Dezeen promotion: a Foster + Partners hotel in Saudi Arabia and a series of private bungalows in Mozambique that celebrate African minimalism are among the hotels celebrated in the 2021 edition of the AHEAD MEA awards.

AHEAD, which stands for the Awards for Hospitality Experience and Design, celebrates striking hospitality projects from across the world.

The winners of this year’s Middle East and Africa region awards were announced at an in-person ceremony held at Caesars Forum Bluewaters Dubai on 9 September.

The ceremony was attended by hoteliers, architects and designers from across the region and included a lively panel debate on development trends in the region before the winners were announced.

Selected by a panel of judges, the winning projects showcase the best new hotel designs from across the region. The biggest winner of the night was design-led hotel Sussurro, which took home three awards the Landscaping and Outdoor Spaces, Resort Hotel, and the AHEAD MEA 2021 Hotel of the Year award.

Situated on the tropical beach of a secluded saltwater lagoon in Southern Mozambique, Sussurro’s private bungalows provide over a thousand square feet of personal space and generous waterfront verandahs.

“The hotel was built and is now serviced by the community and the team commit to only using 100 per cent African materials,” said the award organisers.

The judges praised Sussurro as a “perfect example of African minimalism with incredible attention to detail and craftsmanship”.

A development built on an archipelago of more than 90 islands won the New Concept Award.

Called Coral Bloom by the Red Sea, the project in Saudi Arabia includes a resort designed by Foster + Partners and is expected to have its first hotels open in 2022.

The 6-star St Regis Cairo designed by US practice Michael Graves Architecture and Design won two awards for its opulent Event Spaces and Lobby and Public Spaces that feature a 250,000-piece Swarovski crystal chandelier and a sweeping stair with a curving glass-block and bronze railing.

Singita Sabora Tented Camp scooped the Lodges, Cabins and Tented Camps award as well as the Visual Identity award. The judges praised the safari camp for “remaining true to the concept of a canvas lodge that touches the earth lightly”.

They also appreciated how the mix of colour and tones used in the design reflects the surrounding nature. Parisian design firm Jouin Manku’s work at the iconic The Churchill Bar at La Mamounia Marrakech won in the Bar and Restaurant categories.

The firm led the hotel’s recent major renovation to its public spaces and F&B venues, which now include an underground wine bar and two new restaurants helmed by three Michelin-starred chef Jean-Georges. It was the hotel’s L’Asiatique restaurant that caught the judge’s eye for its “epicurious and sensual dining experience”.

Appreciated by the judges for its “bravery”, Hotel Indigo Downtown Dubai won in the Hotel Newbuild category. Its interiors, which include mother of pearl bathrooms inspired by the industry that made Dubai famous, were said to bring “regional art to the forefront whilst showing a spirit of creativity and collaboration”.

To learn more about the AHEAD Awards, visit its website.

Partnership content

This article was written by Dezeen for AHEAD Awards as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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It makes sense that this is called the Hong Kong Chair, as that’s a city where every square centimeter of interior space counts. Created by Belgian designer Sander Nevejans, it’s just 2cm thick when folded. “The cold drawn Italian steel not only provides the chair’s strength,” writes Nevejans, who grew up working in his family’s metal fabrication business, “it also adds to its elegant styling within [an interior].”

For those who prefer armrests, Nevejans also designed this Sydney Lounge Chair, which also folds down to 2cm.

Both chairs are powder-coated and feature European Oak as the wood. They were supposed to launch this year, but production has presumably been delayed by the pandemic.

Doesn’t it strike you as odd that Xiaomi would randomly drop such a massive product teaser just a day before Apple’s September event? And hold their own even a day AFTER Apple announced the new iPhone? I’m not an expert analyst, but it seems like they’re trying to beat Apple to the punch, given that a lot of people are expecting Apple to launch their own smart glasses soon. The announcement a day before and the event a day after Apple’s California Streaming event is just Xiaomi’s way of rolling its sleeves up and trying to grab the news cycle by its horns before Apple floods the internet. Moreover, the Smart Glasses also end up firing shots at Facebook, who just announced their own camera-enabled wayfarers with RayBan. Gossip and speculation aside, here’s what the Xiaomi Smart Glasses are all about.

Designed to look like a regular pair of eyewear, Xiaomi’s Smart Glasses actually come with a holographic display built into them. The tiny MicroLED display (which Xiaomi says is smaller than a grain of rice) is built into the temple stem, and reflects a simple UI onto the right eyepiece of the glasses. The specially crafted eyepiece uses a series of microscopic “optical waveguides” to project the display into your eye, allowing only you to see the augmented reality elements when you wear the glasses.

