Movie: Miguel Fluxá, head of shoe brand Camper, says the company’s use of high-profile designers for its stores is more about brand-building than making money in this movie filmed at the opening of the latest New York store.
Fluxá says the company took this approach to its store design when it first started expanding outside of Spain.
“We thought it was interesting not to repeat [the design of the Spanish stores],” he explains. “The world today is becoming a little bit boring, everything is becoming the same. So we thought it was interesting for the brand, and for the cities, to do different designs from one place to the other.”
Camper is a family-owned company; Fluxá’s great-grandfather, a Mallorca farmer, founded the business in 1877 and his father went on to establish the brand as we know it today in the 1970s.
Fluxá says that this allows the company to experiment with different design approaches for its stores without worrying about the commercial impact.
Staff at the original Camper factory founded in 1877
“We’re lucky to be a privately-owned company, a family-owned company, so we look at the long term and we try to do things that we like to do,” he says.
“Of course, we think it’s of benefit to the brand. It’s given a lot of identity to the brand, and customers recognise it. Some concepts work better than others but the reality is that we don’t measure it.”
This maritime museum in the Netherlands by Dutch studio Mecanoo features reclaimed wooden cladding and a zig-zagging roof that reference the gabled houses of the surrounding hamlet (+ slideshow).
Photograph by Mecanoo
Mecanoo completed the Kaap Skil, Maritime and Beachcombers Museum in Oudeschild, on the island of Texel. The angular roof profile was designed to match the rhythms of a group of harbour-side buildings, while the louvred wooden facade relates to the driftwood used by locals to build their homes.
Sheets of recycled hardwood were sawn into strips to create the louvres, which allow daylight to filter through to a ground-floor cafe and a first-floor gallery.
“The wooden slats used in the facades come from tropical hardwood piling from the North Holland Canal,” said the architects. “The un-sawed edges have been deliberately placed on the visible side of the facade. After forty years of residence under water the white, grey, rust-red, purple and brown colours are beautifully weathered.”
The large upper gallery is dedicated to underwater archaeology. There’s also a second exhibition space in the basement to present the history of Reede van Texel – a historic offshore anchorage used by the fleet of the Dutch East India Company.
“The entrance and the museum cafe form a natural frontier between the world of the Reede van Texel in the basement and that of the underwater archaeology on the first floor,” explained the architects.
Photography is by Christian Richters, apart from where otherwise stated.
Here’s some more information from Mecanoo:
Kaap Skil, Maritime and Beachcombers Museum, Texel, the Netherlands
Tourist Attraction
The island of Texel is situated in the Waddenzee and is the largest of the Dutch Wadden Islands. Every year a million or so tourists visit the island, which is only accessible by plane, boat or ferry. Few however will be familiar with the glorious history of Texel and its links with the Dutch East India Company. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Company’s fleet used the anchorage of Texel as its departure point for expeditions to the Far East. The ships waited there for a favourable wind before weighing anchor and sailing off to the ‘Orient’. While they waited, maintenance work and small repairs were carried out, victuals and water were brought on board and family could see their loved ones one last time.
Many painters visited the ‘Reede van Texel’ (the offshore anchorage of Texel) to depict on canvas the fleet of the Dutch Republic. In the new entrance building of the maritime and beachcombers museum, Kaap Skil, in the hamlet of Oudeschild, the public is taken back in time to the Dutch Golden Age. The showpiece of the museum is an eighteen-metre long, four-metre deep model of the Reede van Texel, displaying in great detail the impressive spectacle of the dozens of ships anchored off the coast of the Wadden Island.
Photograph by Mecanoo
Typical gable roofs
The museum is designed with four playfully linked gabled roofs which are a play on the rhythm of the surrounding rooftops which, seen from the sea, resemble waves rising out above the dyke.
Photograph by Mecanoo
‘The sea takes away and the sea provides’ – this is a saying that the people of Texel know so well. For hundreds of years they have made grateful use of driftwood from stranded ships or wrecks to build their houses and barns. The wooden façade of Kaap Skil is a good example of this time-hallowed tradition of recycling. The vertical wooden boards are made of sawn hardwood sheet-piling from the North Holland Canal and have been given a new life just like the objects in the museum collection.
