The latest edition of our Dezeen Weekly newsletter features Instagram images of the soon-to-open Apple Store in Singapore.

Foster + Partners has designed a spherical Apple Store on the water alongside the Marina Bay Sands hotel in Singapore and social media users have posted images on Instagram ahead of its opening.

The Apple Marina Bay Sands store is surrounded by water so that it appears to be floating and will be accessible via a footbridge from the waterfront promenade.

Other stories in this week’s newsletter include architectural swimming pools around the world, a scaffold-covered house and news of Richard Rogers’ retirement.

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The post Images of the new Apple Store in Singapore feature in today’s Dezeen Weekly newsletter appeared first on Dezeen.

Product design truly is an endless journey. We, as a species, go from solving one problem to another till we have something that is as close to perfect as it can get… and that process can often take, well, millennia. The earliest instances of straws date nearly 5000 years back, and were made by the Ancient Sumerians who used hollow metal tubes to drink out of large vats (they also pioneered beer fermentation, so take from that what you will). Over the years, the humble straw evolved and saw material changes, from paper in 1888 (when the straw was first patented by man named Marvin Stone), to plastic in the 1930s. Straws were initially produced for hospitals, as it allowed patients to drink without sitting up – and they only caught on after the 30s after bending straws were in invented and soft drinks and milkshakes took the world by storm. Straws don’t really have a great reputation today, in part because they’re not biodegradable, but also because of their inherent throwaway culture. If you fix the material, design, and culture, you fix the straw… and that’s sort of what the ClickStraw is trying to do.

The ClickStraw addresses the inherent flaws of the straws before it. Plastic straws are an environmental hazard, paper straws become soggy, bamboo straws end up developing molds, and metal straws are difficult to clean. Made from high quality and sustainable TPE, the ClickStraw is designed to be used multiple times, and moreover, is easy to maintain. Its hollow, tubular structure can be opened out completely, allowing you to rinse the inner surface of the straw, giving it a deep clean. The ClickStraw’s innovation lies in a ziplock-bag-style snapping fixture and a live-hinge that run along the length of the tube. To clean the straw, slide your thumb in and it opens up. Once you’re done, click it shut like a zip-lock bag and you’ve got yourself a spanking clean straw that doesn’t degrade, get dirty, or worse, corrode like your metal straws.

The straw measures a cool 190mm (7.4 inches) in length, and stands at 17.3mm wide (0.6 inches), making it tall enough to fit into LIIT glasses, and wide enough to work with thick shakes and boba teas. The patented snap-fit construction is water-tight, lasts a million open-close cycles, and is safe for children. The TPE material is a clever choice too, given that it handles heat and cold remarkably well, has a neutral smell and taste, and can go right in the dishwasher… and if it ever makes its way into the trash, the ClickStraw can be 100% recycled, leaving absolutely no plastic waste behind!

Designer: Frank Healey of HELY

Click Here to Buy Now: 4 for $18. Hurry, for a limited time only.

ClickStraw – Oneclick Open Straw That Saves the Ocean

The ClickStraw is a reusable straw that can be opened lengthways for easier and faster ways to clean than other straws.

One Clickstraw can save 600 plastic straws entering oceans and landfills in a year.

The Problem with Conventional Straws

One of the biggest contributing factors in our ocean waste is single-use plastic. This has led many startups to come up with reusable straws made from materials like silicone, metal, paper and even pasta.

However, they’re not the most lucrative alternative to conventional straws as the metal straws can be hazardous while paper and pasta straws tend to get soggy and may taste weird. One of the biggest problems with these straws is that they are difficult to clean, and no matter how many times you wash them with water, there is a chance of some residue getting stuck inside the straw. Furthermore, the straws that come with a cleaning brush aren’t really offering a feasible solution because the brush is often made of plastic and can cause health problems if not replaced regularly.

The Solution

Made from 100% TPE, the ClickStraw can be click opened lengthwise for the cleaning process, so there is no residue left inside for a clean and hygienic straw that is ready to be used again. It is dishwasher safe and suitable for both hot and cold drinks.

Patent-protected. Simply open, wash and close.

To ensure that ClickStraws will be recycled and does not end up as plastic waste, the founders are promising a free & lifetime return service. They guarantee that every returned ClickStraw will be re-constructed into secondary plastic and reused in new applications.

Click Here to Buy Now: 4 for $18. Hurry, for a limited time only.

