The organisation requires a lead architect to transform its art deco headquarters into “an accessible 21st-century building, and an exemplar of re-use and sustainable design”.
The winning team will lead a complete renovation of the Royal Institute of British Architects’ (RIBA) six-storey headquarters at 66 Portland Place, which is a Grade II*-listed building.
Renovation to be “an exemplar of re-use and sustainable design”
RIBA wants the renovation to turn the building into a cultural hub with office space for its employees, while demonstrating the organisation’s sustainability ideals.
“This presents a great opportunity for a practice to join our team and play a key role in the transformation of 66 Portland Place into an accessible 21st-century building, and an exemplar of re-use and sustainable design,” said RIBA president Simon Allford.
“The building will be a physical stage for our House of Architecture concept – a space where members, visitors and RIBA colleagues can find inspiration, stimulation and make connections.”
As part of the renovation of the 1930s building, the team will provide four gallery spaces in the building: a public gallery, a members’ gallery, a collections gallery and a public affairs gallery, along with flexible workspaces for all of its staff.
Bars, restaurants, and cafes will also be “interwoven throughout the building”.
Spaces including Lutyens Room to be restored
RIBA wants the redesign to pay particular attention to rethinking the entrance of the building and potentially moving the bookshop.
The project will also include the restoration of some of the building’s most significant spaces including the Jarvis Auditorium, Aston Webb and Lutyens Rooms, and Florence Hall.
Completed in 1934, RIBA’s headquarters was designed by George Grey Wornum, who would later go on to be awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal.
The design for the art deco office building was chosen following a competition that attracted 284 entries.
By British author and illustrator Marion Deuchars, Bob’s Blue Period may be short but it explores the complexities of friendships and expressing emotion in a touching and truthful manner. It’s an endearing story about how Bob the bird works through some dark emotions via artistic endeavors. While the artwork alone is charming, the story blends life lessons with a tear-jerking narrative. Recommended for kids aged four to eight years old, this story will move people of all ages.
Dezeen promotion: wooden cladding and decking brand Thermory’s thermo-ash cladding wraps the interior and exterior of a contemporary country home in the Netherlands designed by Maas Architecten.
Modern House by the River is a family residence located in a forest clearing on the edge of the river IJssel in Gelderland.
Maas Architecten chose to use Thermory‘s wooden cladding both inside and outside, to help the house fit into its woodland setting.
The house is made up of three single-storey volumes
The thermo-ash cladding gives a rich brown tone to walls and ceilings. It is contrasted by crisp white surfaces that help to create a balance of light and dark.
“The deep brown tone and texture of the timber cladding contrast beautifully against the white facade, floor-to-ceiling windows, and the lush green surroundings,” said Thermory.
Timbers of varying thickness give texture to the exterior walls
The house takes its cues from modernist architecture, and is made up of three flat-roofed, single-storey volumes.
To negotiate the slope of the landscape and allow room for a basement, one of these volumes is set slightly lower than the others, giving a more dynamic quality to the layout of the interior.
The ash surfaces continues inside the house
The largest of the volumes is rendered white while the other two are wrapped in the ash cladding, which features various thicknesses to give it a more textural quality.
This cladding is designed to provide a protective outer skin. Not only is ash a highly durable wood, it has been thermally treated to give it an extra layer of stability.
“Thermal modification enhances wood using heat and steam,” said the brand. “During the thermal modification process, the wood’s density decreases and its structure changes, which gives thermally modified wood products many advantages: increased dimensional stability, increased biological resistance, better heat and sound insulation, lighter weight, and moreover, it is a chemical-free process.”
The house is organised over a split-level floor plan
For the interior, which was designed by Amsterdam-based design studio Grand&Johnson, it is the same two volumes that are lined with wood. The aim was to create a feeling of continuity between inside and out.
Clever joinery helps to give depth to the surfaces, many of which integrate doorways and storage spaces. There are also some slatted areas, which offer variety.