From within, the glass facade in front of the wooden boards allows an inviting view of the outdoor museum terrain and of the famous North Holland skies to visitors of the museum café. Inside the building the boards cast a linear pattern of daylight and shadow creating an atmosphere infused with light and shelter.
Daylight and artificial light
The entrance and the museum café form a natural frontier between the world of the Reede van Texel in the basement and that of the underwater archaeology on the first floor. The contrast between the two worlds is reinforced by the different experiences of light and space. In the basement visitors are drawn around the exhibition by projections and animations, creating an intimate space that harbours a sense of mystery. On the first floor the North Holland sky floods the objects on display with light. The movable showcases of robust steel frames and glass create a transparent effect so that the objects in the collection seem to float within the space. Under the high gabled roofs the visitor gets a generous sense of being able to survey the sizable collection, the museum grounds and the village of Oudeschild at a glance.
Site plan
Client: Maritiem & Jutters Museum, Oudeschild Architect: Mecanoo architecten, bv Museum design: Kossmann.dejong, Amsterdam Project management: ABC Management Groep, Assen Builders: Pieters Bouwtechniek, Utrecht Installations consultant: Peter Prins, Woerden Contractors: Bouwcombinatie De Geus & Duin Bouwbedrijf, Broek op Langedijk Installations: ITBB, Heerenveen Sawmills for wooden cladding of façades: Pieter Dros, Texel
Items are arranged to form a house interior, with colourful mannequins by Hans Boodt lounging on the furniture and Levi van Veluw‘s photography hung on the walls.
Find your way Home to Moooi’s Unexpected Welcome at Moooi London
On the occasion of the 11th edition of the London Design Festival, Moooi has prepared an entire collection of refreshing new designs and surprising experiences that will be revealed at Moooi London.
From the 16th until the 22nd September 2013 Moooi London will be magically transformed into several iconic, rich and colourfully dressed living quarters. This unexpected home vision brings to life a whole world of new ideas and inspiring settings to brighten up daily life with a touch of magic.
The settings will be dressed and accessorised with an irresistible blend of exquisite richness, nurturing warmth and colourful playfulness. The living quarters will be furnished with items from the current collection & many new, exciting creations by Marcel Wanders, Studio Job, Joost van Bleiswijk, Neri & Hu, Moooi Works / Bart Schilder, Bertjan Pot, Raimond Puts, Lorenza Bozzoli and ZMIK (Mattias Mohr & Rolf Indermuhle).
You are welcome to enjoy, amongst others, the artistic temperament and intimate nature of Marcel Wanders’ Canvas and Cloud sofas, and the sophisticated brightness of ZMIK’s Kroon chandelier. Take some time to walk around and study the high- stream inventiveness of Joost van Bleiswijk’s Construction lamps, the pragmatic playfulness of Studio Job’s Bucket lamps and the graceful symbolism of Lorenza Bozzoli’s Juuyo lamps. Besides this, you are invited to admire the grandeur of the new Bart sofa collection by Moooi Works / Bart Schilder and the new Paper Patchwork & Paper RAL creations by Studio Job.
The interior environments will be also decorated with an inspiring variety of patterns and colours that compliment all types of spaces and make people of different ages, cultures and personalities fall in love with their homes. Hans Boodt mannequins will make themselves at home, bringing an extra feeling of intimacy to the settings and resembling peoples’ personality, style & taste. Real and surreal at the same time!
This presentation at Moooi London will also bring together photography of the multidisciplinary Dutch artist Levi van Veluw. Interior design meets artistic photography once again and they connect, creating the perfect balance between two inspiring, stylish and playful worlds. Van Veluw photographs suggest a narrative world behind the portraits. The portraits unfold stories and feelings on a large scale especially for this exhibition.
Balconies shaped like greenhouses project from the facades of these apartment blocks in Nantes by French studio Block Architects (+ slideshow).
The trio of seven-storey concrete buildings form a new social housing complex, designed by Block Architects for the La Pelousière area of Nantes, western France.
Constructed from aluminium and glass, the balconies protrude from the west and east elevations of the structures and feature gabled profiles modelled on the prototypical shape of a shed or barn.
“The general built shape is taken from agricultural typology that existed in the history of the site, a barn at the scale of the landscape,” explained the architects. “The project searches to capture this materiality of the shed, through the use of an industrial cladding material.”
Some of the balconies are surrounded by a row of pine slats, creating a small fence that offers some privacy for residents.
