Hasta La Ideas

Design research agency FranklinTill has compiled a list of principles to help designers, makers and brands avoid greenwashing when sourcing textiles.

By making it easier to identify textiles that have a greater positive impact on people and planet, FranklinTill hopes to enable a shift towards regenerative materials.

“We can only move towards a regenerative approach to textiles by understanding the full lifecycle of our materials,” said co-founder FranklinTill Caroline Till.

“As designers, makers, brands and manufacturers, we need to think of materials not as static and linear, but as dynamic, evolving systems, to holistically consider the full impact to the wider ecosystem they are a part of.”

The defining characteristic of regenerative materials, according to Till, is that they restore and nourish the ecosystems they are part of.

“Sustainability, by its very definition, is all about maintaining the status quo, while regeneration seeks to actively heal and put back better,” she said.

FranklinTill first unveiled its nine principles of regenerative design in an exhibition at the Heimtextil trade fair in Frankfurt in January, with a second show planned for the Techtextil fair in April.

In an online exclusive, we are also unveiling them here. Read on to see all nine, with captions written by FranklinTill and examples of material innovation in practice:

Enriching Communities

“To go beyond sustainability and become regenerative, we must focus on both the social and the environmental impact of production.”

“This means spotlighting how materials are made and by whom, looking to improve livelihoods with better pay, working conditions and future prospects.”

Replenishing the Land

“Focused on high yields with an over-reliance on pesticides and water, modern industrial farming damages land.”

“Regenerative farming works holistically to reverse this, rebuilding organic soil matter and sequestering carbon in soil, wetlands and trees, retaining water and reducing the use of artificial pesticides and fertilisers.”

Preserving Heritage

“Many indigenous practices are regenerative by nature, working with the land and local communities.”

“By acknowledging and celebrating the value of cultural heritage and craftsmanship and learning from its ecological wisdom, we can protect valuable skills and knowledge from being lost to technology and globalisation.”

Restoring Biodiversity

“Regenerative practices must take a multispecies approach to encouraging biodiversity.”

“Acknowledging the threat of extinction, addressing the causes of loss, and reviving habitats for diverse plants and wildlife aids ecological restoration.”

Biological Fabrication

“The convergence of science and design offers huge potential for new materials, from living microbial systems to synthesising nature’s regenerative powers.”

“Growing and extracting next-generation materials using innovative, highly productive processes can create plentiful resources from minimal input.”

Naturally Abundant

“Highly productive, resilient raw materials that grow with little human intervention offer naturally high yields, strengthen soils and capture carbon.”

“These abundant, versatile crops could help move the focus away from traditional natural material fibres that require high levels of water, pesticides or fertilisers.”

Reclaiming Material

“Extracting raw materials, making products, then discarding them and their byproducts is contributing to the global waste problem.”

“By putting useful waste streams back into production, we can better utilise existing resources and avoid waste altogether.”

Radical Transparency

“By using science and technology to create tools and processes that capture and record data along supply chains, we can understand the social and environmental impact of the materials we consume.”

“Encrypting materials helps brands track their footprints and life cycles, and communicate this information to customers in a meaningful, trustworthy and accessible way.”

Cultivating Localism

“By supporting the local sourcing, production and consumption of materials, we can avoid globalised transportation and reduce carbon footprints.”

“Focusing on availability, seasonality and resourcefulness means embracing non-standardisation, often improving local environments as well as extracting from them.”

The post FranklinTill shares nine principles for a shift to regenerative materials appeared first on Dezeen.

Nice Laundry’s 6″ Pocket Short is well-proportioned, well-priced, comfortable (one of our editors ran a half-marathon in them) and come in many patterns, some of which are limited edition. The 6″ inseam shorts have pockets, a drawstring, and a Micromodal stretch nylon interior.

Promotion: Bentley‘s bespoke commissioning division, Mulliner, has unveiled its flagship SUV that aims to combine the performance of a supercar with the comfort of a limousine.

Designed to offer the “ultimate in comfort and space”, the Bentayga Mulliner builds on the brand’s focus on prestige, presence and personalisation.

The car aims to provide high levels of comfort while giving drivers full off-roading capabilities as well as supercar performance from its 4.0-litre, twin-turbocharged V8 engine.