Shelving and storage are set into recesses within the wooden wall surfaces
The darkness of the wood is complemented by large pale-toned floor tiles, contemporary lighting fixtures and minimal glazing, which includes a 30-metre-long window wall facing the river.
“The tranquility and simplicity that the house exudes fits perfectly into its environment,” said the brand.
Slatted timber surfaces feature in some spaces
“Opting for a dark shade of timber doesn’t make the house look sombre,” it added.
“Light floors and walls balance the deep shades of the wood and big windows offer delighting views of the surrounding nature.”
The cladding supplier for Modern House by the River was InterFaca.
Scientists from Kyoto University have developed a face mask made with ostrich antibodies that glows under ultraviolet light when coronavirus is present.
The team of researchers created the mask to help people quickly detect and prevent the spread of coronavirus at a low cost.
A removable filter placed in the mask glows when exposed to coronavirus after being sprayed with a chemical liquid and exposed to ultraviolet lights.
The efficiency of the filter’s detection was confirmed in a clinical trial where test subjects wore the masks for eight hours.
Top: scientists have developed a mask filter using ostrich coronavirus antibodies. Above: it can be attached to single-use masks
Yasuhiro Tsukamoto, leader of the Kyoto University research group, told Dezeen that he came up with the idea after realising that ostrich birds are highly resistant to disease thanks to their strong immune system.
This prompted him to begin researching ostrich antibodies.
“Ostriches rarely die from filth, minor injuries, or illnesses, and live for sixty years,” Tsukamoto said.
“I realised that the secret of longevity is that it is resistant to infectious diseases with its amazing immunity and resilience, so I started researching ostrich antibodies in earnest.”
When coronavirus is present, the filter glows under ultraviolet light
To create coronavirus antibodies in the ostrich, the scientists injected the birds with a spike protein of the virus.
They then extracted the ostriches’ antibodies from the yolk of the birds’ eggs and bound them to the filters in the mask using polylactic acid.
Antibodies in scientific research are most commonly produced from smaller animals, such as rabbits or mice, but these can cost millions of dollars per gram.
By contrast, antibodies taken from ostrich eggs cost less than $1,000 per gram (£736.74,) and can be collected in a short period of about two weeks.
Tsukamoto argues that this makes the masks a more feasible production option, which could help more people detect and prevent coronavirus.
“If virus infection can be detected by putting a mouth filter carrying an ostrich antibody in a ‘disposable mask’ that is used every day in the world, non-symptomatic infected people such as super spreaders can be voluntarily treated at an early stage,” he explained.
“It is a handy and inexpensive device that prevents the invasion of the Covid-19 virus into the human body,” he added.
He also hopes that the same technique could be applied to other viruses, such as influenza.
Tsukamoto hopes the technology can help to prevent the spread of the virus
Currently, coronavirus can only be seen on the mask when it is treated with a liquid and put under ultraviolet light. However, the scientists plan to develop masks that glow under the light from a phone.
They have already filed a patent application for the face mask and plan to make them available later on in the year.
Since the start of the pandemic, designers have used science and technology in the race to stem the spread of the virus.
Advanced manufacturing company OPT Industries created a medical swab that aims to improve clinical testing during the coronavirus pandemic. The swabs are able to absorb a higher level of liquid than regular swabs, which provides a higher sample concentration necessary for better diagnostics.
With a power output of a staggering 4350 watts and a battery with a capacity of 6.9 kilowatt-hours, the Mango Power Union lets you efficiently run your house and all your major appliances right through a power outage. Its sleek matte-metallic design allows it to blend right into your home’s decor, and the power station even sports a detachable 2.3kWh module that you can easily pop off and carry to any other part of your house or even outdoors for true portable power!
Your own power grid. The Mango Power has 6.9-69kWh capacity.
