English-Nigerian singer-songwriter and producer Samm Henshaw brings plenty of vintage soul and gospel-inspired back-up vocals to his latest lush tune, “Grow.” He says, it’s “just a song about understanding that the hard parts of a relationship (any relationship) are necessary for growth and strength and that we shouldn’t give up at the first sign of trouble.” The uplifting bop is the second tune from his Untidy Soul series.
To reduce carbon emissions, architects and designers need to change the way they design homes, writes Geraldine de Boisse, vice president of innovation at renewable-energy supplier Bulb.
The way we live and work has changed. While we might not know exactly what normal looks like anymore, we know we need to act now to tackle the climate crisis. And that includes everyone in every industry.
Great design isn’t enough. We need homes and offices that will get us to net-zero. Construction work accounts for 36 per cent of global energy use and 39 per cent of CO2 emissions. It’s therefore crucial to future-proof buildings and make them green. That includes changing the way we design, power and heat our homes and offices.
Until now, most of the gains we’ve made in tackling the climate crisis haven’t affected people’s daily lives. Thanks to the massive increase in renewable energy, which now powers around 30 per cent of UK homes compared to just one per cent in 2015, many countries have been able to reduce emissions without disrupting the way we live.
The gains we’ve made in tackling the climate crisis haven’t affected people’s daily lives
The next stage will require more personal change, and governments have an important role to play in setting the policy and financial incentives. To reach the Paris Agreement goals by 2050, existing homes will need deep retrofits including better insulation, upgraded windows, heat pumps, solar panels and electric vehicle chargers. New homes will feature these as standard.
This means that homes will look different in future, requiring different design approaches. Designers will need to think creatively about how to integrate these new products.
In the UK, from 2025, no new gas boilers will be installed in new UK homes; instead, we’ll move towards using electricity for heating. Heat pumps, popular in several Nordic countries as well as the US, will become commonplace. It’s important to factor this in when drawing up new plans for properties.
We’ll see more people generating their own electricity using solar panels, and storing it in electric car batteries, or home batteries. More people will sell electricity back to power grids when demand is highest. At Bulb, we’re trialling home battery technology for our members with solar panels. Designs will need to incorporate ways for people to generate, manage and store their own power.
Globally, heat accounts for nearly half of all energy consumption
Insulation will have to get better. Without good insulation, heat escapes from roofs, floors and walls, increasing the amount of energy needed to heat buildings. Globally, heat accounts for nearly half of all energy consumption and almost 40 per cent of carbon emissions from energy. While insulation can be incorporated into new buildings, retrofitting older homes is costly and disruptive, so governments need to provide better financial incentives, like scrapping VAT on green products. For new builds, designs should optimise energy efficiency and maximise insulation.
Switching to renewable energy is the fastest and cheapest way to lower your CO2 impact at home or in the office. It could lower your carbon emissions by 3.2 tonnes of carbon a year at home and reduce your business’ emissions by around 40 per cent.
Next, ask your energy supplier if you’re eligible to have a smart meter installed at home or in the office. Smart meters help lower bills and reduce carbon emissions. Smart meters show where you use the most energy, so you can take steps to reduce it.
The simple act of turning down the thermostat act could lower your bills and your carbon emissions
When restyling an interior, it’s important to configure spaces that’ll mean you’re able to cut down on carbon and do your bit for the planet. Having your desk near a window away from the sun in the summer will mean you don’t have to use fans or air conditioning; positioning sofas and chairs away from radiators in the winter will allow the heat from your radiator to warm the room as a whole, rather than just the back of furniture.
And installing insulation will keep your home or office warm in the winter and cool in the summer, as well as reducing your energy bills and cutting your carbon emissions. You can also look at replacing windows and doors, or switching to a heat pump.
Whether at home or the office, the simple act of turning down the thermostat act could lower your bills and your carbon emissions. Turning an office thermostat down by just two degrees would save £140 on a £1,000 bill, and by turning your thermostat at home down by one degree, you could save around £90 per year. Or get a smart thermostat, which will adapt to how you like to heat your home and show you the most efficient temperature.
When choosing lighting, there’s a trick to ensure you’re not wasting energy and being inefficient with your lighting choice: LED bulbs are up to 65 per cent more efficient than standard lighting. You can also avoid lighting empty rooms by using occupancy sensors. Install daylight sensors to dim lights automatically in bright or outdoor spaces, and if you’re thinking about renovations, consider splitting lights onto smaller circuits with more switches. This gives you more flexibility to split your space into different zones, and have fewer lights on.
