These handmade in NYC watch straps can be customized in many ways—size, materials, colors, style, stitching, edge painting etc. You can keep it simple, create something with the existing color and materials, or request something unique. There’s more than just watch bands, with all kinds of different small accessories (such as note card holders) and bags and totes of all kinds, all of which can also be customized.

Dezeen School Shows: a project that creates privacy for residents in high-rise apartment blocks is included in this school show by Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Also included is a branding scheme for a snack company based on the concept of toxic relationships and a printed publication that explores the experiences of people living in Hong Kong during the Covid 19 pandemic.

Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Institution: Hong Kong Polytechnic University
School: School of Design
Course: BA (Hons) in Communication Design, BA (Hons) in Digital Media, BA (Hons) in Environment and Interior design and the Integrated Designpreneurship subject under the BA programme
Tutors: Dr Gerhard Bruyns, Gilles Vanderstocken, Amy Chow, Chun Hei Charis Poon, Francis Hung, Dr Vincie Lee, Tony Hon, Dr Amelie Chan, Roberto Vilchis Echeverri, Benny Leong and Kam-fai Chan

School statement:

“PolyU Design has been an important hub of design education and research for Hong Kong since 1964.

“It is a place where East meets West, allowing students to develop their design expertise while gaining an in depth understanding of industry and society, with a unique international and cultural perspective.

“PolyU Design attaches equal importance to design theory and application, integrates art with science, actively promotes interdisciplinary cooperation and learning, emphasises high-quality design education, conducts high-level research and provides consulting services.

“It is consistently among the top 20 in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings by Subject – Art and Design. Academic programmes are offered at bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral levels in highly diverse design expertise.

“Riding on massive creativity, many design projects of PolyU students are human-centric, cultural-driven and embrace the latest technologies.

“In this school show, eight amazing projects are selected from undergraduate programmes in communication design, digital media, environment and interior design.

“Two other projects have been selected from the Integrated Designpreneurship subject, which enable students to explore teamwork and integration, system thinking in design, articulation of ‘for-profit’ yet ‘for-benefit’, as well as entrepreneurship and start-up opportunity in the process of creating their capstone projects.

“Click here to view the showcase in full.”



Make Friendship Visible by Ming Wai Scarlett Tong

“The client is a social app that addresses the challenges young people face when arranging meetings with friends due to societal lateness norms.

“By enabling continuous real-time location tracking, the app allows users to spontaneously meet up with nearby friends, freeing them from rigid schedules and undesirable situations. This removes physical distance and information barriers, expanding social boundaries and enhancing relationship security.

“This advertising campaign for the app utilises various touch points. Posters are designed to highlight the app’s instant location sharing, making friendships visible at any moment.

“Social media pages are created to introduce the social app to local residents, sharing app information through a unique perspective. Viral online videos are produced to creatively demonstrate how the app easily locates friends, portraying a transparent city.

“Lastly, a citywide hide-and-seek competition is proposed to generate brand awareness. These initiatives aim to foster stronger connections and a sense of community among friends, driven by the app’s features.”

Student: Ming Wai Scarlett Tong
Course: BA (Hons) in Advertising Design
Tutor: Francis Hung

The Pak Kok Village Project by Nunez Subhadra

“This project focuses on materiality and the reuse of abandoned structures in the Pak Kok village. It aims to create a handbook of suggested material reuse options to revitalise the village’s structures.

“The handbook uses both existing materials and decayed materials from old buildings to provide a sustainable, achievable and affordable construction method.

“The project prioritises preserving the village’s history and aesthetic by avoiding expensive new materials.”

Student: Nunez Subhadra
Course: BA (Hons) in Environment and Interior Design
Tutor: Gilles Vanderstocken



In-between by Ka Yu Cathy Chan

“In-between shows the daily experiences of Hong Kong people during Covid-19 through an exhibition and five publications that explore the connections between people, objects and memory.

“The publications tell the stories of how the appearance, behaviour and relationships of interviewees changed during the pandemic, divided into five chapters – masks, dining behaviour, daily behaviour, distance, restrictions and rules.

“Experimental photography, illustrations, photograms, a range of uncommon materials, printing techniques and dimensions are used in ‘In-between’ – choices that emphasize the themes of the stories being told.

