Hasta La Ideas

An Israeli company called Deep Optics has developed sunglasses with liquid crystal lenses that can instantly be changed to reading glasses. These “adaptive focus sunglasses,” as the company calls them, “allow the wearer to see at any focal point” and essentially offer “unlimited prescriptions with one pair of glasses.” Check out this demo of the prototype:

(Full demo here.)

As for how it works: The lower part of the lenses contain a liquid crystal layer that can change its optical power. During initial set-up, the user sets their desired magnification level—i.e. whatever their prescription for reading glasses would be—via a smartphone app. With that set, the user then only needs to swipe along the stems to trigger the magnification function. They’re essentially electronic bi-focals.

The company claims that the embedded chip, battery, charging contact, Bluetooth transmitter and swipe sensors add “almost no extra weight or bulk” to the glasses. They estimate that a full charge is good for a single day’s use, and point out that when the glasses aren’t magnifying, they’re not drawing any juice.

They’re calling the sunglasses 32°N, and they’re currently up on Kickstarter, starting at $229 (projected retail price: $449). At press time they had $138,389 in pledges on a $25,000 goal, with 20 days left to pledge.

A “curiosity molecule” named after American architect Buckminster Fuller is one of the weird and wonderful allotropes of carbon, explains nanomaterials professor Andrei Khlobystov.

Following an in-depth interview with Dezeen about the “unprecedented” properties of carbon, Khlobystov talked us through the various allotropes of the element.

“The existence of allotropes is just a manifestation of the very rich chemistry of carbon as an element,” said Khlobystov, who heads the University of Nottingham’s Nanocarbon group and Nanoscale and Microscale Research Centre.

Allotropes are different forms of the same chemical element. They have the same atoms but in different arrangements.

Buckminsterfullerene named after architect famous for geodesic domes

One of these is buckminsterfullerene, nano-scale spheres of atoms that resemble the geodesic domes popularised by the architect Richard Buckminster Fuller.

A geodesic dome, which Buckminster Fuller patented in 1954, is a lattice-shell structure based on a geodesic polyhedron, a three-dimensional shape made up of a series of triangles.

These triangular elements distribute stress throughout the structure, a phenomenon that Buckminster Fuller termed tensegrity, which makes the domes very strong for their size and weight.

The buckminsterfullerene molecule is not technically a geodesic polyhedron. Rather than triangles, the molecular structure is made up of a series of hexagons and pentagons, like a football.

But a photograph of a Buckminster Fuller dome reportedly inspired the team of scientists that discovered buckminsterfullerene in 1985 to first consider that the molecule could have a spherical structure.

“It’s not super useful at the moment, it is still sort of like a curiosity molecule but I think it has [future] applications,” said Khlobystov.

Carbon can form “very strong bonds” with other atoms

Carbon is not the only element that can form allotropes but it has the most due to the unique way its atoms are able to bond with each other in various different configurations.

“[It can] form very effective and very strong bonds with other carbon atoms and with other elements,” Khlobystov told Dezeen in the interview, conducted as part of our carbon revolution series about the element.

“This is actually quite unprecedented as far as the elements are concerned.”

Khlobystov pointed out that carbon’s ability to form multiple allotropes is just one of the characteristics that makes the element uniquely important.

“Carbon is very special,” he said. “We are carbon-based life forms. All life on Earth is based on carbon. And this is not a coincidence.”

Diamond and graphite are the two best-known allotropes of carbon but their radically different properties demonstrate how much of a difference the arrangement of atoms makes and how unusually versatile carbon is.

While graphite is soft, grey and electrically conductive, diamond is translucent, a poor conductor and the hardest substance on earth.

“They’re almost complete opposites,” Khlobystov told Dezeen. “It’s the same element, but the way the atoms are knitted together is different and therefore the properties are very different.”

Many carbon allotropes are made in labs

Carbon changes form under high temperature and high pressure such as the conditions that occurred in the early years of planet Earth. Nowadays, those conditions can be emulated in a lab, but some allotropes are harder to create than others.

