Julien de Smedt designs range of recycled-plastic houses

Houses made from recycled plastic by Julien de Smedt and Othalo

Architect Julien de Smedt is working with Norwegian startup Othalo to create a range of modular houses that will be constructed largely from recycled plastic.

Created by Othalo, in partnership with UN Habitat – the United Nations’ programme for sustainable urban development – the homes are designed to be a low-cost option for sub-Saharan Africa.

Using a patented system each house’s main structure and walls will be made from recycled plastic, with a sixty-square-metres Othalo house incorporating around eight tonnes of plastic waste.

View of recycled plastic houses by Julien de Smedt and Othalo
Top: the same building blocks will be used for various kinds of housing. Above: the low-cost homes will be made from recycled plastic

“The patent contains a loadbearing structure and a supportive and insulating structure,” Othalo founder Frank Cato Lahti told Dezeen.

“Both of these two structures can be made of 100 per cent recycled plastics.”

Neighbourhood of recycled plastic houses by Julien de Smedt and Othalo
De Smedt and Othalo started with a focus on housing in sub-Saharan countries

Othalo and De Smedt, who designed the modular elements, envision the homes being constructed from plastic that is collected from near the building sites.

“We believe this is one of the ways to deal with a shortage of building materials in these areas of the world where there is an urgent need for housing,” said De Smedt.

“Just as cities are formed by buildings of wood, of concrete, clay, steel, they could very well contain a building constructed from plastic waste, as long as it’s done in a safe and sustainable way,” he added.

Balconies at recycled plastic houses by Julien de Smedt and Othalo
The buildings will feature covered spaces as well as terraces

De Smedt said the team plans to host a number of creative collaborations in different locations, in order to create additional elements to supplement the base design and allow for regional adaptation.

For the initial designs, De Smedt looked to fast-growing cities such as Nairobi in Kenya.

“We started analysing the types of buildings people live in, what kind of jobs people have, and how houses are organised,” he said. “We looked at how neighbourhoods get formed, but also how people do business and interact between each other inside the community.”

Staircases and cut-outs feature
All houses will be made onsite

The early designs for the houses feature a variety of interconnected covered spaces, loggias and terraces that provide sheltered outdoor space and add variety to the houses.

“Parts of this idea comes from the climate that allows outside life but also requires sun shading and ventilation,” De Smedt said.

“A lot of these conditions can be found in lively neighbourhoods around the world. They will serve as more specific references as the project develops in different contexts.”

View of recycled plastic houses by Julien de Smedt and Othalo
More than nine billion tonnes of plastic have been produced since 1950

Othalo expects to start mass-producing the houses in early 2022 and believes that the system will allow the millions of tonnes of plastic waste to become useful building material.

“If you consider the amount of plastic waste worldwide, this could very well become an entirely new material resource to tap onto.”

“With today’s plastic waste, more than one billion houses can be built,” Othalo said.

It also aims to eventually expand its product line into temperature-controlled mobile storage units for food and medicine, as well as refugee shelters and larger modular buildings such as schools and hospitals.

“It became clear that the scope should expand beyond establishing living typologies,” De Smedt told Dezeen.

“It would need to integrate and enable local crafts and cultures and ultimately aim at the creation of diverse neighbourhoods rather than merely piling up individual units,” he continued.

“In a way the system is as much an enabler of urban conditions – the public spaces – as it is allowing volumes to interact – the buildings.”

A number of brands and designers are working on ways to use recycled plastic, including Magis, which launched a recycled plastic chair with Konstantin Gcric and Petit Pli, which has made face masks from recycled plastic bottles.

The post Julien de Smedt designs range of recycled-plastic houses appeared first on Dezeen.

Culture Campsite: A Dutch Camping Ground with "Waste Architecture" Cabins

“The principle of waste architecture is designing and sketching with the materials and objects that are available,” writes designer Boris Duijneveld, the founder of Netherlands-based MUD (Mobile Urban Design) Projects. “Playing with form, material and color leads to new insights and forms that cannot be imagined on a white sheet of paper.”

