The Dezeen Awards 2022 public vote opened last week and we’ve put together a list of five things you need to know before you vote for your favourite projects and studios.
1. The public vote is separate from the main Dezeen Awards 2022 judging process, in which entries are assessed by our international judging panel. The Dezeen Awards public vote invites readers to vote for their favourite shortlisted projects and studios.
2. You can vote via the public vote landing page or via a link on the shortlist page of the project you wish to vote for.
3. Remember to verify your email address if it’s your first time participating or we won’t be able to count your votes! You can verify by clicking on the link in the email you received after voting.
4. Next week we will let you know who is in the lead in a series of posts on Dezeen where you can see who is ahead in each category.
5. Winners will be revealed from 17 to 21 October.
Questions?
If you have any questions about the public vote or didn’t receive your verification link please email awards@dezeen.com and someone from the team will get back to you.
Dezeen Showroom: architect Henrik Schulz has expanded his Mod seating collection for furniture brand HBF, adding highback versions that can create a privacy-lounge experience in the workplace.
The Mod Highback seating extends the versatile, Scandinavian-inspired Mod collection with three new options — a high-backed lounge chair, a two-seater sofa and a three-seater sofa.
The Mod Highback seating collection is designed for public interiors
The seating collection is a contract solution that can be easily scaled for public spaces, hospitality venues and lounges, and the Highback options work particularly well for workplaces, where they can provide a lounge area for people who want a change from their desks.
The high back wraps around to create a sense of visual and acoustic privacy and minimise distractions, and as with the entire Mod series, there is the option of an “engaged” higher leg height of 18.5 inches.
The collection includes a high-back armchair, which creates a sense of privacy
“Companies will have to fight harder in the future to attract new employees and office design is one way of doing just that,” said Schultz. “That is why we created a flexible piece that works in any space.”
The Mod series is available in a wide range of high-performance upholstery, including bleach-cleanable woven textiles, and the seat, back and arm cushions can all be removed for replacement or repair.
Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen’s huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.
Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership content here.
A wavy, tiled roof formed by intersecting catenary vaults shelters this lakeside restaurant, designed by Bangalore-based Play Architecture for the Deva Dhare Resort in Karnataka, India.
Perched above a narrow stream on recycled steel stilts the structure, which has been shortlisted in the hospitality building category of Dezeen awards 2022, provides both internal and external dining areas for the 10-acre resort.
The Deva Dhare Restaurant is topped with a vaulted tiled roof
Nestled in the forests of Sakleshpur with expansive views of the Western Ghats mountain range, Play Architecture sought to create a form that would “weave and integrate seamlessly” into the landscape, making use of local materials and labour.
“The dining space is located on an extremely ecologically sensitive zone, where one needs to touch the ground gently,” explained the studio.
“The design approach is bottom-up, where the construction process and choice of materials address the local climate, ground conditions, flora and available local labour.”
The restaurant sits over a small stream in a Sakleshpur forest
To create a column-free interior, a dramatic, unreinforced catenary vaulted roof spanning 16 metres was created, using five layers of 15-millimetre clay tiles typical to the area.
This roof sits atop a granite and steel deck slab, supported by the structure of thin, green-painted steel columns beneath and accessed via two stone staircases at either side.
“The form shows how the forces flow through the structure, and the resistance of the form allows large spans to be built with small thicknesses, saving on materials and labour,” said the studio.
“More over, the focus of this research was to stay away from sophisticated software solutions and find geometric, logical means and hands-on methods, empowering unskilled labour to apply the idea on a day-to-day basis.”
Four glass-covered openings under the wavy roof offer views of the surroundings
Four arched openings at either side of the restaurant are filled with full-height glazing framed with black steel, providing views out in every direction.
To the east and west, glass doors provide access out onto two terraces for overlooking the lake and stream, and to the north a short corridor leads to a standalone bathroom block.