To achieve net-zero, all industry bodies need to come together and play their part
If you’ve already switched from a diesel or petrol car to an electric one then well done – you’re already doing your bit to reduce your carbon footprint. You can go one step further by charging your car at the cheapest, greenest time of the day. At Bulb, we’re trialling EV technology that allows you to order a stylish home charger, connect your car to our app, and automatically charge when demand is lowest on the grid.
To achieve net-zero, all industry bodies need to come together and play their part. In the design world, there’s an opportunity to balance great design with energy efficiency to future-proof buildings. The future of homes and buildings will be different, but for the better. We’re at a crucial time now where designers need to get on board. In today’s world, it’s not just about having a beautiful interior; sustainability should be taking priority.
Geraldine de Boisse is vice president of innovation at UK renewable energy supplier Bulb. She has a MSc from ESCP Europe and an MBA from INSEAD.
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.
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You might have seen this cutesy ceiling decal…
…or this ceiling fan…
…but whomever came up with this has got ’em all beat:
Via the entertaining Awful Taste But Great Execution subreddit.
Dezeen promotion: Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Sissel Tolaas and Joseph Grima were some of the creative minds who gathered in Venice last month to take part in a two-part panel discussion hosted by Therme Art.
Held during the Venice Architecture Biennale, the discussions took place as part of Therme Art’s Wellbeing Culture Forum – a programme that explores the role of culture, art, design and architecture in promoting health and wellbeing in urban populations.
They brought together experts from the fields of architecture, activism, art and design and science to answer this year’s biennale’s over-arching question: How will we live together?
The discussion was split into two parts, called Mutual Aid and Resurrecting the Sublime – both names taken from exhibitions held during the biennale – and co-moderated by Therme Art‘s CEO and curator Mikolaj Sekutowicz and the artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Botanist Stefano Manusco kicked off the discussion by stressing the urgent need for humans to rekindle a more symbiotic relationship with the natural world.
“Just two per cent of the surface of the earth is covered by towns,” he told the audience.
“From this two per cent comes 80 per cent of the CO2, 80 per cent of the waste and it consumes 80 per cent of the resources of the world. So it’s clear that if we want to solve the environmental problems we need to work on the towns.”
“This is about a change of perspective,” said Manusco. “We often think about protecting forests, which is, of course, something we have to do but to solve the environmental problems we have to change the idea of the town.”
“How can we stop all of this carbon dioxide? By using trees,” he continued. “Trees are the only thing on the planet that can take CO2 from the atmosphere and put it into the wood and onto the soil. This is the solution, we have the data, we know we have to plant 1,000 billion trees, which is not so much – we have space, we have the money, and this would change everything.”
Demonstrating how scientists and designers are working to create more sustainable building solutions, art patron Maja Hoffmann, then talked of how new materials made from salt, sunflowers and algae developed at the Luma Foundation in Arles have been applied to the interior of the creative hub’s new stainless-steel tower designed by Frank Gehry.
Nina Gualinga, environmentalist and indigenous rights defender, explained how society can learn from the indigenous people around the world, who have been living in balance with nature for centuries.
“Indigenous people make up four per cent of the world’s population but protect more than 80 per cent of the world’s remaining biodiversity,” she said.
“A lot of climate change and the issues that we are facing today come from, to some degree, colonisation,” she continued. “It comes from the displacement of local people living there. [companies and governments] grabbing that land, taking it, exploiting it, taking out the fossil fuels from the ground.”
“We have to look for answers from the people that don’t only protect the land biodiversity and forests but are also the first ones impacted and most impacted by this system. It happened in my community but it happens all over the world.”
The second half of the talk, took its name – Resurrecting the sublime – from an installation put together by Sissel Tolaas, Christina Agapakis, and Ginsberg. The project saw the team recreate the lost scents of extinct flower specimens collected from Harvard University’s Herbaria library.
The Mutual Aid took place at the Venice Architecture Biennale
The installation asked what other regenerative actions could be elicited in the revitalisation of our natural ecosystems and how we can use biotechnology and art as a tool to deepen empathy and our responsibility to the planet.
Other participants in the talks included architect Grima; media artist and designer Refik Anadol; artist Not Vital; cultural historian Salome Rodeck; Anab Jain, designer, futurist, filmmaker, educator and co-founder of Superflux; Marianne Krogh, art historian and curator of the Danish Pavilion; Hala Wardé, architect, designer and curator of the Lebanese pavilion.
