Hasta La Ideas

The year 1886 is considered to be the birth of the modern car, as in that year, German inventor Carl Benz built a modern automobile called the Benz Patent-Motorwagen. And look at the designs now! Electric meets retro designs, this is the trend that we are seeing as we create this round-up of the most innovative automotive designs. Each car design is not just a design, but actually is a prediction of the trends we will see in the design industry as well as the path the society as a whole is progressing towards. Featuring an abundance of technology – whether it is autonomous driving, relaxing or heart racing with edgy designs this post includes some stunning looking and performing automobiles we can’t wait to get a ride in!

Bentley Electric EXP 100 GT Concept shows a fully electric luxury gran turismo designed to show what the company’s models might look like in the year 2035

Inspired by the BMW Isetta from the 50s, the Microlino does a rather wonderful job of looking cute, but at the same time also looking road-friendly by  Micro Mobility 

Peugeot e-Legend is a retro-styled concept with a design inspired by the classic 504. It’s a three-box design with an electric powertrain that produces 456 hp (463 PS / 340 kW) and 590 lb-ft (800 Nm) of torque

The Eadon Green ‘Black Cuillin’ Coupe is a bespoke coach built by the luxury Grand Tourer by CURVE Vehicle Design 

Concept Chariot is a fascinating single-seater with a dual identity by designer Yi Dong

The AKO is an electric inverse leaning trike designed with two wheels on the front and one on the back by Team AKO 

A Modern Twist on a 1,200 HP Austro Daimler Bergmeister PHEV by Projekt Austro Daimler

The minimalism-inspired H500 sedan concept created as a collaboration between Pininfarina & Hybrid Kinetic 

McLaren Concept E-Zero is an all-electric model takes design inspiration from the McLaren M6GT from way back in 1969

The Honda Skyroom concept displays the outside sky to the inside of the cabin through the cylindrical opening that frames the sky above by Dahye Jeong 

On ne peut pas souvent dire qu’une lampe a été inspirée par les philosophes grecs pré-socratiques ! Les designers Luis H. Vicencio, Fabrizio Guarrasi, et Mattia Antonetti ont puisé leur inspiration dans le concept de la philosophie grecque et plus spécifiquement de l’observation philosophique « tout coule ». Cette lampe a ainsi été nommée Panta Rei Light Cube. Eteinte, elle a une forme sculpturale intrigante. Les LEDs projettent la lumière de manière à créer un effet de mouvement qui lui fait bien porter son nom.

Spanish fashion retailer Zara has announced that 100 per cent of the cotton, linen and polyester used in its clothing will be more sustainable, organic or recycled by 2025.

Zara‘s holding group, Inditex – the world’s third largest clothing company according to Forbes – made the sustainability pledge at its annual shareholders’ meeting on 16 July.

The company stated that it will only use cotton, linen and polyester that is “organic, more sustainable or recycled”, as one of a number of sustainable targets for the next six years.

“Sustainability is a never-ending task”

Cotton, linen and polyester – along with viscose, which the company plans to make more sustainable by 2023 – make up 90 per cent of all raw materials purchased by the brand.

The target will be enacted by all eight of Inditex’s brands – Zara, Zara Home, Massimo Dutti, Pull&Bear, Bershka, Uterqüe, Oysho and Stradivarius.

“Sustainability is a never-ending task in which everyone here at Inditex is involved and in which we are successfully engaging all of our suppliers,” said Inditex chairman and CEO Pablo Isla.

“Our digital transformation and determined progress towards the most demanding sustainability standards are complementary and underpinned by the efficiency of our long-standing business model, which is based on offering our customers the best in quality fashion.”

 Zara plans to make buildings eco-efficient

Along with the commitment to use more sustainable fabrics Inditex announced a range of other aims. The first goal for this year is for all of its head offices to meet the “highest green building certificates”, and for 100 per cent of stores to be eco-efficient.

With this in mind, it plans to use 80 per cent renewable energy across all of the company’s activities, including in its stores, logistic centres and offices.

By 2020, Inditex hopes to fully eliminate the use of plastic bags across all its brands – a goal it has already achieved at Zara, Zara Home, Massimo Dutti and Uterqüe.

