THE GREAT INDOORS
Nº128 MAY — JUN 2019
Frame Awards 2019
BX €19.95 DE €19.95 IT €14.95 CHF 30 UK £14.95 JP ¥3,570 KR WON 40,000
BP
The World’s Best Interiors
Future Furniture
Buy, Rent or Render? B. V. DOSHI talks learning from Le Corbusier
How technology is transforming LIVE MUSIC
MARIAM KAMARA on manifesting African modernity
www.andreuworld.com
Capri Lounge + Reverse Occasional by Piergiorgio Cazzaniga
Contents
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Courtesy of Six N. Five
FRAME 128
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18 Courtesy of PMS
17 OBJECTS
The economy-class upgrade, ‘permanent’ flat-packed furniture
31 THE CHALLENGE Five events of the future
45 PORTRAITS 46 BALKRISHNA DOSHI In good hands 52 RENNY RAMAKERS A life less curated
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54 MARIAM KAMARA Narrating for a nation 63 i29 Up and away ZAC HACMON Playing with displacement
78 UNIFOR
Experimenting with events
Cindy Baar
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FRAME 128
The best of the bunch from 34 categories
Courtesy of TheWaveVR
81 FRAME AWARDS 2019
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147 FRAME LAB Shows 148 Standing out with Stufish’s Ray Winkler 158 Drake draws in the audience 164 Are video games the next event venue? 168 VR’s new performance palette
177 REPORTS Outdoor
Sustainability and comfort alfresco
98
Courtesy of Mater
Andrea Ferrari
184 FRAME LAB 2019 Two days, four content tracks
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192 IN NUMBERS
Yo Shimada’s Utsuri table in facts and figures
PARROT Portable Light Battery 10 – 100h Touch Control Smart Charge Height-Adjustable warmDIM tobiasgrau.com
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COLOPHON
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EDITORIAL For editorial inquiries, please e-mail frame@frameweb.com or call +31 20 4233 717 (ext 921). Editor in chief Robert Thiemann – RT Managing editor Floor Kuitert – FK Head of content Peter Maxwell – PM Editor Anouk Haegens – AH Web editor Rab Messina – RM Editor at large Tracey Ingram – TI Junior editor Lauren Grace Morris – LGM Copy editors InOtherWords (D’Laine Camp, Donna de Vries-Hermansader) Design director Barbara Iwanicka Graphic designers Zoe Bar-Pereg Shadi Ekman Translation InOtherWords (Donna de VriesHermansader) Contributors to this issue John Jervis – JJ Ana Martins – AM Shonquis Moreno – SM Alexandra Onderwater – AO Luke Pearson – LP Anna Sansom – AS Laura Snoad – LS Jane Szita – JS Lauren Teague – LT Amy X. Wang – AXW Cover Holo-Scandinavian by Six N. Five (see page 18) Photo courtesy of Six N. Five Lithography Edward de Nijs Printing Grafisch Bedrijf Tuijtel Hardinxveld-Giessendam
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DuraSquare. Precise. Organic. The exact, precise edges of the basic form blend together with the soft, organically owing inner contours. The washbasin made from DuraCeramŽ sits on top of a matching metal console, shown here in black matt. The glass shelf allows for more practical storage space. www.duravit.com
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EDITORIAL
Experience 3.0 Google ‘photos of Woodstock’ and marvel at the whirlwind metamorphosis undergone by music festivals since 1969. The mother of all festivals took place on the rolling hills of a farm in upstate New York, where some 400,000 people gathered to listen to artists like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The celebration, billed as ‘three days of peace and music’, ultimately included a fourth day. Photos of the happening – most of them in black and white – reveal a great mass of what seem to be ecstatic music lovers, many half naked, dancing, happy, radiating love, often sporting groovy tie-dyed threads. Photos of the two stages are harder to find, but I did come across a few images of scaffolding, painted tent canvas and theatre spots. Concert experience 1.0. Search queries on contemporary music concerts turn up brilliant spectacles: lasers in all the colours of the rainbow piercing ink-black skies and stages that wouldn’t be out of place at Disneyland. Crowds of exhilarated people are still enjoying music. That’s for sure. You might say that the past 50 years have brought about a revolution in colour, light and probably sound – an upheaval in impact – but that not much else has changed. Appearances can be deceiving, though. Continue the search and you’ll find a completely different concert experience: music fans that capture what they see and hear on their smartphones and share it on social media. Eager to show that they were there in person, they might think that what they post online is more important than the concert itself. Music experience 2.0.
What does experience 3.0 look like? That’s what we asked ourselves in this issue’s Lab section. The Holy Grail of musical entertainment revolves around assembling as many people as possible for a communal experience that is uniquely rich in audiovisual content, customizable and sharable – for spectators in the front row to those in a rear corner of the hall. Thanks to technologies like AR and VR, what I’m describing is not just ‘future music’ – it’s here right now. More and more artists are performing live in video games, thereby reaching a worldwide audience of millions. The all-encompassing spatial performances available to gamers could be embraced by festivals of the future. A special bonus is the lack of a need for expensive stages and light shows, reducing a concert’s ecological footprint. Additional advantages of immersive technologies are the transformation of music distribution and the way we have social contact while listening to music. At the same time, the concert experience becomes better and cheaper. Indeed: 3.0. However, echoing through all these promising examples are the words of Pritzker Prize winner Balkrishna Doshi (see page 46): ‘It seems we’re connected only through virtual vision and sound. When you meet someone, see the smile on their face and shake hands, isn’t that experience better than anything else?’ ROBERT THIEMANN Editor in chief
Design + Performance™ and Legendary Performance Fabrics™ are trademarks and Sunbrella® is a registered trademark of Glen Raven, Inc.