“A domestic scale is taken from the suburban context close by and integrated by the addition of wood fences and greenhouses borrowed from the garden,” the architects added.
The apartments were designed so that each has windows on two different sides of the building, allowing for increased light and ventilation.
Folding glass doors lead out to the balconies, which can also be covered using roll-back fabric awnings.
Interior photography is by Stéphane Chalmeau. Exterior photography is by Nicolas Pineau.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
Pradenn Social Housing
Simple and compact
The brief stands for 89 socials housings, 51 in rental and 38 in accession. The site is in an important development area of the Great Nantes called la Pelousière. The project tries to combine density, mixed-use and comfort for the inhabitants.
The project is inserted and interacting with its context. A gradation between public and private has been organised through built and landscaped sequences : access ramp, public space, parking on the public space or underneath the buildings, pedestrian path, halls, housings and loggias.
The general built shape comes from an agricultural typology, that existed in the site history, a barn at the scale of the landscape. The project searches to catch this materiality of the shed, through the use of an industrial cladding material. This simple and efficient shape also drives the fiction of a large ‘country house’.
Then, a domestic scale is taken from the close by suburban context and integrated by the addition of wood fences and greenhouses borrowed from the garden. This sample, as a copy / paste process, reminds to the collective the sums of individuals, and shows the residential and individual dimension in a collective building that tries to escape from its usual expression.
The three buildings are ‘placed’ on a concrete base, raised from the floor. The space in between is either open, where the parking is, or flanked by vegetated slopes in a continuity of the central plaza, integrating the buildings.
The whole project is a reinterpreted sample of the neighbourhood environment, put at the scale of building.
Thus the housings have mainly double exposure, from one side to another or in an angle. Every spaces have been studied to have exterior views and daylight. The greenhouses and their balconies are present in most of the housings, providing a large outside space.
The building has a structural principal of concrete walls in between the housings, crossing from one side to another. Being altogether compact and insulated from the outside, the building reaches the performance of the BBC-Effinergie label.
The Dunes collection by Canadian designer Philippe Malouin has been commissioned for Staffordshire ceramics company 1882 Ltd.
Malouin’s custom-made machine features a box frame and a wooden turntable that is powered by a small motor and controlled by a computer.
Grains of sugar are poured into a funnel and fall onto a spinning cylinder positioned on the turntable beneath, where they pile up to form structures like cylindrical sand dunes.
The resulting shape was used to make a silicone negative, then cast in plaster and given to 1882 to produce in bone china. The final bone china pieces retain a sandy texture and have been finished with a matte glaze.
Originally Malouin tried using sand, however explained the material was difficult to use. “I originally started to try and ‘freeze’ these sand dunes by spraying resin onto them, but each time I would try and cast the resulting shape with silicone, the sand would stick to the cast and the shape would be altered,” said Malouin.
He later realised that sugar was the perfect substitute, as any grains clinging to the silicone could be washed away with water.
The printer created shapes that Malouin said could not be designed by hand or a computer and was perfect for creating plates and bowls. “All that was needed was to change the diameter of the sand dune in order to create a smaller dish,” Malouin told Dezeen.
“I was interested in designing the process that would produce the shape of the dishes. Not necessarily designing the dish directly,” said Malouin.
Here’s some additional information from the gallery:
Dunes by Philippe Malouin
Dunes is a stunning collection of fine bone china tableware featuring skillfully hand-crafted plates and bowls from one of the design world’s most applauded new talents. Slip-cast from plaster models, the collection maximises Malouin’s beautifully minimalistic patterns through analogue 3D printing. The analogue 3d printer made by Malouin, creates shapes that cannot be designed by hand or computer. Only movement, imperfection and randomised material deposition form the pieces. The shapes formed are carefully utilised and transformed into functional china pieces, highlighting the skill of the craftsman and creating a collection that wonderfully exemplifies its title of – Dunes.
About 1882 Ltd
1882 Ltd. is thrilled to announce their new collections for September 2013, fusing 130 years of traditional British heritage with fresh and contemporary new designs. The collections feature works from some of the world’s leading talents. These included an extended collection of ‘Crockery’ by Max Lamb, ‘Fragile Hearts’ by Mr Brainwash, ‘Standard Ware’ by Fort Standard and ‘Gashu’ by Alan Hughes and ‘Dunes’ by Philippe Malouin: all made of fine bone china, harnessing the tradition of the company originally set-up by the Johnson Brothers in the heart of the Stoke-on-Trent potteries in 1882. To this day, 1882 Ltd. remains a family business following its rebirth in 2011 by Emily Johnson and her father Christopher.