The curved roof is formed of intersecting catenary vaults
The granite slabs of the platform have been left exposed throughout, creating a continuity between the interior and exterior, and some have been replaced with glass to provide views of the stream below.
“The project is a simple, straightforward demonstration of the strength of an idea…with a sincere effort to express the material and construction tectonics truthfully,” said the practice.
Singapore is uniquely placed to develop solutions to the world’s biggest design challenges, according to Dawn Lim and Mark Wee, organisers of Singapore Design Week, which is taking place this week.
“Singapore is a great place to think about the future,” said Lim, executive director of DesignSingapore Council, Singapore’s national design agency.
“If you look at all the major challenges that the world faces – you talk about urban densities, ageing populations, rising sea levels – you name it, we probably have it. And so that creates a very optimal location to test for solutions that might address some of these issues.”
“We are both very enthusiastic about this idea of Singapore being a prototyping hub,” added Wee, festival director of Singapore Design Week.
Singapore is a “nation by design”
The island city-state of Singapore became a sovereign country in 1965 and developed rapidly into a global economic power through free trade with minimal tariffs or restrictions.
This open economy, as well as its size, location and geography, are all factors that make Singapore an excellent testbed for everything from autonomous vehicles to mitigating the effects of climate change, according to Lim and Wee.
Mark Wee is festival director of Singapore Design Week 2022
“We’re a compact city-state, an island of about 750 square kilometres, and we’ve had to tackle everything that a country and a global metropolis needs on this island,” said Wee.
“So, historically, that has forced us to be extremely efficient and to test technologies and new systems in a small, contained way on different parts of the island before we can scale it at the national level.”
Dawn Lim is executive director of DesignSingapore Council
Lim added: “If you look at the history and the genesis of Singapore, the entire thing was by design. We actually like to say that Singapore is a nation by design.”
“We have no natural resources, we have not a drop of oil to our name, we have no access to clean water naturally” she continued.
“But we have developed our own technology to clean our own water, which we now commercialise to other countries in the world. We created public housing policy that [despite the scarcity of land] enables 80 per cent of the population to afford their own homes. These are policies by design, due to the constrained situation that we have geographically, historically, economically.”
Singapore Design Week aims to showcase city state’s “thought leadership”
Lim and Wee hope that this year’s edition of Singapore Design Week, which is running from 16 to 25 September 2022 after a two-year hiatus, can be a platform to showcase the design talent from the region, as well as what Lim describes as its “thought leadership”.
“It’s about putting Singapore out there on the world map,” she said. “We have a point of view about the future, we have a point of view about how design is a force for good, on how we can be a hub and a convener for everybody else around the spectrum of design.”
The design week is structured around three key themes, which the organisers describe as “pillars”. These are titled: Design Marketplace, Design Impact and Design Futures.
“We want to show that design can bring a better future”
One of the flagship events of the festival is the Design Futures Symposium, which is directed by MoMA curator Paola Antonelli and has the full title of Agency for the Future: Design and the Quest for a Better World.
“I think that title really sums up how we see the future, that design is able to bring us into a brighter future,” said Wee.
“We want to showcase and talk about how Singapore could – in our unique approach based on modelling, prototyping, testing – perfect solutions for preferable futures. I feel that coming out of Covid, we want to show that design can actually bring hope and bring a better future. Don’t we all need that?”
According to Wee, the symposium is an example of a new emphasis this year on systems design, which he believes plays to Singapore’s strengths.
“This idea of design being able to shape entire systems, or new systems, is really a large part of the conversation now,” he said.
“In Singapore, a lot of the way we’ve tackled our issues has been in a systemic manner. It’s in this idea of design beyond just how things look, but really designing entire systems, that I feel we are able to bring to the conversation today in a way that might be meaningful.”
Singapore Design Week runs from 16 to 25 September
Other key events taking place in Singapore this week as part of the design week includes FIND – Design Fair Asia, a new design trade fair, which features a dedicated section to showcase the work of Southeast Asian designers.
