Hasta La Ideas

Hyundai Mobis, a Hyundai Motor Group supplier subsidiary, has developed a zero-turn system for cars. Like Mercedes, they demonstrated the tech at CES; but unlike Mercedes’ brutish “G-Turn” technology, the Mobion concept car equipped with the system actually turns the wheels, all independently of each other, enabling the car to move in unconventional ways.

For instance, here’s it doing a zero-turn:

A crab walk:

A pivot turn:

And “diagonal driving” at cruising speeds.

The Mobis system seems superior to Mercedes’. Surprisingly, it’s “ready for immediate mass production,” according to Vice President Lee Seung-Hwan, Head of Advanced Engineering at Hyundai Mobis. It’s also got a feature that Mercedes doesn’t, called “Ground Projection.” Because the vehicle can move in unconventional ways, for safety’s sake it can literally project its intentions to nearby pedestrians:

“This feature complements the e-Corner System’s movement capabilities by providing the vehicle’s direction of travel. For instance, during diagonal or lateral movement, Ground Projection can illuminate the vehicle’s direction on the ground, utilizing lights across a 360-degree spectrum. MOBION can even leverage Ground Projection to generate crosswalk stripes for pedestrians to use when they are detected.”

No word on when this will actually appear in a production vehicle.

American hotel brand Bunkhouse and interior design studio Reurbano have used motifs derived from the history of a Mexico City structure when converting it into a boutique hotel.

Hotel San Fernando is located in the Condesa neighbourhood of Mexico City, a largely residential zone that in recent years has seen an influx of national and international travellers.

Bunkhouse worked with local interior design studio Reurbano to take a 1940s apartment building and convert it into a 19-room hotel, with finishes informed by the neighbourhood.

The face of the structure was restored and painted a light green, with darker green used on the awnings that provide coverage for seating attached to the hotel’s lobby and restaurant, which open to the street through glass-paned French doors.

An art deco-style logo spells out the name of the hotel above the door. Saint Fernando is known as the patron saint of engineers, and the team wanted to highlight this by maintaining the name of the original building in the branding of the new structure.

“We wanted to honour this building,” said Bunkhouse senior vice president of design Tenaya Hills.

“We love the story and the history and like to imagine what it has been for people over the decades.”

This primary entrance features a metal door with glass panes informed by the original stained glass of the building.

The entry corridor leads past a lobby lounge, with lighting by Oaxaca studio Oaxifornia and furnishings by local gallery Originario; and design studios Daniel Y Catalina, and La Metropolitana, which also created custom furniture for all of the guest suites.

At the far end of the lobby lounge is the restaurant’s bar, which features a large semi-circular cabinet with mirrored back to hold the spirits. A chandelier by local sculptor Rebeca Cors hangs above the clay-clad bar.

The entrance corridor has green encaustic concrete tiles from the original building. Other original details include the wainscotting and casement windows.

A reception area is located at the end of the corridor and behind it is a circular staircase with metal-and-wood railing that leads all the way up through the building, with landings on each of its five floors, terminating at a terrace on top of the building.

The guest rooms range from single-room setups to multi-room suites, the largest of which are accessed through French doors with opaque windows.

Here the studio departed from the greens used on the exterior and the lobby and utilised soft orange, pink and white paints.

Floors in the rooms are either tile or wood and furniture made from light-coloured wood is covered by locally derived textiles. Three rooms on the rooftop level feature furniture designed by Bunkhouse and fabricated by local design outfit B Collective Studio.

Pendant lamps and sconces by local ceramicist Anfora are found in the kitchens and bathrooms.

The rooftop features a tiled dining and lounge area surrounded by sculptural breeze blocks, designed to mimic the original building’s patterned stained glass.

Mexican design studios Mexa and Comité de Proyectos contributed furniture pieces for the rooftop.

Other hotels in Mexico include a tile-clad structure in San Miguel de Allende by Productora and Esrawe Studio and a hotel in Mexico City with wooden lattices by PPAA.

The photography is by Chad Wadsworth. 

The post Bunkhouse and Reurbano convert 1940s Mexico City apartments into boutique hotel appeared first on Dezeen.

Promotion: design platform What Design Can Do has announced its Redesign Everything Challenge, calling designers to submit ideas that “radically redesign our world”.

Redesign Everything Challenge is the fifth competition run in collaboration with the IKEA Foundation and invites international designers to present products, materials, systems or services that intend to tackle critical global issues such as climate change.

The competition is open from 17 January to 13 March 2024 and the winners will see their designs turned into reality and win €5,000 in funding.

The initiative emphasises the need for circular and regenerative solutions and aims to answer the question: what role can designers play in the transition to a fair and circular future?

What Design Can Do intends for the competition to prompt designers to use their “radical imaginations” and design creative solutions that tackle crises in food, fashion and packaging, construction, mobility, digital services or electronics.

“Redesigning everything is first and foremost a call to action,” said What Design Can Do co-founder Richard van der Laken. “It’s also an invitation to think laterally about how our world should be redesigned, in ways both big and small.”

