Dezeen Showroom: Maryam Pousti, founder of architecture and design practice Studio Pousti, has designed a geometric bookshelf made from interlocking sheets of wood.

The Cheft bookshelf is assembled without the need for nails, screws or glue, and can be used as shelving or as a room divider.

“Two sets of six panels intersect through angle-specific grooves which are cut using a four-axis CNC machine,” said designer Maryam Pousti.

“The name Cheft, meaning ‘to fasten’, derives from the way the panels slide into each other and lock in place to form a freestanding object.”

The bookshelf forms part of the brand’s Cheft collection of furniture, which also includes a table and bar stool informed by the geometrical patterns of traditional Persian architecture.

The Cheft bookshelf is available in coloured MDF and in a selection of solid wood options, including walnut and cherry.

The design has won the Prize Design for Modern Furniture and Lighting 2022 award, has been showcased at Design Week in Milan, Paris and New York, and is exhibited at the European Centre Athens as part of its permanent collection.

Product: Cheft bookshelf
Designer: Maryam Pousti
Brand: Studio Pousti
Contact: maryampousti1983@gmail.com

Dezeen Showroom

Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen’s huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.

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A radical change in perceptions is needed for society to fully embrace solar power, write pioneering designers Marjan van Aubel and Pauline van Dongen as part of Dezeen’s newly launched Solar Revolution series.

We are at the beginning of a global energy crisis. Our polluting energy system based on finite fossil resources is destroying our planet and threatening its inhabitants.

The news is overflowing with reports of planetary destruction by humans, fossil fuels and geopolitical conflicts, all closely tied to a damaging energy system that has no future. The IPCC report (AR6, 2022) shows that human-induced climate change is causing serious global disruption and poses a major risk to the wellbeing of people and the planet.

Her powerful rays are calling us louder than ever, because we have reached a critical point

The war in Ukraine is putting extra pressure on the energy system; due to the conflict with Russia, Europe has limited access to gas. Rising energy costs are rapidly increasing the cost of living for all, potentially pushing many people into poverty.

Yet, here we are. All under the same sun that nourishes us every day. Her powerful rays are calling us louder than ever, because we have reached a critical point. The current energy system has become untenable on all fronts: economically, socially and environmentally. Fortunately, there is a hopeful alternative at our fingertips.

For the first time in our history, solar energy is the cheapest source of electricity for most major countries. This begs the question: why isn’t solar energy widely used and embraced by society yet? In order to accelerate the energy transition and make it accessible to everyone, it is crucial that solar energy becomes a self-evident and natural part of everyone’s daily experience.

What does it take to achieve this shift? The predominant narrative surrounding solar energy focuses on technical and economic considerations, such as efficiency and payback time. This one-sided, technocratic perspective leaves no room for human and cultural values, limiting the social acceptance and full potential of solar.

It is time to create space for wonder, design and imagination. Room for pioneers who bring the human dimension back to the drawing board. Room for aesthetics, engagement and interaction. So that we can create meaningful and emotional relationships with solar energy.

So, it is time for a new perspective. Looking at solar from a design perspective – seeing it as a material instead of seeing it as a mere functional technology – can shift the focus away from efficiency and cost.

Through solar design we can generate a more inclusive and holistic solar narrative. For most people, thinking of solar energy evokes blue reflective panels on roofs, a bulky technology that turns sunlight into electricity. Many people consider them ugly and that’s not surprising since most of the technology consists of “one-size-fits-all” panels that are “stuck” onto existing surfaces.

As solar designers, we are fascinated by the sun and solar energy. Yet we are also concerned about how solar is integrated in our everyday environment. It is more often an afterthought than an integral and essential design element. For example, solar panels tend to be the first thing that is omitted when designing a new building for cost reasons, and working with solar energy is not a regular part of the curriculum in design education.

Imagining and creating a solar future that we would all like to live in is also a matter of design

In our creative world, however, a solar panel can be soft and inviting to touch like a textile or colorful and full of narrative like stained glass. So yes, technical and economic factors like efficiency play an important role, but making something meaningful requires a much more holistic approach.