While graphite and diamond occur relatively widely in nature, other allotropes are almost exclusively made in labs.

These include the much-talked-about “wonder material” graphene, carbon nanotubes and buckminsterfullerene, an allotrope named after the twentieth-century architect Buckminster Fuller.

Below, Khlobystov explains the key characteristics of the main carbon allotropes and what makes each of them exciting.

Graphite

In graphite, each carbon atom has three neighbours, with two shorter bonds and one longer bond. This makes the structure look like sheets of hexagons, stacked into layers.

“Graphite is the most stable form of carbon,” Khlobystov said.

“So we can take anything that contains carbon — for example, bits of wood or paper or anything organic — and then at very high temperature and pressure, it can turn to graphite.”

Graphite is probably best known as the drawing material in pencils. A good conductor of heat and electricity, it is often used in electronics such as batteries and solar panels.

But the real interest in graphite at the moment is due to its close connection to two other allotropes, graphene and carbon nanotubes.

Graphene

Graphene is a single-atom-thick layer of graphite. It is the top layer of graphite hexagons, shorn from their bonds to the next layer. This is possible because the longer bonds connecting the hexagons into layers are weaker and easily separated.

It is the “newest” allotrope because it was not successfully isolated and characterised in labs until 2004, albeit using a separation technique so simple it is known as the “Scotch tape method”. This involves a piece of duct tape being used to peel a layer of graphene from a chunk of graphite.

In the years since, graphene has been labelled a “wonder material” due to the fact that it is a better conductor than copper and 200 times stronger than steel despite being six times lighter.

“Graphene is the most hotly discussed allotrope at the moment,” said Khlobystov. “There’s actually many conferences about graphene as a result of investment, because graphene is a good conductor of electricity, it’s very thin, very light, very strong.”

Graphene has been used to make lighter wheelchairs, stronger concrete, warmer clothes — even thinner condoms. There are also plentiful tech applications.

“There is a lot of interest in making touchscreen displays out of graphene because it’s so electrically conducting and very transparent optically,” said Khlobystov. “You can imagine using graphene instead of other expensive metal-containing materials in our mobile phones or anywhere we have a touchscreen.”

Carbon nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes are similar to graphene. They are essentially a sheet of this single-atom-thick structure but wrapped into a tube. This nanotube is extra-strong while being around 80,000 times thinner than the diameter of human hair.

“It’s quite difficult to deform a nanotube, so they’re used to make reinforced materials such as polymers,” said Khlobystov. “There are man-made fibres where polymer is blended with the nanotubes and extruded and spun into thread, and that can make really, really strong materials.”

“It’s also highly electrically conducting, so one can use nanotubes as part of electronic devices,” he continued.

“Potentially, we can replace metal wires in our devices with carbon nanotubes. Because they’re so small, we can make smaller and smaller devices and more powerful computers.”

Carbon nanotubes also have many laboratory applications and have even been used as the world’s smallest test tube. Another notable appearance is in “the world’s blackest black”, the light-sucking pigment Vantablack.

Nanotubes can be “grown” in the lab from any organic carbon source, such as graphite or methane gas. The application of a metal catalyst starts a reaction that makes the nanotube grow like hair grows from a follicle.

Diamond

In diamonds, each carbon atom is connected to four neighbours, forming a repeating lattice structure. While some diamonds are classified as gemstone quality due to their clarity and colouring, their less photogenic counterparts are used in industrial applications for their hardness and thermal conductivity.

“These [industrial] diamonds don’t look very beautiful but are nevertheless diamond,” explained Khlobystov.

Currently, a lot of research is going into nanodiamonds – microscopic diamond particles with an average diameter of around four to five nanometres. In comparison, a human hair has a diameter of 120,000 nanometres.

“Nanodiamonds can be used for example as sensors, they can absorb light, they can mimic light and they can react to a magnetic field that is around them,” he said.

“That makes them more useful than standard diamonds that we see in jewellery.”