“Now, more than ever, there is an urgent need for inclusive and circular solutions, and for the transformative and disruptive power of design,” he continued.

The competition is a bid to showcase how projects that humanity currently faces are interconnected, for example, biodiversity loss in the Amazon, the housing crisis in the Netherlands and plastic waste in Kenya.

What Design Can Do believes that the solutions to current issues “cut across various sectors and disciplines” and that designers have a critical window of opportunity to reduce carbon emissions.

“In the face of our planet’s greatest challenges, design emerges as a powerful catalyst for change,” said IKEA Foundation head of planet Liz McKeon. “The What Design Can Do design challenges that we supported have led to tangible impacts in climate action, health and wellbeing, and social justice all around the world.”

“This demonstrates that designers can become the architects of solutions, building a bridge between imagination and impactful change, and have the transformative ability to shape a sustainable future,” McKeon added.

In April 2024 a jury of experts in climate action, design and social impact will select 10 winners. In addition to winning €5,000 in funding and seeing their designs turned into reality, winners will receive online training and mentoring sessions with experts to strengthen their projects. Winners will also have the opportunity to speak at What Design Can Do events.

What Design Can Do was launched in 2011 and is an international platform that champions design as a tool for social change. The platform addresses pressing societal and environmental issues and has hosted 15 successful conferences in Amsterdam, São Paulo, and México City.

In 2016, it launched the design challenge programme that aims to connect the creative and design communities with urgent social issues such as climate change and refugees’ wellbeing.

The IKEA Foundation is a strategic philanthropy dedicated to tackling poverty and climate change, which it says are the two biggest issues that affect children’s futures. Since 2009, the foundation has granted more than €2 billion to improve quality of life while fighting climate change.

For more information and to participate in the Redesign Everything Challenge, visit WDCD’s website.

Partnership content

This article was written by Dezeen for What Design Can Do as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

The post What Design Can Do’s climate action challenge returns for 2024 appeared first on Dezeen.

The Swiss Southeast Railway (Südostbahn, or SOB) does not have a problem with punctuality; Swiss trains run like clockwork, as they say. And with reliability solved, the organization can turn their attention towards refining other aspects of the user experience. “SOB wants to make trains more flexible for customers to use in the future,” the organization writes. They looked for a problem to solve, and found the following:

“More and more bicycles are being transported on trains. This poses challenges for rail companies: They want to provide customers with enough bicycle and luggage space, but space requirements change depending on the time of day, day of the week or season. ‘The trains always offer the same range of seats and parking spaces at any time of day or night, in any weather,’ says Urs Brütsch, Head of Mobility at Südostbahn.”

SOB turned to industrial design consultancy Erfindergeist (“Inventive Spirit”) for a solution. After studying the problem, Erfindergeist industrial designer Christian Keller concluded that “the space is there,” and that the designers just needed to unlock it. They then designed the following arrangement, in which sets of four passenger seats can be stowed away to make room for bicycles, strollers or luggage:

Interestingly enough, the seats have been designed so that, when folded away, they offer no clue that they are seats—in order to prevent arguments between passengers:

“Unlike folding seats, there is no conflict of use between travelers because the folded seats are no longer recognizable and available to passengers.”

‘That illusion won’t last long, of course, once passengers observe the seats being transformed; but I thought that was a fascinating thing for a design to strive for, particularly in Switzerland, where I don’t envision passengers having the same dust-ups you might see on the Long Island Railroad.

The seats were also designed to mount to existing attachment points, avoiding the need for costly refits.

A set of these are currently installed and undergoing a one-year trial in an SOB train.

I’m at a point in my life where I’m team stools over chairs, and I truly believe stools deserve to be given way more credit than they get. Stools are often overlooked, maybe because they occupy minimum space, and aren’t overbearing. But these traits are what make stools so great in my opinion! I mean, they’re compact, and a great space-saving furniture option for our modern homes. They are also super portable. And, we’ve put together a collection of stool designs that not only provide a healthy seating experience while promoting a good and stable posture but most of them are created from sustainable materials as well. From a minimal stackable stool with slim wooden legs to a portable stool made from electronic waste packaging – these well-designed stools are the furniture pieces you need to add to your home.

1. Drum Stool

Called the Drum Stool, this minimal, stackable, and sustainable stool looks like an adorable little wine cork at first glance! But as you dig deeper, you realize it has much more to offer.

Why is it noteworthy?

Teixeira picked materials such as cork and wood to build the stool, instantly rating it high on sustainability. Cork was used to create the seat, while wood was the leg material.

What we like

• The stool features a round trimmed surface that offers it a fun and playful shape
• The trimmed seat is paired up with slim wooden legs, creating a cohesive and harmonious furniture piece

What we dislike

• We’re not sure how comfy the trimmed cork seat would be to sit on for longer durations of time

2. EDGAR Stool

Dubbed the EDGAR stool, this concept for a portable stool is designed to be something functional while also using a minimum amount of resources in terms of the material used for it, the energy required to create it, and the cost of making it.