The talk was the latest in Therme Art’s Wellbeing Culture Forum talk series. Therme Art is the creative arm of the Therme Group and commissioning art and architecture to its spa baths and resorts around the world.
Partnership content
This article was written by Dezeen for Therme Art as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.
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I’m one of the armchair critics who thinks the yoke-style steering wheel offered on the Tesla Model S is a terrible idea. But I don’t own a Tesla, and have never tried the yoke. Model S owner Deji Akingbade loves the new steering wheel, and demonstrates why in this review:
I don’t know about “easier,” but I can see how it’s maybe more fun or pleasurable to use while leisurely cruising around in a low-traffic environment. But how does it work out in an emergency situation? Let’s say you’re about to hit something with no time to fully brake; in my rural case, say a deer suddenly steps into the road and I have to swerve left to avoid it, then right to get out of the oncoming-traffic lane. Is the wheel as easy to grab and control at a second’s notice?
What I find troubling about the yoke design is that it seems to trade safety for novelty.
Dezeen Showroom: Patricia Urquiola has created the Vieques Outdoor bathroom collection for Agape based on her designs for a Caribbean spa resort.
The centrepiece of the Vieques Outdoor collection is a stainless steel bathtub, which Urquiola originally created as part of her interior design for the W Retreat Spa on the island of Vieques.
The piece was designed as a contemporary take on old-fashioned outdoor tin tubs. Its structure is made of stainless steel and given a clean and minimalist appearance.
The collection also includes two washbasins – a column design for floor drainage and a round version for countertops.
All the pieces are available in the same colour palette, either painted all white or with white on the interior and dark or light grey on the exterior.
The bathtub is available in two sizes. The standard size is 171 by 62.5 centimetres, while the Vieques XS is 155 by 67.5 centimetres.
An iroko wood backrest and shelf are optional accessories for the tub and can be installed on its edge.
Product: Vieques Outdoor
Designer: Patricia Urquiola
Brand: Agape
Contact: info@agape.org.uk
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.
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Due to COVID, Olympic medalists in Tokyo will have to put their medals on themselves. That’s a first. Another is that the podium they’ll be standing on is 3D printed, and made from recycled plastic gathered by the Japanese public, including plastic waste fished out of the ocean.
The podium, designed by architect, artist and designer Asao Tokolo, does indeed appear different.
But looking at it, I realize I can’t recall what a single other Olympic podium looked like. So here’s what I found in the Olympic archives for the Summer games, and you can see the progression in design styles.
Okay, podium design was clearly not a high priority in ’88. But at least they color-coded the tops and numbered them.
Numbered, but apparently the only paint they had was blue and white. Basic AF.
Atlanta ditches both the numbers and the color-coding, but goes logo-heavy. Welcome to America.
Sydney’s is probably the best design for those with small TV screens; you can still clearly see which podium is which. But I also realize, looking at previously color-coded podium designs, that there’s no consensus on what color “bronze” is.
I think I’ve seen better props at grade school plays! This looks like someone bought a new color printer and was excited to experiment with it. I expected more from the town that hosted the first Olympics.
Who’d have thought it would be Beijing that introduced innovation? Here they’ve done something different than all of the others thus far: They introduced a small shadowing detail in the individual podium layers that, when multiplied over a larger assembly, creates a visually interesting pattern. It’s almost a metaphor for the power of the masses.
London goes full-blown designey. You can hear a British art director shouting at the fabricators: “More facets, gents!” or “Warp speed ahead!”
Rio goes craftsy and, well, they can get away with it; it’s Rio. No one would expect anything less than fun and festive.
Asao explains his design:
“The key concept here was ‘connection.’ For instance, a polka-dot pattern is made up of ‘individual’ circles that are laid out to form ‘groups’ of circles. The way they are aligned is determined by ‘rules.’ Rules, as in sports, are certain restrictions that serve as an essential platform. The proactive rules in my case were based on simple arithmetic-level geometry, or maths-level geometry when things became a bit more complex. The rules were a means of expression. This seems analogous to society. Rules exist to forge beautiful connections and create beautiful things.”
Paris, the ball’s in your court for 2024.
Here’s some trivia you can throw around at a bar, whenever we get back to those:
– The Olympics contests used to include art competitions! The categories were Architecture, Literature, Music, Painting and Sculpture. These ran from 1912 to 1954, when they were discontinued because Olympic competitors were supposed to be amateurs, and artistic competitors were considered professionals in their fields.
