Commissioned by Volkswagen, Californian-based EV West has given the classic 1972 Type 2 Microbus (aka the Kombi, Transporter or simply Microbus) an electric upgrade. Specializing in energy system conversions, EV West replaced the internal-combustion engine with an electric powertrain and 35.8 kWh battery from a “donor” 2017 E-Golf. This upgrade results in a 25-mile range and more horsepower than the original, but maintains the classic vehicle’s undeniable charm. Find out more at designboom.
Les architectes du cabinet AOC et l’institut Klokner se sont associés afin de réaliser un pont en béton ultra-léger dans un cimetière de République Tchèque. Faisant figure de passage entre la vie et la mort, le pont mesurant dix mètres de long et pesant plus de trois tonnes a été fabriqué à l’aide de béton ultra haute performance (UHPC), renforcé de fibres et résistant aux conditions climatiques extrêmes. Véritable contraste avec la nature qui l’environne, le pont pigmenté de noir se trouve en face d’une statue réalisée par Jan Hendrych, nommée « le gardien ».
Protruding corner windows that are set at different angles front this timber-framed, three-sided building in northern Portland designed by American firm Works Progress Architecture.
The Portland Flatiron building is located on a sloped, triangular site in the city’s Boise Eliot neighbourhood. Rising five storeys, the building contains retail space on the ground level and offices up above. There also is a basement level for parking.
The project is named after Manhattan’s Flatiron Building – a thin, triangular tower that was designed by Daniel Burnham and completed in 1902. There also is a small, triangular historic building in downtown Portland that is named the Flatiron Building.
Like its precedents, the new Portland Flatiron building has a plan and massing strategy that was driven by highly irregular site conditions. Encompassing 24,000 square feet (2,230 square metres), the tower features a triangular plan and three elevations – a first for local firm Works Progress Architecture, or WPA.
“Creating a concept of a building with only three elevations was a first for our firm and stood out as a special opportunity to lace the facade together in a way that would never occur in a standard four-sided structure,” the studio said in a project description.
The facades are wrapped in dark metal and rectangular windows. Various cutouts and projections give the building a dynamic appearance. On the corners, boxy forms with glazed fronts push outward in different directions.
“The unique triangular geometry and the significant grade change across the site generated the simple diagram of lacing three formally independent elevations together, resulting in a weave of bay windows and open space at the corners,” the studio said in a description.
Another notable element is the building’s structural material – wood. Timber columns and beams form the building’s frame. Floors consist of cross-laminated timber (CLT) topped with concrete slabs. CLT decking was chosen for its ability to accommodate the corner geometries.
“Because CLT is multi-directional in strength, we could use the material to create the laced corners with double cantilever balconies and projections,” the studio said. “This concept showcases one of the many positive attributes of the increasingly popular CLT material.”
The interior features open floors, each totalling about 5,000 square feet (465 square metres). The expansive rooms have white walls, concrete flooring and exposed timber. Large windows provide generous views of the city.
The Portland Flatiron building tends to catch the attention of passers-by due to its triangular shape – but also its prominent location. It sits at a point where the city grid shift, on an elevated site that overlooks a highway.
“The site has a powerful approach that creates a stunning perspective whether passing by in a vehicle or walking along the pedestrian route to the neighbourhood,” the studio said.
Founded in 2005, Works Progress Architecture has completed a variety of commercial and residential buildings in Oregon and beyond. Other projects by the studio include a housing complex in Portland with a zigzagging roof – an element that helps it stand apart from the conventional boxy structures that have proliferated in the city.
Architect: Works Progress Architecture (Carrie Strickland, principal and founder) General contractor: Abbott Construction Structural engineer: DCI Engineers Civil/landscape: ESA
Binge-watching on our favorite TV shows is everyone’s favored past time! It can help us relax and drain the effects of an otherwise tiring and hectic day. Visually impaired individuals in the US spend more than 5 hours per day on their TVs. However, this can be difficult for them, as even controlling an ordinary remote control with its complex buttons can be cumbersome. In an attempt to create a design that works ergonomically well for them, product designer Sophia Ipy came up with the ‘Envision Remote’. Envision was created with a particular intention in mind; to provide a comfortable TV viewing experience, with an effortless control on the remote. It has been designed in such a way that it works perfectly for visually impaired as well as visually able users.
All the buttons and keys on Envision have been placed with intense consideration, ensuring that they can be easily accessed without even looking at them. They have been grouped intelligently into relevant clusters, such that the related icons can be located with ease. An accessible voice key activates voice recognition, so you can give commands orally and have the channel changed or volumed increased. A chamfered surface was added onto Envision, encouraging an interface based prominently on the sense of touch. By stroking their thumb vertically on the surface, visually impaired users can easily locate the core function buttons, which are protruding, making them easy to detect. This is actually a grid-like pattern, allowing users to feel the keys on the chamfered surface, identify the core function category they’re looking for, and then move horizontally to select the option in that row. At the same time, Envision has been designed such that visually abled users can operate it successfully as well. Far from an average braille product, Envision is inclusive and intuitive, with ergonomics that are perfect for everybody!