L E G E N DA R Y P E R F O R M A N C E FA B R I C S ™ S U N B R E L L A .C O M
FA D E P R O O F / E A S Y C A R E / B L E AC H C L E A N A B L E
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CONTRIBUTORS
Born in Beijing and raised in Phoenix, AMY X. WANG is a writer and journalist currently living in New York City. As a staff reporter at Rolling Stone, she covers everything from the record industry to the digital revolution’s impact on the music business and the monetization of creativity. Her writing has appeared in Quartz, The Atlantic, Slate and The Economist. Wang has a BA in English from Yale University. On page 158, she explains how the design of Drake’s latest tour makes the live music experience more democratic.
After graduating with honours in English from the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, VICTOR DLAMINI began his career as a reporter at the Sunday Tribune in KwaZulu-Natal. Inspired by written language throughout his life, the Johannesburg-based jack of all trades now works as a corporate communications adviser, photographer and social philosopher. He is the chairman of Chillibush advertising and director of Dlamini Weil Communications, as well as a regular contributor to his eponymous web show, the Victor Dlamini Literary Podcast. For this issue, he took the portraits of Mariam Kamara found on page 54.
LUKE PEARSON is a designer and academic. He directs the architecture undergraduate programme at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Together with Sandra Youkhana, he founded design and research practice You+Pea. Pearson and Youkhana lead the Videogame Urbanism master’s studio at the Bartlett. Pearson’s research applies game technologies to architecture and urbanism. He examines virtual worlds as forms of conceptual architecture and explores games as new platforms for public engagement. His expertise extends to in-game concerts on page 164.
EMANUEL HAHN is a Brooklyn-based editorial and documentary photographer specializing in portraiture and human stories. He works as a narrative filmmaker ‘on the side’. Having grown up in South Korea, Singapore and Cambodia, Hahn is curious about different cultures, especially diaspora communities around the world. As a deep observer and listener, he loves to discover people’s personalities and perspectives, which inform his shooting process. He’s worked for clients such as Airbnb and Tiffany & Co., and his photographs have been published in The New York Times and Surface Magazine, among others. You can see Hahn’s portraits of artist Zac Hacmon on page 71.
Photo Andrea Ferrari
SPINNAKER, DESIGN GORDON GUILLAUMIER HARP, DESIGN RODOLFO DORDONI
www.rodaonline.com
ULM COLLECTION by Ramรณn Esteve
vondom.com
Jagoda Wisniewska
HUMAN TISSUE as a material resource. Furniture’s RENTAL REVOLUTION. Upgrading the economy cabin. The future of FLAT-PACK. Discover new directions in the world of products.
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OBJECTS
The pieces comprising the Tense collection can be assembled and disassembled with no additional tools.
fabric that moulds around an aluminium structure and thus eliminates the need for screws. But why did they propose a model of permanent itinerant ownership, when the market – including the king of flat-packs, Ikea – is moving towards a furniture rental system? Tension, they explain, brings us back to humanity’s first construction systems: stretching animal skins on bone frames to create shelters. In that same vein, even in the age of the sharing economy, they see
something primal in the idea of owning the things that make one’s house a home. ‘As product designers, we believe that we carry the attachment to things in an almost tribal way,’ says Panterotto. ‘The sharing dynamic is the future of everything, but then again, a piece of furniture is like a nice piece of art: it’s something you want to carry with you and eventually pass on to your relatives, to keep a legacy of how you grew up.’ – RM pantertourron.com
DV911 Noto + DV504 Milo - design Enzo Berti
AD: STUDIO BERTI - photo T.BERTI.PH
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the light of creation through the beauty of materials. discover more at www.irisfmg.com
Courtesy of Christian and Jade
THE
THE FUTURE OF SHOWS In the lead-up to each issue, Frame challenges emerging designers to answer a topical question with a future-forward concept. That technology has drastically altered the design landscape is nothing new, but the immateriality associated with such developments begs the question: what’s next? When it comes to staging events, we’ve seen dancers frolic with drones, holographic catwalk shows for virtual fashion lines and sets that transform via light projections. With VR and AR on the rise, will the ‘stage’ as we know it cease to exist? Or will designers revolt and return to the physical? We asked five makers to think ahead.
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THE FUTURE OF SHOWS
Nยบ 1
Curtain Call Miji Noh believes her EVENTRELATED ARCHIVE will give shows the encore they deserve.
THE CHALLENGE
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Comprising a physical display, a catalogue and a web archive platform, The Archive is designed to preserve the typically short life span of shows.
An ÉCAL graduate who’s worked for the likes of Motorola and Cloudandco, UK-based Korean designer MIJI NOH has a knack for giving futuristic concepts a tangible presence in a practical way, something we asked her to embrace in ‘The Challenge’.
You want to give shows an afterlife . . . MIJI NOH: Nowadays, technology plays a central role in articulating a show’s objective and delivering heightened experiences. I approached the brief by considering how the immateriality of fast-paced technology might make us rethink and revisit the importance of physical and tangible experiences – more specifically, the aftermath and artefacts of such experiences. What’s your concept? A public archive system aimed at anyone with an interest in design, materials and how things are made. Comprising three tools – a physical display, a catalogue and a web archive platform – The Archive: Materials, Minds and Moods features artefacts from shows and exhibitions. There’s an element of serendipity in the system. It encourages the audience to play with juxtaposition and to discover new inspirations. Where would you find The Archive? My objective is to have the system live in various places, such as creative studios, corporations, academic libraries, research institutions and laboratories – anywhere that media and matter are made and developed. It would be ideal for the locations to cover a good mix
of inspiring terrain, from art and design to culture and sociology. Why do you think an archive system represents the future of shows? While there are amazing technologies that afford us next-level sensorial experiences – Marina Abramović’s mixed-reality performance, The Life, is a recent example – I feel that there are insufficient infrastructures and platforms for preserving and archiving creative processes in a sustainable and lasting way. This is especially true when it comes to engaging the public in short-lived events that are often produced at speed. I’m looking to equalize two worlds: the world before the show and the one after. My point is that an archive can become a living artefact – a showcase of personal intuition and logic. It’s my hope that the audience discovers the beauty of physical properties and the visual languages of materials. The cycle from collection through to archiving and re-creation in The Archive might seem simple, but I believe it will contribute significantly to building a better view of the everyday world. We can collect to recall the past, archive to reflect the present and (re-) create to predict the future. – TI mijinoh.com
HD Expo Las Vegas, May 15-17 Booth 4461
NeoCon Chicago, June 10-12 Booth 7-5050
Cindy Baar
BALKRISHNA DOSHI has been human all along. RENNY RAMAKERS lacks routine. i29 widens its horizons. MARIAM KAMARA practises place-making in Africa. Meet the people. Get their perspectives.
