So you’re telling me there’s a way to gaze at the starry night sky in order to tell what time it is??? No thanks… I’ll just stay inside from the comfort of my couch and admire my Cosmos clock in between an episode of Maddow and the delicious Chinese delivery I just ordered. Only kidding! But seriously, sometimes it’s just nicer to stay inside. For those times, there really is the Cosmos II clock.
It’s the big brother of the original Cosmos clock and it brings the universe inside your living room so you can stargaze from the comfort of home! Its multi-light face features 2 distinct stars that display the hours and minutes. The rest of the twinkling LEDs create the current pattern of the stars overhead depending on the celestial season so you can follow the constellations as they change throughout the months. Better yet, it’s equipped with a Bluetooth speaker so you can stream all the Sigur Ros and other stargaze-enhancing songs you can think of!
Dezeen Showroom: French brand Tarkett has launched a vinyl flooring collection called iD Inspiration that emulates natural materials such as wood and stone.
The iD Inspiration collection has been developed by Tarkett to “harness the power of nature to create feel-good interiors”.
It is intended for use in hospitality, education, residential, retail and workplace interiors and suitable for areas with moderate to high footfall.
Tarkett’s iD Inspiration flooring emulates natural materials
“Inspired by nature, iD Inspiration has been designed to improve wellbeing by deepening the connection between the outdoors and the interior spaces where people work, learn and care,” Tarkett said.
The flooring takes the form of tiles and planks available in seven sizes and 100 different finishes.
The flooring takes the form of vinyl planks and tiles
Each plank or tile is digitally printed from scans of real woods and stone, meaning that natural grains, textures and imperfections are all replicated.
This production process also ensures there are no repeating motifs or patterns in any 12 square metres of flooring, which helps to achieve a more realistic look.
It is suitable for spaces with high footfall
The iD Inspiration collection is designed to be quick and easy to install using adhesives. A “click system” is also available on selected designs.
The flooring is finished with Tarkett’s Tektanium polyurethane coating, ensuing resistance to scratches and stains while providing a matt finish.
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.
A carbon revolution is underway. In a major new series, Dezeen explores how this incredible material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth, writes Dezeen founder and editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs.
Carbon is a miracle material. The only problem is that too much of it is in the wrong place.
But entrepreneurs, scientists, writers, designers and architects are beginning to talk about a carbon revolution that views the element as the saviour of our civilisation, rather than its nemesis.
Carbon deservedly gets a bad press for its role in global warming. Carbon dioxide, a gas formed of carbon and oxygen, is one of several greenhouse gases that are causing climate change, but it is by far the biggest single contributor.
Carbon is also present in methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas which, fortunately, is far less abundant.
Carbon is the building block of all living things
Yet carbon is also an incredibly useful and important element. Life cannot exist without it: it is the building block of all living things and makes up half the dry mass of every plant and around a fifth of the mass of all animals, including humans.
It is the fourth most abundant element in the universe and easily the most versatile. Carbon atoms can be arranged to form diamonds, graphite, carbon fibre and graphene as well as weird and wonderful nano-materials such as buckminsterfullerene.
It can combine with other elements to create an almost infinite number of compounds such as carbohydrates (including sugars), hydrocarbons (from which most fuels and plastics are made) and carbonates (including limestone). It can be turned into carbon fibre and is an essential ingredient in steel (which is an alloy of iron and carbon).
Carbon is also of course the main constituent of wood and all biomass.
A breathtaking range of new carbon-based materials are being developed around the world
In addition, a breathtaking range of new carbon-based materials are being developed around the world including food, plastic, fuel and cement – materials whose current production methods are responsible for much of the environmental destruction of our age.
Meanwhile, companies such as Climeworks are developing commercially viable ways of removing large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. This is currently expensive but if the price of atmospheric carbon falls low enough, it could provide an incredible net-zero raw material that could eventually replace fossil fuels while reducing the risk of runaway climate change.