The Mango Power Union comes at the heels of the 1st anniversary of one of America’s most recent devastating power outages. In February 2021, the state of Texas suffered a serious power crisis, which occurred as a result of three severe winter storms sweeping across the United States, crippling the power grid in a way that left major parts state without any electricity for weeks. The Mango Power Union is a device that helps prevent such an eventuality. Designed to provide off-grid power with 95% efficiency, the Mango Power Union is an incredibly capable and versatile device that does everything from letting you charge your phone to your electric car. It comes with an overall of 19 output ports, covering a wide variety of use-cases and devices, so that you can comfortably survive and thrive even in a power outage.
While its functionality is undoubtedly its biggest advantage, the Mango Power Union’s design is something my eyes instantly get drawn towards. The power station sports an aesthetic that’s more tech-forward than most power generators you’ll ever see on the market. In a world cluttered with horrible mobile phones in the late 2000s, the Mango Power Union has the visual appeal of an iPhone, with sleek surfaces, tight curves, and a design that you’d boldly show off in your house instead of hiding in your garage.
Underneath its futuristic exterior is a pretty capable interior too, with a dual built-in inverter system and industry-leading GaN/SiC 3rd generation semiconductor giving the power station 95% power efficiency.
On the functionality front, the Mango Power Union literally has an outlet for everything. 6 AC power sockets let you connect any and every home appliance to the power station, while 6 additional USB-A ports let you hook all your small smart devices to the Power Union, from your phones to smart speakers. The Mango Power Union also sports 2 USB-C ports for tablets, laptops, and even external displays, and two DC outputs for good measure.
The upper surface of the appliance even comes equipped with 2 wireless charging pads that let you keep devices like your smartphone and TWS earphones juiced.
A 12V/10A car output lets you connect heavy-duty appliances like vehicle air pumps and vehicle vacuum cleaners to the Power Union, and if you want to charge your EV, you can use one of the AC sockets to juice your car, with the Mango Power Union’s massive battery capable of giving your Tesla an extra 50 kilometers on a full charge.
To put things in perspective, the 6.9kWh battery lets you charge your phone over 460 times (at 15W), your laptop 90 times (at 76W), or run your refrigerator for nearly 7 hours (at 1000W). A single Mango Power Union device can easily weather a storm by helping you comfortably get through power outages with hours or even days’ worth of power with measured use.
Perhaps one of the most interesting parts of the Mango Power Union is its detachable design. A split line running along the body of the power station helps highlight the appliance’s modular design – which features a detachable upper half that lets you carry a miniature version of the power station wherever you go. This upper half houses a 2.3kWh battery, and is perfectly sized to carry out to your yard for an impromptu barbecue session with your electric grill, to a campsite for supplemental power, or even in your EV if you want an extra battery for a higher range. It’s a clever little feature that gives you power in a portable form too, so you don’t need to own a separate smaller generator for carrying around. Talk about two birds with one stone!
The Mango Power Union offers a host of charging methods that let you keep your power station fully juiced for a rainy day. You can hook it directly into an AC power supply to fast-charge your power station, or connect it to a gas generator. The Mango Power Union works with solar panels too, allowing you to harness energy from the sun to run your home, and also gives you the option of connecting your power station directly into your home grid through the mPanel and mPanel Smart, which supply backup power into your home automatically during a power outage, so you’re never scrambling to plug your devices into the Mango Power Union’s different outlets and sockets.
Fully charged in 2.5 hours.
The Mango uses a new, enhanced lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery.
The Mango Power Union is built like a tank, with EV class LFP batteries that can survive 7000 charging cycles, giving you an entire decade’s worth of use with peak performance, with a 4-year carefree warranty to seal the deal. An internal battery management system (BMS) also ensures that your power station works flawlessly, protecting you against surges, short circuits, and temperature fluctuations. Four sets of fans inside the appliance keep it cool and breezy during use to prevent overheating, and the BMS even has a failsafe for low temperatures, so a snowstorm doesn’t ever leave you scrambling for energy!