“I want the festival to be able to really give the talent that’s on this island visibility because they’re doing amazing work,” said Wee.
“Hopefully that also inspires people around the world to come here and work with them, to collaborate with our local designers to be able to really make the world a better place. It sounds idealistic, but that’s really true.”
Singapore Design Week takes place from 16-25 September in Singapore. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
Dezeen Showroom: Italian brand Lualdi has presented a selection of minimalist pivot and swing doors on Dezeen Showroom, including doors with panels made from glass, carved wood and woven leather.
Made from a 55-millimetre-thick door panel in an aluminium frame, Lualdi designed the Compass 55 to pivot with a dramatic visual effect.
Instead of hinging on one side, the Compass 55 door pivots with dramatic effect
The brand describes the door as being comparable to a large, silent stage curtain.
The Compass 55 door panel is available in a range of materials, including oak and Canaletto walnut veneer, and matte or glossy lacquer paints.
Similar to other doors from Lualdi, Rasomuro 55s sit flush with the wall
Lualdi’s Rasomuro 55s door is designed to camouflage with the wall and features concealed hinges and an invisible aluminium door jamb.
“Rasomuro 55s is an architectural element that moves from one space to the next thanks to an elusive, exclusive and almost immaterial design,” said the brand.
The Rasoline 55s door has a decorative metal edge
The Rasoline 55s door is designed to sit flush with the wall and each side of the door can be finished in different materials to suit the room it is in.
The door features decorative metal edging, which is available in natural aluminium, matte black, matte white and bronze finishes.
The Rasovetro 55s door is characterised by it’s reflective glass surface
With glazed panels available in classic and back-lacquered finishes, the Rasovetro 55s door was created by Lualdi to celebrate the transparency, brightness and lightness of glass.
“From an aesthetic perspective, these doors develop their originality thanks to glass – a clean material by nature,” said Lualdi.
The Altaj door has a decorative bronze outline
Italian design studio SBGA Blengini Ghirardelli designed the Altaj door for Lualdi, which has a door panel that protrudes from a decorative bronze aluminium outline to create subtle depth and shadow.
The door’s central panel can be finished in a variety of materials, including back-painted glass, woven leather, and wood veneer with carved patterns.
The Altaj door comes in a decorative wood veneer option that features carved patterns
Lualdi is an Italian brand that specialises in designing bespoke doors and furnishings for residential, business and hotel interiors.
Founded in 1860, the brand aims to create high-quality and innovative products for everyday spaces.
Dezeen Showroom
Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen’s huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.
Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership content here.
Shades of blue and green feature throughout this hotpot restaurant in Shenzhen, which has been updated by Chinese studio Vermilion Zhou Design Group.
Haidilao, which was established in 1994, is the biggest hotpot restaurant chain in China, with overseas branches in cities such as London, New York and Sydney.
When its Shenzhen location was in need of a revamp, Vermilion Zhou Design Group was brought in to lead on the design.
Sky-blue seating lies at the centre of the restaurant
From the outset, the Shanghai-based studio knew it wanted to avoid the red and black colour scheme that has previously been used in Haidilao restaurants.
The space has instead been decked out in shades of blue and green that are meant to nod to the chain’s use of natural, fresh ingredients.
At the periphery of the floor plan are jade-green dining cabins
At the heart of the restaurant is a bank of sky-blue dining chairs accompanied by tables with flecked, terrazzo-style countertops.
Bands of shiny brass panelling have been suspended from the ceiling overhead, inset with LED ticker boards that project interactive messages to diners.
A large LED screen has also been integrated into Haidilao’s facade; it displays moving silhouettes of different people, hinting at the buzzing activity of the restaurant’s interior.
Tables have terrazzo-style countertops
Around the periphery of the main dining room is a sequence of high-backed, jade-green booths that form intimate “cabins” where small groups can enjoy their meals.