Lisbon Architecture Triennale: these prototypical structures by London studio Cohen Van Balen are designed to sustain genetically modified plants that could prevent wolves from contracting rabies (+ movie).
Entitled And Nowhere a Shadow, the structures were installed by Cohen Van Balen in the woodland district of Future Perfect – an exhibition of a futuristic city on show as part of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2013.
“We were inspired by the idea of symbiosis, the relationships between plants and animals, and the beautifully complex systems in nature where an animal and a plant keep each other alive” Revital Cohen told Dezeen. “We wanted to design a plant to keep a wolf alive from extinction.”
The metal structures would feed biologically engineered nutrients to the blueberry plants, while metal prongs at the base would stimulate the wolves’ as they brush past, encouraging them to stop and eat the fruits.
“Wolves in the wild, can only touch each other at one point,” Tuur Van Balen explained. “As a human being, you can grab the wolf at two points. So we added these massagers that touch the animal at two points and the wolves really like it.”
The movement of the wolves would also generate electricity for the devices, powering surveillance cameras that stream footage of the animals across the internet.
“Maybe a way for the animal to keep itself from extinction is to become a form of entertainment,” said Cohen. “If there were cameras in the forest, maybe there would be people willing to watch and pay to watch it.”
Although the technology to embed anti-rabies vaccine in plants is not yet developed, the designers say it could be done with five years of research.
To test the concept, they attached regular blueberry plants to the structures and allowed a wolf to explore the exhibition, capturing the results on film.
“Many Native Americans believe that men and wolves were brothers, but then western culture invented these mythologies of the big bad wolf as symbolising everything’s thats wild and dangerous in nature,” Van Balen told Dezeen.
“But it is only when the wolf has rabies that it becomes the big bad wolf from the stories. It’s the only time when it becomes dangerous to humans and violent,” he added.
Here’s a project description from the exhibition organisers:
The Wilds – And Nowhere a Shadow There is no nature anymore. We are wandering a new kind of wilderness, where the line between biology and technology is becoming increasingly indistinguishable. Through genetic modification, engineered meat, cosmetic surgery and geo-engineering we are remaking our world from the scale of cells to the scale of continents.
The woods, wild and mysterious from afar, appear as a stage on which every element is considered. Genetically engineered plants, artificially sustained, are hanging from the trees, embedded in the ecology yet detached from it. Their scaffolding systems of gleaming steel and neon light sway in the wind, waiting.
Grey wolves approach the structures during the night to scratch their body on the steel branches. In an intricate arrangement of devised symbiosis, the contraption takes on the role of host organism. The wolf’s movements generate electricity for the system, while the blueberries are engineered to contain rabies vaccine in its fruit to protect the animal from self-destruction. Cameras transmit footage of the wolf’s presence around the globe, adorned in invisible garlands of electric display, to be enjoyed by those whose passion for the spectacle of wilderness sustains its survival.
We’ve partnered with lifestyle brand Nixon to debut its new S13-3 collection during the event. The range will feature four new watches, including a military-inspired timepiece called The Corporal, and The 51-30 Leather Chronograph, a large timepiece with a 51mm face and a unidirectional rotating bezel made from stainless steel with a countdown timer and pushers.
London Design Festival 2013:design brand SCP is launching its latest collection of products and furniture at its two London stores this week.
Field Day cushions by Donna Wilson
The new products presented by SCP include first-time collaborations with emerging UK designer Lucy Kurrein (main image), American illustrator Mark McGinnis, and Stoke-On-Trent-based ceramicist Reiko Kaneko.
Lily side table by Lucy Kurrein
Lucy Kurrein has developed a low oak table and a taller steel side table with complimentary organic shapes that can be used separately or together.
Book Hod by Peter Marigold
London designer Peter Marigold has created a book holder in the shape of a bricklayer’s hod made from oak and powder-coated steel.
This Way That bean bags by Donna Wilson
Longterm SCP collaborator Donna Wilson has designed a new textile collection of throws, blankets and cushions, and knitted wool bean bags decorated with her signature playful patterns.