Among other things, we take into account the material aesthetics, the qualities of interaction and cultural values that solar has to offer. Imagining and creating a solar future that we would all like to live in is not just a technological or economic issue, it is also a matter of design. Now is the time to design that solar future.

This is why we initiated The Solar Biennale, taking place for the first time from September 9 to October 30 in the Netherlands. For seven weeks, the biennale focuses on the human angle, because a solar-powered world goes beyond scientific research and uniform solar panels, after all. Cultural practices and place-specific energy needs also determine how the post-carbon future will develop.

With a Solar Seminar, a Rotterdam city program, educational Solar Labs and an extensive main exhibition, the biennale presents a new and inclusive view of solar energy that evokes wonder, design and imagination. The Solar Biennale looks at the big theme of solar energy through five lenses, each manoeuvring beyond efficiency in their own way: personal, social, spatial, environmental and virtual. Its program is run in collaboration with various locations, organizations and designers such as Het Nieuwe Instituut, ParX, Studio Roosegaarde, Boijmans Van Beuningen, Next Nature Network.

The Energy Show – Sun, Solar and Human Power exhibition at Het Nieuwe Instituut, curated by Matylda Krzykowski, forms the heart of the biennale. It presents the cultural, social and ecological perspectives of solar technology in a chronological way, reflects on the personal energy level of the visitor and shows dozens of innovative examples.

With the diverse program we show the many opportunities for solar designers to get started and we call for action. Through the interactive “Sun in the City” program, The Solar Biennale goes into the city of Rotterdam to inspire its residents outside on the street, where the sun shines and people meet, and to involve them in an accessible way in solar energy and the energy transition. If you would like to learn how to become a solar designer yourself, you can join one of the labs where we treat solar as a material and work hands-on.

Solar panels no longer need to be black and blue, bulky or placed far out of sight

All in all, the biennale shows that solar panels no longer need to be black and blue, bulky or placed far out of sight. In fact, solar has the potential to get very close to us. Like the rays of the sun, solar surfaces and objects can engage our senses and imbue our experience of the world with meaning.

Our mission does not stop at the biennale. In addition to an extensive program, the biennale also heralds the start of The Solar Movement: an international network of people who want to contribute to a future built with solar design. The basis of this movement is a Solar Manifesto and a series of Solar Principles that serve as guidelines for solar designers, so that solar design as a discipline can become more widespread.

Let solar design get under your skin and feel the solar energy flowing through your body. We invite you to help design a solar future: join The Solar Movement!

Marjan van Aubel and Pauline van Dongen are Dutch designers who specialise in experimenting with solar and have masterminded The Solar Biennale. Van Aubel’s new book, “Solar Futures: How to design a post-fossil world with the sun” explores how solar technology can become solar design.

The Solar Biennale runs from 9 to 30 September, taking place at the Het Nieuwe Instituut and other locations in Rotterdam. To find out more, see Dezeen Events Guide.

The top image shows the roof of the Dutch pavilion at Dubai Expo 2020, designed by van Aubel, which incorporated stained-glass-like photovoltaics.

Solar Revolution

This article is part of Dezeen’s Solar Revolution series, which explores the varied and exciting possible uses of solar energy and how humans can fully harness the incredible power of the sun.

The post “Now is the time to design a solar future” appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen Showroom: Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa has created a pared-back side table called TO for Italian design brand Plank, which is assembled from three simple shapes.

Fukasawa designed the table to be used in conjunction with Plank’s existing LAND lounge chair as well as with other furniture across a range of settings, from residential interiors to public spaces.

Its versatility comes from its simple yet striking form, comprising an O-shaped top and base connected with a T-shaped upright column between.

“The structure was meant to be traditional and clean and create impact by the simplicity of the design,” said Fukasawa.

Each component is made from steel and is 4 millimetres thick, giving the table a sleek and uniform appearance.

“[The table has] a simple form that blends into any scene and fits multiple purposes, being unpretentious and striking at the same time,” said Plank.

TO is available in four powder-coated finishes – agate grey, quartz grey, black red and black.

Product: TO side table
Designer: Naoto Fukasawa
Brand: Plank
Contact: info@plank.it

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.

