Hasta La Ideas

Algae is hot right now, and not just because global warming is exacerbating massive algae blooms (you’ll understand later). If you’ve been paying attention to recent design trends, you’ve likely become aware of the growing popularity of algae in design. This year, the Nature Design Triennial at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York and the Cube Design Museum in Kerkade, Holland, as well as Paola Antonelli‘s Broken Nature exhibition at the Design Triennale Milano, have exhibited a number of projects demonstrating algae-based explorations in design.

This shift towards algal material in product and fashion design, could not come too soon. As the design industry is sluggishly beginning to acknowledge the ecological fallout of its love affair with fossil fuel-based plastics and other synthetics that are accelerating climate change. The potential of a carbon-negative algal material, offers a compelling glimpse at new production techniques for the future (that we needed yesterday). Yet how does a designer, rarely provided with any education in phycology nor even biology, begin to approach algae? In order for designers to effectively begin to explore algal material, more designers will need to be equipped with a basic level of understanding when it comes to the oxygen-emitting lifeforms.

For algae are a phenomenally vast and complex collection of organisms. It is estimated that there are between 30,000 and 1 million different species of algae. Of the kingdom Protista, algae have traits similar to animals, plants, and fungi, but they don’t really fit into any of those categories neatly (which makes trying to sort them very tricky). Algae are among Earth’s earliest lifeforms, they can be as small as a microscopic, single-celled organism (microalgae) or as big as a 200ft-long kelp (macroalgae). They can be found almost everywhere on the planet, in snow, soil, hot-springs, ponds, icebergs, lakes, rivers, oceans, in the space between bits of sand, on the shells of turtles, in the fur of sloths, on plants, on rocks, on coral, even inside of other organisms.

“Watermelon snow” reveals a variation of green algae that thrives in freezing temperatures.

They are everywhere, and ecologically-speaking, algae are heavy-hitters. Primarily aquatic, they are the base food for nearly all marine life on Earth. They are also responsible for this nice oxygen-rich atmosphere we are quickly filling with carbon. The formation of the Earths atmosphere as we know it, is in large part due to the photosynthetic efforts of algae, and even today it is thought that 50 to 85 percent of global oxygen available to land animals (us), is produced by algae.

Algae Lab Luma (via New Material Award)

Many refer to algae as aquatic plants, as they are photosynthetic like plants, but they differ in that they have variations in the color of their chloroplasts (unlike the typically green pigment of plants). As they are photosynthetic, they possess that now invaluable skill of sucking up carbon. This fact, paired with their prodigious ability to grow and thrive, have made them an appealing organism for designers to work with. The obvious benefits of algal material begs the question, how is there not a massive industry for this already?

Though there is a several billion dollar market for algae, it is almost entirely dominated by the food industry. Algae has many applications in preparing foods, and many by-products are used in the manufacturing of a litany of household goods. Amid the many variants, red algae is the most popular commercial food alga. You may know it as the Japanese nori (nori alone is comprised of 60-70 different species of red algae) or Dulse, in North Atlantic regions like the US and Canada. For designers these red algae offer opportunity, “Any species with human food applications is the easiest to scale since there is a high-value output that can drive the production.” says Charlotte McCurdy, who’s carbon-negative raincoat derived from several genera of the red algae is now on display at the Cooper Hewitt Museum.

Charlotte McCurdy’s Raincoat, as featured in the Nature exhibition at Cooper Hewitt.

Close-up of McCurdy’s Algae-based material.

Other algae that already have established markets include, the brown algae, Laminaria, which is eaten in soups in Japan, Korea, and China. As well as the green algae Monostroma and Ulva (Sea Lettuce). One species of green alga known as Chlorella, is so rich in protein that it has been considered a food source for extended space travel. While there are already many algae available on the market, and trends indicate that different alga will become increasingly accessible.

Agar, a by-product of red algae, is used for this award winning Agar Material by Kosuke Araki, Noriaki Maetani, Akira Muraoka photo by Kosuke Araki

Yet the means by which algae are produced and harvested must be carefully scrutinized. For some algae can actually be harmful if they grow excessively. Like cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), which, though it is responsible for producing most of the oxygen in the atmosphere it can also be extremely harmful when it proliferates. As if to emphasize the fact that algae is complicated, cyanobacteria can produce toxins and actually restrict oxygen levels in marine environments. These harmful algae blooms can release toxins into the water and air. The blooms are caused and exacerbated by human activity in marine environments, climate change, and large scale changes to ocean conditions. Which is to say, even though algae has massive potential, its probably best not to dump mass amounts of iron in marine environments with the hope that algae will solve all our problems.