That’s an apt description of Culture Campsite, a campground located in a parking lot outside of Rotterdam, for which MUD was one of several firms hired to design some of the “tents.” Instead of actual tents, however, Culture Campsite consists of nearly a dozen two-person sleeping structures made from repurposed materials and objects: Feed siloes, two calf shelters turned on their sides and connected at the bottom, a delivery van, a dumpster, and other ad hoc shelters.

Meals are served communally (and socially-distanced) inside a geodesic dome on the site, and the bathrooms are communal.

Though closed for the season, Culture Campsite is scheduled to re-open in May of 2021. Prices are €65-€75 (USD $76-$88) per night.

The LADG designs studio and residence for a painter and a photographer

House in Los Angeles by The LADG

The Los Angeles Design Group added three structures to a mid-century home in Los Angeles‘ Highland Park to create a guest house, studio and exhibition spaces for two visual artists.

The US studio designed the expansion of the artists’ existing residence to create a flexible live-work complex called House in Los Angeles 1.

House in Los Angeles by The LADG
Above: The LADG extended the plot of a mid-century house. Top image: the complex is home to two artists. Photos by Saam Gabbay

In addition to the original home, it now has a guest house that also acts as studio space, and structures for exhibitions and events open to a courtyard.

“Our project defies and reorganises some of the architectural tropes associated with LA suburbia,” said The LADG co-founder Claus Benjamin Freyinger.

House in Los Angeles by The LADG
Materials were chosen to complement the existing property. Photo by Saam Gabbay.

“It’s not a single house with a unified programme, meant to contain a sleeping family at night, who commute off to work and school lives in the morning,” he added.

“It’s a collection of buildings that integrates work, living, and communal activities around the livelihoods of two artists.”

House in Los Angeles by The LADG
The covered garage can also be used as an events space

The LADG designed the extension to create a seamless space between indoors and outdoors. To achieve this it designed each building so that the layout of the walls does not meet the roofline above. Instead, walls extend beyond to mark areas outside and roofs project to cover nooks.

According to the studio, this principle draws on the work of Los Angeles architect Cliff May, who created a series of post-war “dream homes” in the city.

House in Los Angeles by The LADG
This wall hosts a sink on the inside and forms a shelf on the exterior

“May’s residential designs are remarkable because of the way walls and interior elements appear to float free on the ground plane, without simply reiterating the boundary of the roof above,” explained co-founder Andrew Holder.

A more obvious application of this is the roof that covers the garage, designed to also be used as an events space.

House in Los Angeles by The LADG
Extended roofs cover nooks

Some of the extended walls meanwhile are thick enough to also host functions – such as storage, bathroom utilities, and an outdoor shower.

This idea of double-functionality continues throughout the project, whereby spaces inside create opportunities on the exterior. For example, an indent created for the washbasin in the studio serves as an ad-hoc shelf accessible from the garden.

House in Los Angeles by The LADG
Board-marked concrete walls are left exposed in the garage

Drawing on the aesthetic of the existing building, the additional structures are built with simple materials. Cast-in-place concrete marked with the imprint its timber setting boards forms the base of white walls covered in smooth troweled stucco.

The exposed wooden structure of the roof above pops against the white walls. Pale grey metal panels cover the top of the roofs.

House in Los Angeles by The LADG
Why drywall forms a blank backdrop in the studio

Similarly, simple materials are used inside, like white drywall in the studio that provides a backdrop to hang art.

“The finish of the studio tries to make surfaces available for the client to use and modify,” said Holder.

Other live-works spaces designed for artists include a fashion designer’s property in Santa Monica, which was recently extended to include a small studio, and a home and workshop in New York that was originally a garage.

House in Los Angeles by The LADG
Plywood is used to cover the walls in the bathroom

Freyinger and Holder founded The Los Angeles Design Group in 2004, and the studio has offices in Venice, California and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

It has previously designed a bar in Culver City, California influenced by the pubs of Dublin and Belfast and a conceptual concrete pavilion for the Coachella music festival.

Photography​ is by Injinash Unshin unless stated otherwise.


