BPBP33.00CHF€24.90IT€22.95DE€22.95BX 40,000WONKR¥3,800+JP£19.95UKtax HOSPITAL(ITY) COMMUNITYSTORES WORK WEARABLES TATIANABILBAO THE NEXT SPACE ISSUE 148 SEP — OCT 2022 UMISLATED NATURE
12 REPORTING FROM Jerusalem and Vienna 17 BUSINESS OF DESIGN From co-creating with kids to workplace wearables design to metaverse workspaces CONTENTS 31 IN PRACTICE 32 INTRODUCING Madrid-based Burr Studio 40 WHAT I’VE LEARNED Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao 46 INFLUENCER The teamhuman-and-machineatOio 1946 32 IkeaandSpace10Oio,ofcourtesyGarduno,FiPaulinaKaruunofCourtesy SerranoMaru Frame 148 5
158 12282 68 OtrivinandEcoLogicStudioofcourtesyNaaro, RamoprimoofcourtesyCampa,Marcella MardahlHelleofcourtesyWiper,PhilipAlastair MuseumStedelijkofcourtesyRooij,vanJanGert 6 56 THE NEXT SPACE Advancing the adaptive home 65 SPACES Solar-inspired dining spaces, simulated nature in stores, hospitality-infused healthcare, and more 113 RETAIL LAB 114 Stores built by – rather than for – communities 137 New typologies for neighbourhood trade 147 MARKET Top picks from Milan Design Week and 3 Days of Design, and more 160 IN NUMBERS Studio Eidola’s Ocean Articulated in facts and figures Contents
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Frame 1488 Back issues Buy online at store.frameweb.com Frame is published six times a year by Frame EDITORIALframeweb.comPublishers For editorial inquiries, please e-mail frame@frameweb.com or call +31 20 4233 717. Editor in chief Robert Thiemann – RT Head of content Floor Kuitert – FK Editor at large Tracey Ingram – TI Editor Anouk Haegens – AH Head of digital Lauren Grace Morris – LGM Junior editor Kayla Dowling – KD Copy editor InOtherWords (D’Laine Camp) Design director Barbara Iwanicka Graphic designer Zoe Bar-Pereg Translation InOtherWords (D’Laine Camp, Maria van Tol) Contributors to this issue Shawn Adams – SA Karianne Fogelberg – KF Holly Friend Luis Garvan Dan Handel Gili KristoferMaruRosamundRiyaAmandasKouroshAndrewMerinMeredithNewman-ZandOng–AOPatel–RPPictonSerranoThomas–KT Cover Karuun by Out For Space (see page 19) DirectorPUBLISHING Robert Thiemann Marketing and communication specialist Renata renata@frameweb.comSutton Social media intern Valeria Lee Customer success manager Raluca raluca@frameweb.comPop Subscriptions For subscription inquiries, please e-mail service@frameweb.com or call +31 20 2205 224. 2-year subscription + book From €239 2-year subscription From €229 1-year subscription From €129 1-year student subscription From €119 Please visit frameweb.com/subscribe for the latest offers. Back issues Buy online at store.frameweb.com InternationalADVERTISINGsales managers Sara Tveerle@frameweb.comVeerleTsara@frameweb.comBreveglieri+393394373951deMuijnck+31614562079 Advertising representative Italy Studio Tmichele@studiomitos.itMicheleMitosTosato+390422894868 Frame (USPS No: 019-372) is published bimonthly by Frame Publishers NL. ISSN FRAME: 1388-4239 © 2022 Frame Publishers and authors Printing Grafisch Bedrijf Hardinxveld-GiessendamTuijtel
»The history of bentwood furniture is an evolution, not a revolution. We designed the 822 collection to continue this story and last for generations.« Claesson Koivisto RuneSE www.ton.eu 822
Domus desalto@domus-agenturen.nlAgenturen Strongwww.desalto.itSpecial — collection design Eugeni Quitllet 2022
KaruunofCourtesy Business of Design 19
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Derived from the rattan plant, new material Karuun has the potential to replace wood and plastic use.
Our appetite for wood is insatiable. What if it isn’t infinitely available?