While most lab-grown diamonds are not gemstone quality, some are. In 2019 US company The Diamond Foundry used its technology to produce an all-diamond ring designed by Jony Ive and Marc Newson, which sold for US$256,250.

Buckminsterfullerene

Unlike the other allotropes, which are potentially infinite lattices, buckminsterfullerene is a closed mesh of exactly 60 atoms.

The molecule was discovered in 1985 by a team of scientists, three of which – Harold Kroto, Robert Curl and Richard Smalley – would go on to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery.

Reportedly, it was seeing a photograph of one of Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes that led Smalley to consider that the new molecule could have a spherical structure.

While the lattice-shell of a geodesic dome is constructed from triangular elements, buckminsterfullerene’s atoms are actually arranged in a pattern of hexagonal and pentagonal shapes that enable the mesh to curve around and close to form a ball. The story behind the discovery of the molecule and its resemblance to a football has led scientists to informally refer to it as “buckyball”.

There are few known applications for the allotrope, although it is being used in solar cells and more experimentally in medicine and skincare, as it has the ability to trap free radicals and stop them from harming and ageing our skin.

“It’s not super useful at the moment, it is still sort of like a curiosity molecule but I think it has applications,” said Khlobystov.

There are also other kinds of fullerenes that have a similar closed or nearly closed structure, among them carbon nanotubes with their distinctive cylindrical shape.

Carbyne

Carbyne, or linear acetylenic carbon, is the latest carbon allotrope to be isolated — and simplest. It consists of a single chain of carbon atoms in a straight line. Unfortunately, this structure is also highly unstable.

“Diamond, graphite, graphene, they’re really, really stable — it’s one of the beauties of carbon actually,” said Khlobystov. “But carbyne, particularly when it’s very long, becomes tangled somehow and sort of reacts with itself.

“At the moment the best method to make it is inside carbon nanotubes,” he continued. “So you use the nanotube as a little container to protect it from reacting with anything else.”

While its instability is a problem and it has only been made in tiny quantities so far, the existence of carbyne shows where chemistry might take us next. Calculations show it to be the strongest material known per density — stronger than graphene, carbon nanotubes or diamond.

There could also be more carbon allotropes to come.

“I think there probably could be some more,” said Khlobystov. “But I think these will probably be based on hybridisation or mixing and matching current allotropes. It’s almost like a chimera-type thing, so you have elements of one allotrope combined with another one.”

Carbon fibre

Carbon fibre is not technically an allotrope of carbon as it contains some other elements such as oxygen and nitrogen but those other elements occur in very small proportions.

Carbon fibre has a similar structure to graphite, with the same hexagonal pattern but a difference in how the layers interlock. Whereas in graphite the bonds are weak making it soft and brittle, in carbon fibre the sheets are crumpled or folded together, making them more interlocked and strong.

The first carbon fibres were made in the 19th century, with Thomas Edison baking cotton threads at high temperatures to carbonise them for use in light bulbs. Nowadays, the material is made to higher quality using the polymer polyacrylonitrile as the base.

Typically, carbon fibre is used as the reinforcement in composite materials, usually with resin surrounding it. This kind of carbon fibre commonly features in sports cars, such as Buggati’s €11 million La Voiture Noire (above, as well as fighter jets, bikes, tennis racquets and even some furniture.

There’s also an alternative process using filament winding, which has been said to produce a higher quality fibre and has been used to make structures such as the Elytra Filament Pavilion.

The carbon fibre composites could get even stronger in the future with the addition of carbon nanotubes, and greener by using plant-derived cellulose instead of petroleum-based polyacrylonitrile as a precursor.

Carbon revolution

This article is part of Dezeen’s carbon revolution series, which explores how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth. Read all the content at: www.dezeen.com/carbon.

The sky photograph used in the carbon revolution graphic is by Taylor van Riper via Unsplash.

The post Buckminsterfullerine, diamond and graphite illustrate “the very rich chemistry of carbon” appeared first on Dezeen.

A sculptural aluminium crown tops New York‘s Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, which has been renovated by Dutch practice Mecanoo and American firm Beyer Blinder Belle.