Creative Outdoor Solutions is currently seeking an Industrial Designer in our Mooresville, NC office who will lead product design and development efforts to create many varieties of innovative, functional, and stylish outdoor living items.
Creative Outdoor Solutions produce a comprehensive line of firepits and outdoor heaters. We are growing our team to create expertise in new product categories. The designers in our company get to work on a variety of product categories (as many as six different categories, but with a focus on one or two where you’re the “expert”). Our office space is in a beautiful hundred-year-old textile mill that creates an inspiring backdrop for product design.
I made a guitar out of LEGO bricks and epoxy resin. While the shape is inspired by the Les Paul, I’m calling it the “LEGOcaster” – too fun to not do it!
This summer, while on a guided nature walk along the Hudson River in Manhattan, my companions and I were shown the seeds of the Kentucky Coffeetree. The seed packaging of the Kentucky Coffeetree is an incredible demonstration of evolution and design. The seed is encased in a package so strong, that to actually breakthrough the hard outer layers, one would require the teeth of a mastodon, or a bottle of Hydrochloric Acid. I was impressed with how specifically designed the tree’s seeds had been so that they would be consumed and carried by the megafauna, now long extinct. All of this is to say that trees and plants, given their time, are pretty incredible packaging designers. To the plant, a seed is precious, and it has thus commanded the attention of millions of years of evolution and variation.
The biotech start-up Seed is putting a lot of time and energy into living up to the name. For its first product “for humans” the company has produced a “symbiotic” – a combination of prebiotics and probiotics for daily consumption. While the biotech brand is working to encompass an array of health and scientific endeavors, many of which are not yet easily deciphered, it has put an exemplary effort forward in developing the packaging for their first product. The product itself is serving the microbiomes of the human anatomy that play host to an array of helpful bacteria, but the company’s symbiotic promises to be more than your typical health-supplement, and the branding is working hard to show that it is true. What is clear, is that the start-up’s devotion to creating an ecologically-minded packaging is inspiring, and hopefully will help shift a packaging paradigm.
So far, Seed appears to be keen to show how it intends to do so. For the symbiotic, the company has open-sourced its packaging strategy. Upon ordering the symbiotic the customer will be sent a box made of FSC-certified paper, within which there is a glass bottle which has been insulated for shipping by a mycelium-based tray. The tray is a product of Ecovative Design‘s mycelium foundry. Customers also receive a monthly-refill of the symbiotic, which is delivered in a BPA-free, compostable pouch which was developed by Elevate Packaging. To insulate the monthly refills, Seed uses a cornstarch-based foam, so named, Corn Foam, from Green Cell Foam. The foam easily dissolves in water, it is compostable, it is even edible. The system itself has been thought out to reduce carbon output. For example, for international customers, the refills will come every three months, to reduce the amount of necessary shipping. “Part of that user-experience design is thinking about the sustainability of the human that we’re ultimately serving on the other end. And then the Earth, that gets served on the real end of it. The end-user is not us. It’s kind of our planet.” says Ara Katz, co-founder and co-CEO of Seed.
While the end-user may be the planet, the start-up has chosen to aim to improve the ecology of the human body, and is unwavering in its application of science, design, and art to do so. This can be easily assessed in a visit to its website, which is filled with striking photography, and displays modernist sensibilities that many tech start-ups have come to love. Rarely does one find a health or biotech company putting so much effort into the presentation of the brand, and commit to such a unique aesthetic. While Seed professes a desire to help educate its users in the function of the symbiotic, as well as the other projects it has embarked upon, there remains an unenviable challenge. While I was intrigued by the aesthetic, I did feel intimidated by the information and felt a bit lost when it came to understanding what Seed was actually doing with its team of designers and scientists, as well as its formidable advisory staff of PhDs and Industrialists, featuring the likes of mammoth-resurrection, geneticist George Church, and Ivy Ross, VP of Design at Google (names that might otherwise give me pause).
To Seed’s credit, they’ve put effort into making the science of what they do more accessible to non-scientists like me. “A big part of what we want to do at Seed, is to bring us humans and science culture together” says Katz. “Design can shape the way we understand things.” Through social media, their website, their packaging and their product, Seed is trying to inform their users. While it will be fascinating to see how Seed continues to work to do so, their packaging strategy is a strong indication of their commitment to sustainability and finding more ecological solutions in wellness – the seed is ready to be planted, but what it grows remains to be seen.
With Brexit the British people have shown a greater appetite for risk than the creative sector, which needs to take the public more seriously or risk becoming irrelevant, says Martyn Perks of the Dissenters Design Network.