“In-between encourages people to press forward by visualizing humanity’s incredible perseverance in the face of adversity.”

Student: Ka Yu Cathy Chan
Course: BA (Hons) in Communication Design
Tutor: Amy Chow

Hey Body: In Time of Counter Enquiry by Shu-fan Abby Yang

“This is a speculative design project that proposes a future where the practice of ‘counter enquiry’ through ‘human body enquiry technology’ is the primary information consumption method.

“The human body becomes a new type of algorithm operating via the bodily experience stored in the physical flesh through the innovative ‘spindle’, ‘node’, and ‘thread’ technologies.

“Hey Body encourages reflection on the mediation of digital algorithms in the current context.

“By proposing human flesh as a counterbalance to digital computation, the project calls for inquisitive hearts to search out the balance point between humans and algorithmic technology.”

Student: Shu-fan Abby Yang
Course: BA (Hons) in Communication Design
Tutor: Chun Hei Charis Poon

ESCZIP by Ching Fong, Wing Yan Lai, Hau Ching Wyonna Li and Kin Man So

“This animated story is set in a deserted game centre in 1980s America, which is sat beside a highway. The game centre is shrouded in mystery. Seeking refuge, a desperate fugitive finds himself hiding in the centre’s restroom, grappling with a peculiar mask stuck to his face.

“He accidentally stumbles into a bizarre birthday party, where a lonely child weeps and cries out for attention. Reluctantly, the fugitive accepts the child’s invitation to play, deepening their bond as they explore the enigmatic game centre together.

“However, the child still holds an unfulfilled wish, fixating on his birthday cake and longing for a lit candle to make a birthday wish in the presence of his newfound friend.”

Students: Ching Fong, Wing Yan Lai, Hau Ching Wyonna Li and Kin Man So
Course: BA (Hons) in Digital Media
Tutor: Dr Amelie CHAN

The Love We Miss by Chun Hoi Moses Cheng, Wai Chun Justin Cho, Lok Yan Priscilla Poon and King Ching Nicola Shum

“This short film explores the tender bond between Horus, a profoundly visually impaired individual, and Summer, a caregiver on a short-term contract. It delves into themes of romance and personal growth.

“Despite Horus’s visual impairment, he perceives the world through heightened emotional and human connections. Their relationship blossoms, revealing shared qualities and affection, yet they remain confined to being good friends.

“Drawing inspiration from our own emotional journeys, the story encompasses family love, friendship and falling in love romantically – it highlights how our emotions shape our approach to life, decisions and finding meaning.

“The aim was to convey a sense of blessedness, whether fleeting, sweet or enduring, without fixating on a perfect ending.

“Instead, we emphasise the pursuit of happiness and the resonance that can be found within the relationship between Horus and Summer.”

Students: Chun Hoi Moses Cheng, Wai Chun Justin Cho, Lok Yan Priscilla Poon and King Ching Nicola Shum
Course: BA (Hons) in Digital Media
Tutor: Dr Amelie Chan

Gah Zeoi by Man-Kwan KaKa Chan, Annie Lee, Po-yee Bowie Leung, Suen-chi Belle Li, Chun-kit Tsang and Nga-lam Jasmine Yeung

“Gah Zeoi offers a unique dining experience that embraces the principles of regenerative agriculture. The design team believes that agriculture can serve as a bridge to reconnect humans with the natural world.

“They have a mission to introduce the concepts of regenerative agriculture to the people of Hong Kong and foster a renewed bond with our environment.

“Through Gah Zeoi, participants are educated about regenerative agriculture through symbolic elements and thoughtful design incorporated into the menu, printed materials and services.

“By creating an extraordinary dining experience, it is aimed to spark profound reflections among participants about their consumption habits, their relationship with the environment, and the tangible actions they can take to create a better world.”

Students: Gah Zeoi by Man-Kwan KaKa Chan, Annie Lee, Po-yee Bowie Leung, Suen-chi Belle Li, Chun-kit Tsang and Nga-lam Jasmine Yeung
Course: Integrated Designpreneurship under the BA (Hons) Scheme in Design
Tutor: Roberto Vilchis Echeverri

BookThrough by Jen-hung Justin Fang, Esther Lui and Kei-yau Cathy Poon

“BookThrough is an experimental project that explores books, book culture, community and design’s role in providing readers with an alternative literary experience.

