Hasta La Ideas

An extensive roster of exhilarating events across the Motor City this September

In December 2015, Detroit became the first UNESCO-designated city of design in the United States. The honor recognizes metropolitan areas with a defined design heritage (often pertaining to an influential industry or built environment) and an active contemporary culture that continues to nurture artisans and designers. Six years later, Detroit remains the only certified design city in America—and extensive, exhilarating events like Detroit Month of Design explain why.

Organized by the Design Core Detroit, this citywide network of marquee openings, intimate studio visits, provocative installations and artistic interventions engages the local community and offers future-forward urban solutions. This 11th edition, the largest yet, weaves disparate neighborhoods together and couples emerging artists and designers with established institutions and fledgling exhibition spaces. But the ambitious cross-disciplinary itinerary and its diverse roster of programming do not just connect the dots between the city’s talent for the sake of a party.

“I want more than a celebration,” Kiana Wenzell, director of Detroit Month of Design, tells us over lunch at Baobab Fare. “I want designers to come to the festival ready for business, ready to meet new customers. That’s real change.” Olga Stella, executive director of Design Core Detroit, adds, “There is this idea behind it all, of connecting sponsors like Gucci Changemakers and Foot Locker to Black and Brown and women talent across the city, then providing them mentorship and coaching.” It’s an educational training opportunity; in many cases, it’s a first big commission.

I want more than a celebration. I want designers to come to the festival ready for business.

From the City of Design Competition Neighborhood Showcase (which debuts installations based on concepts that were proposed for a challenge in 2019 that tasked participants with making Detroit safer) to a tour of the resources within the Julian C Madison Building for the Celebrating Detroit’s Black Urban Planners event, inclusivity and the entrepreneurial spirit intermingle. As we traversed the Motor City mid-month, to attend experiences in historic parks and converted elementary schools (and to drink and dine and rest amidst the charms of The Siren Hotel), we came away with several highlights, outlined below, but perhaps the greatest highlight of all was speaking to Detroiters, both eager participants and excited attendees, who look forward to Detroit Month of Design’s growth each and every year.

Morphogenesis at NEXT:SPACE

A mind-bending collision of material and form, meaning and process, Detroit/Chicago-based designer Cody Norman’s Morphogenesis exhibition comes to life amidst the rough walls of what will be the NEXT:SPACE design gallery. Norman produced the organic forms on display by processing recycled plastic through old 3D-printing robots in Pontiac, Michigan.

“I am creating work that operates on my terms in its own imagined world,” Norman tells us, pointing out the textures of each creation. “I imagine this post-collapsed landscaped where plastics have begun to amalgamate into a new species.” These organisms, some equipped with lightbulbs, feel both of the Earth and otherworldly.

Isabelle Weiss, director of NEXT:SPACE, has championed Norman and his experimentation for years. She founded NEXT:SPACE in 2014 to spotlight producers of pioneering but functional objects. Norman’s work certainly aligns with this mission.

Stickwork

In Detroit’s Brightmoor neighborhood, the 250-acre Eliza Howell Park has welcomed guests since it was bequeathed to the city in 1936. Though the city reduced its management of the greenery in 2009, artists and organizations—including Sidewalk Detroit—have stepped in to ensure its future. For Detroit Month of Design, Sidewalk commissioned Stickwork artist Patrick Dougherty to weave a wondrous, artistic wooden structure into its trees.

“Sidewalk Detroit was really excited to bring Patrick Dougherty to Detroit because we’ve been working in Eliza Howell Park for the past five years, focusing on infrastructure improvement—like stormwater management, way-finding, seeding, signage, all that,” Ryan Myers-Johnson, founder and executive director of Sidewalk Detroit, tells us as we stroll through the verdant destination. “The vision is to bring people back to this park and reconnect them with nature. We wanted to find an artist who had a community process where people could take part in the building of the sculpture and have access to the artist, as well. We also wanted to have a work that was environmentally friendly and worked with the natural landscape.”