Project credits:

Project team​: Claus Benjamin Freyinger, Andrew Holder, Trenman Yau, Anthony Chu, Kenji Hattori-Forth, Remi McClain, See Hong Quek, Jonathan Rieke, Morgan Starkey

The post The LADG designs studio and residence for a painter and a photographer appeared first on Dezeen.

Dutch Design Week 2020 Opens Tomorrow, Viewable Online

Image: Symbiotic Futures exhibition

The upshot to the pandemic: You get to check out this year’s Dutch Design Week without having to buy the plane ticket. Opening tomorrow (Saturday, Oct. 17th), this year’s festival may be virtual, but it’ll still pack a punch, offering “500+ 3D Viewing Rooms, talks, virtual routes and DDW TV live from the studio in Eindhoven,” the organizers write. “The virtual festival facilitates connections between designers, professionals and online visitors by offering live chat and livestreams by and with designers.”

Image: Art Tech Fun Robots Wearables eGirls Manifestations

The viewing rooms are virtual spaces created by individual designers and loaded with content: Images, video, text and audio. To make navigation easy, visitors start off at a virtual Information Desk where they can zero in on topics that interest them. After concluding your visit to each room, you’re presented with recommendations for other rooms you might like based on your interests.

Image: Het circulaire station

As with a real design festival, design talks will be held all week long, with the benefit that you can watch them in your underwear. A full list of the scheduled talks is here.

Image: Embassy of Rethinking Plastic

This year’s theme is “The New Intimacy,” which the organizers write “is more topical than ever and steers the festival’s focus on the search for new forms of intimacy during these COVID-19 times.”

Image: Agora – Mental Wellness For Cancer

For a complete list of this year’s programming, click here.

Image: Reality: How it can be different

The start time is Saturday, Oct. 17th at 11am Dutch time (GMT +2), i.e. 5pm EST. When you’re ready to dive in, click here for the opening.

Final talk in Exhibit Columbus series to discuss indigenous design in the US

New Middles: Indigenous Futures and Radical Thinking

Exhibit Columbus will conclude its New Middles symposium with a live conversation broadcast on Dezeen that will explore the past and future of Midwest landscapes and indigenous design. Watch here from 7:00pm UK time (2:00pm EST) on 27 October 2020.

The discussion, called New Middles: Indigenous Futures and Radical Thinking, will be moderated by Dezeen columnist and Exhibit Columbus curator Mimi Zeiger.

She will be joined by a panel of experts including designer Chris Cornelius, The Land Institute co-founder Wes Jackson, artist-architect Joar Nango and speculative artist and designer Ash Eliza Smith.

“A long timeline is central to this conversation, which asks: what are the lessons – past and future – of this land and indigenous design?” said the curators.

“How might alternative voices and perspectives in relations to land, agriculture and ways of making reimagine North American narratives?”

Portrait of Mimi Zeiger
Exhibit Columbus curator Mimi Zeiger will moderate the New Middles: Indigenous Futures and Radical Thinking discussion

The talk is the final instalment in a series of conversations live-streamed on Dezeen, which were produced in collaboration with Exhibit Columbus – an initiative that explores architecture, art, community and design in Columbus, Indiana, through an annual symposium and free public exhibition.

This year’s symposium, called New Middles, looks at the designed future of the regions connected by the Mississippi River.

Zeiger is a Los Angeles-based critic, editor and curator. In 2018, she co-curated the US Pavilion for the Venice Architecture Biennale.

In addition to featuring on Dezeen, Zeiger has also penned articles that have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Architectural Review, among other publications.

In 2015, she received the Bradford Williams Medal for excellence in writing about landscape architecture.

Outside of writing, Zeiger is also a faculty member at SCI-Arc and the Media Design master’s programme at the ArtCenter College of Design.

Portrait of Chris Cornelius
Designer Chris Cornelius will join the panel

Cornelius is a citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and an associate professor of architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

He is also the founding principal of Studio:indigenous, a design practice serving indigenous clients, and was a collaborating designer with architect Antoine Predock on the Indian Community School, Milwaukee.