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PORTRAITS
At the age of 90, Doshi became the first Indian architect to win the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize. He dedicated his award to Le Corbusier.
WHAT I’VE LEARNED
‘Whatever we build, it must be human’ Sustainability, adaptation and inclusivity are in BALKRISHNA DOSHI’s DNA. Words
ANNA SAMSON
Portraits
FABIEN CHARUAU
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PORTRAITS
B. V. DOSHI BALKRISHNA DOSHI: ‘When I was eight years old, my grandfather’s workshop was next door to our extended family home of around 20 people, young and old, uncles and aunts. I saw a lot of timber, like wooden planks, coming into the workshop, and slowly the wood would start forming itself into long and short pieces of different shapes and sizes. It gradually became some kind of structure – a chair, a stool, a bed, a cupboard. I realized this assembly from raw material was ‘transformation’, a word that became very important to me as my grandfather’s house constantly changed. Somebody would get married or have more children. A room would be added. The house would change shape or new furniture would appear. When I started thinking about architecture, I thought preservation was an area to keep in mind. I wanted to remember how a raw material can assume a character or a form that makes it useful. Architecture is not just a product but a living organism. In our family, an excess of food would not be thrown away but fed to the cattle. So in my work I found a way to create a cyclical order of sustainability, where even waste can be consumed at the right time for the right purpose.’ ‘In 1945 I witnessed the end of the Second World War, soon followed by India’s independence in 1947. The stride for independ-
ence already existed, though. There were riots and clashes with the police; people burned imported clothes. It was at architecture school that I first saw the need for India to find its own resources and identity, a realization that became more apparent when I began working with Le Corbusier in 1951. He was trying to find a new vocabulary for his work in India. His efforts forged a connection between us; when one goes to a new place and culture, it’s not easy to discover a new identity and to find another means of expression and the freedom to break with convention. It was quite funny, because Le Corbusier hardly spoke English, and he knew that I did not speak French. He also saw me as a novice in terms of learning about architecture. Often as I worked on a drawing or a project – such as the Mill Owners’ Association Building in Ahmedabad, my first job – he would ask me to get up and let him sit on my stool, where he drew and explained as he drew. Speaking to me slowly in English, he’d say: This is the way you work; it will help you improve. The climate is like this, the breeze comes from this side and people walk up this staircase. He described how people move, react and gather and how air blows. He taught me about movement, about how places become tangible and about variations – why turning a wall around prompts people to move in another direction. I learned why organic
‘I found a way to create a cyclical order of sustainability’
architecture should be based on climate and structural purpose. While he was doing this, he asked me about India: Tell me, what kind of climate do you have? Do you have a bird like this? Do you think the trees would blow and bend when the wind comes?’ ‘A few years later I met Louis Kahn while I was teaching in Philadelphia. I asked him to design the Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. We agreed that I would work on the project and see it through. As well as movement, he talked about structure, climate, the behaviour of materials and the articulation of heights. He explained the importance of a veranda and a brick arch. He showed me how to create a courtyard and how to analyse the behaviour of students. His drawings showed how architecture can become more expressive and unique in its identity of structure and experience, which became important for me to know.’ ‘When I set up my own practice, Sangath, I applied the principles of sustainability learned from my grandfather’s house – how to work with the climate to avoid the sun, to allow more breeze to enter a building and to harvest rainwater. I gave myself a challenge: absolute sustainability in terms of climate control by using minimal air-conditioning, ventilation and cooling systems. I developed a traditional way of building but with a double cavity wall sandwiched between two thin curved concrete slabs. On my various construction sites, I picked up stones and discarded bathroom tiles from factories. I used the white glazed mosaic tiles, which reflect heat, for the »
WHAT I’VE LEARNED
Doshi oversaw Le Corbusier’s projects in India in the 1950s, among which the Mill Owners’ Association Building (1954).
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PORTRAITS
Zac Hacmon poses with Destined, a work inspired by the grab bars ubiquitous to New York’s public spaces.
ONE ARTIST, ONE MATERIAL
Gateway, conceived shortly after Hacmon arrived in New York, represents the artist’s response to the war in Gaza.
my master’s, I found these tiles covering in-between spaces – subway stations, or places that are both private and public, such as restrooms. I’m trying to give that sense of intimacy, using mundane elements to create a device that gives access to something sublime – a portal perhaps. When you see the show, it almost feels like a temple, and these sculptures are like stupas. I was taking a Buddhist class at the time, which got me thinking what temples might look like if we built them in the city now. Marc Augé introduced the idea of ‘non-places’ – places such as malls or airports that have no history or identity, that look the same whether you’re in Tokyo or New York, where you lose a sense of location, a condition he calls ‘supermodernity’ – so I attempted to harness that. Your use of steel grab bars in Afterlife feels rather less personal, is that fair? You see them everywhere in New York as part
of architectural regulations, but it can get absurd, with six of them all in one place. It’s funny, because people always reach out to touch them as they pass. It’s like an instinct – we have been trained to use them, and they call out for use. The sculptures in Afterlife are rather delicate, even deliberately failed in places as an attempt to puncture society’s idealization of architecture. Yet people still touch the bars – it’s almost like an experiment, inviting people to respond to their own desires. At the same time, you exhibited the overtly political Gateway – a section of a security checkpoint modelled on one in Kalandia – across town at Smack Mellon. It’s a striking contrast. I conceived of Gateway as a response to the war in Gaza just after I moved to New York, but because it was such a big project it took years to realize. I kept manipulating my language in the meantime, »
‘I wanted to create some new sort of architecture – perhaps an “unclear architecture”’
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ATELIER
www.fantoni.it - Salone del Mobile.Milano / 9—14.4.2019 / pav. 20 stand F24-E29
designed in collaboration with Gensler as Product Design Consultant
Life is flux, and so is work. Life is not pre-set, so why should you be? With an experimental character and a composite scheme made up of four collective elements, Atelier opens up new perspectives for office planning providing functional longevity and economic efficiency.