To find new ways to cultivate algae, many designers have begun to explore the use of bioreactors to grow their own, while others like the think-tank Atelier Luma in Arles, France have even explored local species to understand how this ubiquitous organism might be sourced with minimal impact. Marine permaculture also offers an exciting alternative for ecological cultivation. “Wild macroalgae forests only cover a small fraction of the fertile ocean. We have an opportunity to expand supply of macroalgae without needing to do the kind of uncontrolled ‘iron-dumping’ that the more conventional geoengineering approach advocates.” says McCurdy, “Climate change means that things will change; they have to change. We need more people involved in the decisions that will determine that change.”

Measuring people’s happiness with architecture is a step towards trying to control them, says Reinier de Graaf.

It has been two years since I last wrote for Dezeen and a lot has changed. I wrote about a house in the former East Germany. I only met the owner very briefly and I have no idea if he was happy in his simple home. Frankly, the question never occurred to me. I simply assumed he was, and if he weren’t, it would hardly be because of his home. The owner’s private life and the historic significance of his property were two very different things.

Two years later, such a position is hardly tenable anymore. Architecture has come to register on so-called happiness indices: listings which rate the quality of buildings alongside the number of sunny days, air quality, public transport access and the amount of nearby coffee places.

In the age of big data, everything is quantifiable, even happiness. At long last, an elusive subject like architecture can be held accountable: good architecture makes people happy, bad architecture does not.

The logic is hard to argue with – especially for architects, unaccustomed to debating the intricacies of their work with outsiders. Still, even if a less architect-centric evaluation of buildings ought to be welcomed, the problem starts as soon as one tries to establish an objective base for such an evaluation.

How does one measure happiness? How does one logically correlate happiness (or a lack thereof) to the features of a building? And, perhaps most importantly, what is the validity of happiness as a criterion, for architecture, or anything else for that matter?

At long last, an elusive subject like architecture can be held accountable

The tradition to make happiness – the most fleeting of human emotions – an absolute is long and manifold. The pursuit of happiness is one of the unalienable rights anchored in the 18th century US Declaration of Independence. In the same era, philosopher Jeremy Bentham claimed that “It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong”.

In the 1970s, it was economists such as Bernard van Praag and Richard Easterling (of the Easterling Paradox) who first made happiness the object of scientific research. With the help of modern polling methods, they studied the relation between people’s affluence and their general sense of well-being, only to stumble on the inevitable conclusion that, even if no definitive proof of such a relation existed, poverty remained a serious obstacle to happiness.

Since the days of Easterling, happiness studies have become an increasingly diffuse intellectual endeavour. Even if meanwhile mainly claimed as the expertise of the social and behavioural sciences, happiness has become a topic of fond speculation for all sorts: Arthur Brooks – a journalist – has come up with a “Formula for Happiness” and architect Bjarke Ingels has championed the notion of “Hedonistic Sustainability”, betting perhaps that two clichés combined make an original idea.

Happiness studies have become an increasingly diffuse intellectual endeavour

The change of academic domain has done little to undermine the subject itself. However, a significant shift has occurred in terms of the causes identified. No longer is it material wealth which is thought to account for people’s happiness, increasingly it is the things money cannot buy which are presumed to be decisive.

The free eight-week Science of Happiness Course offered at Berkeley University attributes happiness to “strong social connections and contributing to something bigger than yourself”. Positive psychology – another happiness program – strives to create healthy institutions, joyful and engaged individuals, and flourishing communities. The nation of Bhutan has gone as far to replace the category of GDP by that of GHN: Gross National Happiness. (According to which Bhutan is the happiest nation on earth.)

It is a commonplace that money doesn’t necessarily make one happy. Still, it remains curious how, since the 1980s, the happiness discourse seems to have abandoned material causes altogether. Ever since the global embrace of the free-market economy, inequality in the western world – where the majority of happiness studies are conducted – has risen sharply.

One percent of the world’s population currently owns fifty percent of global wealth. By now, that is a commonplace too. Yet scarcely ever is this issue quoted as a source of unhappiness. It is as though the happiness indices are a means to preemptively make people acquiesce to their situation: if all the money in the world didn’t suffice to make the one percent happy, why should the rest of us possibly want more?