Crosscut coat hooks by Faudet-Harrison
East London studio Faudet-Harrison‘s Crosscut coat hooks are made from sheet steel with laser-cut holes into which cylindrical wooden hooks slot and sit flush against the wall.
Crosscut table by Faudet-Harrison
The Crosscut table and trestles use the same principle as the coat hooks to create a sturdy tripod base.
Max bar stool by Andrea Stemmer
Devon-based designer Andrea Stemmer has created a bar stool with a tripod base made from steel rod and a crescent-shaped wooden seat with a slight indentation to make it more comfortable.
Wholegrain coffee table by Alex hellum
Hertfordshire designer Alex Hellum‘s coffee table kinks towards one end to make it fit better next to a sofa or armchair.
Quick-step stool by Sarah Kay
East London designer Sarah Kay‘s stool has an A-shaped profile and a step that can be accessed from either side.
Megatropolis mugs by Mark McGinnis
These and other new products will be on display at SCP’s stores in Shoreditch and Westbourne Grove as part of the London Design Festival, which continues until 22 September.
Dezeen promotion: the third edition of Beijing Design Week will take place from 26 September to 3 October in the Chinese capital.
Micro Hutong by Zhang Ke, Standard Architecture. Top: Starting Something, Central Academy of Fine Arts in collaboration with Sandberg Institute
Beijing Design Week 2013 will include events, lectures and exhibitions across the city as part of a programme curated by Beatrice Leanza.
“Crisis in Parasite Paradise”, Smart City 2013 International Design Exhibition at China Millennium Monument Museum of Digital Arts
The Main Exhibition at the China Museum of Digital Arts will focus on Smart Cities, using Beijing as a case study.
Starting Something, Central Academy of Fine Arts in collaboration with Sandberg Institute
The ancient Dashilar hutong district will host installations and pop-up shops, along with a lab set up to generate ideas for preserving Beijing’s historical alleyways.
Rawr at Red Bricks, Caochangdi
Designers based in the Caochangdi creative community will present their latest projects, plus interior design, furniture and fashion showrooms in the 751 D-Park will open their doors to visitors.
Digital Infiltration, DADA
After it was duplicated all over the country, Florentijn Hofman’s giant rubber duck will be exhibited to emphasise problems with copyright in China.
3D body scanning system by Rawr! Lab
This year’s guest city Amsterdam will showcase a range of Dutch art and design, led by designer Marcel Wanders.
Instant Heaven collection by Katrin Reinfurt, MPMP
Beijing Design Week (BJDW) returns to enliven China’s capital with a unique city-wide showcase of initiatives celebrating creativity and innovation from the design field at large. Beijing Design Week 2013 will be held from 26th September to 3rd of October 2013.
With Beijing designation as City of Design by UNESCO in 2012, BJDW reinforces its positioning as an on-going observatory, acting both as an infrastructural provider and a cultural connective system. While assisting the cultivation and development of the local design industry, it makes itself referent for an international community of makers and thinkers as a catalyst of ideas, forward-looking solutions and academic explorations originating from, challenged and inspired by the contemporary predicament of global China.
Banana Hammock by Henny van Nistelrooy
BJDW 2013 proposes an established format of key sections, including: Design Forum with leading figures and policy makers from the global industry in cooperation with CCTV and The New York Times; a Main Exhibition produced and hosted by the China Museum of Digital Arts (CMoDA) continuing its curatorial focus on Smart Cities taking Beijing as a case study; Design HOP series of exhibitions, the largest component of Beijing Design Week program embraces three main core areas; the Guest City program, this year taken up by Amsterdam; the annual Design Award devoted to local innovators and a renewed trading platform dubbed Design Market, covering from household, to IT and automotive sectors.
Under the new creative direction of Beijing-based curator Beatrice Leanza, the overall program of BJDW 2013 looks at creating a meaningful narrative across its various outlets, by aggregating perspectives from current design discourse and practice into an experiential storytelling taking Beijing as its theatre of action.
Cabanes, renovation of the Cha’er hutong in Dashilar by Matali Crasset
From traditional alleys of old Beijing to the surreal atmosphere of new hubs of contemporary art and design, one of the most dynamic sections of Beijing Design Week is Design Hop that this year shall activate the resourcefulness of design thinking by sustaining long-term initiatives unlimited to the event-focused temporality of a week kermes, and rather manifesting itself as “process”- an incubator of engaged actions and reflections.