To produce this carbon revolution series, we’ve spoken to leaders around the world who are working in cutting-edge fields such as carbon capture, carbon utilisation, carbon mineralisation, carbon sequestration and decarbonisation. Our research has opened up a whole new lexicon as well as a breathtaking range of activity and ingenuity.
What if carbon represents an opportunity, rather than a threat?
What unites these figures is their quiet determination to help prevent climate change and their optimism that it can be achieved.
Global warming is such an existential threat that it’s easy to succumb to fatalism. Yet ways of addressing it seem so complicated and difficult that it often seems simpler to do nothing.
But what if we’re all looking at the problem through the wrong end of the telescope? What if carbon represents an opportunity, rather than a threat?
In a series of articles we’re publishing over the coming days, we hope to swing the telescope around, transforming our readers’ understanding of this amazing material and helping them play a part in the carbon revolution.
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.
Carbon is the most valuable resource on earth, according to Climeworks, which has developed machines that suck it from the air so it can be turned into useful materials.
“We capture CO2 from the atmosphere,” said Christoph Beuttler, head of climate policy at the Swiss company. “We’re mining the sky because there’s too much carbon in it. And it’s a sustainable resource.”
Climeworks has developed direct air capture (DAC) devices that extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
If scaled up sufficiently, its technology could play a large part in reducing atmospheric carbon and thereby preventing climate change, the company believes.
At the same time, it could produce large amounts of valuable carbon that could be used to make everything from fuels to plastics.
Top image and above: Climeworks’ new Orca plant in Iceland will open this summer
“Carbon is the most valuable resource in our society,” Beuttler explained. “We have built our society on carbon. The problem is that it’s coming out of the ground and it adds additional carbon to the atmosphere.”
“So we capture CO2 from the atmosphere to do two things,” he added. “To store it away permanently to achieve negative emissions and to make products from CO2 so you can replace fossil CO2.”
“You can build polymers, you can build oils; anything you can get from oil and gas, you can build with that process.”
Atmospheric carbon can be used to make cement
Materials made from atmospheric carbon could be transformative for the construction and built environment sector, which together are responsible for an estimated 40 per cent of global emissions.
Cement is the worst single culprit, contributing around eight per cent of all atmospheric carbon. “For your publication, the most interesting thing is probably building materials because you can make synthetic cement that’s carbon negative out of this carbon,” Beuttler said.
“Because buildings stand for a long time and you can recycle cement, you can basically store CO2 for a long time.”
Climeworks first commercial direct air capture plant opened in Switzerland in 2017
Efforts to neutralise emissions from fossil-based processes are missing the point, Beuttler argues, because the carbon will eventually end up in the atmosphere anyway.
“If you haven’t taken atmospheric CO2 to build it, you’re simply delaying a fossil emission. Only with atmospheric [carbon] can you can close the carbon cycle.”
Defossilising the global economy
Climeworks is not proposing to help decarbonise the global economy; instead, it is proposing to help defossilise it. This means leaving remaining fossil reserves in the ground to prevent new carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere.
“First of all, you have to stop emitting,” Beuttler explained. “So mitigation comes first. But there will be a point where you cannot mitigate [any more].”
“You cannot, for example, capture the carbon off the back of the exhaust of aeroplanes and you cannot directly electrify long-distance freight and passenger aeroplanes. “
Climeworks founders Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher
As an aside, Beuttler argues that even aviation could eventually become fossil-free and hence carbon neutral. Aeroplanes could be powered by kerosene made from atmospheric carbon mixed with green hydrogen, which is hydrogen extracted from water using renewable energy.
“You close the carbon cycle because the CO2 gets submitted back into the atmosphere once it’s burned,” he explained.
Beyond mitigation, a range of measures will be needed to remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – an estimated 10 gigatonnes per year – to prevent runaway climate change.
Building materials from the sky
These include direct air capture technologies such as the collectors developed by Climeworks as well as making use of natural processes via large-scale afforestation and biomass projects.
Whichever way it is captured, carbon can then be stored underground (a process known as carbon capture and storage or CCS) or turned into useful materials (carbon capture and utilisation or CCU).