Jeannette Huisman
Interior design is not a second-rate profession; it’s an industry worth honouring. But Frame Awards 2019 was about more than presenting prizes. During the judging and ensuing ceremony in Amsterdam, a gathering of great minds – jurors and nominees alike – considered where spatial design is heading. How can today’s interiors represent the zeitgeist and point to the future? The winning projects offer some answers.
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FRAME AWARDS 2019
YES, PEOPLE Winners of Frame Awards 2019 show that a fresh, human-centric breeze is stirring the interior-design sector. Words
ROBERT THIEMANN
‘DESIGNING WITH HUMANS in mind’. ‘Built by empathy’. ‘Warranted by user concerns’. Three randomly chosen remarks made by jurors describing winning projects during their cross-category analyses. These observations indicated what the jury of Frame Awards 2019 was looking for: human-centric interior design. If you think that interior designers have always given users centre stage, you’re wrong. It’s not true of what’s going on at the moment anyway, and it’s not what commands the most appreciation.
Of course, designers have always aspired to realize spatial experiences for people. They’ve always wanted to tell stories and to arouse human emotions. Think of the glamour and comfort that hotels provide. Think of the ergonomic choices that go into plans for workplaces. Or of the service-driven approach taken by designers of schools and hospitals. Still and all, in the year 2019 such intentions seem merely superficial attempts to cut to the heart of the matter. Long has design been the way to please and impress both clients and users – the wow that makes a difference. Now that design (as in ‘lending shape to objects and places’) has become a commodity – with everything, everywhere sporting a makeover – it can no longer be distinctive. Every hotel is the result of a designer’s ideas and is geared to the presumed interests of a certain target group. Offices worldwide feature breakout areas, silence cells and kitchenscum-meeting rooms. Schools and healthcare centres appear friendlier, too, while supporting medical staff better than ever. The designer’s touch is everywhere, and the world is a better and more attractive place for it. But that’s not enough. What our 40 jury members wanted to see while judging the approximately 150 nominated projects – culled from some 1,050 entries – is this: interiors that revealed a glimpse of the future, that
responded to real human needs and that had the smallest imaginable ecological footprint. What kinds of projects filled the bill? Workplaces with hackable spaces. Hotels connected to nature. Houses that encourage their inhabitants to be themselves. And all this with optimal lighting, the right materials, an effective use of colour and ancillary digital technology, allowing people to make closer contact with their senses. Jury members searched for poetry, created with simple but precise and meaningful gestures and interventions. ‘I really liked how it wasn’t about a spectacle,’ commented Sabine Marcelis, referring to Sony’s prizewinning exhibition Hidden Senses. For a long time, ‘spectacle’ was key to interior design: making an impression, generating drama – with the designer as ingenious director of life within spaces. What we’re seeing now is the user assuming the role of director – if only in part. In the future, the designer’s biggest task will be to offer as many user options as possible while doing as little design as possible. frameawards.com
PARTNERS The Frame Awards have been supported by the German Interior Business Association (IBA) and Europe Hotels Private Collection (EHPC).
Jury Members SPATIAL AWARDS RETAIL
LI XIANG X+Living president and creative director
JEFF KINDLEYSIDES Checkland Kindleysides founder
BERIT BUREMA Ace & Tate retail design manager
ANNY WANG Wang & Söderström cofounder
TIM RUPP Nike design director of retail environments
TINA NORDEN Conran and Partners director
PETER IPPOLITO Ippolito Fleitz Group cofounder
WERNER AISSLINGER Studio Aisslinger founder
NATALI CANAS DEL POZO El Equipo Creativo cofounder
PATRICIA HOLLER Marriott International senior interior design director
SPATIAL AWARDS HOSPITALITY
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SPATIAL AWARDS INSTITUTIONS
FRANCINE HOUBEN Mecanoo founding partner and creative director
GYULA ÖRY Cairn Real Estate development director
ALEX DE RIJKE dRMM founding director
DAVID ROCKWELL Rockwell Group founder and president
MARIE HESSELDAHL LARSEN 3XN partner and head of interior
LARA DEAM Dwell founder and CEO
LIBBY SELLERS Design historian, writer and consultant
PAOLA NAVONE Architect, designer and art director
DOMINIQUE TAFFIN Yanfeng Automotive Interiors industrial design senior manager
ARIANNA LELLI MAMI Studiopepe cofounder and creative director
YUTAKA HASEGAWA Sony Creative Centre design vice president
SAKCHIN BESSETTE Moment Factory cofounder and executive creative director
EYLUL DURANAGAC Ouchhh creative director
PAOLO BRAMBILLA Calvi Brambilla cofounder
SAMIR BANTAL AMO director
SEVIL PEACH SevilPeach founder
SUDHIR SASEEDHARAN Lego workplace design global lead
PRIMO ORPILLA Studio O+A cofounder and principal
ANDY HEATH WeWork head of design, Europe, Israel and Australia
KATI BARKLUND Tenant & Partner senior manager workplace strategy
YINKA ILORI Contemporary artist and designer
BETHAN LAURA WOOD Studio Wood founder
SABINE MARCELIS Object and installation designer
ANA MILENA HERNÁNDEZ PALACIOS Masquespacio cofounder
BENOIT STEENACKERS Hermès collection manager
DIDIER FIÚZA FAUSTINO Mésarchitecture founder, artist and architect
MATYLDA KRZYKOWSKI Designer, curator, advisor and professor
ZENUL ABERDIN KHAN Snøhetta senior architect
HESTER VAN DIJK Overtreders W cofounder
HUMBERTO CAMPANA Campana and Instituto Campana cofounder
SPATIAL AWARDS RESIDENCES
SPATIAL AWARDS SHOWS
SPATIAL AWARDS WORK
EXECUTIONAL AWARDS
SOCIETAL AWARDS
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Since reconsidering one interior typology in 1984 – the typical French neighbourhood café – Philippe Starck has done the same with many more, from hotels and hostels to furnished apartments.