The post TO side tabe by Naoto Fukasawa for Plank appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen School Shows: a soya production hub located in a reused flour mill and a city-wide design that creates safe routes for food delivery drivers are included in Dezeen’s latest school show by students at Oxford Brookes University.

Also included is a public landscape project at the River Thames that uses stone recycled from demolished buildings and a plant-based food production market located in an urban context.

Oxford Brookes University

Institution: Oxford Brookes University
School: School of Architecture
Course: The RIBA Studio
Tutors: Maria Faraone, Darren Stacey, Guan Lee, Alison Crawshaw, Luke Murray, Theo Malloy, Ben Stringer, Alexandra Lacatusu, Adam Barlow, Alice Howland and Connie Ivanova

School statement:

“The RIBA Studio is a unique route to becoming a registered architect. Our students study while working full-time in practice in either the UK or European Economic Area (EEA).

“Comprising Foundation, Certificate (Part 1) and Diploma (Part 2) courses, our programme is about freedom – students are free from a predetermined set of specific topics and agendas.

“Students are free to follow their passions and curiosities to shape the four subject areas, including design, technology, cultural context and professional studies.

“Students are free to take the time they need in each academic year. Our syllabus offers freedom to respond to significant needs, uncertainties, revolutions and joys while supporting each student’s learning and extraordinary outputs.

“Contact us at ribastudio[at]brookes.ac.uk to join the course.”

Smithfield Food Skills Market by Monika Gutauskaite

“The Smithfield Food Skills Market proposal focuses on the production and preservation of food within an urban context, enabling people to learn necessary food skills.

“It will also work as a network across London, allowing people to share the produce and knowledge, as well as celebrate the food.

“Although the site history is rooted in the meat trade, the amount of land required for meat production is not viable in the urban context.

“Therefore the project focuses on plant-based food production in the urban environment, using traditional food growing methods with soil.”

Student: Monika Gutauskaite
Course: RIBA Diploma in Architecture
Tutor: Darren Stacey
Email: ribastudio[at]brookes.ac.uk

Islands of Imagination by Niall O’Cleirigh

“The project draws on the commonality shared by those who roam – a shared emotional experience connected by the language of music, sound and silence. In our every day, we are caught in a cycle of repetition. This project offers sanctuary, reprieve and space to rekindle awareness.

“Located nine miles northwest of Donegal, the remote Tory Island rests shrouded in mythology. It is isolated, silent, and exists in a semi-dream-like state – a distant memory, or perhaps a creation of the imagination.

“For islanders, leaving and emigration are inevitable and a rite of passage. For visitors, it’s an idyllic escape and a place one longs to be. Away from the island, disconnected, only memory remains.

“The project explores the experience of being away from and the idea of home. With distance, the imagination grows, and an idealised picture of the home is painted.

“The project is a journey in time, space and a voyage of self-discovery to propose an architecture that speaks to this narrative. It generates a range of interventions and spaces that offer moments of reprieve that are reactive to the climate, community, culture, the exchange of music and stories, and the silence and vernacular of Tory Island.”

Student: Niall O’Cleirigh
Course: RIBA Diploma in Architecture
Tutor: Guan Lee
Email: ribastudio[at]brookes.ac.uk

London’s Quarry – Reclamation on/of the Thames Foreshore by Rosie Nicolson

“Ten stone-clad buildings in the City of London are currently earmarked for demolition. The majority were built in the 1980s and many are due to be replaced by glass buildings more than three times their current size.

“This project treats the stone on these buildings as London’s Quarry – a pre-extracted resource that amounts to roughly 700 metres-cubed of stone and will continue to accumulate for the foreseeable future until the stone buildings run out or until growth in the city makes an overdue transition to a circular economic model.

“The proposal is a landscape strategy and series of public realm interventions that intends to retain and improve access to the Thames foreshore, which is a vital public space in central London. The Thames riverbed is the property of the crown estate – a public asset. This allows it a freedom that most of the privately owned riverside developments and their so-called ‘public’ realms lack.

“Rising sea levels put the beaches at risk, while the twice-daily tide changes the spatial experience of the foreshore, washing away any individual, temporary claims to it.”