There are also a number of cosy nooks designed to accommodate solo diners.
Jade-coloured fixtures and furnishings also appear in the private dining room
Towards the rear of Haidilao there is a drinks counter and a private dining room that can be hired out for special occasions. Tall pivoting doors help close the space off from the rest of the floor plan.
In keeping with the rest of the restaurant, it features jade-coloured walls and brass-edged furnishings.
In the bathrooms, terrazzo washbasins meet scalloped walls
Vermilion Zhou Design Group has created a small manicure bar within the restaurant’s entryway – not only is it meant to lure in more passersby, but it also gives prospective diners a fun way to kill time while waiting for a table.
The bar has been rendered blush-pink, boldly deviating from the restaurant’s colour scheme, and has a scallop feature wall.
Scalloped surfaces go on to appear in the customer bathrooms, which have been finished with oblong mirrors and terrazzo-like washbasins.
A pink nail manicure bar has been created in Haidilao’s entryway
There are a number of visually striking hotpot restaurants across China.
Insulated cups are so 20th century. Meet the ikago Heat Coaster Pro, a pretty nifty little coaster that just heats your coffee up for you. With a sensor that can gauge your coffee’s temperature and a heating film right underneath your cup, the ikago Heat Coaster Pro makes sure you get perfectly hot coffee with every sip you take. No more superhot tongue-burning coffee at the beginning and insipid room-temperature coffee at the end. The ikago Heat Coaster Pro keeps your coffee consistently hot throughout the time it takes for you to finish your cup, and an indicator on the coaster’s digital display even tells you if your coffee isn’t at the ideal temperature, so you’re well aware going in!
Practically like a wireless charger but for your beverages, the ikago Heat Coaster Pro lets you bring your drink up to the exact sipping temperature, whether it’s coffee, green tea, or even a cup of soothing turmeric milk. Designed for the home or even the office, the ikago Heat Coaster Pro sits perfectly on any tabletop surface with a minimalist design that doesn’t occupy too much space. Just marginally larger than your average coaster, the product works with any cup you may have lying around the house, but it does ship with its own cup too, making things a whole lot easier for people who like the idea of a complete product ecosystem!
A digital display on the ikago Heat Coaster Pro lets you calibrate the temperature you want your beverage at, while an IR sensor on the back actively measures the radiant heat emanating from your cup so it knows exactly how hot the beverage in your cup already is. A heat film underneath the cup then goes to work, heating up your drink if it’s below the temperature you want it at. Just to make sure you don’t end up drinking your coffee/tea too early or too late, an indicator on the ikago Heat Coaster Pro’s display tells you when your drink’s too hot (with a red line), too cool (with a blue line), or just perfect (with a green line). Goldilocks would just love this little contraption!
The ikago Heat Coaster Pro comes with a working range of 105°F to 175°F (40°C-80°C) and fits practically any existing mug you may have, including ones made from ceramic, glass, or even stainless steel. The coaster automatically detects when a cup’s been placed on it and only works during that time. Lift the cup off and the heating film automatically deactivates to prevent any accidents. It remembers the temperature from your previous use-cycle, so you don’t need to program the coaster every single time, and unlike its other competitors, the ikago Heat Coaster Pro can actively measure how hot or cool your drink is so that every sip you have is as good as the last!
A national runner-up at this year’s James Dyson Award, DISPERSEED hopes to bring floral diversity and a thriving ecosystem back to forests that have been devastated by fires. The 3D-printed seed ball invites animals and birds to come and feed on it, allowing the seeds to fall out onto the forest floor.