Pierre de Coubertin. Image: Dutch National Archives – CC BY-SA 3.0 nl
– Pierre de Coubertin (a/k/a Baron de Coubertin), a French aristocrat, won a Gold Medal in the 1912 Olympics in the Literature category. He had to submit under a pseudonym because he himself was the President of the International Olympic Committee at the time.
– Coubertin designed the Olympics symbol we know around 1914, and it was implemented at the 1920 Olympic games at Antwerp.
– The five rings symbolize the “five” continents that compete in the Olympics; the Americas have been elided.
– According to the International Society of Olympic Historians, Coubertin wrote that the six colors of the symbol (six counting the white background) were specifically chosen for the following reason:
“The six colours…reproduce the colours of every country [competing at that time] without exception. The blue and yellow of Sweden, the blue and white of Greece, the tricolor flags of France, England, the United States, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Hungary, and the yellow and red of Spain are included, as are the innovative flags of Brazil and Australia, and those of ancient Japan and modern China. This, truly, is an international emblem.”
One of the things I miss the most is the smell my neighborhood coffee shop entices with. While our lifestyle is returning to normal, I still don’t feel comfortable entering crowded places, including the aforementioned coffee shop. With the idea of a modular café – the designers prefer to call Oblige – we can decrease the load from our kitchen and get the best of what the café down the street promises. How do you ask? By creating one sleek appliance, you can easily install it anywhere in your home without worrying about connecting multiple power/water outlets to keep it functioning!
Meet the Oblige, an entertainment space where homeowners can depict their personal traits by customizing the modular appliance to their individual lifestyle or living space. The modular cafe intends to go beyond the idea of the basic functions the appliances in your kitchen perform. The designers behind Oblige feel setting up a café at home is inconvenient for now because it’s not easy to set up space with all the appliances required. Connecting them all to water and electrical sources is another headache. Simply thinking of brewing a good coffee – you need a list of appliances – from your coffee grinder, the pod-maker, espresso brewer, milk frother, and more, depending on your choice!
Oblige lets the user select and combine an appliance (ice maker, soda maker, water purifier, coffee grinder, espresso machine, kettle, and oven) as per their convenience and preference. If the need arises, users can combine more modules to cater to their extended demand while retaining visually similar aesthetics. These products club up together with a simple mechanism in the bottom; adding and removing them or installing the café setup on modular furniture outside the kitchen is feasible as Oblige will work on one power and water supply connection, irrespective of the interconnected modules needed in the setup.
If you’re looking to achieve a café-like experience, to quench the urge of working out of a Starbucks, an Oblige can really oblige you through the setup one day. It’s the designer’s vision to partner with furniture and lifestyle companies going forward to deliver, say, a LEGO-style modular café for your apartment someday.
Designer: Soo Jung Hwang, Seongyong Lee, Ki-Beom Hwang
When you think turntables in 2021, you get a flashback of vintage visuals and it is not something you might associate with modern music listening. Well, meet RMV – a turntable designed to blend the retro and modern vibe, hence the initials! By combining the past turntable and modern technology, RMV brings the past and the present together in a naturally harmonious manner.
“RMW” is a product that allows people to feel both analog and digital sensibilities unique to turntable. RMW can enjoy music using mediums such as mobile phones, headsets and speakers that users use using Bluetooth principles. It is not heavier than traditional turntable in form, and it is designed to suit the interior by pursuing spatiality and morphological sophistication with minimal design. We selected the color of the product, black and white, which are not widely divided between men and women of all ages. In addition, we selected black and white colors to make it basic and most harmonious for interior design.
Product button: To help users approach the product quickly, conveniently, and familiarly, and to quickly understand the product, we used a direct UI on the buttons of the product. Also, I added orange for white and red for black to highlight the product that may look a bit plain. Unusual features: Turntable was enjoyable to watch LPs spin. In order to add joy and freshness to the user, RMW incorporates digital into the existing turntable’s tonearm movement method, giving a little more digital feel than conventional analog, allowing analog and digital feel to harmonize. Back button: We added a back button for users who want to use more functions and get to know more about the turntable. You can enjoy the turntable with more functions using the button on the back.
Attachment method: The size of the turntable is larger than users think. Many users feel uncomfortable because it takes up a lot of space when placed on a table or something. To solve this problem, RMV was designed to attach to the wall, and it was also made using screws and bolts and stickers. In order to maintain the simplicity of the design intention of the product, I designed the holder and the product information. It is kept simple by selecting and marking the necessary product information without being noticeable.
Designers: Sang Keun Kim, Kyung Jun Lee and Cheon Ryong Choi
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