary sector towards more daring designs and surprising colours. As Sven Rensinghoff, marketing director at Bette, puts it: ‘The bathroom is becoming increasingly important as a place with its own independent architecture. Accordingly, this room demands a new design and new functions.’ It was with this demand in mind that the Delbrück-based outfit launched three new Effect colours at Milan’s Salone del Mobile 2018. Like the rest of Bette’s 500+ palette,…

AFTER WORKING on a wide variety of projects – from Oslo’s prizewinning National Opera and Ballet to the September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City – Snohetta’s senior architect, Zenul Khan, was handed his biggest building to date. Based on Snohetta’s background and experience in sustainable architecture, Arctic Adventures of Norway approached the studio with a very specific challenge: to realize a sustainable hotel next to the country’s Svartisen glacier, just above the Arctic Circle. Due for completion in 2021, the building – bearing the name Svart – isn’t merely zero-emission; it actually generates more energy than it consumes. What was the client’s brief? ZENUL KHAN: Aside from creating a hotel in Svartisen, the client’s main goal was to reach a new level of sustainable architecture – to…

WE ALL KNOW the ‘three Rs’ by now: reduce, reuse, recycle. But times have changed, and post-manufacture waste strategies are no longer a maintainable solution for the crisis facing environmental stability. Designing for a circular economy, with greater consideration for sustainable resourcing, is no longer a luxury but a necessity. At New York City’s design week – officially NYCxDesign – the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York presented a fully working pop-up café intended to address an overwhelming need for smart approaches to sustainability in the hospitality industry. About a third of all food produced worldwide ends up as waste, and Finland is one of a handful of countries that’s tackling the problem head on with a dedicated circular-economy programme enforced by the nation’s government. It’s this effort that provided…

Paralleling a revival of traditional craft – and in part aiding it – is an exploration of digital tools developed by textile designers and manufacturers. By turning to technology, they are able to pursue increasingly complex projects faster, cheaper and more efficiently, thus reducing waste. Digital printing platforms, for example, shorten the time it takes small textile brands to go from an initial design to an end product. A major benefit is extra time for the creative process. As demands for customized designs grow, digital tools are the low-cost way forward. Textile start-up Weft is a digital platform that lets users create custom Jacquard fabrics woven on demand in the United States. Fully launched in 2018, the tool appeared at Sight Unseen’s Offsite show during New York’s Design Week. It…