An upcoming design exhibition put together by Kenya Hara, Founder of the Hara Design Institute and President of the Nippon Design Center, is unusual for two reasons. One, blueprints of the designs on display will be available for download, so that DIY’ers can duplicate the objects.

Two, the objects in question are essentially houses and furniture for dogs.

“Architecture for Dogs” features fifteen designs from the likes of Hara, Konstantin Grcic, Shigeru Ban, Ma Yansong, Sou Fujimoto and others. And while the snapshots of the designs may seem silly–and make no mistake, plenty of these are–I think you’ll find the descriptions interesting. Some examples:

D-TUNNEL

by KENYA HARA for TEACUP POODLE

“When the dog runs up the stairs, he ends up at just the right height to be face-to-face with a person. I thought up a device/installation that equalizes human scale and dog scale, or in other words, a scale modifier. As an exhibition planner, I may be in my infancy, but I felt it necessary to take the initiative in representing the viewpoint of this project. With this product, my focus was a scale that achieves equilibrium.

“People have designed their environments to their own scale. For instance, each step of a stairway is 15cm high, around the world. This came to be naturally because of the height of humans and the length of their feet. The same goes for the heights of chairs and tables, the existence and size of doors, in fact, the size of houses and cities are predicated on the human body.

“Accordingly, dogs, who spend their lives at the side of humans, must accept human scale. This architecture is an apparatus for the purpose of naturally bringing dogs and humans eye to eye. As for those super-small dogs, who spend all their time looking up, definitely let them try it out!”

PARAMOUNT

by KONSTANTIN GRCIC for TOY POODLE

“I have recently come across an article about the so-called “Mirror Test”, which is used by neurologists to examine the self-awareness of animals based on whether or not they can recognize themselves in a mirror. Among the ‘lesser’ creatures the great apes, dolphins, elephants, and rats are the only ones confirmed to recognize the image in the mirror as themselves. Humans, out of interest, are only able to accomplish the test after they’re 18 months to 2 years old.

“Dogs have been ruled complete failures at self-awareness which can be explained by the simple fact that they are relying primarily on senses other than sight. Having said this, there is a group of poodle owners who are gathering in respective internet forums to debate their fervid disagreement with this assumption. They claim that their poodles are reacting positively to mirrors and displaying unmistakable signs of self-awareness.

“If this is true, it would perfectly underline two quality characteristics about poodles: that poodles are notoriously finicky about their looks, and that they are highly intelligent. According to the book “The Intelligence of Dogs” (by Stanley Coren) poodles are ranked among the top three in working and obedience intelligence, which refers to a dog’s ability to learn from humans, which leads to only one logical call: poodles for president!”

ARCHITECTURE FOR LONG-BODIED-SHORT-LEGGED DOG

by ATELIER BOW-WOW for DACHSHUND SMOOT

“Because of their short legs, it’s hard for dachshunds to meet their masters’ eyes. Also because of their short legs, it’s hard for them to get up on chairs. Is there no good way to get closer to the eyes? Stairs? With those too-long bodies, they may throw out their backs.

“How about something like a folded slope? This works. Let’s make it long enough so a person can lie down too. Sunbathing with your dachshund on the veranda is good. The area under the slope is like a burrow for small animals. They can train there, digging down there to catch their prey. If you connect several, they can go anywhere, and form any shape. Multiple stacks in an atrium space make a ramp for the dogs to go upstairs.”

‘

COCOON

by FGMF for YORKSHIRE TERRIER

“THE COCOON is a soft and organic container within a hard and precise frame. It’s a dog’s hideout, but also a table for its human fellow. It’s a space, but also an object.

“Like many of the ‘architecture-for-humans’ we design, this Yorkshire Terrier house is formed mainly by voids and structures. We like to see it as more of a ‘home’ rather than a ‘house’. THE COCOON is a sort of nest suspended on a micro-environment: the thin frame provides a buffer between the cocoon and the human territory –just like a garden creates a transition space between the privacy of a house and the city around it.

“Suspended and embraced, the dog will feel safe and cozy at the same time. Laying a glass top on the frame transforms it into a table, thus merging the dog house and a human’s furniture into one single piece.