“Opium for the people”, was how Marx described the role of religion in 19th Century England, a foil to distract miserable people from the grim reality of their lot. Are happiness studies the 21st Century equivalent – a last straw for the poor and struggling to cling on to? Or do the effects reach further still? What if the measuring of happiness is not a distraction, but something at the very core of our economic system?

There is no real distinction between trying to control people’s happiness and trying to control them full stop

One could argue that to measure something represents the first step in removing it from the realm of free will. Once things are measured, they can be classified, compared and, if needed, encouraged to change in order to compare more favorably.

What is measured is forced to compete. It becomes vectorised. The free-market economy, the raison d’etre of which is competition, has escalated this process to the extreme. Indices now exist for almost anything: goods, services, places, relationships… feelings.

Yet, in subjecting ever-larger segments of our personal lives to quantification, the “free” market increasingly presents itself as a source of un-freedom. No longer is the pursuit of happiness a matter of making our own individual choices, but an imperative to conform and to strive.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that Jeremy Bentham – for whom the happiness of the greatest number was the measure of right and wrong – also invented the architectural typology of the panopticon. This machine for surveillance is perhaps the earliest evidence that there is no real distinction between trying to control people’s happiness and trying to control them full stop.

Main image is a plan of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon prison.

The post “In the age of big data, everything is quantifiable, even happiness” appeared first on Dezeen.

Pendant dix ans les British Wildlife Photography Awards ont célébré la richesse de la faune britannique. Les gagnants de l’édition 2019 approchent l’environnement de plusieurs manières différentes et valorisent les écosystèmes locaux afin d’éveiller les consciences. Un prix qui prouve que la photographie environnementale n’a pas forcément besoin d’exotisme pour être extraordinaire. Certaines de ces photographies ont d’ailleurs été prises en environnement urbain et mettent en évidence les liens existants entre les hommes et la faune qui les entoure.

“Common Swift Skimming The Water (Common Swift)” by Robin Chittenden. Animal Behavior winner.

“Brighter Skies on the Horizon (Rock dove or feral pigeon)” by Rich Bunce. Habitat winner.

“Garden Spider (Garden spider)” by Alan Smith. Hidden Britain winner.

“In the Spotlight (Razorbill)” by Ollie Teasdale. Under 12 winner.

We are all aware of the adverse levels of air pollution in public places, on the streets, in our cities, basically everywhere except our homes. But here’s a little shocker; our homes aren’t completely free from aerial pollution….yet!  One of the many guaranteed pollutants in our homes is Formaldehyde. It’s usually released in our homes from a variety of sources: furniture, wood products, air fresheners, electronics, cleaning products and so on and so forth. Formaldehyde present in substantial amounts can cause irritation to our eyes, nose, and throat. It has been classified as a cancer-causing substance, but the research in this field is yet to bear concrete results. This where Dyson’s latest product the Pure Hot + Cool Cryptomic comes in. It promises to not only capture the Formaldehyde that’s been released in the air but also to destroy it. Whereas Dyson’s previous air purifiers could only capture the gas, the Cryptomic has taken ten steps forward. Famous for its bladeless fan, Dyson’s latest air purifiers display the same unique design while projecting purified air across a 360-degree angle.

“Our chemist team has been searching for various methods to solve this problem for the past three years,” said Dr. Nathan Brown, head of research at Dyson. “We have tested more than 20 different catalysts – materials that would enable a chemical reaction to take place, but isn’t consumed or used up by the reaction. We ultimately identified the mineral Cryptomelane as the ideal catalyst.” This very catalyst panel is what differentiates the Cryptomic from its predecessors. The panel consists of almost a billion tunnels which capture the Formaldehyde gas.

In fact, Dyson has even gone ahead and explained the process to us:
“There is an oxygen-rich surface on the catalyst that works to destroy formaldehyde by removing electrons during the chemical reaction causing it to break into the smaller, safer molecules – carbon dioxide and water,” the company said in a statement. “The amount of carbon dioxide and water that results from this process is very small. For reference, the technology panel produces 20,000x less water and CO₂ than a mouse gives off breathing per day.”

The newly introduced filter of Crytopmic never has to be removed nor replaced, lasting as long as the purifier itself, however, the carbon and HEPA filters do need to be replaced every twelve months. The purifier can be synched to the Dyson Link app (compatible with Android and IOS) which displays the current air quality, as well as the temperature and humidity in your city.

