Hasta La Ideas

In this week’s comments update, readers are critical of a reflective tower designed by Frank Gehry and Büro Ole Scheeren’s pixelated skyscraper.

Faulty towers: images have been released of the Luma Arles complex in the south of France designed by Frank Gehry, which is scheduled to be complete in 2020, and readers are less than complimentary.

“Dear Lord, what have the poor people of Arles done to deserve such a dreadful thing? Visual hell,” commented Andrew.

Marc Sicard was equally dismayed: “I had some hopes when I saw the first images some years ago, but alas. Such a waste of money, resources, space, such a poor understanding of the place.”

“Looks like a haunted house on the front, and a boring building on the back,” added Marco Sosa.

Thenicolas agreed: “It’s like a render stuck halfway.”

One reader could see the positive side though:



What do you think of the tower? Join the discussion ›

Sin city: Danish bicycle brand Biomega has designed its SIN electric car to be an affordable and sustainable mode of urban transport. But commenters aren’t convinced.

“Obviously the creator has never drove a car. Dead angles everywhere,” observed Traian Musatescu.

Mark shared the sentiment: “Those seats look mightily uncomfortable. A square steering wheel? That’s so Austin Allegro circa 1977.”

“It’s a sin they pretend people will pay to be uncomfortable, exposed and cold,” replied Jean Claude.

Frank Mobley disagreed though, exclaiming: “Love it. Everything the new Land Rover isn’t and bravo for it.”

This reader had a different brand in mind:



Do you think the SIN electric car is desirable ? Join the discussion ›

Out of focus: Büro Ole Scheeren’s 77-storey MahaNakhon skyscraper in Bangkok has completed, but it seems commenters are growing bored of pixelated buildings.

“I’m as bored as everyone else with this geometric/pixelated conceit as an excuse for a design concept,” said HeywoodFloyd.

Simon Gauthier agreed: “I personally find it boring. Looks more like death than life to me, with its cold glass and steel cladding.”

“Too many buildings try to look like pixels. Are they trying to stay smartphone relevant?” asked BumpOfChicken.

“Not sure if this makes it good architecture, but I think this is an excellent, if not the best, example of pixel-architecture,” replied Rd.

This reader made a poignant point:



Are you bored of pixelated buildings? Join the discussion ›

50 shades of grey: readers feel melancholy having seen images of Crematorium Siesegem in Belgium, which Kaan Architecten has recently finished with grey marble and concrete.

“Very bleak and depressing,” said Sarah.

Reich Beich elaborated: “Definitely austere.”

“It does the opposite of what it’s trying to do the opposite of,” added Alex.

“Needs a few funeral clowns,” joked Jb.

This reader was more focused on logistics though:



How do you feel about Crematorium Siesegem? Join the discussion ›

The post “Looks like a haunted house” appeared first on Dezeen.

Winners of eight design project categories have been announced at Dezeen Awards, with Windvogel by Studio Roosegaarde winning Design Project of the Year.

The light-emitting, energy-generating kites also topped the lighting design category.

The design master jury described the project as “an innovative, emotional and functional design response to the universal dilemma of sustainability, and energy usage in particular”.

They said: “This project uses imaginative thinking to create something that is visually arresting and moving.”

Clothes that grow with your child by Petit Pli was highly commended for the overall prize. Judges called the long-lasting clothing, which expands to fit a child aged six months to 36 months, “a sustainable yet elegant design for the most important people in the world”.

The project won the Wearable Design of the Year category. Judges said: “This has been highly commended for presenting another innovative and visually appealing approach to achieving sustainability.”

Furniture Design of the Year was won by Kumo Modular Sofa by Anderssen & Voll for Hem. Multiples of a single module can be joined together to create sofas of any size, packing down to minimise shipping cost and volume.

“From the production and manufacturing point of view, it’s very smart,” judges said. “It intelligently solves a problem for people on the move.”

Homeware Design of the Year went to ZandGlas by Atelier NL. The designers collected sand samples from around the world to create glass objects that showcased both the variety and the increasing scarcity of a material that is taken for granted.

Judges said it was “a powerful, thoughtfully produced and beautifully executed project that celebrates imperfection, natural materials and local idiosyncrasies, whilst simultaneously salvaging quickly disappearing knowledge”.

Tower of Power by Göbl Architektur won Transport Design of the Year.

The charging station for electric vehicles was described by judges as “a forward-thinking, problem-solving and imaginative project designed from scratch that recognises the increasing prominence of electric vehicles”.

The award for Digital Design of the Year went to Lightform LF1 by Lightform. This product allows users with little prior knowledge users to create projected augmented reality experiences without the need for a screen or headset.

“This digital design encourages creativity and conviviality,” said the judges. “It’s a great tool that democratises the use of AR, opening it up to people of all backgrounds, not just designers.”