Formerly called the Mid-Manhattan Library, the steel and granite library dates from 1914 and was built as a department store.

Its original structure has been retained and the renovation introduces a three-storey “vertical library”, business and educational facilities and a publicly accessible rooftop garden and café.

The mechanical equipment of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library’s (SNFL) is now concealed by a blue aluminium structure designed to echo the copper-clad mansard roofs of the neighbouring beaux-arts buildings.

“The SNFL is a powerhouse of wisdom,” said Mecanoo partner Francis Houben.

“Its street presence brings drama and magic to Manhattan, visibly expressed with its wizard hat.”

The SNFL is the first phase of the New York Public Library’s Midtown Campus Renovation – for which Mecanoo and Beyer Blinder Belle were appointed in 2015.

The project will also see the two firms renovate the Stephen A. Schwarzman (SASB) building opposite.

At SNFL, Mecanoo led on design while Beyer Blinder Belle led on historic preservation as well as acting as the architect of record and designing the environmental graphics.

The approach aimed to improve the connection between the SNFL and SASB.

Upon entering from Fifth Avenue a canopy of wooden beams leads visitors in via an internal street towards the welcome area.

While the library’s various facilities are primarily split across its eight floors, a series of gestures intend to open up and visually link different spaces and levels.

“SNFL’s vertical arrangement of programs improves the user experience and journey of learning,” said Houben.

At ground floor level, a mezzanine balcony, lifts and stairs are located to the south of the plan, while to the north a cut-out in the floor gives views down to the Children’s Library and Teen Centre.

Accessed via a dedicated staircase, the media and study rooms in these areas have been decorated with murals by Brooklyn-based illustrator Melinda Beck.

An internal window gives views of the SNFL book-sorting machine.

At the eastern end of the building, the original steel frame has been cut to create the Long Room – a long, thin three-storey atrium providing reading areas on one side and book stacks on the other.

Views into these levels are framed by the windows for passers-by.

The reading areas are organised around bespoke desks and benches stretching up to 66 feet (20 metres) in length, supported by the original steel frame. The ceiling features abstract artwork by Hayal Pozanti.

On the fifth and sixth floors are the Business Centre and Pasculano Learning Centre.

A new seventh floor has been added at the level of the original building’s roof. It houses a 268-seat conference centre with a pitched wood-slat ceiling.

Large windows look out onto a public, L-shaped roof terrace with an indoor café, providing dramatic views over Midtown.

Mecanoo recently completed both the Macau Central Library and the Tainan Public Library, both of which feature patterned facades that filter light into the interiors.

Another New York library renovation project is Brooklyn’s Central Library, which has just been revamped by New York-based architect Toshiko Mori.

The photography is by John Bartelstone.

The post Aluminium “wizard hat” tops New York library renovation by Mecanoo appeared first on Dezeen.

Transparency, supply chains and insight on a new line intended for women, from the Stockholm apparel brand

Launched in 2015, apparel brand ASKET—founded by August Bard Bringeus and Jakob Dworsky—was built on the belief that transparency, longevity and responsibility need to be essential across the fashion industry. The name itself translates to a disciplined individual or, as the brand puts it, “a person who does without extravagance and abundance.” They attempt this by rebuffing seasonal collections, working with responsible mills and manufacturers, tracing garments every step of the process (and offering the public a full view of the supply chain and costs) and then selling directly to customers. Each item is handmade from high-quality fabrics, and has been crafted to last.

While ASKET doesn’t call themselves a “sustainable fashion” label (an oxymoron; as every new garment makes an impact), they do want to be a more responsible company in an industry riddled with exploitation, consumption and waste. We spoke with Bringeus about their ethos, process, and a new collection intended for women.

Knowing that the fashion industry is saturated, what made you decide founding ASKET was a good idea? 

