Hasta La Ideas

Dezeen is giving away a Zero-In table, designed by Barber and Osgerby for British brand Established & Sons, in our latest competition.

To celebrate Established & Sons‘ debut at 100% Design, a trade show that forms part of the annual London Design Festival, we’re offering one reader the chance to win a black version of the streamlined low table.

London-based Barber and Osgerby, the studio founded by designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, developed the Zero-In in 2005 as a more simple alternative to the classic coffee table.

It features four sides that taper inwards to the base, hiding the feet below. A reflective glass surface, measuring 900 by 900 millimetres, is slotted on top to form a “seamless” connection to the bottom.

To manufacture the table’s tapered form and rounded corners, Established & Sons compresses two layers of a polyester-moulding compound into a mould.

“The Zero-In table creates an illusion of weightlessness, with seamless sloping walls at unexpected angles topped with a glass surface, all supported by hidden feet that create a shadow gap below the structure,” said the brand.

Zero-In was one the first ever products launched by Established & Sons, which was founded by Sebastian Wrong, Angad Paul, Mark Holmes, Alasdhair Willis and Tamara Caspersz.

Wrong recently returned to the brand as design director, after a five-year hiatus, joining a new team of directors. He unveiled his first collection for the brand earlier this year, ahead of the Salone del Mobile fair in Milan, featuring a flat-pack sofa and a bouncing light.

In an exclusive interview with Dezeen, Wrong explained how the brand’s key aim is to offer a range that is “accessible, competitively priced and ready to go straight away”.

Established & Sons will present its latest furniture and lighting designs at 100% Design, which takes place from 19 to 22 September 2018 at the Olympia exhibition centre in London. Visitors can register to visit the event online.

Competition closes 20 September 2018. One winner will be selected at random and notified by email, and their names will be published at the top of this page.

The post Competition: win a black Zero-In table by Barber and Osgerby appeared first on Dezeen.

We have nothing but love for Steel Drake’s visions. Whether it’s the edgy cars he designs, or the modern gadgets he conceptualizes, there’s always a strong undertone of futurism we’ve grown to really love and look forward to.

Bringing his brand of innovation to the industry of fashion, Drake wants to shake things up with the Keeback. A backpack that is literally like nothing anyone’s seen before. Designed completely from scratch, Steel Drake’s Keeback feels like a backpack designed by someone who doesn’t know what traditional backpacks look like. Retaining every aspect of functionality you’d expect from a carry-case you wear on your back, the Keeback literally looks like something from a futuristic movie, because it comes in a hard-shell design, sports USB ports galore, and has a vertical screen that can be customized to display text, graphics, or a gradient that is sure to grab eyes.

Looking like a backpack quite fit for a species that’s ready to colonize another planet, the Keeback is a complete deviation from traditional, and feels like concept art come to life. The outer hard-shell design gives it a defined form factor and can be swapped for different styles, ranging from solid colors, to metallic hues, to even an organic grill design that quite literally has my heart. One of the only backpacks to sport a clamshell design, the Keeback opens from the base to reveal storage inside, with dedicated slots for a 13-inch laptop, a tablet, phone, wallet, passport, as well as enough empty space for the rest of your peripherals. The backpack even comes with its own whopping 40,000 mAh battery courtesy Panasonic that can not only charge your devices via USB (the Keeback comes with an unprecedented 6 USB ports), but also powers the Keeback’s RGB LED display, as well as a revolutionary 20W speaker fitted into the Keeback’s base, giving your backpack the ability to bust out tunes on your daily commute (now isn’t that a slice of the future for you!).

The Keeback, undeniably modern, also packs a tracking sensor that acts as an anti-theft mechanism for the backpack. Weighing in at just a mere 3.7 pounds (1.7 kilos), the Keeback has quite a feature list, something that most backpacks can’t even compare to. Designed to literally be a class apart, the Keeback feels, looks, and behaves differently from any traditional backpack. Call me when you can find another backpack that has a stunning hardshell design, a screen, a 40,000 mAh built-in battery, 6 USB ports, and a literal speaker-system with a 20W output… I’ll be waiting.

Designer: Steel Drake

Click here to Buy Now: $250.00 $500.00 (50% off).