D Reusable Tampon Applicator and Organic Tampons by DAME won the Leisure Design of the Year award. The reusable, self-cleaning applicator is made from an antibacterial, medical-grade material and is designed to be used with non-applicator tampons.

“This design displays an admirable effort to reduce disposable plastic and an interesting use of nanotechnology,” said the judges.

Workplace Design of the Year was won by Run by Industrial Facility. The range of multi-use office furniture consists of a shelving unit, a bench and a table with plank-like surfaces made either of aluminium or wood.

“This design brings the familiarity of the home into the workplace, reflecting changes in work culture and encouraging versatility,” the judges said.

All eight category winners and the overall winner were announced at the Dezeen Awards ceremony in London on 27 November 2018, along with the winners in the design, interiors and studio categories.

Winners received a hand-made trophy designed by Atelier NL.

See all winners at www.dezeen.com/awards/winners.

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Amsterdam-based design platform What Design Can Do has unveiled 13 campaigns against the sexual exploitation of underage children, as part of a design competition called No Minor Thing.

Developed in cooperation with the Dutch Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of Justice and Security, the No Minor Thing project saw 13 Dutch design agencies come up with solutions on how to raise awareness and tackle the issue of sexual violence against minors.

The 13 strategies and campaigns include an interactive online platform that teaches people how to spot signs of sex trafficking, a peer-to-peer check-up system for minors, and an app extension for messaging services that detects nudity in photos and digitally watermarks the images.

“Sexual exploitation of children is common, but it generally remains under the radar, out of sight,” said the organisation. “It is estimated that only one in nine girls who have been sexually exploited are known to police and the justice department.”

“There are even fewer records for the exploitation of boys, which makes it even more difficult to estimate the actual number of victims,” it continued.

Each of the participating designers chose one of five questions to offer a solution to, including “How can we teach every child that they are in charge of their own body?”, “How can we help victims to report sexual exploitation earlier?” and “How can we enhance the protection of young people online?”.

Rotterdam-based foundation Design for Humanity devised an Instagram series aimed at young people aged between 10 and 14, which encourages its followers to think about “the role played by intimacy and sexuality” in their lives.

Called Schaamstreken (Private Parts), the campaign sets out to include sex education in everyday interactions via social media – every week there is a new mystery surrounding sexuality that followers can “solve”.

Fabrique’s SHOOW app detects nudity in photos and digitally watermarks the images

The Fabrique team focused on “sexting” in their efforts to combat sexual exploitation of minors. They designed an app extension for popular messaging applications like Whatsapp and Snapchat that detects nudity in photos and provides these images with a digital watermark.

The SHOOW app also offers users the opportunity to provide the photo with a watermark on the front, in a bid to encourage young people to treat nude photos responsibly.

“The naive notion that this type of situation only occurs in distant countries was demolished on day one of the challenge,” said Fabrique.

“Designers have the ability to challenge the status quo,” the agency added. “Taking an outside, creative perspective to this type of complex problem allows us to reach new insights.”

After discovering that Dutch society is largely unaware of the sexual exploitation of minors, What The Studio came up with a certification program called No Place for Sex Trafficking, which rewards hospitality services that are committed to actively preventing sex trafficking.

The studio created an online platform where staff at hotels, bars and restaurants, as well as taxi drivers, can follow interactive training courses to learn how to spot signs of sex trafficking. Employees will then receive a certificate that they can display to show their awareness to customers, which may include potential sex traders.

“Designers don’t need to become the experts, but we are the dreamers, the ones who can help to think bigger, to communicate better and to make the findings of experts accessible for more people,” said What the Studio.

Other campaigns include a fake website hidden under the name of scholieren sekswerk (student sex work) used to reveal “the shocking truth” of sex trafficking, a system of fake adverts and landing pages that can track and gather data on “casual” sex offender behaviour, and a weekly calendar that helps parents and children communicate about relationships and sexuality.

What Design Can Do also recently launched another project called the Clean Energy Challenge, which tasks architects and designers with coming up with proposals that can help urban centres transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.

The post What Design Can Do campaigns combat sexual exploitation of children in Netherlands appeared first on Dezeen.

Eight winning architecture projects have been announced at the Dezeen Awards ceremony in London, with The Storefront Theater by Matthew Mazzotta taking the overall Architecture Project of the Year prize.

Mazzotta’s modest project, which also won the Rebirth Project of the Year category, creates retractable theatre seating in a disused storefront in Lyons, a small town in Nebraska that has witnessed the decline of its main street shopping district.

“This poetic and powerful project has generated the most interesting conversation and has got us the most excited,” said the Dezeen Awards architecture master jury.

“Architecture is for the community and this is the project that serves the community the most.”

The House of the Year category was won by House in Miyamoto by Tato Architects, which features a multi-level interior where furniture doubles as circulation.