Cornelius’ work has been exhibited in the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale and has won several awards, including Exhibit Columbus’ inaugural J.Irwin and Xenia S.Miller Prize in 2017.

In 2021, he is due to start as the Louis I Khan visiting assistant professor of Architectural Design at Yale University.

Portrait of Wes Jackson
The Land Institute founder Wes Jackson will be the second panellist

Jackson is the co-founder of The Land Institute, a research organisation working to develop an alternative to current destructive agricultural practices that he established in 1976.

Jackson is the author of numerous articles and books and the work of The Land Institute has featured in such publications as National Geographic and Time Magazine.

Jackson has received six honorary doctorates for the work of the Land Institute and was named by Life magazine as one of the 18 individuals predicted to be among the 100 “most important Americans of the 20th century”.

Portrait of Joar Nango
Joar Nango will join the talk as the third panellist

Nango is a Sámi-Norwegian architect-cum-visual artist. His work draws from both Western culture and his Sámi heritage and involves site-specific performances and structural installations that explore the intersection of architecture and visual art.

Nango is the co-founder of architecture collective FFB, which creates temporary installations in urban settings.

He has exhibited his work internationally and one of his recent projects was European Everything (2017) at Documenta 14 in Athens, Greece, as well as Kassel in Germany.

Portrait of Anne Smith
The fourth speaker will be artist and researcher Ash Eliza Smith

Smith is an artist-researcher who uses storytelling, world-building and speculative design to explore new realities.

She works across art and science, and with human and non-human entities with the aim of reimagining past and future technologies, systems, and rural and urban ecologies.

Outside her art practice, she is also an assistant professor of Emerging Media Arts at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

This conversation was produced by Dezeen in collaboration with Exhibit Columbus as part of its New Middles online symposium, which runs until 29 October 2020.

The first talk in the series, which was moderated by Dezeen’s founder Marcus Fairs, futurist Dan Hill and Radha Mistry who explored design’s use of strategic foresight and storytelling.

The second instalment discussed how landscape architecture could help cities in the Mississippi Watershed to adapt to climate change, while the third talk looked at how creativity empowers communities.

Find out more about the symposium ›

The post Final talk in Exhibit Columbus series to discuss indigenous design in the US appeared first on Dezeen.

Winners of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2020

Le Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Le concours organisé par le National History Museum, de Londres, a dévoilé les photos gagnantes de son édition 2020. Sergey Gorshkov remporte le grand prix avec son cliché de la tigresse de l’Amour serrant un arbre entre ses pattes afin d’y laisser son odeur. Roz Kidman Cox, présidente du jury, a déclaré en parlant du cliché en question : « C’est une scène comme aucune autre, un aperçu unique d’un moment intime au plus profond d’une forêt magique. »

Le prix pour le jeune photographe est allé à la prometteuse Liina Heikkinen, qui a immortalisé un renard défendant son repas de ses frères et sœurs : un moment de pathos pris sur le vif riche d’expressions et de tension scénique.

Les gagnants de la 56e édition du concours ainsi qu’une autre centaine de photos seront exposés à partir du 16 octobre. Les photos ont été sélectionnées parmi 49 000 images prises par des photographes professionnels et amateurs : cette année encore une fois ces photographes talentueux nous ont montré la nature sous son plus bel angle.

© Sergey Gorshkov

© Liina Heikkinen

© Jaime Culebras

© Frank Deschandol

© Shanyuan Li

© Songda Cai

© Luciano Gaudenzio

© Paul Hilton

© Mogens Trolle

© Sam Sloss










This UVC light-enabled contact lens cleaning system kills 99.999% of bacteria!

Have you ever had your life flash before your eyes when you are spending the night away from home but don’t have your contact solution? Then you Google how to keep your contacts safe because you need them the next morning and you end up putting it in saltwater, praying that they don’t dry up or cause infections to your eye. Obviously, this is not safe and can be extremely harmful – even contact solution alone is not enough to kill all the microbes in your lenses, and if you’re a girl then you know there might even be specs of mascara. So how do we ensure our lenses are always clean and avoid serious infections? We use Q Egg and a reminder on our phones to pack the solution!