Renouncing an overarching thematic framework as guiding device, the existing zones will showcase instead an articulated series of projects, events, exhibitions, installations, seminars and lectures as to render key investigative domains that moderate design discourse and practice within specific urban zones.
Dashilar
With traces of the imperial past enriching the facades of buildings, traditional courtyard houses, and the social context of its unique alleys, Dashilar area abounds in a richness of stories.
Following a revitalisation scheme intended to address the criticalities of micro-scale planning, contextualise discussion around “design heritage” and preservation within the social and environmental scenario of old Beijing hutongs, Beijing Design Week has launched Dashilar Pilot, inviting top international and local designers, architects, academics and universities to create a one-of-a-kind lab to generate unique ideas and plausible solutions.
Caochangdi
Tucked away on the outer edge of the 5th ring road, Caochangdi is one-of-a-kind among the 300 so-called “villages in the city” and hosts a self-motivated group of contemporary galleries, artists’ studios and independent creative and educational ventures in art, design and architecture.
Caochangdi continues as a hotbed for experimental and innovation-driven research in design making and thinking, looking at the intersection of art, design and new technologies. Bringing together a host of initiatives from the local makers community and independent creators living and working in China, it will feature unique creative outputs resulting from the encounter between cutting edge digital production technologies and centuries-old crafting techniques.
751 D-Park
Situated on the ground of a former power plant, 751 D-Park has become one of the most important center in the Beijing’s design scene housing interior designers, furniture showrooms and fashion firms.
In 751 D-Park (751 Intl Design Festival) an exciting new set of large scale, site-responsive projects address design as semantics of experience and place-making, with a focus on architectural experimentation, urban planning and its connections with digital culture and interactivity, as well as projects presented by leading Chinese institutions and universities like Tsinghua University and CAFA (Central Academy of Fine Arts).
Guest City Program
Led by the figure of Marcel Wanders, Amsterdam, Guest City of Beijing Design Week 2013, uses the motto Design goes Dutch to create a cross-cultural art dialogue by bringing to town several projects that wishes to involve both guest city artist and designers with the local community.
News: a water-filtration system that uses plants to extract arsenic from water supplies and allows the user to sell the poisonous substance at a profit has been voted the “Idea that will change the world” at the Global Design Forum in London today (+ interview).
Clean Water, developed by Oxford University MSc student Stephen Goodwin Honan, was voted the best of five world-changing ideas presented at the forum, held today at the Southbank Centre.
Arsenic poisoning from contaminated water has been described as the “largest mass-poisoning in history” by the World Health Organisation, causing cancers that kill an estimated 1.2 million people in the developing world each year.
Arsenic-absorbing plants
Clean Water uses special, arsenic-absorbing plants, which are grown in a container. Water is pumped through the container and arsenic is trapped in a filter, and then absorbed by the plants where it poses no danger.
The filtered water is then safe to drink while the plant can be harvested each year and the arsenic chemically extracted. The plants are a naturally occurring species selected for their ability to remove arsenic from the soil they grow in.
The system costs just $10 (£6) to set up but can produce arsenic – which is widely used in industries including the semi-conductor and mobile phone industries – worth $85 (£53) per year. All parts of the system, apart from the filter and the plants, can be sourced locally from everyday materials such as plastic tubs and bamboo.
There are no running costs and no specialist expertise required to maintain the system. “Eighty percent of people in Bangladesh [where the system has been trialled] are subsistence farmers,” said Honan. “They understand how to look after plants.”
“It seems that the design works and the economics work,” Hoberman asked Honan during a question-and-answer session. “What’s holding you back?”
“As soon as we can sign an agreement with a semi-conductor company that wants to buy ethical arsenic, that will make the difference,” Honan replied.
The panel then gave Clean Water the highest vote of the five ideas pitched and the decision was ratified by an audience vote.
The system in use in Bangladesh
Honan is a FitzGerald Scholar studying an MSc in water science, policy and management at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford in England.
Here’s an interview Dezeen editor-in-chief conducted with Stephen Goodwin Honan after the presentation:
Marcus Fairs: What is Clean Water?