“This project questions the way we think about sections in a house and how privacy plays a role in today’s homes,” the judges said. “It explores how we can share spaces with other people in a new and contemporary way.”

Housing Project of the Year went to Dongziguan Affordable Housing by Gad Line+ Studio.

“This is a really interesting updating of vernacular ways of living,” judges said of the low-cost housing project for farmers in rural China. “It is a modern approach to rural living with added value to the community.”

AmorePacific Headquarters Seoul by David Chipperfield Architects won Tall Building of the Year.

Judges praised its “interesting use of voids and negative space to break up the scale of the high-rise”. They described the headquarters for the Korean beauty conglomerate as “very delicate and elegant for what is essentially a megastructure”.

Bamboo Sports Hall by Chiangmai Life Architects was the winner of Civic and Cultural Building of the Year.

“This beautifully designed structure transforms the sports hall, the most formulaic of educational spaces, into a place of celebration that could continue to change its use,” judges said. “This is a school where people can care about the spaces where they learn.”

The Business Building of the Year category was won by Bloomberg by Foster + Partners, a corporate headquarters in London.

This building appears quite modestly on the street outside but once inside, you enter a different world that’s energetic and exciting,” judges said. “The central atrium and walkways create a sense of dynamic energy.”

Hospitality Building of the Year went to Maggie’s Centre Barts by Steven Holl Architects.

Judges praised the London cancer-care centre as “a good statement to understand how we can expand the concept of hospitality to include solace, care and communality”.

They added that the semi-translucent building “successfully deals with the complex historical context whilst balancing openness with privacy”.

Small Building of the Year was won by Okana Centre for Change by Laura Katharina Straehle and Ellen Rouwendal.

Judges described the modest community centre in Kenya as “a thoughtful and surprisingly rich collection of spaces. They said it was “a successful marriage of architectural ambition and the needs and practicality of setting up a school”.

All eight category winners and the overall winner were announced at the Dezeen Awards ceremony in London on 27 November 2018, along with the winners in the design, interiors and studio categories.

Each winner was presented with a hand-made trophy designed by Atelier NL.

See all winners at www.dezeen.com/awards/winners.

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Designer Erez Nevi Pana has combined cruelty-free ahimsa silk with the baskets commonly used to grow silkworms, to create five tapestries that “expose the beauty in ethical production”.

The basic fabric of the tapestries is cruelty-free silk, often known as peace silk, a material developed in India in the 1990s.

Part of the body of each tapestry is smooth like traditional silk but Nevi Pana has left textured loose threads in other areas. For this he used the process of soumak weaving, in which knots sit on top of the warp threads to add bulk and dimension.

Nevi Pana unravelled the wicker baskets that are used in the silk industry for growing silk cocoons and integrated sections of the deconstructed basket into each design. The tapestries are designed to be hung on the wall as an artistic piece.

The production of ahimsa – meaning the principle of nonviolence toward all living things – differs from that of the traditional silk industry, and takes longer.

“In traditional silk production the silkworms are growing inside baskets on shelves and once they have finished spinning the larva is being boiled alive inside the cocoons,” explains Nevi Pana. “It saves time and they get the full length of the yarn.”

To make ahimsa silk, the producers must wait for the moth to leave the cocoon before they collect the silk yarn. The moth breaks the shell of the cocoon when it emerges and flies away, which makes the length of the yarn shorter and the production process longer.

According to Nevi Pana, silk worms do feel pain even though their reactions may not be visible to the naked eye. His use of ahimsa silk mirrors his own journey to a fully vegan lifestyle.

“Doubts about materials I was using in my designs started to emerge, especially relating to yarns, as most of my income came from weaving textiles,” said Nevi Pana.

The designer began to see that ethical consumption as a designer could lead to ethical products “that make a real statement”.

Nevi Pana experimented with weaving wool yarns and silk yarns over the course of his graduate project at Design Academy Eindhoven and while producing a number of products for private clients.

“When there is an alternative that exhibits a beautiful process like the peace silk, we should all choose it,” he said.

The designer believes the scale of an industry should not determine which animals are harmed in the making of products for human use. “For me, in suffering we are all equal — it is not a matter of scale,” said the designer.

Two of the wall tapestries were displayed as part of the designer’s Consciousness exhibition at Friedman Benda in New York in May this year, where the designer also showed two other series of work.

The first is Bleached, a five-year project looking at the material applications of salt, that he showed in Milan earlier this year.

The other project on display saw him use the waste he produced on a trip to India as the basis for a set of woven baskets glazed with the fibrous byproduct of cashew nut harvesting.

Other designers experimenting with vegan materials include Tjeerd Veenhoven, who created a set of colourful cruelty-free rugs using palm leather, a material made from palm leaves softened with a glycerine solution.

Photographs are by Kalu Rothkegel and Daniel Kukla.

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