Jeannette Huisman
FRAME AWARDS 2019
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Sponsored by IBA
HONORARY
Lifetime Achievement Award PHILIPPE STARCK
‘I am not interested in interior design’ ‘I AM NOT INTERESTED in interior design.’ So said Philippe Starck in an interview that appeared in Frame 93. He’s spoken those words before, just as he’s declared he’s ‘not good at interior design’. Well, we beg to differ. To some he may be better known for products – he’s designed everything from a toothbrush and a chair to a lemon juicer and a motorbike – but it’s Starck’s interiors that landed him the Lifetime Achievement Award. The turning point was in 1984, when the launch of Café Costes in Paris set the stage for what’s become a 35-year-long (and counting) career. ‘You did away with a typical French neighbourhood café,’ said Frame founder and director Robert Thiemann, after presenting Starck with his award on stage, ‘instead introducing a somewhat bewildering mix of fluid minimalism and grandiose theatricality, always referencing the past and introducing what later turned out to be the future.’ Thiemann went on to credit Starck with initiating other interior typologies:
the boutique hotel, for one, as well as the democratic design hostel. ‘But you didn’t limit yourself to hospitality interiors,’ he continued. ‘With your retail designs for Alain Mikli eyewear and Taschen books in the ’90s, you were far ahead of the current craze of socalled experiential stores. And the Yoo brand you launched in 1999 with John Hitchcox changed the real-estate industry by offering arguably the first apartments fully furnished with contemporary design.’ More recently, he created a habitation module for Axiom Space, the world’s first commercial space station. Earlier that day, jury members sat down to assess some 150 spaces: the Frame Awards nominees. They were asked to look for examples that, among other things, pushed the industry forward. Is the project reflective of socioeconomic shifts in the industry or society? Does it respond to changing consumer needs? Here’s a man who’s spent half his lifetime doing just that. But pushing the industry forward isn’t Starck’s goal; it’s collateral.
Thiemann summed up the designer’s real objectives by referencing one of Starck’s past proclamations: ‘My priorities are to revolutionize usage architecture and to clean and revolutionize symbolism; to move toward greater simplicity, discretion and harmony with nature; and to use human standards rather than technical or sexual standards.’ The same sentiment was reinforced by Thiemann’s closing words: ‘You aim to improve the lives of the final users of your designs. You also design to feed your family. And finally, you design to serve society.’ Starck is known for making bold statements. In Frame 93, he claimed that he’d quit making interiors at the end of that year, 2013. But this declaration prefaced another: ‘I guess I [make interiors] because public space can be used as a means to convey a message through experience, to reach people. As long as I have things to say, I will continue.’ We know we’re not the only ones who are glad he’s pressing ahead. – TI starck.com
Gyorgy Korossy
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SHOWS
Exhibition of the Year THE MACALLAN VISITOR EXPERIENCE BY ATELIER BRÜCKNER
CRAIGELLACHIE – The jury was impressed by Atelier Brückner’s considered treatment of a complex project: The Macallan Visitor Experience. Into a new Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners-designed distillery at the foot of the Scottish Highlands, Atelier Brückner inserted an exhibition to convey the story behind the brand’s single-malt whisky. Dealing with two significant challenges – sophisticated content and an environment bathed in sunlight – the designers went in search of an immersive brand experience. ‘This wouldn’t have been easy to put together,’ said Paolo Brambilla of Calvi Brambilla, ‘but the result is very well executed.’ Sakchin Bessette of Moment Factory agreed that ‘everything is thought through. There’s a real sense of craft and detail – and a simplicity of experience.’ He also pointed out the clever approach to sensory engagement – ‘touch, sound, smell, sight, taste – it’s all there. The exhibition is artistic in its interpretation but still directly relevant to the client’s objectives: highlighting the depth of craft involved in making whisky.’ Whereas many exhibition designers rely on technology to dazzle and delight, Atelier Brückner was commended for its restraint. As the jury confirmed in its summary: ‘The use of technology – and the design as a whole – supports the exhibition’s intentions.’ – TI atelier-brueckner.com
PEOPLE'S VOTE Neuro Surge by Shiseido Team 101 and WOW
The jury was impressed by Atelier Brückner’s ability to pull together a complex project with such skill and restraint – all while creating an immersive, multisensory brand experience.
FRAME AWARDS 2019
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FRAME AWARDS 2019
Adriá Goula
Jury member Sabine Marcelis commended El Equipo Creativo for its ‘distinctive and effective use of primary colours in line with the story behind the interior design’ of Las Chicas, Los Chicos y Los Maniquís.