Student: Rosie Nicolson
Course: RIBA Diploma in Architecture
Tutor: Alison Crawshaw
Email: ribastudio[at]brookes.ac.uk

Soya Locavore District by Radostina Stoyanova

“The Soya Locavore project is located in London’s Royal Docks, Silvertown in Newham. Once the largest flour mill in the UK, the site has been neglected since the early 1990s and the vast plot now offers an opportunity for large-scale redevelopment with luxury apartments and trendy businesses and hospitality.

“The brief evolved as a reaction to the dystopia of such a development in one of the most deprived London boroughs, which faces prevailing food insecurity issues. Half of Newham’s children live in households experiencing poverty, hunger and insufficient nutrition.

“Our urban landscape has transformed as we live in megacities that are disconnected from food, ignorant of the environmental impact of our dietary habits. We live in times of historically high levels of meat consumption, fast food, and highly processed foods that are no longer grown close to home, as they were in post-war Britain.

“The proposal responds to these macro-scale global environmental crises, the negative impact of intensive agricultural practices and the borough’s concentration of fast food chicken shops to offer the first of its kind – a soya production hub, teaching communities how to cultivate and consume new types of plant-based proteins.”

Student: Radostina Stoyanova
Course: RIBA Diploma in Architecture
Tutor: Luke Murray
Email: ribastudio[at]brookes.ac.uk

Wetlands Workshop by Eoin Carroll

“Peat harvesting in Ireland ceased in 2020 and the semi-state company Bord na Móna, which was responsible for peat exploitation, is now committed to honouring its extraction licence by rehabilitating the cutaway bogs.

“The project focuses on an existing mechanical workshop in the Boora bogs in the Irish Midlands, originally responsible for building and maintaining peat harvesting machines. The project seeks to establish new ways for people to interact with the landscape in a meaningful and sustainable way.

“Inspired by the emerging vegetation of abandoned cutaway peat-lands, the new Wetlands Workshop repurposes the existing building to include a typha water-reed insulation factory, thatching trade school, base for water-reed preparation for thatching, and spaces to facilitate community gatherings to offer a renewed focal point to the communities surrounding the peatland.

“A symbiotic architectural approach combines the needs of new functions with the existing industrial architecture, creating a new purpose growing from the existing to ensure a sustainable future.

“In the same way, reeds have colonised areas of cutaway bog-land and the building seeks to embody the history and nature of the place, combined with its new activities.”

Student: Eoin Carroll
Course: RIBA Certificate in Architecture
Tutor: Noel Brady
Email: ribastudio[at]brookes.ac.uk

Ethical Apparel National HQ by Rachel Jones

“This HQ for an ethical apparel manufacturer is located in Leicester. Once known for its thriving textile industry, the city is now recognised for its ‘dark factories’ in the spotlight of Covid, which saw heavy press coverage of money laundering, verbal abuse, and shocking working conditions to produce high quantities of stock at fast turnovers for well-known brands.

“The project aims to express clothes production from design to sales, blur the boundaries between white collar and blue collar, front and back of house, and focus on the well-being and celebration of the workers’ skill and craft.

“The project aims to reinstate the missing link between consumer and worker through an immersive public experience of production spaces, design studio, sewing floor and pattern making, linked by a continuous walkway.

“The project reuses the historic Evita House, built in 1898 as a former goods shed for London and North Western Railway, connecting the project to the importance of the railway in Leicester’s industrial history.

“The building’s position between industrial and retail areas marks the broken link between consumer and worker, which the project aims to restore.”

Student: Rachel Jones
Course: RIBA Certificate in Architecture
Tutor: Ben Stringer
Email: ribastudio[at]brookes.ac.uk

Experiments by Amal el Mchrafi

“This project is one of a range of drawing, making, painting, printing, casting and observational experiments taken over the year to help inform the design projects titled ‘A Going Concern’, which explores obesity, and ‘A Day in the Life of…’, which focusses on Muchute Skatepark on the Isle of Dogs in London.”