I believe the true essence of a home is held in its furniture. Furniture has the power to make or break a home, set the mood and tone of a space, and capture and express the soul of that particular house. A great furniture design not only feels like a piece of art but also touches your heart. Once you settle on to it, or place your favorite book upon it, or simply brush past it, you need to instantly feel “Ah, I’m home!” This collection of beautiful and intricate furniture designs with hidden details aspire to do exactly that! Designed with extreme attention to detail, overflowing with love and care, and not only aesthetically but functionally pleasing, these furniture designs will be an invaluable addition to your living space, making you feel truly at home.
1. The Billow Desk
Designed by Casey Johnson Studio, the Billow Desk is a majestic wooden desk. Its most intriguing detail would be the shelving space, below the tabletop, which is billowed out from the front. It’s a storage unit that instantly calls for attention, and is at a distinction from the usual storage designs.
2. The ODU Desk
Designed by Annabella Hevesi, there is something about the ODU Desk that instantly puts me at ease. It’s just so well-designed! Clean, minimal, and soft, it’s a desk that almost gives me Japandi feels. (Japandi is a growing design trend that merges Japanese and Scandinavian aesthetics.) It’s a warm wooden desk with a protective screen around it that ensures you have your privacy while working!
3. The Gallery Table
Designed by Patryk Koca, the Gallery Table displays 4.8m of unparalleled craftmanship. The unique wooden piece was inspired by maritime construction! Almost resembling a ship, the versatile and long table is perfect for intimate gatherings.
4. The Line Light
The Line Light by Matthew McCormick is a streamlined and sleek lighting structure that extends elegantly from the ceiling. It balances intricately off the ceiling, providing a gentle yet powerful presence to any living space.
5. The GING Chair
The GING Chair by WAY Object Studio is a solid wooden chair, that manages to be sturdy and minimal at the same time. Seamless joints and exceptional craftsmanship make this chair sleek, modern, and a light addition to your living space.
6. Record Cabinet
Designed by Nick Pedullá, this beautiful record cabinet was crafted from Tasmanian Blackwood from Britton Timbers. An exquisite tambour door, and brass grills give the cabinet a unique and eye-catching aesthetic!
7. Tie Stool
Three slabs of plywood have been artistically twisted and bent to create a geometrically intriguing furniture piece called the Tie Stool. Designed by Deniz Aktay, the unique stool is a far cry from the boring conventional stools we have all grown so accustomed to.
8. Kin Design’s Bar Stool
The connect bar stool by Kin Design features three solid oak legs, which hold up a contrasting footrest. The footrest is a little pyramid of brass that sits comfortably beneath the round seat, tucked plushly between the wooden legs. The brass is a little hidden detail that provides a stark yet stylish contrast to the otherwise somber and simple stool.
9. Baldwin Hills Stool
Designed by Sean C. Flaherty, the Baldwin Hills Stool is a beautifully crafted three-legged stool with intriguing patterns on the seating section of the piece. The three legs feature a rugged and organic texture that adds a rustic element to the stool.
10. Nick James’ Oak Cabinet
The detailing on this beautiful oak cabinet by Nick James is simply exquisite! The otherwise minimal and simple cabinet is instantly lifted up by the stunning craftsmanship displayed in the intricate detailing.
You don’t need half a million to sit on a Blue Origin spaceship, just pop on your VR headset and you could instantly be transported to Prague’s first-ever lunar expedition. Titled ‘New Prague on the Moon’, this metaverse moon-base was unveiled at Virtuplex, the largest Virtual Reality laboratory in Europe during the Czech Space Week. Open to the public, visitors could roam around the moon dressed in virtual space-suits, explore the base, and even zip around the lunar surface on a specially designed conceptual rover called the LUNIAQ, modeled on Skoda’s ENYAQ electric car.
The moonbase’s design takes inspiration from concepts of the Global Moon Village by XTEND DESIGN and the research work of space architect Tomas Rousek at NASA JPL. Tomas previously led the design of SinterHab, the first concept of a 3D-printed lunar module using NASA robotics technology. The settlement would consist of prefabricated, 3D printed, and inflatable modules, supported by solar power systems, launch pads, and other infrastructure. Large robots would print modules using lunar regolith hardened by microwave sintering. Radiation shielding would be also robotically assembled from solar-sintered bricks. Greenhouses would provide not only food but also recycle air and water in a closed-loop bioregenerative life-support system.