“Led by interdisciplinary design entrepreneurs, the project began by examining challenges in Hong Kong’s book community.

“Through research methods like user shadowing and interviews, the team identified obstacles such as fragmented reading resources, reader disconnection and limited literary interests.

“To address these issues, they developed a digital platform that fosters a sustainable and scalable book culture.

“The platform incorporates habit data visualisation, information sharing and gamification to engage readers and catalyse the future development of the book community.”

Student: Jen-hung Justin Fang, Esther Lui and Kei-yau Cathy Poon
Course: Integrated Designpreneurship track under the BA (Hons) Scheme in Design
Tutor: Benny Leong and Kam-fai Chan

Enjoy Being Toxic by Wu Ka Mei

“The client of this campaign is a spicy potato chip company from Japan, known for its outstanding spiciness that makes people feel pain when they eat it.

“The chips use ghost peppers to make spicy powder, which gives it a spiciness rating of 1,001,304 Scoville units. This advertising idea focuses on toxic relationships.

“Inspired by the intriguing connection between toxic relationships and the enjoyment of spicy food, this advertising project explores their shared characteristics.

“Both experiences can be exhilarating yet painful, evoking strong sensations and addictive tendencies. Central to this project is the Cantonese term ‘犯賤’, translated as ‘toxic’.

“This term captures the concept of individuals knowingly engaging in self-destructive behaviour, despite the consequences.”

Student: Wu Ka Mei
Course: BA (Hons) in Advertising Design
Tutors: Dr Vincie Lee and Tony Hon

Habitual Vicissitudes — The notion of transparency, translucency, and opacity by Tak Mei Antoinette Wong

“Habitual Vicissitudes is a project that examines different design components for manipulating visibility in high-density living environments.

“It investigates the manipulation of transparency in architectural elements, such as frosted glass and perforated screens, to create a balance between privacy and connection to the surrounding environment.

“The project considers factors like user behaviour, cultural backgrounds, and neighbour relationships to determine the desired level of visibility.

“By testing materials and adjusting dimensions like transparency and reflectiveness, the project aims to accommodate individual preferences based on factors like height, age, and gender.

“It also explores the impact of interior elements like curtains and louvers on visibility and user choices.”

Student: Tak Mei Antoinette Wong
Course: BA (Hons) in Environment and Interior Design
Tutor: Dr Gerhard Bruyns

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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Dutch company Human Material Loop is using an unusual waste source to make a zero-carbon wool alternative that requires no land or water use: human hair.

Human Material Loop works with participating hairdressers to collect hair cuttings, which it processes into yarns and textiles and sometimes turns into garments.

Founder and CEO Zsofia Kollar was initially interested in human hair from what she describes as a “cultural and sociological” perspective before she began exploring its material properties.

“Delving into scientific studies about hair revealed not only its unique characteristics but also the stark reality of excessive waste generated,” Kollar told Dezeen. “This realisation became a catalyst for a clear mission: finding sustainable ways to utilise hair waste.”

Elsewhere, human hair mats are being used to mop up oil spills and to create biodegradable stools, but Kollar honed in on the textile industry as the best target for her aspirations.

“Not only is the textile sector one of the largest markets in our economy, but it also ranks among the most environmentally taxing industries,” said Kollar.

“Throughout history, we’ve utilised a variety of animal fibres in textiles, yet our own hair, composed of the same keratin protein as wool, often goes overlooked,” she continued. “Why not treat human hair as we would any other valuable textile fibre?”

According to Kollar, the use of human hair eliminates one of the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the textile industry: the cultivation of raw materials like cotton plants or farming of sheep for wool.

Waste hair does not degrade any soil, require any pesticide, pollute any water or produce any greenhouse gas emissions, she points out.

At the same time, hair has properties that make it highly desirable. It’s flexible, it has high tensile strength, it functions as a thermal insulator and it doesn’t irritate the skin.

Human Material Loop has focused on developing the technology to process hair so it can be integrated into standard machinery for yarn and textile production.

The company has made the waste hair into a staple fibre yarn – a type of yarn made by twisting short lengths of fibres together – and has several textiles in development.