During our tour of the site, Dougherty and a team of workers and volunteers were building the infrastructure of the forthcoming sculpture. Doughtery works for three weeks, eight hours per day, on his landscape interventions. With this one, 200 to 300 volunteers will join in to assist. First, he builds a ground plan, in this instance with little rooms and outward wisps. Then, “The first three days are for gathering,” he tells us. In Detroit, the team collected materials from other local parks, including those on Belle Isle.

“The rest of the time is spent constructing,” he says. “The actuality emerges as we work. Though we are real clear about the ground plan that we make, the upper reaches of it are serendipitous. We look at what we are doing and ask, ‘How can we maximize this?’ There’s a reactivity to it. We want variation in its movement. This gives the sculpture a lot more excitement to it.” The large-scale, family-friendly work will be complete for 25 September.

Discard Detroit

In a gallery on the ground floor of the Cass Avenue WeWork, the Discard Detroit exhibition finds artist Mike Han, curator Lisa Sauve of the multidisciplinary practice Synecdoche Design and photographer Ryan Southen probing the line between art and design. With his signature artistic style, Han embellished several once-discarded mid-century modern furniture pieces, making them unique and initiating questions of value and authorship.

Han once asked, on a whim, if he could paint a Noguchi table of Sauve’s—and she said yes. “As I was painting it, she said she had more for me to do,” he explains. “They were really personal items that became transformed. This collaboration required a level of trust.” Sauve continued to find pieces which were often abandoned, with previous owners likely unaware of their prescribed value.

“We are seeing this idea truly become the expression that we wanted,” Han continues. “These things that were relegated to storage, they have now been given a new life. They are being cherished and seen in a way that has more value than they did prior. It’s ridiculous because these are icons.”

“How do you incorporate an aesthetic or your voice onto something that is well designed?” he asks, noting that, “We found there’s an element of time that changes value. Once it shifts to the point where they’re no longer cherished, we’ve changed them to reintroduce the idea of being complete, whole again.” Comedically, both Han and Sauve have different ideas on how to address the works: Han tells people not to sit on them; Sauve sits on almost all of them.

To complete the exhibition, Southen (the owner of the Barcelona chair in the exhibit, who pulled it up from his basement) took photos of the modified furniture this February and March. These images hang from the walls. One photo in particular—of the table and chairs in a small, shoveled-out circle surrounded by snow in Detroit’s Hart Plaza—captures the spirit of the collaboration. Not many people know that Noguchi designed Hart Plaza. There, outside in downtown Detroit, the masterful designer’s table finds new life and greater context.

Oudolf Garden

Sprouting between several monuments dedicated to peace (and other tranquil attributes of the public park on Detroit’s Belle Isle), Oudolf Garden is the latest artistic, ecological attraction. During Detroit Month of Design, Oudolf Garden welcomes guests to free guided tours—but the area will remain open to the public afterward. That was its intention from the beginning, when several individuals decided in 2013 that Belle Isle needed support.

Maura Campbell, one of the garden’s organizers from the beginning and its thoughtful spokesperson today, explains that to bring the acclaimed Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf to Detroit, they began by writing him a letter. It began, “This is a love letter from Detroit.” That was in 2016 and the designer visited not long after, to determined where his garden would grow. It has been in development ever since, only recently opening.

“His gardens attract so many people,” Campbell tells us as we pass through contrasting and complementary rows of flora. “Also, guests are looking at this whole area differently now. It’s helped them notice things for the first time. It’s doing exactly what we hoped it would do. Oudolf truly is a designer and an artist—and this is such an intentional landscape.”

Moments of Immersion

Detroit-based artist Yazmin Dababneh’s multi-work Moments of Immersion solo exhibition explores the relationship between static sculpture and moving projection, as well as how they can be used together to create something even more evocative. Surprises abound and each work requires peeking into, looking behind or glancing beyond. One filmic work, which is, in fact, a recording of the process behind another art piece, asks viewers to remove their shoes for a sensory voyage across memory foam.

“I started out with two-dimensional work and then found glass and was mesmerized by the material,” Dababneh tells under a flickering glow on site. “I decided to start working sculpturally. I sort of started playing with the optical qualities of glass and light and projection. But, when COVID happened and I lost access to glass production studios, it forced me to start thinking differently. I would have gotten here eventually, but the pandemic pushed me into this weird, exploratory realm.” Ambient music aligns with the visuals and a moody, cohesive atmosphere swathes them all.