While man-made climate change has certainly caused its share of problems, forest fires aren’t exactly new to this world. In fact, over millions of years, certain plant species have even adapted to fires. Dubbed as ‘pyrophytic’ plants, these species are uniquely built to survive forest fires. This survival tactic, however, causes major imbalance to a forest’s natural diversity. With each subsequent fire, healthy plants are lost in the flames while resilient pyrophytic species end up taking their space. This affects a forest’s ecosystem, while also making it prone to more fires because pyrophytic trees are often drier than others (making them easy to ignite). While avoiding/preventing forest fires is an incredibly challenging task, a bunch of industrial designers at the Valencia Polytechnic University have a solution for helping bring floral diversity back to forests. Meet DISPERSEED, a nature-inspired seed ball that helps repopulate once-thriving forests.
Designers: Irene Badía Madrigal, Diego Polo García, Carmen Amorós Egea, Claudia Daudén Llodrá, Carmen Benítez Mora & David Zaragozá Sabater
Inspired by the shape of pollen (as a hat tip to pollen’s ability to travel far and wide to pollinate flowers), DISPERSEED is a bright red bauble of sorts that you can hang around a fire-ravaged forest. The ball, 3D-printed from an edible dough, is filled with seeds that either fall to the floor, or are ingested by small animals and birds, who carry the seed far and wide, helping propagate the seeds.
The seeds are designed to catch the eye. Their bright-red color and fruit-like size attract birds and animals that try to peck or burrow at it. Seeds suspended inside the ball are ingested by these animals, and it passes through their digestive tract, finally reaching the soil after the animal expels them. Within the animal’s digestive tract, the seeds lose their outer coating, making it easy for them to germinate (a process known as endozoochory). The seeds then help sprout more plants that allow a forest to recover after a fire, and the DISPERSEED itself biodegrades into the earth, given the fact that it’s made entirely from natural materials.
“In Spain it is unusual to have a summer in which there are no wildfires”, say the designers behind the DISPERSEED. “We have decided to design a product that favors the diversity of non-pyrophytic species in Mediterranean forest areas. This product allows for creating healthier and more sustainable forests that have greater resistance to these types of disasters.”
“Our future plans include aspects such as implementing the prototype in burned forests in the Mediterranean area and continuing with the research of materials using 3D printing technology”, the designers mention in their pitch to the James Dyson Award program. “It could also be extended to unburned areas to build up diversity and prevent future fires. Another great idea would be adapting it for professional use in the forestry field in order to multiply its uses.”
Quirky yet incredibly convenient, the ClampTape by Peleg Design ensures you always have a tape dispenser handy no matter where you are. Its clothespin-inspired design clamps onto any tabletop surface, giving you an instant dispenser right at arm’s length. The best (yet most understated part)? It can be used with one hand, unlike some lightweight tape dispensers that need to be held down with the second hand!
ClampTape comes from the minds of the folks at Peleg Design, known for their products that combine emotional design with problem-solving to deliver designs with fun experiences and strong storytelling abilities. The ClampTape is one such product that’s just cute and convenient at the same time. The clamp itself is made from bent sheet metal, with a rubber/polymer sleeve around the clamping jaws so that it doesn’t damage your table. It hardly requires any learning curve – just clamp it and begin using it!
The ClampTape fits desks between 0.4 and 1.8 inches in thickness. It comes with its own roll of tape, although you can refill it once you run out. Perfect for stationery nerds or even car enthusiasts, given that the ClampTape looks like a car battery clamp too!
In-person events are back in full swing, and there’s no better time to generate collective energy and interest than today. After a highly successful inaugural showcase last year, Design London has returned during a very trending time for the global city. With double the floor space to welcome exhibitors and visitors alike, Design London is gathering not only the finest and widest selection of designs across multiple industries, from architecture to interiors to lighting, from across the world. It is also a venue where discussions between the brightest minds in design will be held, previewing and shaping the trends that will carry design into the future, including topics that will give it a more prominent role in saving our planet.
Thanks to recent events, people have become more conscious of the role the furniture and lighting play in setting the correct atmosphere at home. Previously considered to be something that only connoisseurs would appreciate, designer products and bespoke designs have entered mainstream consumer consciousness. We’ve seen a rise in interest and sales of such products, and Design London is curating some of the biggest and rising names that are shaping that market.