LUNIAQ is a concept electric lunar vehicle that seats up to four astronauts and even holds the capacity to be controlled remotely. It takes its visual inspiration from SUVs by Skoda (Czech Republic’s most notable automotive export), while being technically based on NASA’s MMSEV platform (Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle). The front of the car pays tribute to the Skoda ENYAQ, although its large windshield uses transparent aluminum instead of the conventional laminated glass found on Earth-based cars. These transparent aluminum panels offer much more resistance to micrometeorites, and coatings of polyethylene offer radiation protection.
Hatches on each side of the LUNIAQ allow the vehicle to plug into the different modules on the base, allowing people to enter the vehicle without needing to don a suit and perform a spacewalk. At the rear, the rover features a ‘suitport’, a dedicated suiting cabin with two spacesuits that occupants can wear. A door on the rear of the suitport lets the astronauts exit the vehicle safely, without letting lunar dust into the vehicle’s main cockpit.
The level of detail on the LUNIAQ is pretty stunning considering it’s still an entirely conceptual vehicle within a purely virtual experience. Designer Tomas Rousek mentions that the rover runs on solar power, thanks to panels located on the top, which store energy in the car’s solid-state batteries. The roof of the rover even houses stereoscopic cameras to scan the terrain and for 3D imaging to enable the remote and autonomous control of the car, and antennas for communication with the lunar base, Earth, orbital stations and other satellites. “Large soft wheels would offer comfortable driving on bumpy lunar surface thanks to Michelin’s Tweel technology”, Rousek adds.
Designers: Tomas Rousek, Yan Bilobrovenko, Katarina Eriksson, Veronika Rabas (XTEND Design)
By removing as much material as possible, the Precision Play Dice offer the most bare-basic die design that can’t be rigged or weighted to cheat with.
Board-game enthusiast Tuson Lauby immediately sensed something was wrong when his opponent in a game of Warhammer kept using specific dice during important stages in the game. Noticing immediately that his fellow player was cheating by playing with weighted dice, Lauby’s mind began whirring and he started thinking about how he could design dice that were essentially cheat-proof. His first order of business was to remove as much material as he possibly could, resulting in dice with an extremely skeletal design and a central core that connected all the faces. An engineer by trade, Lauby perfected the design and even theorized that these new dice weren’t just cheat-proof, they were high-momentum too, rolling much longer and farther than regular solid dice.
Available in an entire set of multi-faceted geometric shapes, the Precision Play Signature Dice Series covers a wide variety of games, from traditional board games to even a game of Dungeons and Dragons that require polyhedral dice. Each individual die comes crafted from bronze (making them non-magnetic) and can additionally be finished with a plating of gold or rhodium if you’re ready to spend a bit of cash. The dice sport engraved numbers on each of their facets, finished with lacquer paint to get the numbers to stand out.
While being an absolute treat to look at and offering a unique anti-cheating property, the dice have a third trick up their sleeve too! The fact that they’re essentially hollow and skeletal allows them to ‘clink’ against each other and on your tabletop, creating an almost tuning fork-ish noise when rolled!
Homebuilders in England have been told by the government that they must agree to fund the replacement of unsafe cladding on mid-rise blocks in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire.
UK housing secretary Michael Gove wrote to the “residential developer industry” to request that developers agree to “fund and undertake all necessary remediation of buildings over 11 metres that you have played a role in developing”.
An estimated £4 billion is required to fix dangerous cladding found on mid-rise blocks following the deadly Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017. The move means that this cost will not be paid by leaseholders.
“No leaseholder living in a building above 11 metres will ever face any costs for fixing dangerous cladding,” said Gove in a statement this afternoon.
The Grenfell Tower fire claimed 72 lives after flames spread rapidly across its cladding system
Ministers had already allocated £5.1 billion of public money to pay for the remediation of flammable facades on high-rise residential buildings – defined in England as those taller than 18 metres.
