Hasta La Ideas

Earlier this year, Starbucks was announced as the winner for this year’s Diversity in Advertising award run by Channel 4, which this time aimed to delve into LGBT+ experiences and encourage more nuanced portrayals of these communities.

Launched last night on Channel 4, Starbucks’ winning entry #whatsyourname follows the journey of James – who is transitioning – trying out his new name in Starbucks (the brand is well-known for scrawling the names of its customers on coffee cups). The ad shows James quietly enduring a string of everyday encounters involving his birth name Jemma – including GP appointments, receiving post, and family occasions – but it’s in Starbucks that he can choose what he calls himself.

The ad was created by Iris – pipping the likes of adam&eveDDB to the prize this yar – and will be accompanied by a series of ‘moving portraits’ involving real-life stories of trans people deciding on their new names. The campaign comes off the back of research that shows trans people only star in 0.3% of ads, despite forming roughly 1% of the public, and arrives at a time where transphobic attitudes remain prevalent.

“We believe brands should be brave, progressive and challenge the status quo, which is why we’re so passionate about this campaign and the impact it’s going to have,” said Amy Bryson, managing partner at Iris. “We spent time with people from the trans community who have experienced ‘dead-naming’ to make sure our work truly reflects their experiences. We hope the campaign will raise awareness about the importance of identity and acceptance in a time when hate crimes are on the rise.”

Judges for this year’s award included the IPA and Marketing Society, as well as LGBT+ rights organisation Stonewall, the LGBT Awards and trans actress Annie Wallace. Starbucks is receiving £1 million worth of free airtime on Channel 4, while runners-up will get £250,000 worth. The coffee chain has also pledged to raise £100,000 for UK charity Mermaids through a range of mermaid cookies.

Credits:
Agency: Iris
ECD: Grant Hunter
ACD: Eli Vasiliou
Creatives: Eli Vasiliou, Richard Peretti, Giulia Frassine, Anny Heyden, Matt Gray
Production company: Sweetshop
Director: Nicolas Jack Davies

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Electric vehicle company Arrival has co-developed a fleet of 10,000 modular electric-vans with UPS in the delivery service’s signature livery.

The electric vans will be rolled out across the UK, Europe and the US between 2020 and 2024.

Wheels are attached to a skateboard-style bed that is flat from front to rear, with identical wheelhouses.

This allows the vehicles to be built by robots in smaller, more flexible micro-factories rather than traditional, conveyer-belt model factories.

Arrival‘s vehicles are modular in design, so that parts can be swapped out over the vehicle’s lifetime to improve and upgrade.

Rather than building an entirely new vehicle at the end of its life, the materials can be reused, and any defunct parts replaced.

With more people buying online, a greater number of vehicles are needed to deliver the increased number of packages. Up to 1.5 million packages are delivered every day in New York City alone.

Electric vehicles produce zero direct emissions, so Arrival’s UPS vans will be less detrimental to urban air-quality than traditional vans.

Arrival’s electric vehicles are the same price as the diesel or petrol equivalent and are 50 per cent cheaper to run.

The vans have a range of up to 300 miles on one charge.

Arrival’s software can be updated immediately, and the vehicles can be programmed to be autonomous.

“Arrival has created Generation 2 electric vehicles that are better in price, design and experience than traditional fossil-fuel vehicles and existing electric vehicles,” said Arrival chief strategy officer Avinash Rugoobur.

“This gives fleet managers a highly compelling commercial and environmental reason to switch to electric and will accelerate the adoption of electric technology globally,” he continued.

Arrival was founded in 2015 by Denis Sverdlov
 and is headquartered in London.

A small flock of customised electric vehicles produced by Arrival for Royal Mail were rolled out in a pilot scheme across central London in 2017.

The prototypes currently being used by Royal Mail to deliver London’s letters have wing mirrors, but Arrival plans to eventually replace these with cameras for monitoring traffic around the vehicles.

Japanese design brand Muji has launched an autonomous shuttle bus, called Gacha, and Swedish tech startup Einride has designed a fully electric and autnomous logging truck.

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French architecture studio OnSITE has designed a holiday home made up of four rock-like rooms, which could be built in the Al-Ula desert in the north west of Saudi Arabia.

The holiday home by OnSITE was the winner of the inaugural Sculpting Spaces: Architectural Desert Dwellings for Al-Ula competition.

It was designed in collaboration with artist studio Lehm Design Raum, Jordanian textile artist Ishraq Zraikat, ceramics company Amaco and landscape designer Sensomoto.

The team’s design takes the form of four small buildings, named void room, earth room, water room, fire room, that would be grouped together on a valley floor surrounded by red-sandstone cliffs.

Each of the free-standing rooms would be 15 square-metres and clad in locally sourced rock and contain one of the holiday home’s functions.

A bed would be placed in the earth room, while the fire room, which the team describe as an “inhabitable chimney”, would contain a kitchen.

The water room would be a dome-like structure with a saltwater bath and a shower that flows from the dome’s oculus, while the void room would be arranged around a central stone monolith and used as a place to write, sit or eat.

The holiday home would be completed with a fifth “room” located on the valley ridge. This structure would be a stone plinth accessed by steps cut into the valley wall and would be used as an observatory.

The holiday home was designed for the Al-Ula area of Saudi Arabia, which is around 220 miles north of the city of Medina and contains the Madain Saleh UNESCO World Heritage site.

It is part of the Royal Commission for Al-Ula‘s long-term plan to develop tourism in the region. The commission will now work with the OnSITE team to develop the project.