EXECUTIONAL
Best Use of Colour LAS CHICAS, LOS CHICOS Y LOS MANIQUÍS BY EL EQUIPO CREATIVO
MADRID – Determining which design studio has best used the power of colour in its interiors is tricky. By which criterion? The atmosphere? Narrative character? The significance of the selected colour palette to the space? Can something else, like a print or a material, create the same effect as the colour? Are the colours surprising, bold, distracting, or perhaps unnecessarily exciting in relation to the function of the space? (Nominees in this particular category ranged from spa to restaurant, shop, educational centre and office space.) Colourful interiors abound this year. Colour incarnate herself, jury member and Studio Wood founder Bethan Laura Wood was primarily interested in the relevance and
originality of colour usage: why pink, purple, blue, yellow, jet black (!) or many shades of green here, of all places? ‘Colour is such a loaded thing,’ said Hermès collection manager Benoit Steenackers. Maos Design consistently employed a green-greener-greenest colour palette in the Nimman Spa in Shanghai. It charmed the jury members, but they had doubts about the universal value of precisely these shades of green in a relaxing environment – ‘it could have been a bit more tropical’ and ‘this kind of green signals “healthcare” in the West’. Nosigner’s Zenblack Garden awed the group, but the social activist could hardly expect to be victorious in this context. ‘Black is the absence of colour,’ said
Masquespacio’s Ana Milena Hernández Palacios. The unanimous winner? El Equipo Creativo’s design for restaurant Las Chicas, Los Chicos y Los Maniquís in Madrid. ‘A distinctive and effective use of primary colours in line with the story behind the interior design. Kudos for the bright-red bar in exactly the right shade of lipstick red,’ said jury member Sabine Marcelis, who praised the Catalan design studio for the level of detailing as well as the subtle diamond references in the interior that probably only locals will recognize and understand. – AO elequipocreativo.com
PEOPLE'S VOTE XYZ Formula by WGNB
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Courtesy of TheWaveVR
LAB Time was when a sticky floor or muddy field, a few onstage props (for the lucky few), a couple of spotlights and a smoke machine were all you could hope for as a concertgoer. A concert is primarily about the music, of course, and not the set dressing. But what if you could have the best of both? Technology’s transformative effect on the live music experience has raised the level of the spectacle to match that of the sound. Whether its in-venue, in-game or in-VR, concert design is helping audiences feel closer to the performer and to their fellow fans than ever before.
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‘Technology is only a tool. It’s not the tail that wags the dog’ Stufish’s RAY WINKLER discusses how technological innovation on both sides of the stage has raised the stakes for entertainment architects. Words
PETER MAXWELL
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ANDREW MEREDITH
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You’ve spent your career working in a relatively young and little understood part of the architecture industry. What are its origins? RAY WINKLER: I think the reason entertainment architecture gained traction was the need for stadium concerts to scale up, to make an impact on an environment that is much larger than the stage itself. If you look at the history of concert design, you have examples like The Beatles playing at Shea Stadium in the mid-’60s, where the stage was literally just a small platform, lit using the floodlights for the baseball field. The audience was so loud that The Beatles couldn’t hear themselves, and the audience couldn’t hear The Beatles – the equipment at the time was just not geared up to deal with these spatial challenges. By 1977, when Stufish founder Mark Fisher worked with engineer Frei Otto to create the famous umbrella structures for Pink Floyd’s Animals tour, musicians were beginning to better understand that they needed a little help to register, both sonically and visually, when playing to such large crowds. The reason these stages exist is to enable the band to transmit the largest possible presence. They’re performing in an environment that requires them to communicate at levels beyond what they could achieve as individuals. That’s why entertainment architecture came about in the first place. Has the rapid pace of technological change over the last couple of decades made a fundamental difference in what’s possible in entertainment architecture? With advances in technology – which make things undoubtedly brighter, louder and better – we can produce far more immersive experiences for the audience. But none of these advances can guarantee that the show is good – they are just the tools with which we play. What really matters is a narrative that reflects the ambitions and the ideas of the band. All the technical choices we make are aimed at supplementing the delivery of that narrative. Technology isn’t the tail that wags the dog. Take Jay-Z and Beyonce’s 2018 OTR II, where we used a heroic 26-m spanning bridge track-out system that could move
‘As tribal people, we will always want to congregate around our preferred experiences’ over the audience. The area underneath the bridge, between the two catwalks, offered an incredible level of immersion and proximity to the audience. It only made sense, though, because it tallied with what the artists wanted to achieve, the story they wanted to tell. Are contemporary concertgoers more demanding of the visual spectacle than those of previous generations? Today’s audience undoubtedly has higher expectations. If you look at what’s available now – just the sheer volume of media outlets both physical and digital, or the number of concerts and theatre shows in London on any given day – it’s overwhelming. People have a huge amount of choice, much more so than before, so the pressure on entertainment architects is to make something really stand out. The key to doing so is not the addition of more layers of technology for technology’s sake, however. Anybody can rent a high-resolution video screen, a lighting rig, a PA system – what counts is how you put the components together. Take the Rolling Stones’ No Filter tour. Instead of having one big screen at the
back, we used four screens, each representing one of the four principal band members. And instead of having screens that appeared to be flat, we gave them a 1.5-m-deep return, so they looked like monolithic slabs, reminiscent of those in 2001: A Space Odyssey. You can see how the very same video panel that we’re using in other shows – and have used previously, and will use in the future – required a certain amount of tweaking before it became utterly bespoke to the No Filter show. Similarly, 80 per cent of the U2 set for Vertigo, in terms of the steel structure, was used for Robbie Williams’ Close Encounters tour. It’s recycled, but recycling doesn’t limit what you can do. The only limit is your imagination – how can you employ the tools at hand? The way people experience your work has changed drastically. Now it’s often mediated by the mobile phone, and its success depends on both the live event and the way it’s shared online. Do such aspects influence the way you design? The ‘Instagram moment’ is a term we use a lot in our discussions, both internally and with clients. Twenty years ago the set would have »
FRAME LAB
Manfred Vogel, courtesy of Stufish
For the Rolling Stones’ No Filter tour, Stufish created four monolithic screens that represent the band’s four principle members.
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A New Platform for Performance
US-based DJ Marshmello broadcast a live in-game concert across Fortnite’s servers, reportedly reaching 10 million viewers.