A general election has been called. No one knows exactly what the UK public will do, but they will likely, again, take a huge risk and vote for the unknown.
The 2016 EU referendum was a turning point. The UK public, in the face of ‘expert’ advice and exhortations, voted to leave. In the 2017 general election and again in this year’s European elections, they voted for leave-supporting ideas while questioning the old party allegiances. This represents the germ of a new, unarticulated radicalism against the old political order.
We are witnessing a momentous shift in public sentiment, and in political attitudes too. Arguably, many people who have been politically marginalised have voted radically because they want change – one that makes them feel represented and listened to.
What is striking about recent events is that the old categories of “left” and “right” in British politics, no longer apply to the same degree. New political lines are being drawn – leave or remain, uphold the vote or demand a new one. What tacitly underlies such broad sentiment is a recognition that the old forms of representation seem deeply inadequate.
Why should this matter for the creative industries? Because we need to take the public – our audience and fellow citizens – much more seriously.
The public expression of disaffection and dissatisfaction points to a potential for big ideas, something new that can capture the collective imagination. Millions of people have shown, over the past few years, that they are prepared to take risks. We are witnessing an incredibly disruptive moment.
We are witnessing a momentous shift in public sentiment, and in political attitudes too
At the same time, the institutions and representatives of the creative sector have, for the most part, been silent, or have defended the status quo. There are understandable, pragmatic reasons for this. It is reasonable to worry about continued access to the EU market and workforce. The prospect of a long-standing relationship being torn up is scary. The uncertainty that comes with change can be frightening.
That said, creatives are in the business of change. Yet in this context, the creative sector has become conservative in outlook and scope.
Take housing as an example – an urgent issue for many. An estimated 8.4 million people are living in unaffordable, insecure or unsuitable homes, with a massive shortfall of new homes needed under the charge of successive governments.
Housing has become a political football, especially now during a general election. Every political party will continue to make promises while saying very little that is new or innovative. For example, take the Labour Party’s housing reforms.
Its pledge to build 150,000 affordable homes in five years should be welcomed. But any such plans are based on constraints, such as finding much-needed space to build on. An earlier policy paper edited by leading environmentalist George Monbiot, found that the Green Belt where it exists, specifically near railway hubs is only suitable for “allotment provision and land for community food growing projects”. Not new homes.
This reluctance to unlock potential space and, pertinently, to challenge green orthodoxy is shared by many in the creative sector. Take the Architects’ Journal, with its campaign preferring retrofitting over tearing down old stock. Again, no new homes. Indeed, other architects push accepted limits much further, openly rejecting growth (even concrete) altogether.
The creative industries’ response to the housing crisis is symptomatic of the sector’s inability to take the lead
Others think the answer lies in more consultation. Sounds good, unless it’s a vehicle to perpetuate limits, like the Design Council’s new project to ask the public what a Home of 2030 should be like.
Experts are currently holding meetings across the country to ask the local community what they think, asking people to “think innovatively” about the kinds of homes they need. But, as the Design Council website states, “innovation” will be explicitly steered around themes of affordability, green issues, and health themes. So much for asking people what they think, never mind radical, disruptive thinking?
The creative industries’ response to the housing crisis is symptomatic of the sector’s inability to take the lead, ask tough questions and break the mould. But this isn’t because of a shortage of innovative technology or building techniques. Instead, there’s a prevailing sense of caution and pragmatism, especially among the design establishment.
This sentiment needs challenging, especially by a few dedicated and bold individuals who are willing to question everything and break the deadlock. And consequently, show our flailing political establishment some real ambition.
This is the crux of the matter: instead of seizing upon a moment of potential change, leading creatives have pretty much sought to batten down the hatches and wish the world was back to where it was a few years ago. This is a problem in two ways.
Leading creatives have pretty much sought to batten down the hatches and wish the world was back to where it was a few years ago
Firstly, there is a palpable sense that the creative industries are misreading the public, or not fully understanding what motivates them. This is a serious issue for the sector. In principle, it prides itself for its objectivity and an ability to get inside the minds of people to understand and interpret their needs and desires.
The sense of distance from ordinary people – in some cases outright disdain for those who voted leave – is symptomatic of a refusal to engage with our audience in straightforward terms. Independent critical thinking – a good understanding of the wider cultural and political forces that shape and are shaped by people – should surely be central to everything we do.
Secondly, the creative industries institutions and commentariat have created a toxic environment around the 17.2 million people who voted leave. To be in favour of leaving the EU, critical of it, or even in favour of merely upholding the 2016 referendum on democratic grounds, is for many, beyond the pale. Many creatives feel it impossible to even discuss these views for fear of being ‘outed’ and professionally and personally slandered.