It has also made a few complete garments, most recently a red sweater-like dress created in collaboration with the company Henkel, owner of the Schwartzkopf haircare brand.

The dress is intended for display at hairdressing events, as part of an initiative to foster discussion about alternative salon waste-management ideas.

Seeing completed products like these, Kollar said, helps to ease the discomfort or disgust that many people feel around using products derived from humans.

“Surprisingly, the material looks utterly ordinary, akin to any other textile,” she said. “A fascinating transformation occurs when individuals touch and feel the fabric. Their initial scepticism dissolves, giving way to a subconscious acceptance of the material.”

“The rejection usually stems from those who’ve merely heard about it without ever laying eyes on the garments themselves,” she continued. “It’s a testament to the power of firsthand experience in reshaping perceptions”

Kollar says Human Material Loop will also be targeting the architecture and interiors products market, for which she believes hair’s moisture resistance, antibacterial properties, and acoustic and thermal attributes will make it an attractive proposition.

The company has a commercial pilot scheduled for 2024 and also aims to create a comprehensive fabric library for brands and designers.

Kollar had been making experimental textiles like a golden, scented tapestry woven from blonde hair for many years before setting out to commercialise the venture with Human Material Loop in 2021.

She is not the only designer to have attempted to utilise wasted hair cuttings. In recent years, Ellie Birkhead incorporated the material into region-specific bricks and hair was used to measure urban pollution in Bangkok.

The post Human Material Loop sets out to commercialise textiles made from hair appeared first on Dezeen.

Designed by Antony Gibbon, the Tapered House is an innovative and elaborate new addition to his Inhabit series. The home is another vivid creation by Gibbon, which follows his design philosophy that centers around pushing the boundaries of architecture and laying down a harmonious and serene connection with nature. The other homes in the series include the Repitilia House and Loch Eight, and the Tapered House continues the unique design language seen in the other structures.

Designer: Antony Gibbon

The Tapered House is settled along the shores of a lake and is surrounded by calming woods. The house is designed to be versatile and perfectly merges with its surrounding natural environment. Since it features raised stilts, you can place the house on the edge of a lake, river, pond, or any sloped terrain. This subtle elevation enables the Tapered House to effortlessly merge with the various contours and curves of the land while ensuring that is it well-settled on the ground. It is a prime specimen of form meets functionality.

The Tapered House is a spacious home while covering a footprint of 110 square meters. It includes two bedrooms. The ground floor of the house occupies eighty-one square meters, and it features a reception area, lounge, kitchen, one of the bedrooms, and a shower/washroom. The home also includes outdoor terraces that are located at the front and the rear of the property. The second floor, on the other hand, occupies twenty-nine square meters and holds a large double bedroom, office, and a built-in storage space.

The exterior of the home is clad in panels of various timber finishes. The timber finishes add a sense of warmth and zen to the structure while allowing the project to have an element of customization, which enables it to be adapted to different locations. All in all, the Tapered House is a modern and chic home amped with well-designed amenities, and customization options, allowing it to be adapted to the personal needs and requirements of various users.

The post The Tapered House Is Elevated On Stilts To Adapt To Diverse Terrains & Landscapes first appeared on Yanko Design.

French studio Lacaton & Vassal, which was today named the winner of the Soane Medal, demonstrate how architects can work with, not against, communities and existing buildings, writes Edwin Heathcote.

When architects Lacaton & Vassal were commissioned to improve the Place Léon Aucoc in Bordeaux in 1996 they didn’t do much at all. In fact they left it pretty much as it was, with an instruction to do more regular maintenance and to replace some of the gravel.

It was, in its way, a pretty revolutionary move. This was the height of the icon, the age of starchitecture and architects were being encouraged to bring an injection of sculptural adrenaline to knackered cities. Instead, the Parisian pair studied the square carefully and found it worked pretty well, no need for change here. “It was not doing nothing,” Ann Lacaton told me recently – “it was a commission. And to leave it was a decision.”

 Never demolish might have sounded a little mad in 1996, but now it sounds visionary

Lacaton and Philippe Vassal, who have just been awarded the Soane Medal (which I was a jury member for), have made their name with their slogan “never demolish”. It might have sounded a little mad in 1996, but now it sounds visionary. This was a practice that respected the already existing and sought not to replace but to repair.