As friending overtakes fighting as their main function, video games are becoming this generation’s entertainment venue of choice. Words
LUKE PEARSON
FRAME LAB
THE CONCERT IS ABOUT TO BEGIN. The crowd gathers as the lights dim. Everyone is dressed in elaborate costumes. A panda shifts from foot to foot as a fish in a spacesuit break-dances with a sushi chef. Many wear white and carry speakers on sticks, while others spin giant pickaxes around their heads. As the music starts to play, millions of onlookers jump. Gravity changes in time with the beat, allowing people to project into the air, float and fly around the stage. Showers of particles fall from the sky like meteorites, and giant yellow beachballs rain down on the spectators, who swing wildly at the bright orbs, sending them spiralling up into the clouds. As the set finishes, the ground disappears, taking the stage with it, and everyone skydives into a suburban town hundreds of metres below. This strange set of events is not happening at an extreme-sports festival or even Burning
Man, but within the new frontier of music venues: Fortnite, a video-game world. At first, game environments – lacking physical materiality and possessing no acoustic performance beyond the simulation of sounds – may not appear to be natural hosts for concerts and music. Rather than focusing on static audiences, they typically promote participation in specific activities, such as shooting, racing, building and managing. Yet modern game worlds are complex interactive environments that bring thousands of people together worldwide and respond in real time to their behaviour. And many games do have an implicit link to music, from Wipeout’s techno soundtrack (1995) to Rez (2001) and Vib-Ribbon (1999) – realms structured by beats. And don’t forget Guitar Hero (2005), which turned living rooms into stages, and the Grand Theft Auto series (1997-2013), which
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has long featured radio stations curated by artists such as Iggy Pop, Soulwax and Flying Lotus. GTA recently moved into online performances, allowing players to buy virtual nightclubs that others can visit and to hire real-world DJs, such as Solomun and Tale of Us, to entertain guests. The DJs in turn have used Los Santos, GTA V’s deviant re-creation of Los Angeles, to record music videos and release new tracks, reaching a wide new audience through this virtual world. Taking the interplay even further, Riot Games, developer of the popular League of Legends (2009), a five-against-five hero battle game, came up with K/DA, a virtual pop group composed of game characters voiced by Korean K-pop stars and American YouTube singers. Their song, Pop/Stars, which launched the game’s 2018 World Championships, used augmented reality to bring the game characters to life. »
DragonMatt81, courtesy of Luke Pearson
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Embracing the Offering unprecedented levels of interaction between audience and artist, THE WAVE VR proves why virtual reality is the future of live music. Words
LAURA SNOAD
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Courtesy of TheWaveVR
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Glitch Mob’s VR experience ‘See Without Eyes’ explores themes of isolation versus social interaction.
IMAGINE A GIG where the venue walls melt away to reveal a sci-fi universe of rushing stars – or your favourite artist splits into a cloud of pulsating pixels or grows skyscraper-tall. LA-based digital studio TheWaveVR is shifting the paradigms of musical performance, proving that anything imaginable can be built. Far more than a concert playback in VR, the studio’s platform enables musicians to design entire audiovisual worlds that VR headset-wearing fans can explore in their own homes. Like any real space, these worlds include going to the bar and socializing with like-minded gig-goers, but untethered to the laws of physics. ‘You can empower visual creators to develop a new type of experience that conveys a certain emotion based on the spatial,’ says Adam Arrigo, CEO and cofounder of TheWaveVR. From zero-gravity raves to an intimate party at Imogen Heap’s Essex home, musicians have never had so much control over the narrative, look and feel of their performances. ‘Over the course of a Wave show, the space itself can evolve, but you can also end up in all kinds of aesthetics, from abstract art to cell-shaded cartoon styles,’ he explains. ‘It’s an entirely new palette. Purely from an access standpoint, it allows musicians to go
on tour virtually and sell concert tickets – something important, given how hard it is to make money in today’s music industry.’ VR, Arrigo believes, is going to change not just how music is visualized, but also how it is distributed and how we socialize while listening to it. His ambition is for TheWaveVR to own this digital concert ecosystem. Formed by a group of self-defined ‘sci-fi nerds and musicians’, TheWaveVR began three years ago as a side project for sound and game designer Arrigo, VR developer Aaron Lemke, and their visual artist and developer friends. Its first iteration was a virtual reality DJ booth, where ravers were offered something more than a simulated clubbing experience. ‘On the drop, the DJ could click a button and blast through outer space or turn the whole club black and white on a whim to evoke a film-noir aesthetic.’ Interest from high-profile musicians like Skrillex led TheWaveVR to co-design VR concerts, bringing in famed AV artists like David Wexler (aka Strangeloop), the talent behind Flying Lotus’s live visuals. Now the 25-strong team collaborates with handpicked musicians to showcase the platform’s potential, but any artist can create and upload a VR ‘Wave’ experience.
From casual beginnings, TheWaveVR has secured round after round of funding, including a phenomenal $6 million investment last year. In many ways, it was founded in a perfect storm of cultural shifts. To start, younger generations now prize the purchase of experiences over things, as long as such experiences have an Instagramfriendly aesthetic that helps them to signify their music taste. Gaming is fashionable as never before, and, as Luke Pearson discusses on page 164, there’s an appetite for music in this space. What’s more, over the past eight years EDM (a high-octane strain of dance music with crunchy baselines and soaring drops) has exploded onto the US scene – a perfect fit for VR. ‘EDC [dancemusic festival] is a crazy Disneyland of visuals, where hundreds and thousands of dollars are spent making animatronic sculptures using cutting-edge technology,’ says Arrigo, ‘but putting a show in the hands of a digital creative produces a much better and cheaper experience.’ Not to mention a tour with a smaller environmental footprint. Something that distinguishes TheWaveVR from other VR experiences – and may be the key to a mainstream rollout in the future – is the ability to socialize within
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‘See Without Eyes’ starts in a teenager's bedroom before exploding into a journey through a galactic dreamscape choreographed to a 20-minute mix of the album.
the VR space. Many ‘Waves’ feature ‘trips’ that allow two people to momentarily leave the environment for an intimate 45-second psychedelic experience purpose-designed by Oakland digital artist Cabbibo. Participants can transform into metallic lava – reminiscent of Terminator 2 – or enjoy a pulsating environment of fractals. In another trip, set in a cutesy Japanese karaoke bar, you’re an angler fish, and on touching tentacles, balloons fall and children cheer. ‘When you’re at a music festival, sometimes you have a connection with a person you meet in that loud noisy environment,’ says Arrigo. ‘It feels like you’ve created your own space within the sprawling, crazy social mess. A Wave trip reflects that feeling but in a more direct, visual sense.’ VR’s ability to arouse empathy and result in a deep social connection was at the heart of EDM trio Glitch Mob’s VR experience, ‘See Without Eyes’. Starting in a lonely teenager’s bedroom, the walls fall away and you enter his thoughts, culminating in a journey through a galactic dreamscape choreographed to a 20-minute mix of the album. ‘We looked at themes of isolation versus social interaction,’ says Arrigo. ‘If you see Glitch Mob live, they have crazy visuals, but you wouldn’t experience it as a story. »
Ash Koosha was able to ‘tour’ the US virtually, despite Donald Trump’s travel ban
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Jeanette Huisman
Outdoor
Manufacturers make living outside less ECOLOGICALLY IMPACTFUL. How the garden can become as COMFORTABLE as the living room. Discover what’s driving the business of design.