“You have a way of building materials from the sky rather than from the ground,” said Beuttler of the latter. “And that’s the idea behind this carbon revolution.”
One of Climeworks’ new-generation collectors being installed in Iceland
Natural processes such as tree-planting and biomass production can only go so far since land is a finite resource that is also needed for food production and other uses.
“You can’t scale biomass infinitely,” Beuttler explains. “It would need three planets to solve the climate problem.”
“And that’s where we come in,” he adds. “Our technology has a footprint about 400 times smaller [than biomass] and that includes the renewable energy you need [to run the Climeworks plants].”
Powered by renewable energy
Climeworks was founded in 2009 by Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher, two German engineering graduates from Swiss research university ETH Zurich.
They have since developed CO2 collectors that resemble giant stainless-steel air-conditioning units, each about the size of an SUV. These are arranged in container-sized rigs.
Air is drawn into the collectors by a fan, where carbon dioxide is absorbed by special filters that attract the gas molecules. Once the filter is full of CO2, the collector is sealed and heated up to around 100 °C.
Climeworks’ collectors capture atmospheric CO2 using filters
This causes the filters to release concentrated CO2 gas, which is then cooled and stored as liquid CO2. The process is around 90 per cent efficient, meaning that for every 100 tons of carbon dioxide captured, just 10 tons are re-emitted into the atmosphere.
There are several rival technologies that work in a similar way but Climeworks claims its version operates at lower temperatures, making it cheaper to run.
The machines require energy to run the fans and heat the filters, so they need to be powered by renewable sources if they are to avoid putting more carbon into the atmosphere than they remove.
“If you’re in the business of taking CO2 out of the atmosphere, you don’t want to emit more,” says Beuttler. “So our technology can run on renewables only. We can use waste heat or solar thermal sources and that makes it quite efficient.”
Carbon can be captured where it’s needed
Its new Orca plant in Iceland, which is due to open this summer, will be powered by a nearby geothermal energy plant. Rather than being turned into products, the carbon captured by this plant will be stored underground.
To do this, Climeworks has teamed up with CO2 storage company CarbFix, which will dissolve the gas in water and then inject it into the ground. There, it will react with the basalt bedrock to form new calcite rock, locking away the carbon forever.
Future Climeworks plants could be set up according to local commercial demand. Since the concentration of atmospheric carbon is pretty much the same everywhere on the planet, its machines can be located wherever there is a renewable energy source and wherever the extracted carbon, which is sold in the form of odourless liquid CO2, is needed.
For example, a carbonated drinks plant in Hawaii could set up collectors next to its factory and use the carbon to make its products fizzy, Beuttler explained.
Geothermal energy allows the Orca plant to pump CO2 underground, where it turns into rock
The main problem is that carbon captured from the sky is currently too expensive compared to fossil carbon. Climeworks’ carbon costs around €900 per tonne, which is almost twice as much as the price of crude oil.
The cost of polluting the atmosphere is even lower: even though the price of offsets on the EU’s carbon trading market has soared by 50 per cent to a record high this year, it still costs just €50 per tonne.
“To make this a mass business case, we need policies in place that make emitting fossil CO2 more expensive or to set the guardrails so we can become bigger,” said Beuttler, comparing the potential to that of the solar industry, where prices have plummeted over the past few decades. “And then it’s just economies of scale.”
Beuttler is realistic about the scale of effort required to make a meaningful dent in atmospheric carbon: he calculates that it would require around 80 million Climeworks units to remove four gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere each year, which is around 40 per cent of the total amount that needs to be captured each year to stabilise the climate.
“We build 80 to 100 million cars per year, globally,” he said. “So it’s doable, but it needs to become one of the largest industries there is.”
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.
Located a short walk from Tokyo’s busy downtown area, this Blue Bottle Coffee outpost was conceived as an urban retreat sandwiched between two parks.
It serves coffee during the day and appetisers and natural wine in the evenings.