“THE COCOON is a laser-cut cardboard structure wrapped in cozy fabric. It can be made of felt, neoprene, knitting or any other fabric a dog would feel comfortable in. In warmer weather, the cocoon may also be used without any fabric envelope, just with its naked structure. The outer frame can be easily hand mounted from regular steel pipes. Additional guitar tuning pegs and steel strings will provide the right traction for the cocoon inside the frame, while lending a fun aspect to the rigid steel element. It can host one or two dogs in different layouts in the same frame.”

Overall I found the examples to be as ridiculous as they are engaging, as you’ve got star designers applying intellectual rigor to animals who find chewing on smelly socks a worthwhile activity. The designs on display also expose the touch of lunacy that fervent dog owners seem to be afflicted with. (If that sounds critical, I should note that my wife and I own six dogs, and that there were more dogs at our wedding than human beings.)

The exhibition will run–IRL, no less–from the 19th of this month thru January 10th, 2021, at Japan House London. You can also check it out virtually, right now, here.

Aside from cocaine scoops, I can’t think of many instances of folks cultivating their fingernails to use as tools. In Japan’s Shiga Prefecture, however, exists a traditional tapestry weaving tradition called tsumekaki hon tsuzure ori that reportedly goes back 4,000 years, and which requires the artisans to file grooves into their nails in order to work the thread:

Here’s what they’re then able to do with these funky nails:

I admire their dedication to craft. All I have to do is keep my nails short enough to not hit the keyboard keys.

Dezeen promotion: Workplace Wellbeing by Design is a week-long online event taking place during this year’s London Design Festival, which explores the complex relationship between design and wellbeing in the workplace.

The event, which will take place from 14 to 18 September 2020, includes talks by leaders in the architecture and design industry, including Thomas Heatherwick, Ab Rogers and HOK senior director of WorkPlace, Kay Sargent.

These creatives will be joined by more corporate figures such as Bruce Daisley, who developed Twitter for Europe, Africa and the Middle East, Cees van der Spek – communications director for EDGE – and workplace theorist Jeremy Myerson.

Other speakers include biometrician Nikita Mikhailov, who will discuss new data-driven biometric techniques for employers and employees, as well as Maaind founder Martin Dinov, who will outline how AI can be harnessed for workplace wellbeing.

Over the course of five days, five 75-minute sessions will explore the issues of workplace design from a range of viewpoints including technology and diversity, as well as the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Each session will be hosted by author and design commentator Aidan Walker and will be split into three sections: a keynote, a practical case study and a Q&A session.

Day one – the Well Workplace – will begin with a talk between Rogers and Heatherwick about their work for Maggie’s Centres.

While the two architects discuss how they have tried to use the built environment to influence the psychology of its inhabitants, Maggie’s chief executive Laura Lee will explain the organisation’s architectural philosophy.

Day two, led by Dinov, will focus on the smart workplace and the impact of technologies like AI on wellbeing. EDGE’s van der Spek will also uncover the ideas behind the brief for the firm’s existing project in Amsterdam and its new one at London Bridge.

“People have been talking about – and designing for – psychological diversity, as well as the individual’s control over their physical environment for a generation now,” said Walker.

“Sensor technology has given a whole new meaning to the smart building and the impact of artificial intelligence is just around the corner,” he continued. “It’s time to take stock and Covid-19 has added currency and urgency to the discussion.”

Day three – the Human/Humane Workplace – will be led by Swann, whose book The Human Workplace explores interior and behavioural design.

Swann will be joined by architect Giuseppe Boscherini, Mikhailov and director of Chapmanbdsp design consultancy Ian Duncombe to discuss “psychosocially supportive design”.

Day four, led by HOK’s Sargent, will concentrate on creativity, productivity and diversity in discussions with Ricoh‘s workplace services director Simone Fenton-Jarvis and MoreySmith principal Linda Morey Burrows.

Real estate company CBRE‘s Kate Davies and Art Acumen CEO Catherine Thomas will also join the talk.

Day five considers the future of work, led with a keynote by Myerson from the Helen Hamlyn Centre at the Royal College of Art and the Worktech Academy.

This will be followed by a discussion with Mike O’Neill, former director of global research at Haworth, Guy Smith, founder of COSU and former design director of WeWork, and Frances Gain, associate of strategy at M. Moser Associates.

The conference has been organised by the creators of the MAD World Summit with Dezeen as the media partner.

Registration is £25 for all five sessions, with profits donated to cancer support charity Maggie’s.

For the full agenda, visit the event’s website.

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