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GO GREEN(ER) ‘Sustainable’ design becomes an even more pressing category with each passing year. Bompas & Parr’s vegan hotel suite for Hilton Bankside in London and John Anthony, a dim sum restaurant in Hong Kong designed by Linehouse Studio, are two examples of interiors rising to the challenge. Yet outside, exteriors are still treated with chemicals, furniture is often made of plastic and product lifecycles are much shorter due to elemental exposure. Solutions are on the horizon, though. A number of projects – environmentally friendly in both form and function – show just how far outdoor design is willing to take the term green. – LGM
The New Raw’s ongoing Print Your City initiative aims to show that it’s possible to 3D-print street furniture from plastic waste at the local level. In Thessaloniki, Print Your City’s first Zero Waste Lab gave citizens a chance to learn about recycling processes and to design new, customizable pieces of furniture for their neighbourhoods. thenewraw.org
Stefanos Tsakiris
Courtesy of Nardi
Courtesy of Corradi
Consisting of an armchair, a bistro chair and a stool, Raffaello Galiotto’s Trill seating for Nardi – made locally in Italy – is 100 per cent recyclable. The collection’s fibreglass-resin seats are highly resistant to atmospheric shifts. nardioutdoor.com
Corradi’s Maestro Bioclimatic pergola features an adjustable sun-blind system that allows personalized management of external light, enabling the user to control the degree of ventilation and temperature. One can enjoy rainy days under the structure as well: when the slats are closed, integrated water-resistant gutters and pillars act as downpipes. corradi.eu
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Courtesy of UNStudio
Courtesy of Studio Precht
Dark-coloured materials used for urban building construction are a main contributor to heat accumulation in cities. To reduce the amount of energy needed for interior cooling, UNStudio partnered with Swiss paint specialists at Monopol Colors to develop The Coolest White. The durable paint protects buildings and other structures, dropping absorption and emission to an unprecedented TSR (total solar reflectance) value of 12 per cent. unstudio.com monopol-colors.ch
Adoption of eco-friendly furniture is a top trend for the growing outdoor market After moving its studio from central Beijing to the mountains of Austria, Studio Precht looked for an opportunity to connect agriculture and architecture. The Farmhouse is a conceptual modular building system that allows urban residents to produce their own food in vertical towers made from timber. precht.at
2017-2021 US MARKET RESEARCH REPORT BY TECHNAVIO
Courtesy of Mater
Designed by Jørgen and Nanna Ditzel, Mater’s Ocean Collection is a new iteration of a table-and-chair collection from 1955. The modernday pieces are made from recycled fishnets and hard plastic taken from the sea; one Ocean chair utilizes nearly 960 g of marine debris. With future disassembly in mind, the designers ensured that each component can be recycled again. materdesign.com
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FULL CIRCLE
Can design push beyond the boundaries of sustainability and achieve real social good? The circular economy challenges designers and industry leaders to address issues affecting the entire supply chain. Activities that typically yield a deluge of waste and harmful emissions demand a radical rethink. Will we be able to create and consume with a clear conscience?
‘When it comes to our work as designers, our true legacy lies in using design as a tool for social transformation’ Jeanette Huisman
FRAME LAB KEYNOTE SPEAKER HUMBERTO CAMPANA, COFOUNDER OF ESTUDIO CAMPANA AND INSTITUTO CAMPANA
Bodyponics began with a simple question: what if we could use human waste as a resource? Bio-social designer Thieu Custers’ project is an attempt to fertilize crops with nothing other than hair, sweat and urine. The use of local materials rather than precious agricultural resources puts humans back in the nutrient cycle; for Custers, the idea is not as far-fetched as it sounds. thieucusters.nl
Jeanette Huisman
Are bioplastics as favourable for design as we think they are? According to Marco Federico Cagnoni, it’s absurd that PLA production wastes food to make primarily disposable objects. His solution is to create bioplastics out of plants in an entirely different way: by using their naturally occurring latex instead of converting carbohydrates. The resulting crops are doubly beneficial: you get the raw material while saving the food. marcofedericocagnoni.com
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Jeanette Huisman
Under natural influences, plastic waste turns into a new material: plastiglomerate. The mixture of plastic, sediment and other natural debris becomes a rocklike structure, a transformation that designer Enis Akiev was eager to take advantage of. Her project – Plastic Stone Tiles: The Nature of Waste – shows that an aesthetically unique material can act as a new medium that doesn’t deplete natural resources. cargocollective.com/enisakiev
Jeanette Huisman
Hyloh is a global collective that looks at design, manufacturing and business from a materials perspective. What will tomorrow’s material world look like, influenced by climate change, technology, biofabrication and widespread waste? The group questions what a smart material is and has the potential to be in various contexts. Hyloh puts it like this: the best way to predict the future is to create it. hyloh.com
Two Belgian circular-driven companies joined forces to develop C3, a complete circular chair. Resortecs makes dissolvable stitching threads for easy repair and recycling, and Motief Atelier is an innovative upholstery company. The chair is autonomously sustainable: it facilitates maintenance and control of its own end-of-life cycle. resortecs.com motiefatelier.be