They hit the headlines with their Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2021, but they had been making waves for two decades before that. First it was with their remarkable transformation of the Palais de Tokyo in 2002 (expanded in 2014), a stripping out of a classical/art deco exhibition hall to create a raw, haunting, cavernous interior which became Paris’s riposte to London’s Tate Modern.

The scarred concrete, the structure denuded of its classical aspirations and the vast spaces made for a perfect venue for art and action, creating a cool, ruthlessly stripped interior in a city of gilded rooms and fancy palaces.

Their next big impact though came with a very different kind of building, a social housing slab on the edges of Paris. At the Tour Bois-le-Prêtre in 2011 (working with architect Frédéric Druot) they re-clad an unpromising, albeit solid 16-storey 1970s slab in a diaphanous veil of cheap polycarbonate.

The striking thing here was that they left the residents in place during the works so that the community would not be disturbed and the inhabitants wouldn’t become disengaged from their homes. The floor plates were extended with balconies and the building reclothed. Once tired and a little ragged, it became a beautiful thing, a translucent tower resembling a piece of avant garde modernism yet all for social housing tenants who had got used to not being consulted or cared about.

It was an extremely radical project and one which provokes the question of why it has not been replicated almost universally. It was done at least one more time in Bordeaux in 2017 to even more delightful effect, the architects wrapping a layer of winter gardens around the homes, an insulating layer but one which ingeniously gave the residents extra space without interfering with their floorpans.

Construction is fiercely carbon intensive so whatever can be saved should be

They added over 50 per cent extra floorspace to the flats as well as eight new dwellings, it resulted in construction costs of one third of a potential replacement and with half of that carbon footprint. All this for towers that were going to be demolished.

They had tested the language out at a house in Bordeaux in 1999 which saw a biscuit factory converted but also at another dwelling in Floirac a few years earlier in 1993. Here they created a basic house and fronting it up with a huge polycarbonate conservatory which imparted a kind of agricultural appearance, covering space as cheaply as possible.

They then went on to use similar ideas at their wonderful FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais art gallery where they created a kind of ghost twin for a derelict ship-building shed. Rather than renovating the existing shed they left it naked and a little decrepit, creating instead a mirror-image next door, again in cheap, translucent polycarbonate and left the old, 1949 structure as an epic shed for events and installations.

They can do new builds as well as anybody, just look at the architecture school in Nantes, a genuinely flexible, remarkably fluid building which has become a place of real communal activity. But it is their attitude to the existing that has made them harbingers of a new and not entirely uncontroversial moment for architecture.

If designers might be nervous about AI taking their jobs they might also (you would hope) be suffering from anxiety about the embodied carbon in the buildings they are destroying to get the opportunity of creating their new works.

Construction is fiercely carbon intensive so whatever can be saved should be. But what their work suggests, I think, is that architecture is almost invariably more interesting if designers need to work not only with existing structures and extant fabric but with existing communities, with people in place.

Much bullshit is spouted about “placemaking” but often the best places already exist

What might seem like a constraint is a reality check, a reminder that architecture is not a tabula rasa but that it intervenes in complex and delicate infrastructures of relationships and networks. As so many social housing projects in the UK have shown, once residents are “decanted” very few end up returning, whether by design or by fate.

Much bullshit is spouted about “placemaking” but often the best places already exist. The trick is not to screw them up. Lacaton and Vassal have illustrated how architects can work with and not against residents and communities, respecting not only the people and their memories but the collective memory of structures embedded into both the physical and the psychic landscape.

Architects are too often complicit in gentrification and social cleansing, whether unthinkingly or for reasons of pure commerce or ego. Lacaton & Vassal have shown another way. ‘”Demolition” Lacaton told me “is a form of violence”. “Never demolish, always transform, with and for the inhabitants,” she said.

The main image is of Transformation of 530 Dwellings by Frédéric Druot Architecture, Lacaton & Vassal Architectes and Christophe Hutin Architecture. The photo is by Philippe Ruault.

Edwin Heathcote is an architect and writer who has been architecture and design critic of The Financial Times since 1999. His numerous books on architecture include Monument Builders, Contemporary Church Architecture and the recently released On the Street: In-Between Architecture.

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