Collected Detroit

It was within Collected Detroit gallery that we stood in awe of (and beside) the 94-year-old artist Artis Lane, and her sculpture of Rosa Parks ascending stairs, at the opening of her current exhibition, Steps Toward Justice: Artis Lane’s Portraits of Rosa Parks. This comprehensive show not only includes portraits and sculptures drawn from Lane’s illustrious career but also offers a glimpse into her personal design process.

Lane—perhaps best known as the artist whose bronze bust of Rosa Parks (who she was friends with) was selected for President Biden’s Oval Office—portrayed many other influential figures in her paintings and sculptures, as well. Through the expansive curatorial efforts, and numerous experiential activities on site, the exhibition aims to help attendees understand the artist as much as the art she produced. Steps Toward Justice will run at Collected Detroit through 23 October.

Finding Identity

After sunset, we found (and others should continue to find, for their own enlightenment) the Finding Identity installation at Durfee Innovation Society, which occupies a former elementary school. Atop the school’s filled-in swimming pool, Reinhardt Swart and Patrick MacBride (lighting designers by trade at SmithGroup) assembled an experiential mylar structure that must be explored in the dark, with the assistance of very small, handheld flashlights.

“This conception started two to three months into COVID,” Swart tells us, after we’d all traipsed across the solid pool and marveled at the reaction of our handheld lamps upon the artifice—mimicking the caustics of light upon moving water. “Patrick and I were roommates at the time and working from home. We were looking for an outlet to express ourselves in some way. We were brainstorming what this period means and kept coming back to this idea of lost time.” Their artwork began with a string and scissors—still a central part of the concept today—and expanded as they began to process what it means to be disassociated from days of the week, their universal order and uniquely personal meanings.

The installation grants guests a strange sense of control, set into expectations of the unknown, as they amble through the room that houses the pool. Swart DJs the music behind it all. Although it functions on a deeply cerebral level, it can be enjoyed by anyone interested in exploration.

Hero image by David Graver

British practice Invisible Studio has completed a home on Cornwall’s northern coast, clad in local slate and copper to appear hewn from the surrounding craggy landscape.

Invisible Studio built the House with Courtyards into a steeply sloping site overlooking Polzeath Beach, and inserted a series of internal courtyards to create external spaces sheltered from the prevailing wind.

Around these courtyards, a cluster of blocks topped with irregularly pitched roofs is united by a central axis.“This layout allows for framed elongated views through the home and out to sea, creating contrasting conditions between private courtyards and open living areas.

“Large, glazed elements make up much of the front facade, offering uninterrupted coastal vistas, while a series of courtyards are plunged into the building… they also become a part of the living spaces, bringing the outside in,” said the studio.

The home is accessed by crossing a small bridge over a light well that illuminates a small lower ground floor space. A stepped route then leads up the site’s southern edge and connects to a large terrace overlooking the sea.On the ground floor, the living space opens out onto this northwest-facing terrace. Bedrooms and bathrooms are tucked further into the building, with the largest located at its eastern end.

Lightweight steel staircases lead to the first floor, where a kitchen sits above the living areas. Further bedrooms are arranged around the central corridor, which creates a new relationship to the courtyards by looking down onto them.

Spaces on this level sit beneath white ceilings that express the irregularly pitched roofs atop the home’s blocks, punctured with skylights.

The home sits on a base of rough slate, with the floors above clad primarily in Delabole Slate tiles from a nearby quarry.

The roof and window openings are finished in copper that has been allowed to weather.

“Our client wanted a home that felt embedded in the landscape, which could also focus all attention out to the majestic views formed by the sea and ever-changing light across the season and a single day,” said Invisible Studio founder Piers Taylor.

“It’s a complicated building which may appear simple because we limited the amount of materials used.”

The home’s interiors were also designed by the studio, which described the building as a “holistic architectural project”.

Exposed board-marked concrete is used to finish the walls and create a central hearth in the living room.

Smooth concrete has been applied to finish floors throughout, and is contrasted by bright polished copper on cupboard doors and a series of inlet shelves in the kitchen.