We felt that clothing and the fashion industry hasn’t really become better. Things have become worse. With technological advancements, most industries, services and products get better over time, whereas clothing has just become cheaper—and more of it. So, the underlying reason we ventured out was that we were frustrated with the fact that we all have so much stuff in our wardrobes, yet we use so little of it. What we figured out was the reason that we have so much, but use little of it and use it for a short time, is that the fashion industry is geared toward constant renewal. With fast fashion and globalized supply chains, a lot of competition has made clothing so cheap that it’s cheaper to replace something than to repair it. With that speed of replacement, the clothing that is put out is compromised, either in fit, design or quality.

The basic idea was to deal with this frustration, to reduce our wardrobes and to create a permanent collection, one single garment at a time. And with that, endless perspective and eternal relevance of the product. We call the “pursuit of less”—helping people make fewer items and to feel emotional gratification over a material gratification.

Making high-quality, long-lasting staples is one thing, but your supply chain is very transparent too—how important was that?

Transparency—in order to showcase the quality and the story behind the product—was really a segue into responsibility, because in order to be that transparent, obviously we needed to visit factories. We needed to learn about the whole fashion supply chain, and we had no experience within that. The first time we set foot in a factory in Portugal in March of 2015, and saw just the amount of hard work that goes into cutting and sewing a T-shirt,  not to mention of all the work behind creating the fabric, spinning yarns, dyeing, all that. We were flabbergasted by the negligence or ignorance with which we, as consumers, buy clothing. 

It’s immensely important to restore the appreciation for the clothing that we buy and to instill a sense of meaningfulness, so that an item—that T-shirt—means something more to you.

It was a gradual transition from showing prices transparently to showing a factory where one step is made, to showing as much as possible and introducing full traceability down to the farms. Then most recently, not just showing what it costs and where it comes from, but also the impact that each garment has had on people and the planet. Essentially, all of that aims at educating the consumer into appreciating garments more so that we make more considered choices. 

How do you approach the business of this so that you’re able to a keep it going, meet your goals and be able to continue to offer this product?

The root cause of overproduction and overconsumption is absolutely geared by capitalism and the way that financing, VC funding and stock markets work today. It’s the insatiable hunger for growth, basically. In the long term, that’s just not possible. There’s just one planet, and population is going to stop somewhere around 11 billion people; you can’t just continue selling and consuming more.

When it comes to how we actually make this work. It is a pretty intricate and neat system. All the pillars in our business model tie into each other. And again, it starts with the permanent collection. Because we create garments that are meant to be around forever, we basically eliminate the inherent risk that the fashion industry has; what we saw cause bankruptcies everywhere throughout last year. Because all of a sudden, people just stopped buying, then that spring collection came in too late, stores were closed and companies just couldn’t redistribute all that stock and inventory—which was meant to be sold at a specific time to suit the trend calendar. That’s risky inventory, and that’s what the fashion industry is built on.

Right now, we have 36 unique products that we’ve developed over the course of six years, so about six products per year. We haven’t removed a single style in those six years. We haven’t even removed a color or style variation. So, with that reliability in our product, we’ve removed the inventory risk and and that allows us to operate much more longterm.

Roughly six new products a year and a commitment to each of those new products being permanent—how do you decide what to add to the collection? What is the creative process behind product development?

It’s really a restructuring process as opposed to creative process. We will look back in time and see whether or not a garment has ticked a few boxes. Oftentimes what we consider essential today started as functional—were military, utility, worker uniforms and whatnot. Then they were propelled into some kind of rebel state. Take the T-shirt on Marlon Brando or Rebel Without a Cause; a very basic sort of military garment becomes a popular garment, and then the pieces transition to a wardrobe staple. Some of these pieces will see very even, stable demand and others will be a little bit more fluctuating but still a staple. So we look backward in time and see if a garment feels those criteria.

There is also an end to how much we can add to the permanent collection. We’re probably the only clothing company in the world that says, “At some point, we’re going to stop developing new styles, new garments.” We know that. Maybe we have two or three years left in menswear before we feel that we’ve come to an end.

While men’s has been the focus, you just launched your women’s line—was that planned from the beginning or something that came about organically?