Brown tiles with a volcanic ash glaze feature throughout the interior of Blue Bottle Coffee Shibuya
Keiji Ashizawa Design, which also designed the coffee brand’s Yokohama outpost, wanted to create a warm and welcoming interior that brought the park surroundings into the glass-walled and concrete-floored space.
“It was a challenge to come up with a playful interior plan in this square two-storey building,” Ashizawa told Dezeen.
“The other challenge was to make links between the first and second floors, and the exterior and interior.”
Counter seating runs along the wall of windows
To bring the outside in, the studio installed a large, curved tile counter that wraps around the cafe’s kitchen area and welcomes customers as they enter.
The brown tiles – developed as a collaboration between London material manufacturer Dzek, and the Amsterdam-based design studio Formafantasma – are finished with a special volcanic ash glaze.
A single artisan laid all 7,000 tiles in the interior
A single skilled artisan laid more than 7,000 of the tiles in the cafe. As well as the counter, they cover a low coffee table and a wall in the upstairs lounge area. Ashizawa said the tiles were specifically chosen to connect the interior and exterior spaces.
“We wanted a park-like item as a key material which stands out in the interior but also makes a strong connection between first and second floor, and the exterior and interior at the same time,” explained Ashizawa.
A sunken seating area is fringed in bench seating
“I thought that this tile, which has a brick-like colour, is an item reminiscent of parks in Japan,” he continued.
“Also, there is the fact that the soil from volcanic ash is a familiar material in this Kanto region, and I remember that the soil floor of the original Kitaya Park was also Kanto loam.”
In addition to the warm-coloured tiles, pink and orange textiles by Kvadrat, and wooden furniture by Karimoku, Ishinomaki Lab and Ariake add warmth to the largely glass and concrete interior.
On Blue Bottle Coffee’s ground floor, tables are set at differing heights. The high counter with stools allows customers to watch the barista preparing their coffee, while the lower table provides a good view of the park.
The seating area is obscured by a translucent grey curtain
More seating types are installed upstairs, including a lowered floor area with banquette seating upholstered in an autumnal orange textile. This space can be sectioned off from the main area by a grey, sheer curtain.
An oval dining table sits in the centre of the space providing a casual and communal dining option. A high counter table with a library-like light allows for quiet groups and singles to sit at the rear of the space.
Wooden benches offer seating outside of the cafe
At the far end, a low, tiled coffee table is surrounded by comfortable lounge chairs and sofas upholstered in muted pink fabric.
A textured, brushed mortar finish has been applied to the cafe’s ceiling on the ground floor, and across a wall upstairs to help improve the acoustics in the space.
The furniture is in keeping with the buildings timber-clad facade
“When we plan cafes or restaurants, it is essential to think about acoustics,” said Ashizawa. “It is important that you can speak easily and that you can hear the music comfortably.”
“When we first saw the condition of the interior – the floor was made of concrete with glass walls. We definitely thought that we should leave the ceiling some kind of texture to promote sound absorption. At the same time, I thought that creating a feeling of touch in the space would have the effect of relaxing customers in the stressful city of Shibuya, like the greenery of a park.”
“We hope that visitors will enjoy the warm atmosphere as if they had been invited to visit the welcoming house of a close friend,” he concluded.
South London-based, French-Senegalese soul artist anaiis returns with the laidback, jazz-tinged “reverie.” She composed the pretty song—which is written through the eyes of somebody watching a loved one deal with fear and regret—with Itai David Shapira. With slightly raspy, breathy vocals, delicate percussion and soft horns, the song is set to appear on her upcoming second album.
Architecture firm Gensler’s Mixu chair made from post-industrial recycled plastic and FSC-certified wood is among 14 new products featured on Dezeen Showroom this week.
Mixu is a highly customisable chair created by architecture firm Gensler for Italian furniture brand Arper.
Each component of the chair can be paired with different seats, backrests and bases that come in an array of colours, textures and materials such as recycled plastic, fabric and leather, as well as FSC-certified wood.
The chair, which is shipped disassembled in a bid to reduce its volume and carbon footprint, is put together without glue or staples so that each component can be easily replaced, disposed or recycled.