Invisible Studio’s founder Taylor also recently carried out an extensive retrofit of Moonshine, his own off-grid home near Bath, to make it more sustainable.

The photography is by Jim Stephenson.

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Italian architect Carlo Ratti has defended his decision to design an exhibition about climate change sponsored by fossil-fuel giant Eni, saying the Milan design week installation is “not greenwashing”.

Held in the Brera Botanical Garden, the Natural Capital installation features large bubbles suspended next to different plant species, detailing how much carbon dioxide they absorb from the atmosphere.

Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) characterises it as a “walkable data visualisation” that quantifies how individual plants contribute to the fight against climate change. The size of the bubble corresponds to the amount of carbon dioxide each plant captures and stores in its lifecycle.

The bubbles are made of thin recyclable film and their appearance is meant to recall the shape of oxygen atoms, released by plants during photosynthesis.

The project is sponsored by Eni, which is one of the world’s seven biggest oil and gas producers and one of 100 companies responsible for 71 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Alone, it is responsible for 0.59 per cent of them.

CRA founder Ratti defended Eni’s involvement in the project because the fossil-fuel company is “serious about their carbon transition process”.

Eni has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2050, in line with the European Union’s climate target.

It runs forestry conservation programmes and is transforming some of its oil refineries into bio-refineries, where biomaterials such as plant-based oils, animal fats, used cooking oils and algae extracts are processed for fuels.

“I believe that their initiatives are not greenwashing but part of a true conversation process that is ongoing,” Ratti told Dezeen.

“I believe that they are serious in their carbon transition process and if so they could play a key role in the future decarbonisation of society, in particular in Italy and southern Europe where they are market leaders.”

Oil and gas companies have been coming under fire recently for aligning themselves to environmental exhibitions.

In May, an exhibition on climate change technology at London’s Science Museum was protested by environmental activists due to its sponsorship by the oil company Shell.

Scientists from Extinction Rebellion locked themselves inside the museum, arguing that it should cut all ties with such companies because it provided a smokescreen for their ongoing oil and gas exploration, and because of their track record of obstructing action on climate change.

A freedom of information request subsequently showed that Shell’s contract with the Science Museum prohibited the institution from doing or saying anything that would damage the company’s reputation.

However, Ratti stressed the differences between Shell and Eni, and in the themes of the exhibitions.

“Eni has a large business unit dedicated to forestry, and it contributes to offsetting its hard-to-abate emissions,” said Ratti.

“Therefore, we think they could legitimately support a project that explores the role of forests in the global carbon balance of the planet.”

Ratti said that Eni provided the theme for the installation – forests – and the site in the Brera Botanical Garden, but that CRA worked with complete freedom.

For the data aspect of the project, the Turin-based design and innovation office collaborated with researchers at the University of Milan, who assessed the ability of various plant species in the garden to sequester carbon dioxide.

CRA has partnered with Eni before, at Milan design week 2019, for which they presented the Circular Garden structure made of mushroom mycelium.

Natural Capital continues at the Brera Botanical Garden until 12 September as part of the INTERNI Creative Connections exhibition. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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August was an exciting month at Yanko Design. We came across innovative and intriguing designs that left a lasting impression on our minds. 2021 ends in a couple of months, and the design industry hasn’t disappointed a bit this year! Our curiosity and interest are piqued – what will the remainder of the year bring us? Are new horizons going to be discovered and boundaries pushed in the design world? And what will these experiments in creativity eventually lead to? As we keep our fingers crossed, and hope to be thoroughly impressed, let’s appreciate the best designs that we have come across till now! Here’s a collection of the designs we absolutely loved in the month of August. Each of these designs touched a chord within us. From a sleek quiet solar generator to keep your home appliances running during a power outage to a portable laser engraver that lets you customize almost anything – not only do these innovative product designs address unique problems but also promise to make our daily lives a little better. We hope you enjoy them as well!

Portable EV chargers have caught pace in the last few years, and the A-monite, a concept for a portable electric vehicle fast charger is one fine example of how the intention is altering and is revolutionizing the way people think of electric vehicle ownership. A portable charger like the A-monite removes the question of where, when, and how out of actually charging the electric vehicle. It taps into the lack of charging infrastructure so that a vehicle does not have to be towed to a charging station – if it’s stranded on the highway. Instead, it can be powered up, right there and then with a portable charger in the boot of the car. It is an interesting alternative to the fixed stands installed in the parking lots, buildings, and in outdoors.