Though the question arises “Is Formaldehyde a dominant enough threat for us to consider?” Research does indeed show that it irritates our respiratory system. There are simpler (non-monetary) alternatives to rid our homes of this pollutant, but those will last only for a short period of time and the gas can never be completely eradicated. In such a scenario, the Cryptomic with it’s guaranteed functionality to destroy Formadelhyde does seem like a safer bet, though it may be a costlier one. With issues like climate change, global warming and pollution looming even closer on the horizon, I don’t think any of us would mind living in a pollutant-free zone at home, and we have the Dyson Pure Hot + Cool Cryptomic to help us with that!

Ethereal floating jellyfish and the glowing northern lights are among the scenes projected above diners in this high-end Copenhagen restaurant, which has been designed by Studio Duncalf.

Exclusively offering a 50-course tasting menu, Alchemist has been designed to “take diners on both a physical and intellectual journey”.

The restaurant started life as a tiny 16-cover venue in central Copenhagen. But, when investors offered a chance for expansion, head chef Rasmus Munk worked with Studio Duncalf to create a bigger and more eccentric space “that otherwise would have been dismissed by engineers and architects”.

“In the previous incarnation of Alchemist, like the vast majority of high-end restaurants, the experience was focused almost entirely on the food, a noble aim in itself,” said the studio’s founder, Mike Duncalf.

“For this version of the Alchemist, however, Rasmus was looking to enhance the experience by creating an extraordinary physical environment which includes visual and audio stimulation,” Duncalf Dezeen.

Alchemist’s second iteration is located on Copenhagen’s industrial Refshaleøen island, which is dotted with other trendy eateries and bars.

It takes over a building that once served as a boat workshop and later as a set design space for the Danish National Theatre. The cavernous interior has been transformed to feature a sequence of unique dining spaces that Studio Duncalf felt suited the restaurant’s multi-course menu.

Diners enter the restaurant via a three-metre-high bronze door that’s been carved to feature a sprawl of gnarled tree boughs. They immediately step into a gallery-style space, for which different artists will be invited to create immersive installations.

At the time of opening, the room was covered in colourful graffiti-style illustrations by Japanese artist Lady Aiko, which depict New York street scenes.

A short partition wall then slides up to grant access to a grandiose bar area where cocktails and the initial, lighter food courses will be served.

One side of the 14-metre-high room is dominated by a three-storey glass wine cellar that’s stacked with 10,000 bottles.

Four-metre-long brass pendant lamps dangle from the ceiling, illuminating casual seating areas below which are dressed with pink and navy velvet chairs.

A kitchen runs along the rear of the room, fronted by panes of glass so that diners can see the chefs at work.

Various unusual ingredients are stored inside clear jars against a backlit gridded shelf, much like how specimens are displayed in a science lab.

Diners walk up a flight of stairs and across a glass-bottomed bridge into a secondary dining room, which is topped by a huge dome.

Measuring 18 metres in diameter, the dome can be projected with moving images ranging from a night sky streaked with the northern lights to a swarm of jellyfish floating amongst plastic bags – an attempt by Munk to raise awareness of the world’s polluted oceans.

Diners below sit around concrete bench tables, turned towards the kitchen to keep-up the “visual experience”. Unusual dishes on offer include a cherry-glazed lamb’s brain and foie gras served inside a fake human head.

A lift then takes diners up to the third and final dining space where dessert is served. Completed in a much cosier fit-out, it has been finished with timber floorboards by Dinesen and plum-hued sofas.

This space also boasts a fire pit and a tea ceremony bar.

“We don’t apply a particular preconceived house style onto any project, our approach tends to focus on the specific needs of the client, their customers and the space available and we took the same approach here,” explained Duncalf.

“Working on such a spectacular scale inherently helps create an element of theatre. It would have been a mistake, however, to simply rely on the size of the space to do the work so we had to work hard to create intrigue and ambience without the atmosphere simply dissipating in the void.”

Studio Duncalf has been established since 2016 and is based in south London.

Its Alchemist project joins a number of high-end eateries that are already dotted across Copenhagen, a city known for its rich culinary scene.

Last year saw Michelin-starred Noma set up a new home in the Danish capital. Set inside an ex-military warehouse, the restaurant has a series of open-plan dining spaces dressed with warm oak furnishings.

Photography is by Claes Bech Poulsen.

The post Planetarium-style ceiling arches over diners inside Copenhagen’s Alchemist restaurant appeared first on Dezeen.