supposed to come from, and how can sustainable practices become standard? The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), designed to moni tor the timber industry and ensure these practices, has been criti cized for overseeing large areas worldwide without effectively protecting them from illegal log ging. This has not gone unnoticed by design. Studio Formafantasma uncovered the extractive forces at work in big timber with its critical investigation Cambio, and its interdisciplinary symposium Prada Frames On Forest, curated in parallel to Milan’s Salone del MobileThe2022.notion of sustainability derives from forest management, with its principle of extracting only as much as can regrow. No one knows this better than Albrecht A renewable material and natural carbon sink, wood is increasingly being used to decrease the environ mental impact of the construction and interior industries. But how viable is using the material to help meet sustainability goals as it becomes scarcer and more expensive? It is in high demand, and prices are soaring – even more since the EU recently banned Russian timber exports. There is no reason to assume that just because wood is renewable, it is sustainable per se. As wood is praised as an alternative to fossil-based materi als, forests come ever more into focus for the defense they provide against climate change. This twofold dynamic presents a dilemma that also affects the interior industry: Where is all the wood von Alvensleben. With his Berlin-based label Bullenberg, the architect works exclusively with wood from his family-owned for est in Erxleben, Germany. While the bulk of the forest’s yield – on average, 7,000 solid m3 of softand hardwood per year – is sold to local sawmills, he keeps oak trees for the bespoke furniture he produces. In the past three years, though, the yield has diminished severely. The 900-hectare forest suffered from climate changeinduced drought, storms and bug plagues. He planted over 250,000 young trees to compensate: ‘The next three to four generations will watch as they grow,’ he says. ‘It will take 80 to 120 years, if not more, until they can be harvested.’ His is a rather long-term vision compared with the fast-paced »
Master carpenters Tobias Petri and Sven Petzold, cofound ers of Munich-based label Holzrausch, confirm that reality: ‘It has become more expensive, complex and time-consuming to obtain the required woods and veneers.’ They source wood for interior projects from an estab lished network of dealers. While it’s their preference to work with domestic woods like oak or ash, they are in tune with the introduc tion of innovative alternatives like Karuun, a new material developed from the fast-growing rattan plant by a German start-up. It does not grow in monocultures but requires an intact rainforest to prosper. As such, it needs to be harvested by Mainzer recalls: ‘We actually had to convince the sawmill to save the heartwood for us, which back then was considered too scarce to keep.’ But this idea is unheard of now, as ‘wood no longer lies around’. Today, returning to e15’s origins and repurposing wood is no option: ‘Old wood is even more difficult to source than new wood and brings the added dif ficulty of already having specific measurements.’Inthefaceof the latest increases in price and supply bottlenecks, it’s becoming all the more evident that the widely assumed sustainability of wood is much more complex than frequently thought. The almost saviour-like quality that has been assigned to wood is far too general as it comes with its own set of issues that must be addressed.
local farmers. According to Petri: ‘Karuun points towards a different understanding of the forest as a resource. By buying and process ing rattan in Indonesia, the team behind Karuun provides a source of income to local farmers and an incentive to protect the rainforest, helping to sustain the livelihoods of the local community and the ecosystem alike.’
KF Munich-based label Holzrausch sources wood for interior projects – such as Turmhaus Tirol, developed with architecture firm Grünecker Reichelt – from an established network of dealers.
What about simply reusing the wood we already have? This is something Frankfurt-based brand e15 has been doing for decades. Architect and founder Philipp Mainzer remembers his first furniture fair in Cologne: ‘People mocked the sight of our tables that we had made of used wood, that deliberately displayed knotholes and cracks.’ That soon turned to appreciation, and three of the original four table designs are still part of the brand’s collection. One is Bigfoot, whose characteristic legs are made of coarse heartwood. At the beginning of serial production, world of furniture fairs and interior commissions. And while he produces his own wood for Bullenberg, he still notices the pressure on the wood market: ‘In the case of special-sized furniture, we have to buy our wood back from the sawmills at the same conditions as everyone else.’
JaistOliver Business of Design20
With the rise of generative design, do we still need architects?
ments via a complex mapping process. The results are organic shapes that reduce circulation routes and decrease walking dis tances. While the output removes the need for excessive hallways, the zones are complicated, and would be incredibly difficult to construct using traditional build ing techniques. However, with the advances in 3D printing and CNC milling, such challenging geom etries are increasingly being built quickly and efficiently. ‘Hopefully, these forms will liberate old cultural norms and assumptions,’ says Simon.Thework responds to the emergence of 3D-printed build ings. Despite additive manufac turing freeing designers from the constraints of right-angled parameters and quickly finish repetitive tasks. This will allow increased focus on the creative aspects of a project instead of losing large amounts of time working on complex calculations. Such is the projection of artist, programmer and researcher Joel Simon. ‘Algorithms can enable new processes that are highly collaborative and foster more cooperation between designers,’ he says.While most generative design programmes focus on cost reduction, they have the potential to help produce low acoustic levels, better lighting conditions and minimize walking distances in buildings. These algorithms are thus removing pressure from architects and designers, but many are concerned that they will eventually take their jobs. Simon, however, believes that as soon as these digital tools are needed to optimize more than one element, they become useless, as they require valuable judgment – the judgment of an architect. ‘This type of software is still very limited in what it can do, and algo rithms can only solve well-defined problems,’ he Evolvingstates.FloorPlans, an experimental project by Simon, illustrates how algorithms can be used to benefit designers. It generates optimized building layouts with an innovative algo rithm that uses graph contraction. The software turns rooms into information-filled nodes and then creates optimal floor arrange
In many cities around the world, buildings are dictated by exhaus tive regulations, strict laws and fixed square metreage. Statutory spatial strategies often outline how schemes should be designed and constructed. But, if architects and designers are forced to follow such strict requirements, do we still need them to design our spaces? Or could they simply be replaced by computer algorithms that generate architecture that meets governmental guidelines? An alternative, of course, is possible. In the future, designers may become ‘shepherds’ that bring together creative processes, while computer algorithms generate building layouts. Instead of replacing professionals, digital tools will help them meet specific
LEFT US-based company Higharc provides digital tools that automate the housing design process while simultaneously creating bespoke dwellings.