It is irrelevant that the sector overwhelmingly voted Remain in 2016. More important is the fact that the Creative Industries Federation felt compelled to publicly call for a second referendum. This is an ideological imposition masquerading as a business decision.
The sense of distance from ordinary people and outright disdain for those who voted leave is symptomatic of a refusal to engage with our audience in straightforward terms
Tolerance of differing opinion and the core value of creatives – listening, investigation, ruminating and debating – has been hard to detect throughout the past three and half years. The unfortunate consequence has been the closing down of necessary discussion and debate. This is the very antithesis of what the creative sector should be.
We have a proud history of challenging orthodoxies, encouraging diverse views and creating something better from well-informed opinion. Indeed, we should resist the urge to take sides politically, and instead, be steadfastly independently and critically minded.
The Dissenters Design Network is a network of independent designers, architects, planners, writers and researchers who challenge orthodox thinking, encourage much-needed critical debate, underpinned by a limitless sense of what is possible.
We came together because we felt there is not much of this spirit around at present — especially in the creative sector – and with many who feel isolated as a result. Acting alone can be difficult; hence, our network provides an intellectual space to meet other like-minded creatives, exchange ideas and promote tolerant-yet-questioning debate about the future of the creative sector.
Let’s remember that good design is about thinking about and solving problems in new ways – including challenges no one even thought were problems. Design innovates. It draws on new ideas to build new things.
Just as with the housing crisis, new ideas are in short supply. To develop new ideas, creatives need to be able to question everything without fear and say things without the fear of censure. No assumption should go unchallenged. The current atmosphere stifles discussion and too many orthodoxies are accepted without question.
For three elections in a row, and maybe soon a fourth, the public have shown an openness to and an appetite for new ideas. The genie is out of the bottle. Whether we like it or not, there is no going back to how things were.
Simply put, the public are asking for bold alternatives. As creatives, we have a duty to meet that need.
Almost like something you’d make in a 3D version of Tetris, the Yellow Brick Chair breaks down the elements of seating and reinterprets it using the lens of abstractionism. Not only does it play with the very idea of what a chair should be, but its daring use of sharp forms made out of soft cushions also creates a visual contrast that’s definitely eye-catching. Combined with that energetic yellow hue, the Yellow Brick Chair gives a lot of mixed signals, but in a way that really grabs one’s attention. I honestly wonder what sitting on it would feel like. Minecraft fans? Here’s one for your gaming den!
Design practice Space Popular has inserted a video installation in the gate of a historic palace in Seoul to show viewers the past and the future.
Called Gate of Bright Lights, the project is an invitation for passers-by to see how screens are portals to digital realms, and symbols of South Korea‘s place in the modern economy.
The screens sit in the middle opening of the Gwangmyeongmun Gate at Deoksugung Palace and play a video of a digitally-rendered wooden gate opening and shutting to reveal different scenes.
“Every time the doors of the Gate of Bright Lights shut they reveal a different design, and every time they open a new and stranger space is revealed,” said Space Popular.
First the doors open to a view from a hundred years in the past, when the palace was still used by Korea’s imperial family, the House of Yi.
Then it closes with a different, more ornate door, before opening to reveal an internet chat room.
The video sequence was created to draw parallels between how the palace gates once operated as the connection to the imperial family, and how today devices such as smartphones are portals to digital platforms that hold a similar level of significance in people’s lives.
“Royal palaces have historically been a form of architectural mass media,” said the studio in the exhibition text.
“Fortified with decoratively laid stones, held up by intricate columns and sheltered by highly ornate grand eaves, the architecture of the palace spoke to those who it was keeping out of a mystique and splendour beyond their wildest imagination and, in doing so, constructed an ideal of just and right governance.”
The reign of the House of Yi ended when Japan annexed the Korean peninsula in 1910, with the Deoksugung Palace being mostly destroyed in 1933.
By the time Korea was liberated from colonial rule in 1945, new media such as radio and newspapers had become the main channel of communication for state leaders.
Today, South Korea exports the integrated circuits, or chips, required to power computers and smartphones.
As a public art work, Gate of Bright Lights’ screen display is designed to be a symbol of this.
“Through social media, websites and blogs, everyone is now the ruler of their own palace with gates open to the public through the platforms and interfaces of a connected digital world,” said Space Popular.
“These new virtual palaces in which we increasingly live our lives are much like the highly structured ornamental system of Dancheong, carefully ordered through icons, buttons, links, and feeds and laboriously decorated with colours, fonts, layouts and graphics.”
Space Popular created the site specific video installation as part of the Architecture and Heritage: Unearthing Future exhibition at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.
The design studio, which was founded by Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg, has also designed a spa in Bangkok.
Photography is by Kyung Roh.
Project credits:
Design: Space Popular Designers: Lara Lesmes, Fredrik Hellberg, Ludvig Holmen Client: MMCA – National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Curator: Jihoi Lee
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