Danish brand HAY joins Design London for the first time with Palisade, an intriguing metal bench that snakes across the ground to provide both seating capacity as well as visual interest to any outdoor space. Compatriot Thors Design, meanwhile, is celebrating its 20th anniversary with Gaia and Globe plank tables, the latest in the company’s line of bespoke furniture made from recycled wood.
Designer: Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec (HAY)
Designer: Thors Design
Lighting is just as important as furniture in setting the mood, both through their lights as well as their very design. The Akoya pendant lamp from Fabbian, hangs like a clam ready to drop its precious pearl, an imagery that makes it perfect for beach houses and similar architectures. In contrast, the industrial vibe that the pipes of Ago’s Cirkus pendant lamp give is a better fit for more enclosed and darker spaces.
Designer: Filippo Protasoni (Fabbian)
Designer: Ago
It’s easy enough to downplay the design of the floor we walk on or the walls that get covered up by shelves and decorations, but even these can make or break the ambiance that you’re aiming for. For example, handmade tiles from New Terracotta combine old ancient techniques with modern aesthetics, creating a truly unique appearance for any room. In a similar vein, Creadoor adds a pinch of 3D graphics to traditional woodworking techniques to create stunning bespoke doors and walls that give a room a unique personality of its own.
Designer: New Terracotta
Designer: Creadoor
Design Throughout the World
While it’s natural to presume that many of Design London’s participants will be coming from neighboring countries in the region, it is also an opportunity to showcase design hailing from all over the world, especially from Asia. The Korean Pavilion, for example, will house products from some of the country’s small- to medium-sized design companies. Be mesmerized by the reflective surfaces of iamHERE’s benches and stools, or take comfort in the embrace of Woorim Workshop’s curvaceous wooden lounge.
Designer: iamHERE
Designer: Woorim Workshop
The Thai Pavilion, on the other hand, will showcase a variety of furniture and decor sharing a common sustainability theme. The BiiN plant stand, for example, recycles waste material from the industrial sector to create a multi-functional piece of furniture that can act as a plant stand, storage container, or side table. Sarn lamps use traditional weaving patterns and materials to create unique lampshades for pendant lamps.
Designer: Eggwhite Design Studio
Designer: Thingg
Designing for the Future
More than just a showcase for contemporary product designs, Design London will also be a forum for the industry’s luminaries to share their creativity, passion, and vision for what the future holds. It is also an exhibit of a variety of designs that can help change the course of history in making sure that products of the future do right by the planet we live on.
Designer: Lee Broom
A headlining talk from award-winning British designer Lee Broom will go back in time to reveal the influences that gave birth to his many masterpieces that harmoniously blend classic and modern aesthetics. Sustainability advocate Jay Blades MBE will go over his unique approach to making things, as well as his crusade to create and sell furniture using recycled or reclaimed materials.
Designer: Jay Blades MBE
Sustainability has been a big topic in design in the past years, and, unsurprisingly, it has a huge presence this year in London. Net Positive tiles, for example, are made from recycled plastic fishing nets using a zero-waste manufacturing process. Something that can be immediately appreciated is the Island Steps, a 3D printed installation from 100% cement-free concrete that can be a place to sit back and rest while enjoying this guilt-free oasis, whether indoor or outdoor.
Designer: Coldharbour Tiles
Designer: Steuart Padwick (Versarien)
Whether it’s materials for sprucing up your room’s walls or furniture that will give meaning and life to your living space, Design London 2022 will offer eye-catching and mind-blowing designs that display the collective genius of the industry from different corners of the world. Not settling for the status quo, the destination will also provoke the industry’s best minds and talent with talks and discussions, pushing the boundaries of design toward a better future not just for humans but also for the planet.
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.