When we launched ASKET, we set out to tackle our own wardrobe frustrations, so we didn’t have a set intention to add womenswear. Over the course of six years, we’ve received increasing requests for womenswear. That, coupled with us continuously expanding our understanding and notion of responsibility as an apparel brand, made us realize that there was an opportunity to offer a permanent collection of zero-compromise garments, made under full transparency and accountability, for women too. It wasn’t a decision that came lightly, we’re all too aware that the apparel industry has an overproduction and overconsumption problem but we’re confident given our learning and the practices we’ve introduced with menswear that we’ll be able to build a thoughtful collection.

Your apparel is classic and covers the staples; people of all genders can wear the previous collections, what’s the main difference with this one?

It’s true, the beauty of wardrobe essentials is that they can be universally appreciated—we see women wearing our T-shirts, shirts and over-shirts in particular. And we’ve seen guys really take to the women’s heavier knitwear. But there’s no denying that genders have different body types as well as their own unique fit frustrations. So while I’m confident we’ll continue to see people picking wardrobe essentials regardless of the gender we originally had in mind, we’ll continue to create better fitting clothing based on women’s and men’s unique needs too.

What did you want to achieve with this new collection?

Our sole purpose is to help people better value clothing, having us not just make do, but be happier with less. It’s all about restoring a good old-fashioned appreciation for clothes. That means creating for longevity; from deciding what qualifies as a wardrobe essential, to selecting the most durable and quality materials, as well as creating timeless designs that won’t lose relevance over time. No easy feat.

Fit was also an important consideration. For tops, we’ve created silhouettes and used fabrics that will flatter many body types and will be available in seven sizes—XXS to XXL. Meanwhile for the jeans we needed a different approach, no amount of clever tailoring could accommodate everyone. So, in addition to 11 waist sizes and three lengths, we’ve also created two builds ensuring the same shape, no matter how the customer themselves is shaped. This was all developed based on hours of research and work with fitting models across body types, to better understand these frustrations. With it, we hope to develop silhouettes and a sizing system to make sure more women can find better-fitting clothing.

When it comes to ASKET’s future, does the mission remain the same?

There’s enough clothing out there already and we wouldn’t want to start and run a clothing brand if we were just putting out more clothing. It needs to be better. It needs to be a vehicle for change. And, as a small company, we can’t do it alone so these pushes for advancements and standards in the industry are also about inspiring others to follow.

Images courtesy of ASKET

Dezeen Showroom: Carl Hansen & Son has collaborated with Ilse Crawford to rerelease five chairs by midcentury Danish designer Hans J Wegner in a range of earthy colours.

Named First Masterpieces, the collection encompasses seating designs that were originally created by Wegner for Carl Hansen & Son in 1950.

Each chair has been reinterpreted in a range of five earthy colours chosen by Crawford to “give a fresh perspective to the collection”.

Included in the collection are the seminal CH24 chair, also known as the Wishbone Chair, alongside the CH22 lounge chair, CH23 dining chair, CH25 lounge chair and CH26 dining chair.

They are each available with a translucent water-based paint finish that was chosen by Crawford to add depth to the chairs’ classic forms.

“The environmentally friendly, water-based colours all have a slightly transparent finish, which allows the chairs’ original oak wood grain to shine through, creating a nuanced sense of colour and texture,” said the brand.

“The muddy, painterly tones nod to the raw beauty of the Nordic landscape and they are intended to work both as a group and independently.”

Crawford discussed the collection during a livestreamed talk as a part of Carl Hansen & Son’s virtual Open House event earlier this month. The programme also included five other talks, with speakers including MoMA curator Paola Antonelli and Kvadrat CEO Anders Byriel.

All videos from the event, including a tour of the brand’s production facility in Denmark, can be viewed on the Open House website.

Product: First Masterpieces
Designer: Ilse Crawford and Hans J Wegner
Brand: Carl Hansen & Son
Contact: press@carlhansen.dk

About Dezeen Showroom: Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen’s huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.

Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership content here.

The post First Masterpieces collection by Ilse Crawford and Hans J Wegner for Carl Hansen & Son appeared first on Dezeen.