The Generark HomePower 2 is a backup battery for your home that’s cheaper than setting up a generator or shelling $12,000 on a Tesla Powerwall, it’s also classier and less noisy than those gas-powered generators that definitely seem archaic. Standing at roughly 2 feet tall and weighing a pretty commendable 45 pounds (20 kilos), the Generark HomePower 2 comes with an electric-vehicle-grade high-performance Lithium-ion NMC battery that can power 99% of your home appliances (even the heavy-duty ones). It doesn’t require installation or even a permit and can be carried or wheeled around the house depending on where you need it. Each Generark comes with 4 AC outlets, 2 USB-A ports, 2 USB-C ports, and a 12V/10A car outlet to power a host of devices.

Dim the lights and switch the Gingko Smart Moon Lamp on and it quite literally looks like you’ve got a supermoon inside your home! Its gravity-defying levitating design completes the illusion, creating a pretty remarkable-looking prop that’s great for decor as well as photography! The floating moon comes 3D printed from translucent PLA, complete with craters and undulating surface details to make it look like the real thing, and it floats on its base too, gently rotating as a planetary object would. 140mm (5.5 inches) in diameter, the moon floats on a wooden base made of dark walnut or light ash wood, suspended in place by a strong rare-earth magnet.

Designed by Acasso, this wireless charging pad features a beautiful suede leather pillow! A machined aluminum base is accentuated by a soft suede pillow, creating a mesmerizing contrast. It’s an aesthetic twist on the sleek and techy-looking charging pads we’ve grown so accustomed to. It’s the perfect design for those who want their smartphone accessories to not only do the job but also look mighty fine while doing it! The charger is available in two subtle colors – mint and lavender. Wouldnt this be the ideal companion for the newly launched iPhone 13 family and their exciting range of colors?!

RA Laser Z3 is a compact and portable laser engraving tool with an open base design so that anyone can laser engrave their products from anywhere for any reason. Before use, the RA Laser Z3 folds down to the height of a closed book. When users unfold the RA Laser Z3 to engrave an item, the bulk of the laser opens up just like a book as the engraving module swings out to form an L-shape. From there, users position the products they’d like to engrave beneath the bottom rectangular frame. Designed with an open base, the RA Laser Z3 is prepared for users to engrave products of any size, from iPhones to dog tags.

Designed by industrial design team KIWI DESIGN, the portable washer employs a quick sanitization technology to do the dirty job of cleaning your messy underwear, vest, and socks in a jiffy. Anything that fits the small dryer and washer is good to go –handkerchiefs, masks, or gloves being one. The bottom section of the portable machine made from super-elastic nickel-titanium alloy expands to the shape of an inverted lampshade to support the drying bag. Since sanitation is an integral part of our current lifestyle, the portable dryer gets rid of any bacterial or fungal build-up in the undergarments thanks to the high-temperature sanitization. This in fact doubles as a dryer for the clothing in the consequent step. In just 15-30 minutes the gadget readies you for a fresh start to the day.

Remember CDs? They pretty much dominated the early 2000s, and though most of us have abandoned them, they’re still a few nostalgia lovers out there who manage to find some use for CDs! And this CD case by Bratus Agency for GBOX Studios is a pretty unique one. The origami-inspired CD case is not only interesting to use, but also interesting to make! You could try creating it at home with some stationery paper. It’s also sustainable and recyclable!

The tiny measuring device comes with a design and form factor that’s highly reminiscent of the rather iconic Motorola Aura from 2008. Its distinctly familiar design aside, the MEAZOR is an incredibly powerful measuring device, capable of accurately scanning floor plans, measuring small and large distances (even on curved paths), working as a contour gauge and saving all your metrics to your phone. Its curved design sports a wheel on one side (that lets you measure distances by rolling on surfaces), and a laser gauge on the other side (working as an accurate 2D scanner and laser measurer). Sitting between them is a circular multi-touch display, and a single button interface that allows you to measure distances, save the metrics, and share them to your phone.