The world’s first backpack designed as a device with a display.

Breaking the notion that a backpack must be made of fabric, designer and engineer Steel Drake reinvented it and created a multifunctional device with features like display, speaker, USB sockets and more.

Main Features Below

Click here to Buy Now: $250.00 $500.00 (50% off).

In theory, almost all smartphones today have at least 3 things in common. A square shape, a massive screen, and a unibody design that’s almost always aluminum (or any other metal). This wasn’t the case 15 years ago. Smartphones came in much more unconventional forms, from circular, to capsule shaped, to even squarish.

The Color series by Wild-Type reimagines those unconventional shapes, and creates dynamic looking concepts that one would definitely consider outrageous in today’s market. Trying to give the smartphone industry the creative push it needs, these phones focus on being designed radically differently, in order to catch eyes. Available in three shapes, the phones explore various color schemes, while retaining the current format of the smartphone (being very careful of being radical but not too radical).

Although currently just a concept, the Color series makes a very important point that evolution of form is a natural procedure, so when designs begin stagnating (as they already are), it is a natural instinct to want to break the mold… which the Color phones most definitely do!

Designers: Eli Block & Fahredin Kosumi (Wild-Type).

The Creative Industries Federation has issued a guide to help creative businesses prepare for the UK to leave the EU next year, as “the threat of a no-deal Brexit is now becoming an actual possibility”.

The six-page guide urges planning on visas, trade, funding, intellectual property and data transfers, in the event that the UK fails to establish a formal agreement with the European Union ahead of its separation on 31 March 2019. It also suggests that businesses consider establishing a presence in Europe.

Authored in partnership with city law firm Bates Wells Braithwaite, the document was emailed to members in a newsletter and is now permanently available on the members’ portal of the Creative Industries Federation’s website.

It warns that UK businesses will face substantial restrictions and costs when bringing in EU talent, and less flexibility to hire freelancers if the UK leaves the EU without a deal. They should also plan for delays and higher costs when trading goods and services if we revert to a system of customs checks and tariffs, it says.

Creative industries are additionally advised to prepare to lose access to EU funding, as well as private European funding sources, if the UK becomes a less attractive prospect for investors says the guide.

“21 per cent of businesses might move in the event of no deal”

The guide draws on research commissioned by the federation, which found that 21 per cent of respondents would consider moving part, or all of their operations, abroad in the event of the UK exiting the EU without a deal.

In a separate survey of 250 creative enterprises, the federation found that three quarters of respondents employed EU nationals, and 66 per cent of those surveyed said that they could not fill these positions with British workers.

Although setting up a base in the EU after Brexit would be beneficial for some businesses, this will not be an option for many, as the average size of a company in the creative sector in the UK is 3.3 people.

“For the majority of small or medium enterprises, which make up the most significant portion of the creative industries, setting up a subsidiary somewhere else is simply not an option,” said Alan Bishop, chief executive of the federation as of July this year.

Securing talent “biggest challenge” after Brexit

Research by the federation included in the guide suggests that businesses fear finding talent will be harder after Brexit.

“Securing talent is the biggest challenge facing the creative sector today and restricting immigration will make this even more difficult,” said John Kampfner, the former chief executive of the Creative Industries Federation.

“Many creative business are highly mobile and if they are not able to access the workers they need, the risk is they will relocate to places where they can,” he continued.

The research stressed the impact that a no-deal Brexit would have on the creative industries’ ability to fill key roles. In total, 74 per cent of the companies questioned said that restricting immigration would limit their capacity to do business.

Status of non-EU nationals after Brexit is unclear

The guide reminds members that the March 2018 agreement included a transitional period from 29 March 2019 to the end of December 2020.

This would mean that creative workers such as architects, craftspeople and technicians entering the UK during the transition period would be afforded the same rights and guarantees as those arriving before 29 March 2019.

However, no deal “could well mean no transitional period and no future preferential treatment.” If no agreement is ratified the free movement of EU creatives into the UK would stop after 29 March 2019.

In 2016, 25 per cent of architects were non-UK EU citizens, as were 30 per cent of people working in visual effects.

No deal Brexit “still unlikely” as not in UK interest

The guide finishes by stating that, although a no-deal Brexit is a growing possibility, it still remains unlikely as it would not be beneficial to anyone.