Mixu was featured on Dezeen Showroom this week, alongside products including carbon-negative chairs and a table that was inspired by the mirthful aesthetic of jelly bean sweets.
Read on to see the rest of this week’s new products:
Kata is a lounge chair informed by traditional woven straw chairs created by Barcelona design studio Altherr Désile Park for Arper.
The chair is composed of an oak or black locust wood frame with a unified upholstered backrest and seat, which is made from post-consumer plastic waste that has been recycled and woven into yarn.
British architecture firm Foster + Partners has created the OVO chair series, a triad of solid wood chairs including an armchair, side chair and lounge chair created for furniture maker Benchmark.
The chairs are made using European oak and American walnut, which makes them carbon negative since the process of manufacturing and distribution of the chairs emits less CO2 compared to how much the trees stored throughout their lifetime.
The sculptural table, which is available in three different colourways, comes with either a circular or oval tabletop that balances on a central pedestal to increase space for sitters.
Not is a collection of outdoor furniture comprising the Not Out chair and the Notable dining table, created by Italian design studio E-ggs for furniture brand True Design.
The outdoor chairs are composed of thin galvanised steel rods that make it lightweight and stackable, while the table is composed of a slender central leg that supports the tabletop and comes in various finishes.
The bench is upholstered in a wide range of textiles and features a high backrest that doubles as a room divider to delineate private spaces for focused work.
Bend is an undulating modular sofa system informed by meandering rivers, created by Madrid studio Stone Designs for office furniture brand Actiu.
The sofa system, which comprises four rounded modules, was intended for offices and can be easily arranged into various configurations to accommodate informal meetings or breakaway spaces.
Tilda is a coat rack comprising a slender black metal rod with a plush pouf intended for hallways or bedrooms, created by Etc.etc. for Schönbuch.
The ottoman, which is available in a range of Kvadrat or Maharam fabrics and leather, serves as a spot for people to sit and take off their shoes, while the rack comes with a small adjustable shelf to hold phones or keys.
Otto is a collection of modular outdoor seating created by Belgian architect Vincent Van Duysen for US brand Sutherland Furniture.
The seating, which includes sectional and three-seater sofas, chaise longues and armchairs, has a powder-coated aluminium frame enveloped with cords of woven acrylic rope.
HI-MACS is a surfacing product with new recycled and terrazzo versions intended for commercial and residential projects, created by Korean company LG Hausys.
The surface is made of acrylic that has been mixed with minerals and pigments and can be moulded into any shape to suit any interior.
The light features a drum-pendant design with a polycotton fabric shade that comes in white or putty colourways and a metal ceiling rose finished in either matt white or matt nickel.
The shelving, which is available either as a wall-mounted or freestanding system, is available in a number of finishes such as veneered wood and matt lacquers.
Contour is an acoustic panel that features an organic pattern that resembles tree rings, created by Filipino designer Jeffrey Ibanez for Swiss brand Impact Acoustic.
The sinuous pattern, which is designed through an algorithm, can be modified to fit walls of varying sizes and shapes. The panel, which is intended for offices, can be used as a pinboard for presentations in addition to providing sound insulation.
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. To launch a new product or collection at Dezeen Showroom, please email showroom@dezeen.com.
Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership content here.
In November 2020, Microsoft revealed their next-generation gaming console – the Xbox Series X – and it became a part of memes for a very unusual reason. People on social media compared its shape to a fridge, and sportingly, even Microsoft joined in the gag, making a real-sized functional fridge at that time. The one-off Xbox Series X Fridge was given away in an online contest. Now it seems Microsoft has been intrigued by the idea of Xbox Series X being a fridge (or should I say the joke) and wants to take it just beyond a one-off build.
Announced at their E3 2021 event, Microsoft revealed their Xbox Mini Fridge. The cool new appliance carries the tag of “Xbox and Chill” for the current skeptical times we are living in. That is, keep entertained with the next-gen Xbox console and stay chilled with your favorite can of soda during the breaks. Microsoft touts the Xbox-shaped mini-fridge to be the “most powerful mini-fridge” coming to your living room this holiday season. From the teaser reveal video released by Microsoft, the mini-fridge has an Xbox logo on the outside, and on the inside, it has a green ambiance to add a dash of the old Xbox intrigue.