Partnering with Japan-based startup ViXion, Nendo has unveiled an eponymously named mixed-reality headset that’s designed specifically for people with reduced visibility. ViXion is a sleek headset that helps the legally blind (or people suffering from night blindness) see around them. The headset comes with a camera that captures the world ahead of the wearer, while an internal processor increases the visibility of the footage by amping up the brightness and the contrast, and projects the images onto the wearer’s eyes, allowing them to see better.

Named after its inspiration, the Kero from Gantri is a lamp that’s equal parts retro and modern. The origins of its design come from the antique kerosene-based lamps used popularly in the 1800s, while its modern element is ostensibly its minimal design (created by Elvin Chu of studio noun), and the fact that the lamp runs on modern LEDs instead of burning kerosene. Manufactured by Gantri, the lamp’s body is 3D printed too (out of the proprietary Gantri Plant Polymers) and comes in either black, sand, or the iconic red.

For the first time ever, the Salone del Mobile furniture fair this year hosted an entire showcase dedicated to graduate design including students from 48 different schools and 22 different countries.

More than 170 projects by recent graduates were on display at The Lost Graduation Show, which formed part of the trade show’s special “Supersalone” edition during Milan design week.

As many students who graduated in the past year were unable to showcase their work at a physical degree show due to the coronavirus pandemic, the exhibition was conceived as a way to make up for this loss.

Set up in the middle of one of the fair halls, amongst the stands showcasing consumer goods, it included projects ranging from hempcrete stools to an experimental sports car and a sanitary pad washing device for refugees.

Many of the projects focused on important topics such as climate change, future technologies and sustainable development, curator Anniina Koivu told Dezeen.

“There were a lot of utopian ideas flying about, which they didn’t shy away from testing,” said Koivu, who was invited to create The Lost Graduation show by Supersalone curator Stefano Boeri.

“There were a lot of projects related to the human body and wellbeing, and a lot of medical awareness as well, which I hadn’t expected.”

Another key concern for students was rethinking production methods, which Koivu attributes to the unique circumstances under which the projects were created.

“One issue was having access to [production] facilities because of the pandemic and the difficulty for graduates to get into the industry to have access to industrial production,” she explained.

This allowed students to experiment with more local, small-scale production that is often better for the planet.

The show marked the first time that students were able to showcase their work at Salone, the world’s largest and most important furniture fair.

Projects were chosen based on an open call in June, which drew responses from 300 schools in 59 countries.

For Koivu, it was important that the final selection should be as international as possible.

“As Salone has a global reach, it would be a pity to exclude people,” she said. “I’m also not so sure that I believe in the idea of, for example, Italian design or Dutch design anymore.”

“I don’t think it’s possible to distinguish what nationality lies behind the projects because the topics the graduates are working on are so universal,” she added.

An international jury selected five students to be the overall winners of The Lost Graduation Show.

Simon Gehring from Germany’s State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart won for his Regrowth table, which combines computational design and leftover materials from the forestry industry.

Also awarded was Robust Nest, an incubator for hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa by Fabien Roy from Swiss design school ÉCAL, and the Fil Rouge project by Pierre Murot from ENSCI in Paris, which investigates the process of clay extrusion.

Other projects to take home a trophy include Helix, a disposable monomaterial syringe and needle designed by Ithzel Ceròn and Daniel Lopez from Mexico’s Tecnológico de Monterrey, as well as Amna Yandarbin‘s Yolkkh silk scarves, which are printed with drawings that illustrate her family history.

As well as being on display at the centre of Supersalone, The Lost Graduation show was also published on an Instagram account of the same name.

The Lost Graduation Show is one of only a handful of degree shows to take place physically this year while the rest were held on digital platforms such as Dezeen’s school shows.

At Milan design week, visitors could also enjoy student projects in real life at the Missed Your Call showcase by Design Academy Eindhoven graduates and at the Alcova exhibition, which included a reimagined milk bar from Stanley Kubrick’s film A Clockwork Orange.

The Lost Graduation Show was on display at Salone del Mobile from 5 to 10 September. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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