“The launch of the Bentayga Extended Wheelbase Mulliner defines a new pinnacle for the Bentayga family and indeed the Bentley model range, adding a new level of modern craftsmanship to the already potent combination of supercar performance, go-anywhere ability, driving dynamics and limousine rear cabin of the Bentayga EWB,” said Bentley.

Combined with the car’s driving and handling performance – it can go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 4.5 seconds and has a top speed of 180 miles per hour – its extended wheelbase creates more internal cabin space than its luxury competitors.

Within the car, Mulliner has added a range of new design features and bespoke enhancements designed to “make every journey an occasion to be savoured”.

The cabin interior is defined by a streamlined, high-gloss veneer, quilted upholstery, which envelops the seats and doors, and a diamond-milled, aluminium finish across the centre console.

These luxury finishes are complemented with high-tech additions including illuminated 3D treadplates and LED welcome lamps, which project visuals onto the floor.

The highly customisable interior can be fitted with either four or five seats that each benefit from Bentley’s latest postural technology, which offers 22 ways of adjusting the seats to support the comfort and wellbeing of passengers.

The Bentley Airline Seats were informed directly by the experience of high-end flying. In Relax Mode, they can recline to nearly 40 degrees, while Business Mode moves the seat to an upright position that’s more suitable for working.

In line with the brand’s ethos, the interiors are personalisable with nearly 4,000 colour combinations. Buyers can choose from a selection of eight curated tri-tone colour combinations such as the warm-toned Flare or cool-toned Storm, or specify their own palette using any three colours.

These hues are designed to complement the soft, olive tan leather lines of the car’s cabin. The leather is tanned using organic by-products from the olive oil industry, a technique that requires less water than the conventional tanning process. This keeps the leather free of harmful metals, minerals and aldehydes and seeks to encourage a healthier interior environment for users.

All the interior materials were carefully considered, with the cabin’s thick, deep pile overmats made from a specially selected wool variety, chosen for its cleanliness and purity of colour, while the cabin carpet is made from 100 per cent recycled nylon.

With roots that can be traced back to 1760, before the birth of the motor car, Mulliner has worked with Bentley since 1923 creating everything from special features and finishes to entirely new coachbuilt vehicles.

The Bentayga Mulliner stands alongside the Flying Spur Mulliner, Continental GT Mulliner, and Continental GTC Mulliner – each the flagship of their respective model lineups.

To learn more about the car, visit Bentley’s website.

Partnership content

This article was written by Dezeen as part of a partnership with Bentley. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

The post Bentley launches Bentayga Mulliner to offer the “ultimate in comfort and space” appeared first on Dezeen.

While Samsung’s Galaxy Ring is still months away from an official launch, its announcement is proof that the smart ring is the next frontier of the health wearable space. The problem with smartwatches like the Apple or Galaxy Watch, you see, is that they aren’t for everyone. Not all people wear watches, and for the ones who do, there’s a large subset of people who prefer analog timepieces rather than gadgets with screens and sensors. Rings, on the other hand, have a distinct advantage – they’re smaller, sleeker, lighter, and unlike watches, you can wear multiple, combining your wedding ring or any ring-based jewelry with a health-tracking wearable ring. The smart ring market is at the precipice of expansion, and months from now you’ll see hundreds of brands jumping on the bandwagon… but if you’re looking for one now, the Vera Ring is a compelling pick. Designed to be incredibly sleek, breathtakingly light, and completely waterproof, the Vera Ring does everything a health tracker can do and more. It monitors your heart rate 24/7, tracking your heart health, respiratory health, stress levels, sleep quality, and even combines multiple metrics like body temperature, heart rate variability, and stress levels to tell you how good your overall immunity is.

Designer: Vera Health

Click Here to Buy Now: $249 $349 ($100 off) Hurry! Only 126 units left!

The creators of the Vera Ring make a compelling argument – in the regular world, you’re bombarded with metrics and data everywhere. Businesses thrive on data, programs require data to run, AI systems are entirely beholden to their databases – but there’s hardly any good real-time data-measuring for your body. Unless you’re wearing a smartwatch 24/7, you have no way of being able to get a broad yet focused overview of your health. That’s where a smart ring comes in. The Vera Ring looks and feels exactly like your everyday ring, but sits on your finger and tracks your body metrics all day all week. With a battery that lasts for 7 full days on a charge, the Vera captures a weekly holistic portrait of your health, presenting all that information to you in a way that’s easy to digest. You can see if your heart’s healthy, if you’re running normal body temperature, if you’re sleeping well or sleeping enough, if you’re stressed or relaxed, and even track menstrual cycles. More so, the Vera app also recommends tweaks to your lifestyle to help you improve your health, and catches health issues before they become serious or irreversible.