Why is it noteworthy?

What makes this stool super cool is that they only spent $0.29 in making the prototype of these stools! The stool is low-cost since it is made from waste from the packaging of electronic appliances and adhesives. It handles one of the biggest waste issues!

What we like

• Lightweight and easy to carry around

What we dislike

• Doesn’t seem like the best option if you have a pretty round derriere

3. Stump Recycled Stool

Derlot designed the original Stump stool a while ago, and now they’ve unveiled their latest Stump Recycled which features the same basic structure of the stool but is made from 80% recycled post-industrial plastic LPDE.

Why is it noteworthy?

The new Stump stool features a different design, as the patterns form a terrazzo-like design that offers the stool a textured and colored look. You can pick stools with a kaleidoscope-like finish, which provides a fresh interpretation of how recycled materials can be used to elevate a design.

What we like

• Provides a new take on how recycled materials can be used

What we dislike

• Not sure how long you can sit on the stool, since it’s quite small and doesn’t look too comfy

4. The +52 Stool

After extensive research on the current timber designs and manufacturing, Studio Plastique converted all this knowledge into a unique wooden step stool called the +52 stool.

Why is it noteworthy?

This stool isn’t just furniture, it was designed to be a ‘scenario’, which represents the potential of undervalued wood types as sustainable alternatives to typical wood types. It is produced using a variety of non-commercial woods such as elm, koto, willow, acacia, and birch which changes the weight, color, and texture of the stool.

What we like

• Designed to tackle the complete lack of awareness surrounding lesser-known wood species that aren’t used in the design world

What we dislike

• Has a raw and rustic look, which isn’t preferred by everyone

5. S1 Stool

Designed by Australian designer Alexander Lotersztain for the furniture brand Derlot, the minimalist and simple S1 stool doubles up as a handy side table!

Why is it noteworthy?

The stool/side table has a simple form that is inspired by an I-beam, which is a structural member with an I-shaped cross-section. The S1 stool is ideal for both indoor and outdoor use, owing to its versatile form and universal design.

What we like

•  Available in three heights to maximize its versatility

What we dislike

• Aesthetics are simple and unassuming

6. Arc Stool

Called the Arc Stool, this furniture design is simple and thoughtfully designed to add a plethora of elegance and personality to your home.

Why is it noteworthy?

The Arc Stool is designed to elevate and upgrade the mundane stool, and it is a signature piece of the inaugural collection by US Studio Juntos. It attempts to add a much-needed flair to the simple stool design.

What we like

• Features a dipped surface that provides comfort to the user
• Portable and easy-to-move design

What we dislike

• No options for customization or personalization

7. Superpop Tables

Dubbed the Superpop tables, these colorful tables feature terrazzo-like surfaces that have been made from recycled plastic. They were designed by Paolo Cappello for Miniforms.

Why is it noteworthy?

The tables are super versatile, and what’s even more interesting is that they can be used as coffee tables, side tables, or even stools! They are sustainable, versatile, lightweight, and fun.

What we like

• Versatile functionality with a universal appeal
• Brings a fun and festive atmosphere wherever they are placed

What we dislike

• Could be difficult to match them with the interior styles of different homes

8. Balanco Stools

Designed during the pandemic, the Balanco stools are inspired by rocks and boulders, and they’re meant for adults and kids to play and engage with.

Why is it noteworthy?

The idea for the Balanco stools came from the Japanese practice of stacking pebbles to create towers. Traditionally, the pebbles mostly consist of rounded forms, designers Lisa Lai and Joel Wong decided that chiseled rock-like shapes would create more visual dynamism while offering a variety of flat surfaces that are ideal for stacking and layering.

What we like

• Extremely light
• Inspired by rocks and boulders

What we dislike

• Made from felt, there is a higher chance of staining this design

9. The Tie Stool

Dubbed the Tie Stool, this stunning stool is made from three bent plywood that effortlessly locks into one another, creating a unique tripod form that is quite comfy to sit on. It is a simple stool made using minimal materials making the stool quite a beauty.

Why is it noteworthy?

The three plywood strips can be split into 6 total parts, forming individual parts that are built using high pressure, causing the plywood to bend and retain its shape. The cutting processes are performed on the parts allowing them to interlock into one another.

What we like

• Flat-packed and shipped to customers
• Features a stackable form

What we dislike

• Its compressed design means it needs a tabletop to add more space on the stool

10. The Rook Stool

Named the Rook Stool, this unique stool is inspired by chess pieces. It is available in three types of solid wood and has an intriguing similarity to the pieces you find on a chess board.

Why is it noteworthy?

The designer drew references from the shapes of decorative wooden chess pieces for the Rook Stool. The stool utilizes simple elements that have been placed at unusual but intriguing angles and intersections to create a sculptural appeal.

What we like

• Available in three kinds of wood, so you can choose

What we dislike

• Doesn’t look too comfy to sit on for long durations of time

The post 10 Best Stools Designs To Add To Your Home ASAP first appeared on Yanko Design.