The mini-fridge is powered by the “Xbox Velocity Cooling Architecture,” keeping it ultra-chilled at all times; paying homage to the Xbox Velocity Cooling Architecture that enabled the positioning Series X gaming console to be the most powerful gaming rig out there. By the look of things, the mini-fridge seems to hold around ten cans of beverages at a time and can be used to keep other items cool as well. The best thing is you’ll be able to grab one by the holiday season, and while there is no word yet on this mini-fridge pricing, we know it won’t be a stocking stuffer for sure! The idea already seems to be making waves for reasons good and bad (capitalism, duh!). We’re not entirely thrilled by the idea, as the appliance remains more of a gimmick without any added functionalities, but it may inspire a series of green/RGB light-emitting mini-fridges, and that is something I do find intriguing.
A symbol of an era that was relatively uncomplicated, Nixie tubes are a bit of a rarity now (the last set of nixies were produced in the 90s before being permanently suspended), but they’re indicative of a time period when tech products were hand-made, intricate yet consumer-friendly, and built to last… a heavy contrast when compared to today’s throwaway-tech-culture. The NIXOID VFD Watch debuted in 2018 as an homage to the Nixie tube. With its steampunkish design, the wristwatch came with a nixie-inspired dial that was designed to be the very antithesis of consumer tech, by celebrating something that isn’t mass-produced anymore. In 2021, the watch series is back with the NIXOID NEXT, a slimmer, more durable, and more efficient version of its first iteration fitted with incredibly rare Nixie VFD lamps that were produced and stowed away 25 years ago. Aside from housing this incredibly rare hardware, the NIXOID NEXT comes with better battery life, an accelerometer that lights up the VFD tubes when you tilt your wrist towards you, and a magnetic charging feature that lets you recharge your rare, retrofuturistic timepiece!
At the very center of the NIXOID NEXT is its crown jewel, the watch face with rare VFD (Vacuum Fluorescent Display) tubes that emit a warm orange glow as the numbers light up to tell you the time. These tubes were discovered sitting in a warehouse untouched since the days of the USSR (an Easter egg that makes it to the video above too), making the watch practically a historic limited-edition collectible. The numbers are encased in air-tight glass tubes with a vacuum inside them, and come with blue lights fitted on the base that gives it an incredible visual contrast. The NIXOID NEXT is also the world’s first dual-core watch, with one core dedicated to keeping the watch running, and another core for powering the watch’s built-in accelerometer. The integrated accelerometer allows the watch’s display to light up when it’s tilted towards you, helping conserve the VFD tubes’ lifespan (each tube has a lamp-life of 20 years). However, using the accelerometer does consume the watch’s battery. With the accelerometer running, the watch can run continuously for up to 10 days (while preserving the life of the VFD lamps); switch the accelerometer off and the watch’s battery life bumps up to a month. Charging the watch’s battery is rather simple too, thanks to contact points on the back that let you easily magnetically snap the NIXOID NEXT’s proprietary charger in place.
The NIXOID NEXT’s rare VFD lamps and hardware sit within a durable machined aluminum alloy case, capped off with a scratch-resistant sapphire crystal for clarity. The watch’s case measures 16.9mm in thickness, a pretty remarkable feat considering how bulky Nixie tubes can be. After all, these tubes are extremely fragile too and aren’t easy to come by, which warrants the extra protection. The NIXOID NEXT watches come in 4 colors, Deep Black, Polished Classic, Mars Red, and Military Green, with rubber straps to match. Each watch sports a knurled button at the 3 o’clock position for setting the time and additionally comes with an engraved back featuring a unique serial number and backer number… that’s aside from the fact that the timepiece also contains incredibly rare and limited Nixie tubes on the inside, quite literally making the watch one in a million!