Q Egg is a smart contact lens case that gives you triple protection against bacteria by working with your contact solution as well as DNA-smashing UVC light to kill infection-spreading microorganisms. There are three layers of defense that are designed in the product to make the process super efficient while delivering the highest standards of cleanliness – your contact solution, UVC light, and a vibrational motor. Q Egg radiates DNA-smashing UVC light as a second layer of defense to kill infection-spreading microorganisms. The vibrational motor that recirculates the solution to rinse off any remaining particles and natural eye secretions. These powerful combinations kill 99.999% of the toughest and most stubborn pathogens commonly found responsible for contact-related eye infections. In a pandemic where the virus can spread via contact with the eyes, it is important to make sure we are keeping our contact lenses as clean as possible.

The case’s sleek design lets you disinfect your lenses on-the-go and was made to fit with the rest of your cosmetic tools. The product has controlled wavelengths and doses so it won’t fog or change the color of your contact lenses. “Q Egg needs just 30 minutes to do what your contact lens solution alone needs 4 hours to achieve,” claims the team as they talk about how this product was designed to reduce medical risks and costs. One charge cycle will keep it running for 2 weeks and you will not need to keep buying new plastic cases each month for your contacts. It is compatible with all types of contact lenses.

Designer: Q Egg

Click Here to Buy Now!

Analyzing the Design of Unusual Japanese Butter Tableware

Why is this shaped like this?

Let’s talk about two things that used to not go together: Japan and butter. Like other East Asian cultures, butter was never a part of the traditional Japanese diet, and was actually treated with disgust when introduced by Europeans in the 19th century.

(Fun politically-incorrect fact: When living in Japan, I learned that the word “butter” was used in an outdated anti-foreigner slur. Both Westerners and overtly Western things were referred to as bata-kusai, “kusai” being Japanese for “stink.” It was thought that eating butter produced uniquely European body odor, hence the slur was “butter stinkers.”)

Today Japan has accepted butter (particularly where baked goods and confectionaries are concerned). Uptake isn’t as brisk as in America or butter-crazy France, but it’s produced locally (in the Hokkaido region) and consumed in enough quantities that the country experiences occasional butter shortages, like this one in 2014.

Also, butter in Japan doesn’t come like butter in the ‘States: It comes in slabs, as they’ve adopted the traditional European form factor.

Image credit: Jada Yuan

I believe it’s just us Yanks that shape butter into sticks. Which explains why Japanese butter dishes look strange and wide-bodied to Americans:

Yoshikawa EA?CO Butter Case Container

Yoshikawa EA?CO Butter Case Container

Yoshikawa EA?CO Butter Case Container

Yoshikawa EA?CO Butter Case Container

Yoshikawa EA?CO Butter Case Container

This one’s even got an integrated cutter:

Skater Butter Cutter & Case

Skater Butter Cutter & Case

Skater Butter Cutter & Case

Skater Butter Cutter & Case

You probably noticed that funky knife in the photos of the Yoshikawa Case above. If you saw it out of context, you’d probably not know what it was:

Yoshikawa EA?CO Nulu Butter Knife

The angle in the handle is a function of the slab form factor of European/Japanese butter. The little holes are to extrude separate noodles of butter, which (the Japanese find) are easier to spread.

Yoshikawa EA?CO Nulu Butter Knife

Yoshikawa EA?CO Nulu Butter Knife

Yoshikawa EA?CO Nulu Butter Knife

The serrated side is for cutting toast.

Yoshikawa EA?CO Nulu Butter Knife

This design for a butter knife/grater takes the manufacturing a step further, stamping nacelles into the surface to guide the butter noodles:

Arnest Butter Knife Stainless Steel Grater

Arnest Butter Knife Stainless Steel Grater

Arnest Butter Knife Stainless Steel Grater

Arnest Butter Knife Stainless Steel Grater

Arnest Butter Knife Stainless Steel Grater

Lastly, there’s this bizarre thing. Why on Earth should it be shaped like that?