The beauty of the Vera Ring lies in its design. 2.5mm thick and 7.5mm wide, the Vera is an icon of minimalism, with a metal finish on the outside, and a medical-grade resin inner that holds all the components in place. The tiny ring weighs anywhere from 5.2 grams (0.18 ounces) to 8.5 grams (0.29 ounces) depending on size, and is hermetically sealed, making it completely waterproof so you could wear it everywhere, even in the shower or the pool. The only time you really need to take it off is when it’s low on charge, and the ring comes with its own holder/charger that lets you dock it and charge it in mere minutes.

Slip the ring on and it begins tracking all your vitals, sending complex data to the Vera app where everything is simplified into easy-to-digest bits. The ring has a 6-axis accelerometer, a skin temperature sensor, and multiple PPG sensors that measure blood volume variations to detect heart rate, blood oxygen, and multiple other metrics pertaining to your health while you’re awake or asleep. Data in real-time gets sent to the Vera app, where an intuitive dashboard gives you scores based on different domains like your heart health, sleep health, stress levels, and even your overall immunity, calculated as a culmination of multiple factors. The app lets you monitor your scores over days and weeks, and does so not just for your ring, but for your entire family, allowing you to check up on your elderly parents, see if your kids are getting enough physical activity or sleep, or if you or your partner are feeling stressed. For women, the Vera also helps effectively track menstrual cycles, giving them a holistic snapshot of their body through the week and the month.

What really seals the deal is that the Vera Ring focuses on the essentials, doing the job of a health-tracking watch but without a distracting screen. You aren’t inundated with notifications, or with a constant need to keep looking at how many steps you’ve taken (I’m guilty of wanting to complete my Apple Watch activity ring every single day) – the ring silently and diligently tracks your vitals 24×7, connecting to your smartphone via Bluetooth 4.0 to present you with information only when you access the Vera smartphone app.

The Vera Ring comes in 6 different finishes (3 matte metal and 3 ‘precious’ chrome metal finishes) and multiple sizes to fit a variety of fingers. Each ring is also accompanied by a battery stand that can charge the ring and can even hold enough power to juice your Vera Ring 30 times over. The Vera Ring starts at a discounted $249, ships globally with a 1-year warranty, and backers get a lifetime subscription to all the Vera app’s features.

Click Here to Buy Now: $249 $349 ($100 off) Hurry! Only 126 units left!

The post This Smart Ring Tracks Everything From Your Heartbeat To Sleep And Even Your Immune System first appeared on Yanko Design.

Carmakers like Lamborghini and Porsche have made the bold move to test the viability of an all-terrain supercar with the Huracan Sterrato and 911 Dakar respectively. Interestingly, one imaginative designer has derived inspiration from such builds to come up with a concept Maserati MC20 Dakar Edition to conquer any terrain an off-roader would fancy. While one would argue that the Maserati Grecale and Levante SUVs already have a presence in the market for off-roading, this concept increases the stakes a level higher.

Destined to be a mid-engined supercar, the MC Dakar Edition rides on lifted suspension and gripper tires with additions like a pair of gripper hooks and a bespoke roof rack with front-facing lights. This fun project gives high weightage to fun and style over performance, so the conceptualizer doesn’t propose any upgrades to the mid-mounted twin-turbo V6 engine capable of generating 538 lb-ft of torque.

Designer: spdesignsest

Keeping in mind this build is a Dakar edition, so the off-road modifications will disturb the aerodynamics and add to the overall weight. This will directly impact the top speed and acceleration. But if this supercar is off-roading for most of its clocked miles, it won’t matter. Continuing with the off-roading character of the vehicle, there are satin-finish aluminum skid plates on the rear and bumper extensions for a beefier profile. No doubt this concept would look dapper compared to the modified MC20.

We are not counting on the probability of this concept making it to real life as the designer works for 7 Design House which is a tuning company that has already weaved their magic on the Maserati MC20 Coupe and Cielo for visual enhancements. If potential owners like the idea of a Maserati turned into a Dakar Edition version, we could have a real version too in the future.

The post Maserati MC20 Dakar Edition is an adventurous Italian supercar challenging the Lambo Huracan Sterrato first appeared on Yanko Design.