The Smart Glasses come with a rather bare-basics interface, although it’s still incredibly advanced for its time (not to mention the fact that Xiaomi managed to fit all this technology into a ridiculously slim piece of eyewear). The holographic display can display messages, alerts, notifications, and time, although Xiaomi’s most impressive flex was showcasing a live translate feature, that took an English food menu and overlaid the Chinese translations on top of it. Aside from the MicroLED holographic display, the Smart Glasses also come with a camera lens that captures the world around you, allowing you to not just take pictures, but also analyze images and text. Whether all that live translation and processing power happens within the spectacles themselves is yet to be determined, although we can expect much more information on the 15th, when Xiaomi holds its product event.

For now, the Smart Glasses are just a concept teaser with no price, no tech specs, and no foreseeable launch date.

La biennale Photoclimat, qui aura lieu du 18 septembre au 17 octobre pour sa première édition, se propose de mener une réflexion photographique sur des thématiques urgentes liées au climat et aux effets de sa dérèglementation sur nos vies. Des sècheresses aux pénuries alimentaires, en passant par les catastrophes environnementales, les défis des prochaines années seront de taille et toucheront l’humanité toute entière, en pesant lourdement sur les moins favorisés. Photoclimat se propose de sensibiliser par le poids de l’image. C’est un parcours à travers onze lieux en plein cœur de Paris et six institutions du Grand Paris. Y seront exposés une trentaine d’artistes engagés dont les œuvres participent à mettre en lumière des enjeux environnementaux et sociaux. Toutes les expositions sont organisées selon le principe du recyclage et de la réduction maximale de déchets.

© Nicolas Henry Kitihawa’s Chandelier

© Namsa Leuba Damien NGL

Finaliste pour le prix Dahindhen © Elsa Leydier

Finaliste pour le prix Dahindhen © Daesung Lee

© Ferhat Bouda / Agence VU’ pour Action contre la Faim. Surexposés, le dérèglement climatique VU’ par Action contre la Faim

© Catalina Martin-Chico / Agence VU’ pour Action contre la Faim

© Alessandro Puccinelli Séries : Mare et Plastic

© Fabrice Monteiro, Courtesy Galerie MAGNIN-A Série : The Prophecy

© Aïda Muluneh Série : Water Life

Edited by Emily R. Pellerin

Hey POÄNG

I bet you’re so familiar with IKEA’s iconic POÄNG chair that you can easily draw it from memory: its bent wood, cantilevered frame and simple upholstery create a single, swooping motion in profile. You may have owned it at one point (are sitting in it now, even!), and have a fondness for its little bounce.

You’ve no doubt also seen it a dozen times abandoned on a sidewalk or alley, hoping for a second chance in someone else’s home.

For many people, this is exactly how they envision the end of this chair’s life: discarded. But we designers know the sad fact that, once they’re plucked from street-side abandonment, too many of our objects end up in a landfill – their ultimate end-of-life – where the chemicals and plastics they were made from will contaminate the air and the watershed.

IKEA knows this too. They also know that, instead of languishing in a landfill, the materials used to make POÄNG could be the raw material banks of the future. They are not sitting still with this knowledge; they’ve in fact been spending the past couple years redesigning their entire product line for the circular economy. It’s quite momentous.

We’ll get into that in a minute. But first: since the existing POÄNG product is so ubiquitous and embodies such common manufacturing methods and materials, let’s take a preemptive look at exactly what goes into making it, how easily it can currently be repaired, and if the chair is at all designed for disassembly.

Why does the POÄNG seem to be dumped on sidewalks more than the average furniture? IKEA is working on that. Photos: Sarah Templin

An Audit

If we were to redesign the POÄNG with longevity, repair, and the circular economy in mind, we would start by completing an audit to assess the sustainability of each material and process used.

First, can this product be easily disassembled? For POÄNG, the answer is “yes”; all components can be disassembled. Right on, IKEA.

Next, what materials can be reclaimed as technical nutrient (i.e. recycled) or biological nutrient (i.e. composted)? (Read more about that process here.)

The chair’s hardware can, in fact, be reused or reclaimed as a technical nutrient – but unfortunately, its elements are likely too small to recycle at most residential recycling facilities, which returns responsibility to the consumer. Let’s consider this a near-win, but definitely not a miss.

Generally speaking, there’s a chance that upholstery textiles can be reclaimed too, depending on their make-up. POÄNG uses blended fiber upholstery fabrics, which IKEA could hypothetically make into new fibers (IKEA cites both a 100% polyester fabric and a cotton/viscose/rayon/linen/poly blend). Then there’s Polyurethane upholstery foam, which the chair is stuffed with. It’s notoriously difficult to recycle; at best it can be shredded and down-cycled into carpet padding. And if the upholstery foam is glued to the frame – as is the industry standard with upholstered furniture, though is NOT the case with POÄNG (a win!) – the adhesive prevents both the cushioning and the frame from easily being reclaimed. In other words, there are some gray-area successes in the case of POÄNG’s fabric make-up.