“Ultimately the aim will be to open these dwellings to visitors, allowing them to experience overnight stays at this evolving cultural crossroads, where art, heritage and nature meet,” said the commission.

OnSITE’s design was chosen from a shortlist of ten by a jury led by Adrian Lahoud, dean of the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art in London and curator of the 2020 Sharjah Triennale.

“The proposal reinterprets the possibilities of inhabiting this phenomenal landscape, whilst being respectful and true to the qualities of local life, materials and indigenous nature,” said the jury.

“The Sculpting Spaces programme maximises, draws on, [and] recognises the potential of the desert as a dynamic territory of possibility. It has been exciting and inspiring to see this heritage site coming to life through the eyes of the artists and architects who have shared their proposals with us.”

Visualisations by OnSITE, Lehm Design Raum, Amaco and Sensomoto.

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Hem has designed its own headquarters at the centre of Stockholm, with interiors by the furniture brand’s in-house design team and Atelier Paul Vaugoyeau.

A focal point of the HQ is a three-metre-long edition of Hem’s Puffy Brick counter that’s covered in amorphous, acid-yellow blocks.

London-based art and design studio Soft Baroque produced the counter by injecting balloons with concrete and then arranging them in a mould.

The 750-square-metre headquarters were needed to house Hem‘s Stockholm-based team, which doubled in size over 2019, outgrowing the constraints of their previous workspace.

The brand worked alongside local multidisciplinary design studio Atelier Paul Vaugoyeau to develop new offices that are able to efficiently accommodate its various company departments.

Hem’s founder, Petrus Palmér, says that the HQ will also be “where [the brand’s] experiments materialise”.

“We have a lot of different needs such as environments for focused coding, a workshop for furniture mock-ups, a showroom space for customers etc,” Palmér told Dezeen.

“With the new office, we were able to design the space from scratch, catering to all those needs, and practise what we preach – creating inspirational environments for people to thrive in.”

Black desks and high-back chairs have been dotted amongst the building’s chunky concrete structural columns.

The same furnishings appear in the office’s glass-fronted meeting rooms, where groups of staff can head for privacy or more focused tasks.

Employees can alternatively work in more casual lounge-style areas, which feature Hem’s own Hai armchairs, Kumo modular sofas and Last stools. Oversized, cone-shaped pendant lamps dangle down from above.

Atelier Paul Vaugoyeau has also “hacked” certain furnishings to elevate them from their standard office aesthetic. Simple MDF storage cabinets have been washed with a clear lacquer to highlight the natural hue of the timber.

The gridded ceiling has also been left exposed to frame views of the building’s busy network of ventilation pipes.

“The bulk of Hem’s business is with interior designers and progressive offices that usually avoid typical office elements, since it’s seen as uncreative,” added Palmér.

“Paul Vaugoyeau, who designed the architectural elements, shows that just by tweaking standard choices such as a grid ceiling or file cabinets, you can create a unique environment.”

Hem’s relocation to new head offices coincides with the beginning of the city’s design week.

The event has so far seen Swedish brand Massproductions release an outdoor sofa that is meant to resemble the welded steel barriers erected at concerts to control crowds.

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Architecture practice Playze and design firm Schmidhuber covered the Ningbo Urban Planning Exhibition Center in eastern China in a skin of pale green glazed ceramic tiles.

Located in Ningbo Eastern New Town overlooking the waterfront, the conference centre is a venue for exhibitions and events relating to urban planning and development.

“The goal was to create an engaging, accessible public space in the new district, and thereby foster the dialogue between citizens and decision makers,” said Schmidhuber and Playze.

The long history of ceramic production in Ningbo inspired the centre’s facade.

The tiled surface sweeps around the upper level of the entire centre like a green hill.

Varying gaps between each tile have created a screen that is solid in some areas and more open in others.

This variegation diffuses light and views in different areas of the interior.

“The ceramic screen gradually shifts between being nearly transparent to fully opaque, according to programme needs and views to the surroundings,” explained Playze.

Raised atop a concrete base that sweeps up from the waterfront promenade, the centre’s large, flowing form comprises four arms arranged around a central atrium.

Between each of these arms are paved terraces and green spaces.

These terraces are linked by a winding pathway that wraps around the centre’s perimeter.

A single entrance sits at ground floor level, and steps lead up to four separate entrances in each side of the centre’s first floor.

The strip of uncovered glazing at the centre’s base and a glazed ceiling flood bring natural light into the interiors.

A circular route of stairs and ramps wraps around the edge of the central atrium to create a promenade-style series of spaces.

“Visitors explore the exhibition much like an urban neighbourhood,” said  Playze.

“They choose their own individual path through indoor and outdoor exhibition spaces, as well as lounges and terraces with scenic views of the city deliberately connecting the exhibition content with the newly developed urban surroundings.”

The ground and first floors are dedicated to public areas, such as a restaurant, library and reading space.

Main exhibition halls are on the second and third floors.

On the roof is a public viewing terrace and cafe overlooking the landscape.

Architecture practice CROX recently took a similar approach of merging its design for the Liyang Museum into the surrounding landscape, perching its blob-like form atop a series of undulating hills on the waterfront.

Photography is by CreatAR Images.

Project credits:

Architects (competition stage): Playze and Schmidhuber
Architects (execution stage): Playze
Local design institute: Shanghai Institute of Architectural Design and Research
Landscape design institute: Ningbo Institute of Urban Construction Design and Research
Facade consultant: RFR Group
General contractor: Hwaking Construction Group
Interior/exhibition design and construction: Feng Yu Zhu

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