Student: Amal el Mchrafi
Course: RIBA Foundation in Architecture
Tutors: Alexandra Lacatusu and Adam Barlow
Email: ribastudio[at]brookes.ac.uk

Accessible Community Gardens by Charlotte Edwards

“The project seeks to provide access to outdoor space to flats adjacent to the historic Alum Chine valley in Bournemouth in response to the restrictions of the pandemic and lock-down, imagining how things could look very different if the way we used natural spaces around buildings changed.

“The intervention offers a meandering accessible ramp down to the existing Alum Chine pathway combined with a bird-hide, individual garden plots, community spaces and facilities for naturally dyeing fabrics using the locally mined alum – which gave its name to the valley – to fix the colours.”

Student: Charlotte Edwards
Course: RIBA Foundation in Architecture
Tutor: Alice Howland
Email: ribastudio[at]brookes.ac.uk

Where Am I? (The Bird) by Ingrid McLaren

“This bird pop-up was made as an initial prototype to illustrate how impressionable someone can become when they are isolated from society. For Mclaren ‘A Going Concern’ project, the student focused on incels and the way they are radicalised online.

“The bird symbolises how imposing the communities they find there can be. There is pressure for them to feel like they belong, and the lengths they go to achieve this are often huge jumps from where they would have found themselves in the outside world.

“For the incels, the online world is often more real than the outside world, which dictated McLaren to make something that would be accessible to them in their space.”

Student: Ingrid McLaren
Course: RIBA Foundation in Architecture
Tutor: Connie Ivanova
Email: ribastudio[at]brookes.ac.uk

Street of Wheels by Paul Colfer

“The way we use our cities is changing due to innovations in technology, particularly the smartphone. Takeaway orders are placed and communication between delivery riders and kitchens is made simultaneously through their devices. The riders identify public spaces in the city to wait for orders, take breaks, and create social environments with other riders.

“Food serves as nourishment as well as an important cultural expression that brings people together, but the city’s role as the primary location of exchange is being challenged by technology. The Street of Wheels will seek to address this marginalisation and develop an architectural prototype for adapting existing buildings to accommodate communities of delivery riders, dark kitchen employees, and the public they serve.

“Digital and physical communities will merge and the process of ordering, collection and dining will be revealed to the workers and public through a hub for relocated dark kitchens with improved conditions for delivery riders and kitchen workers, a co-operative will be created for delivery riders and kitchen workers offering advice on their worker’s rights, there will be a recycling centre to convert takeaway plastics into self-build components, and adaptive reuse of existing redundant buildings and site incorporating public space will be incorporated.

“The project aims to create a community-owned co-operative of 10 to 15 delivery riders and 5 to 8 relocated dark kitchens. But as the co-operative grows, the component-led approach allows for expansion as well as disassembly if the needs of the occupants change.”

Student: Paul Colfer
Course: RIBA Certificate in Architecture
Tutor: Theo Malloy
Email: ribastudio[at]brookes.ac.uk

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and Oxford Brookes University. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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The latest edition of our weekly Dezeen Agenda newsletter features KPF and Heatherwick Studio’s plans to “redefine what an airport terminal can be”. Subscribe to Dezeen Agenda now!

This week, architecture practices Kohn Pedersen Fox and Heatherwick Studio have revealed the first render of Changi Airport‘s Terminal 5, which will be the latest addition to the Singapore airport.

“Rather than making a single vast monolith on the outskirts of a city for the exclusive use of travellers, our plan is to create a social space that people living in the city are excited to visit,” explained Heatherwick.

Other stories in the latest newsletter include the renovation of Sydney Opera House’s concert hall, which has reopened following an overhaul of the entire building, video footage of the underground retractable pitch being constructed at Real Madrid’s stadium and a round-up of fifteen supertall skyscrapers being built around the world.

Dezeen Agenda

Dezeen Agenda is a curated newsletter sent every Tuesday containing the most important news highlights from Dezeen. Read the latest edition of Dezeen Agenda or subscribe here.

You can also subscribe to Dezeen Debate, which is sent every Thursday and contains a curated selection of highlights from the week, as well as Dezeen Daily, our daily bulletin that contains every story published in the preceding 24 hours on Dezeen.

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