“Despite the claims from certain media outlets and the government recommendations to stockpile food supplies, the chances of a ‘no-deal Brexit’ are still relatively remote,” it states. “Most, save the most ardent of Brexit supporters, agree that a split without a divorce bill would be disastrous.”

The creative industries are the fastest growing part of the UK economy. In 2016, the sector contributed £91.8 billion gross value added (GVA), making it larger than the automotive, life sciences, aerospace, oil and gas sectors combined.

The Creative Industries Federation was founded in 2014 by Sir John Sorrell to champion and advise the UK creative sector. Its membership includes more than 1,000 organisations, and through these more than 10,000 individuals.

The post UK designers told to prepare for “actual possibility” of no-deal Brexit appeared first on Dezeen.

Brooks + Scarpa principals Angela Brooks and Larry Scarpa explain their concept for a public pavilion that could harness energy from lightning in our penultimate P.O.D.System Architecture movie.

Los Angeles- and Florida-based architecture studio Brooks + Scarpa has created a conceptual energy-harvesting pavilion for P.O.D.System Architecture – a collaboration between Dezeen and adidas Originals.

Called Vortex Generator, Brooks + Scarpa’s proposed structure merges a public pavilion with a renewable energy power plant, and is intended to capture energy from the sun as well as lightning storms.

The P.O.D.System Architecture project calls on Los Angeles-based architects to create conceptual buildings based on the story behind adidas’ recently launched P.O.D.System shoe, which combines three different shock-absorbing technologies into a single sneaker.

“We wanted our building to relate to adidas’ tagline for the P.O.D. System shoe: Great alone, better together,” Brooks explains in the movie, which Dezeen filmed in Los Angeles.

“So we combined spaces that are traditionally never put together – a public pavilion and an energy substation.”

Envisioned for Sarasota Bay, Florida, where hot sun and intense lightning storms are commonplace, the conceptual pavilion features a huge, spiralling, gas-filled structure in the centre, made from a flexible, conductive mesh material.

The top of this structure features a ring of solar panels to capture energy from the sun, as well as an array of lightning rods.

The funnel-like pavilion inflates when a storm approaches, rising up to attract lightning strikes, which it directs to the electrical substation below.

“When the sun is out, it is essentially a deflated structure,” Brooks explains. “When a storm comes across, it rises three-hundred feet to harness the energy of lightning and it become a completely different space.”

Vortex Generator would be accessible to the public via a walled walkway set below the water level of the bay, which rises up out of the water and spirals around the base of the inflatable structure.

The central portion acts like a giant lightning rod, ensuring that no-one on the path would be struck by lightning in a storm.

“Traditionally, when you’re in a thunderstorm, you run for cover,” Brooks says. “We wanted to flip that and provide a space for people to experience a thunderstorm while being protected.”

As well as capturing electricity from the storm, Brooks and Scarpa imagine that Vortex Generator would also create a show for people watching.

“When lightning strikes, the energy captured in it would glow like a lantern,” Scarpa says. “The moist air would steam up and it would actually come out at the top, almost like a smoke ring.”

It is not currently possible to harvest electricity from lightning.

Brooks and Scarpa admit that they do not know exactly what material the mesh structure would be made of, or how the electrical charge of the lightning strikes would be converted into useable energy. But they hope that the design will inspire people to consider what the future possibilities of a new renewable energy source could be.

“The power of lightning is a very difficult thing to harness, but we have hope that someday it can happen,” Scarpa says.

“Our project really provokes thought and we hope that it allows people to continue to think about it and maybe find a way to harness the power of lightning.”

This movie was filmed by Dezeen in Los Angeles. It is the fourth of five videos as part of the P.O.D.System Architecture collaboration between Dezeen and adidas Originals.

Previous videos in the series feature building concepts designed by fellow Los Angeles-based architecture firms Neil M Denari Architects, Design, Bitches and Standard Architecture, while the final film will reveal a design by Bureau Spectacular.

You can watch all the videos at dezeen.com/podsystem.

The post Brooks + Scarpa’s inflatable pavilion concept captures energy from lightning storms appeared first on Dezeen.