NIXOID NEXT – Next Generation VFD (Vacuum Fluorescent Display) Watch
The NIXOID NEXT is the world’s first dual-core nixie tube wristwatch. With one core dedicated to keeping the watch running, and another core for powering the watch’s built-in accelerometer.
NIXIE lamps have not been produced for over thirty years, and every year it becomes more difficult to find untouched lamps that can display the time. The team searched for a long time and found an untouched warehouse of lamps from the times of the USSR, and the project became possible.
Materials
The watch is made of durable weapon-grade aluminum alloy by milling from one piece of metal using high-precision CNC equipment. As a result, the watch is light and thin (16.9mm thick).
The top of the watch is covered with a sapphire crystal, with a hardness of 9H. The glass has a high hardness and can’t be scratched.
The magnetic connector on the back cover is convenient and gives magic in using the watch.
The Tilt Function
See the time by pressing a button or by gesture. The watch does not respond to accidental hand movements. All movements of the watch are processed by a separate core, to see the time you need to turn your wrist away from you, and then back, towards you. This gesture is programmed intentionally, and several times reduces false actuations, which has a good effect on the battery life.
– The autonomy of the watch with the accelerometer on is up to 10 days in everyday use – The autonomy of the watch with the accelerometer turned off is up to 25-30 days in everyday use – With the accelerometer disabled, the watch can be stored for up to two months in sleep mode
The watch comes with a specially milled keychain with laser engraving to enable or disable the tilt function. You can attach it to your keys, and it will always be with you.
Hüga means finding happiness in small things, a concept born from the Danish philosophy ‘Hygee that is followed by thousands of people around the world. This is exactly where Grandio drew its inspiration from to develop a unique, different project that combines a set of brilliant ideas with design, construction, and marketing. After 24 months of work by a multidisciplinary team of professionals from Córdoba, Hüga was born – the future of the tiny home movement!
Grandio uses its technology to keep the architectural industry to date with its building system that allows for 99% offsite construction. In October 2020, they unveiled their very first prefabricated concrete home called Hüga. Today, the team has developed an advanced enough system using the same technology that can be deployed for commercial, hospitality, and residential functions thus scaling up its positive impact on sustainable construction. Hüga was made to find a solution for the unsatisfying demand in housing and public buildings because that industry has remained the same for centuries. ‘the use of brick in our constructions for over 5000 years is a clear example of how the construction industry is reluctant to change. The construction industry is still looking for a satisfactory solution, one that replaces the slow and expensive traditional systems that require skilled labor.
The Argentina-based studio wanted to provide a more efficient way to build and formed a multidisciplinary team of 23 professionals, civil, mechanical, and industrial engineers, architects, industrial designers, and specialist technicians to create modern construction methods (MMC) and world-class manufacturing (WCM). The final results are these hüga units that are built with reinforced concrete and designed for minimal maintenance as well as reducing your energy costs. These compact homes can withstand all climates and adverse conditions, including earthquakes, wildfires, and hurricanes. Hüga homes are also mobile and modular so much so that you can extend your house in plan in just one day.
Hüga also reduces construction time and any company can use integrate this technology. The goal of this design is to democratize technology with an affordable technological license for professionals or construction companies so that impact can be made on a large scale keeping the environmental impact in mind. This license helps companies with daily monitoring and support from professionals in both construction and sales processes. Both consumers and companies using the system will benefit from any new innovations developed by the Grandio R&D laboratory for free as their community benefit. But it’s not just for homes, Hüga can also be used for commercial functions like cafés or restaurants.
“Hüga technology aims to revolutionize the construction industry, achieving innovation in the final product, in its commercialization, and especially in its manufacturing process. With the use of modern construction methods (MMC) and the efficiency of world-class manufacturing (WCM), all companies in the hüga ecosystem will be able to present disruptive building responses to the current and future demand of our planet. The massive use of this technology will accelerate the urgent changes that our population needs. Hüga technology came to change history in the construction industry. Hüga came to revolutionize our way of living, undertaking, or investing,” concludes the Grandio team. We can imagine Hüga urban villages as the future of sustainable, affordable, and flexible living!
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.