On to the bones: if a product frame’s veneer is over solid wood, which it is for POÄNG, there are options for reclaiming it. If, in reality, the veneer is over particle board, which is unfortunately an industry standard, it would then be full of toxic chemicals that are harmful to both the employees using them and to the consumer, off-gassing into the home. (Those chemicals seep into the soil and the watershed when the product eventually finds itself at the dump.) Another point for IKEA.

To holistically interpret the sustainability of POÄNG, we also need to assess how easily it can be repaired by a layperson. This involves auditing the ready availability of replacement hardware and cushions, and the ability to refinish its surfaces or to reupholster it entirely. We all know that IKEA does a good job of making replacement hardware available in their stores, so we might be able to repair the chair if necessary. However, for POÄNG in particular, no other replacement parts except for its cushioning are currently available directly from IKEA.

The verdict is that while it has some industry-comparable successful elements, some elements of POÄNG’s design would realistically need to be reconsidered to make it a more intentionally sustainable product. IKEA is certainly not alone with this diagnosis; most furniture companies are making their products to meet worse standards, with materials that can’t be reclaimed, for objects whose only future is the landfill.

POÄNG is under pressure to live up to IKEA’s sustainability goals. Photo: Inter IKEA Systems B.V

What does IKEA have to say about this?

IKEA has ambitious and influential sustainability goals. As the world’s largest furniture company, their initiatives have the potential to create a ripple effect across all manufacturing.

Among other things, they have been working to become energy independent by investing heavily in wind and solar power. They launched a buy-back program this year across 27 markets to refurbish and resell used IKEA furniture, with products too beat up to refurbish being recycled into raw material for future products; and they are working towards selling exclusively circular products, with an aggressive deadline of 2030.

On this particular goal, Lena Julle, the company’s Sustainability Manager, tells us about the results of assessing the circular capability of over 9,500 products last year. “POÄNG was one of the products. We learned a lot about what works well today, and what we will need to update to reach our 2030 goal to sell 100% circular products.” Just as our audit showed, their research found that the chair performs well against the standards of circularity, but that it falls short of being all-the-way there. “The circularity score of this product can be improved,” Julle says, “by applying more standardized parts, and using more recycled or renewable material in the cushion.” IKEA identifying these clear, actionable steps forward for their product is not only progressive, it is also radically hopeful.

The amazing thing about the infamous IKEA home assembly

In a way, Design for Disassembly (DfD) has always been part of IKEA’s design philosophy, even if they weren’t necessarily thinking of it that way. Speaking to their history of designing flat pack objects for home assembly, Julle notes that “it is also relatively easy to take steps in designing these same products to be disassembled.” Having this design precedent has, in turn, made DfD very intuitive for their design team.

But anyone who has ever tried to move an IKEA bookshelf from one home to another might have a different issue in mind, one from which Julle doesn’t shy away: “The big challenge lies in designing products that are possible to put back together and continue to look and function as they did before they were taken apart.” With these co-standards in mind, the company eventually altered the way it thinks about circularity, revising their design principles to now include assembly, disassembly and reassembly. “This is a game-changer in enabling reuse, refurbishment, and remanufacturing, as well as continuing to enable recycling at the end of product life,” says Julle. “This is the true opportunity in prolonging product life.”

IKEA’s wedge dowel allows furniture to be easily disassembled for moving, repair, and IKEA’s buy-back program. Photo: Inter IKEA Systems B.V

With this new mantra in mind, 5 years ago IKEA introduced their wedge dowel. The proprietary wood joinery and milled grooves design was developed through craft-based, trial-and-error iterations by the brother-sister in-house designers Marianne and Knut Hagberg. The dowel is a prime example of how turning to traditional design methodologies updated a major brand’s product for a more effective future. Its design allows a table to be easily assembled and disassembled without tools, hardware, or the risk of the joints getting dinged up. It’s a triple win: this method reduces the material used in the design, prolongs the potential life span of the furniture, and simplifies the assembly and disassembly experience.

IKEA’s commitments and implementations are not only newsworthy, they’re also roadmaps. Many of the approaches they mention as crucial elements of their future planning— like audits and contemporary adaptations of traditional joinery— are in fact simple, straightforward methods rooted in centuries of design. In turn, the power in their design decisions is accessible to much of the industry across the board – it’s up to us, as designers, to harness it.