The company also claims that by 2023 it will have fully eliminated single-use plastics from customer sales, and will be sending 100 per cent of the waste generated at its head offices and stores for recycling or reuse.

According to Inditex, it is currently recycling or reusing 88 per cent of its waste.

Clothing recycling to be available at all stores

The company is also committing to introducing collection and recycling systems for all of the materials used in its store displays for reuse.

Next year, the retailer claims that all of its stores will have been fitted with containers for collecting used clothing to either be reused, recycled or sent to charity, in an effort to make a move towards a circular economy.

Since its launch in 2015, these dedicated clothes banks have collected over 34,000 tonnes of used garments, footwear and accessories.

The announcements come in the midst of wider recognition of the impact of textile production on climate change. In February, the UK Parliament issued a report on “Fixing Fashion”, stressing the need to change the unsustainable way we make, use and throw away our clothes.

Royal College of Art fashion student Laura Kraup Frandsen refused to present a physical collection at her graduate show as a protest against overconsumption in the climate crisis.

Instead, she staged a “die-in” demonstration at her degree show with the help of 20 Extinction Rebellion members to encourage consumers to sign a pledge to not buy any new clothes for a year.

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The technology we use to keep cool is heating the world in a vicious feedback cycle, so we need to improve it and use it less…(Read…)

Gina Périer and Alexander Egebjerg have designed an industrial-standard female toilet for festivals and outdoor events that allows people to pee sitting down quickly and safely.

Named Lapee, the pink plastic structure has three urinals arranged in a spiral, with curving back rests that provide privacy while allowing the user to remain aware of their surroundings.

Périer and Egebjerg designed Lapee to create more gender equality at outdoor events, where women are often left queuing for loos with doors while men can use urinals.

Périer and Egebjerg designed the female urinals to be sturdy, easy to transport and easy to clean.

“We had observed that there had been some tests for women’s urinals before, but they were always installations or something put together on site – nothing fully industrialised, nothing scalable,” said Périer, a French architect based in Copenhagen.

The designers studied the form of male urinals to create a solution for people who need to sit down to urinate – a position that leaves people more vulnerable.

“Guys have to be covered only from the front and the female has to be covered from front and back,” Périer told Dezeen. “Because it’s a urinal to be intimate enough for people to pee, but it has to be not too intimate.”

Périer believes that the urinals, which do not having doors, have a raised the seat and walls that are low enough that users can see over without people being able to look in, are safer standard outdoor toilets.

“You’re way more safe than if you’re behind a door which is locked and no one can see,” she explained.

“You’re also 60 centimetres above the ground. We did that so we don’t have these vulnerable feeling of squatting down – you are eye level is at the same height as someone standing.”

The Lapee can hook up to an existing sewage system if its available, but it also has its own 1,100 litre tank so it can stand alone and collect liquid waste for processing.

“We are finding partners right now to do something with the pee so it gets into recycled into fertiliser,” said Périer.

With the tank removed, Lapees can be stacked, making them easy to transport on the back of a truck.

Weighing 200 kilograms when empty, the Lapee is made from recyclable polyethylene, a hardwaring plastic that means it can be hosed down for cleaning and withstand the knocks of an outdoor event.

“From an environmental perspective it was important to make a durable product, one that won’t be broken in one season. This can last decades,” said Périer.

Lapee was trialled at the 2019 Roskilde Festival, a music festival in Denmark attended by 130,000 revellers.

Périer and Egebjerg hope this design could also be used in disaster recovery situations or refugee camps, where women are often left vulnerable when accessing toilets.

“It’s all about their safety, dignity, and hygiene,” said Périer.

The problem of women needing a safe and convenient place to pee has been tackled by several other designers recently. Elisa Otañez created a bright yellow, mobile toilet that she put in the streets as a protest against the lack of facilities for women in The Netherlands, where she found there is only one public toilet for every 10 male urinals.

Anna Meddaugh designed NightLoo, a reusable toilet in a box for women in refugee camps to use at night in their tents and dispose of in the morning.

Photography is by Olivia Rohde.

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