Many thousands of leaseholders in blocks shorter than 18 metres had previously only been promised government help with costs in the form of a loan scheme.
The government has now scrapped this scheme and committed to the building industry funding cladding work on blocks between 11 and 18 metres – typically from four to six storeys.
In his letter, Gove threatened housebuilders with being shut out of public contracts and funding, subjected to planning powers or pursued through the courts if they do not agree to “a clear, fully-funded plan of action” by early March.
“I am prepared to take all steps necessary”
If the industry does not agree to fund the work the government could seek to legislate to force builders to pay.
“I am sure you are as committed as I am to fixing a broken system,” wrote Gove. “I want to work with you to deliver the programme I have set out.”
“But I must be clear, I am prepared to take all steps necessary to make this happen, including restricting access to government funding and future procurements, the use of planning powers, the pursuit of companies through the courts and – if the industry fails to take responsibility in the way that I have set out – the imposition of a solution in law if needs be,” he continued.
The government said it expects firms with annual profits from housebuilding of £10 million to contribute to the fund, but will make a final decision once talks with housebuilders have concluded.
That would cover significantly more developers than were subject to a levy brought in to raise £2 billion to soften the blow of cladding funding, which applies to around 30 companies with profits above £25 million.
Gove promised that leaseholders in blocks taller than 11 metres will not have to pay to fix dangerous cladding
“We will engage directly with government, but any further solutions must be proportionate and involve those who actually built affected buildings and specified, certificated and provided the defective materials on them,” said Stewart Baseley, executive chairman of developer trade body the Home Builders Federation.
“As well as developers and government, other parties should be involved in remediation costs, not least material manufacturers who designed tested and sold materials that developers purchased in good faith that were later proved to not be fit for purpose.”
Flammable cladding “primary cause” of Grenfell fire
Gove also told MPs that the government intends to amend the upcoming Building Safety Bill to protect leaseholders from the cost of fixing non-cladding safety defects, which have been uncovered at numerous blocks during facade inspections.
He also revealed that a new team has been set up within the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities dedicated to pursuing companies deemed to have contributed to the crisis by misselling products, cutting corners in building work or seeking to profit from the fallout.
The government made no mention of a solution for blocks shorter than 11 metres – a small minority of which are implicated.
Flammable cladding has been identified by a public inquiry as the “primary cause” of the rapid external fire spread across Grenfell Tower, where 72 people lost their lives.
In the aftermath of the blaze, it became clear that hundreds of other blocks across the country had similar cladding systems to Grenfell – and it later emerged that numerous other types of combustible building facades also posed a potential threat, with the government recommending their removal.
This led to disputes as building owners sought to push remediation costs onto residents, leaving hundreds of thousands unable to sell and therefore trapped in homes deemed unsafe.
Inquiry to scrutinise government role
Ministers are now explicitly laying the blame for the scandal at the door of the housebuilding industry, with a government press release published today declaring that developers “must pay to fix the cladding crisis that they caused”.
It comes shortly before the Grenfell Tower Inquiry is due to examine the government’s role in the factors that led to the disaster.
Founded by multi-hyphenate artist and organizer OlaRonke Akinmowo, The Free Black Women’s Library has been a roaming art project, interactive installation and book collection that features 4,000 books all written exclusively by Black women. Now, the non-profit is settling down in a brick-and-mortar space, The Reading Room, in Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy. “Getting a physical space means being able to provide a safe place for the Bed-Stuy community to rest, gather, learn and create together,” says the founder, who not only grew up in the neighborhood but also recognizes the gentrification currently underway there. Slated to open in spring 2022, The Reading Room will help reclaim real estate, allow others to engage more deeply with the works and operate as an inclusive space for film screenings, talks, free workshops and more. Learn more about this important new library (and how to support it) at the BK Reader.
Image of a reader at The Free Black Women’s Library pop-up, courtesy of OlaRonke Akinmowo
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.