Stephen Goodwin Honan: The product is an environmentally friendly, low-cost, easy-to-use filtration system that rapidly accumulates arsenic from drinking water. The arsenic is able to then be recycled for productive purposes such as semi-conductors, solar panels, cellphones, computer electronics.
The system itself employs a natural mechanism for filtration. It uses a naturally occurring plant that grows directly in the water and directly removes the arsenic from the water prior to consumption. It requires zero electricity and is fully modular and scalable for varying levels of demand.
Marcus Fairs: How much does it cost and how much can the user earn from selling the arsenic?
Stephen Goodwin Honan: It costs $10, which primarily goes towards the distribution of the [young] plants. The users then grow the plants themselves and they can use any sort of products they have lying around, buckets and pipes and things, bamboo for the stands and so on.
$85 is the raw value of the high-purity arsenic that we’re able to produce from the waste of the plant itself [per year]. The costs of the chemicals [used to extract the arsenic from the plants] is very minimal. The difficultly is the economy of scale – we need to have the right type of facilities in order to do this type of production. So ideally we’d have the recycling scheme occur in a semi-conductor fabrication lab, because they already have all the clean rooms and everything else. Currently Bangladesh has an emerging market for semi-conductor fabrication, so we’re hoping to pair those two parallel paths – the arsenic contamination and the semi-conductor industry that’s emerging.
Marcus Fairs: What type of plants are used? Are they bio-engineered?
Stephen Goodwin Honan: There’s no bio-engineering involved. They’re naturally occurring plants that already have an affinity towards arsenic. The transport mechanisms in the plant are tailored specifically towards arsenic so they don’t compete with other plants for other minerals in the water, such as iron or nitrates. So the plan itself doesn’t need any bio-engineering.
Marcus Fairs: How many people are affected by arsenic contamination of drinking water?
Stephen Goodwin Honan: There are over 150 million people worldwide who are exposed to arsenic contamination. Specifically in Bangladesh it’s anything between 35 million and 88 million people [affected] out of a total population of 156 million.
We have over 1.2 million cases of hyper-pigmentation, which is an early stage of cancer [caused by arsenic poisoning]. It’s very difficult to get accurate figures for the numbers of deaths attributable to arsenic, because they don’t do autopsies. But those are the ballpark figures. It’s a massive proportion of the population that are affected.
Marcus Fairs: You’ve completed trials in Bangladesh; what happens next?
Stephen Goodwin Honan: So we’re post-pilot project and we’re looking to scale up. We already have 500 people who’ve signed up for the next iteration of the pilot project. They actually approached us to do the next phase. We’re then looking to partner with a semi-conductor company and hopefully we can close that gap and do the recycling in plants that are on the ground [in Bangladesh] and produce the first batch of “responsible arsenic”.
Marcus Fairs: $85 is a lot of money for a family in Bangladesh.
Stephen Goodwin Honan: Yeah. The average income in Bangladesh is roughly a dollar a day. It’s subsistence-level farming. The paradigm shift is that people will be able to earn money from producing their own clean water as opposed to paying to have clean water.
That’s a really big stickiness factor for the design itself. It can appeal to the farmers because this can be a real potential revenue source for them. Ideally we’ll have a dividend scheme where we buy the filters off them after they’ve been used.
Marcus Fairs: Have you set up a company to take this forward?
Stephen Goodwin Honan: I’m still a doctoral student at the University of Oxford. I worked with a couple of MBAs at the Said Business School and I’m looking to figure out the best way to implement this. I think that having open-source access to the design of the filter is the best way forward, but controlling the recycling scheme so the collection and processing happens under a watchful eye is going to be really important. I envision a non-profit organisation that delivers the filters and a social enterprise that would then run the recycling scheme.
Marcus Fairs: So the filter is a bit of technology that sits in the tub and the plants then absorb the arsenic that’s caught in the filter?
Stephen Goodwin Honan: Yes absolutely. The filter technology should be accessible to everyone but the recycling process should be separate. Right now we don’t have a company incorporated to do that be we do have a team that’s looking at other problems such as going into old landfills and recycling metalloids that are wastefully thrown away and could be upcycled.
Marcus Fairs: So this idea could be spread laterally to recycle different types of pollutants?
Stephen Goodwin Honan: Oh yeah. The idea itself can be used in many applications. The landfills are what we’re looking at next. We’re looking at value chains, how you can add value to recycling different supplies that are in demand by industry.
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.