KAI Rectangular Cut Butter Knife

KAI Rectangular Cut Butter Knife

My speculation–and this is based purely on the year I spent living there, during which time I witnessed fantastically anal-retentive table manners–is that a) This is for those who don’t want to grate the surface of their butter, which probably gets messy as you work your way down through the slab, and b) this satisfies the Japanese need for order.

In other words, for us Americans who want a pat of butter, we just cut one from the stick; but for Japanese users faced with a slab, a crosswise slice would be too unwieldy to balance on your average butter knife.

An alternative would be to cut more manageable diagonal slices–i.e. cut a corner off of the slab–but I’m guessing a slab of butter with 45-degree angles cut into it would be too visually chaotic for Japanese sensibilities. This “tool” leaves behind an orderly 90-degree cut.

KAI Rectangular Cut Butter Knife

Winners of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2020

Le Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Le concours organisé par le National History Museum, de Londres, a dévoilé les photos gagnantes de son édition 2020. Sergey Gorshkov remporte le grand prix avec son cliché de la tigresse de l’Amour serrant un arbre entre ses pattes afin d’y laisser son odeur. Roz Kidman Cox, présidente du jury, a déclaré en parlant du cliché en question : « C’est une scène comme aucune autre, un aperçu unique d’un moment intime au plus profond d’une forêt magique. »

Le prix pour le jeune photographe est allé à la prometteuse Liina Heikkinen, qui a immortalisé un renard défendant son repas de ses frères et sœurs : un moment de pathos pris sur le vif riche d’expressions et de tension scénique.

Les gagnants de la 56e édition du concours ainsi qu’une autre centaine de photos seront exposés à partir du 16 octobre. Les photos ont été sélectionnées parmi 49 000 images prises par des photographes professionnels et amateurs : cette année encore une fois ces photographes talentueux nous ont montré la nature sous son plus bel angle.

© Sergey Gorshkov

© Liina Heikkinen

© Jaime Culebras

© Frank Deschandol

© Shanyuan Li

© Songda Cai

© Luciano Gaudenzio

© Paul Hilton

© Mogens Trolle

© Sam Sloss










This UVC light-enabled contact lens cleaning system kills 99.999% of bacteria!

Have you ever had your life flash before your eyes when you are spending the night away from home but don’t have your contact solution? Then you Google how to keep your contacts safe because you need them the next morning and you end up putting it in saltwater, praying that they don’t dry up or cause infections to your eye. Obviously, this is not safe and can be extremely harmful – even contact solution alone is not enough to kill all the microbes in your lenses, and if you’re a girl then you know there might even be specs of mascara. So how do we ensure our lenses are always clean and avoid serious infections? We use Q Egg and a reminder on our phones to pack the solution!

Q Egg is a smart contact lens case that gives you triple protection against bacteria by working with your contact solution as well as DNA-smashing UVC light to kill infection-spreading microorganisms. There are three layers of defense that are designed in the product to make the process super efficient while delivering the highest standards of cleanliness – your contact solution, UVC light, and a vibrational motor. Q Egg radiates DNA-smashing UVC light as a second layer of defense to kill infection-spreading microorganisms. The vibrational motor that recirculates the solution to rinse off any remaining particles and natural eye secretions. These powerful combinations kill 99.999% of the toughest and most stubborn pathogens commonly found responsible for contact-related eye infections. In a pandemic where the virus can spread via contact with the eyes, it is important to make sure we are keeping our contact lenses as clean as possible.

The case’s sleek design lets you disinfect your lenses on-the-go and was made to fit with the rest of your cosmetic tools. The product has controlled wavelengths and doses so it won’t fog or change the color of your contact lenses. “Q Egg needs just 30 minutes to do what your contact lens solution alone needs 4 hours to achieve,” claims the team as they talk about how this product was designed to reduce medical risks and costs. One charge cycle will keep it running for 2 weeks and you will not need to keep buying new plastic cases each month for your contacts. It is compatible with all types of contact lenses.

Designer: Q Egg

Click Here to Buy Now!