OPPOSITE For its recent competition entry for a stadium in Florence, Italy, ACPV used generative design to produce options for the shape and the structure of the roof.
HigharcofCourtesy
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WESTFIELD MALL OF THE NETHERLANDS BY MVSA ARCHITECTS, LEIDSCHENDAM, THE NETHERLANDS. PHOTO: ANDY HENDRATA. Transform your space in a unique and exclusive way with aluminiuminfo@kriskadecor.comchainskriskadecor.com
Robinson warns against design ers following the data blindly, however. ‘Accuracy is a concern. A reading may show an uplift in heart rate and suggest stress, but there are many external influ ences that can cause this. How can companies be sure that their environmental response is appro priate or relevant to the people within the space?’ This is where emotional intelligence platforms like Loopin and Moodtracker can play a part. Both are designed for employees to directly report their mood, and might prove more popular than wearables, for which data privacy is a huge concern.
The Smart Buildings author has used wearables to measure aspects of spatial quality in a way that hasn’t been possible before. Bad posture indicates someone working under pres sure, while trackers measuring skin conductivity and pulse rate can tell us about stress levels and confidence. Wearables and sensors were used by PLP and the British Council of Offices in 2021 for a report on user response to a variety of office settings. The report mostly confirmed the obvious: we love plants and environments we can adjust – and really hate cubicles. Bakker says it was more about testing wearables as reliable indicators of wellbeing.
With improved knowledge around neurodiversity, Bakker thinks wearables could also help us tailor the workspace to different job functions and professions. The data can aid in identifying types of people with specific spatial needs and build up a knowledge base of how to design for them. ‘There is a physi cal response when people work in spaces that don’t fit them – an imbalance that can cause real unhappiness, and in the longterm, lead to burnout,’ he says. As well as providing individ ual insights, aggregated data from wearables could be read more generally. An employer might find its staff gets stressed when they get in the lift every day or on entering a certain meeting room. It might reveal that on one floor, employees are having a totally dif ferent experience than on another because of the amount of noise, or due to being stifled by carbon dioxide levels caused by too many occupants. ‘Companies will find it beneficial to understand exactly what their business and workforce need to avoid inefficient and trend-led solutions,’ says Nick Rolls, associate at Universal Design Studio. The London-based practice has designed flexible space for The Office Group as well as a headquarters for IBM’s Internet of Things division. ‘If harnessed well, the data could help mitigate generic “apply-all” solutions.’
The most useful thing wearables might do for work is provide a metric for spatial well being. Although a designer’s skill and training make them expert in knowing what spaces make peo ple happy, Bakker says, without needing to have it confirmed by a tracker, it can be hard to justify spending on biophilic elements to a client without proving their yield, for instance. ‘At the end of the day, the reason companies are providing these wonderful workspaces is about productivity. [Wearables could help in] giving some numerical value to this fuzzy notion of quality, and being able to prove the increase in productivity,’ he says. Having a scientific way to assign this value to space could transform the whole commercial workspace market. ‘I think we will reach a point where data collected by wearables will affect how much rent companies pay,’ Bakker explains. ‘We have a current system where real estate value is based on location, square metreage and energy use, but we don’t measure physical comfort. I’m in favour of getting to the bot tom of where real quality lies.’ RP
PLP Architecture designed Deloitte’s sustainabilitybuildingtechnologies,inheadquarters,AmsterdamTheEdge,2014.Fittedwithsmartthe40,000-m2haswonnumerousawards.
Emilie Robinson is a senior designer at Map Project Office, a product design studio with clients including Sonos and Sky. She agrees with Rolls. ‘Wearables highlight the power of technology in understanding human behaviour,’ she explains. ‘What if we could improve employee mood and wellbeing by enhancing the senses?’
‘We wanted to check whether the technology was up to doing what we wanted it for,’ he says. ‘And I think the conclusion was yes.’
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Can wearables help us design workplaces?healthy
The enterprise wearables market is expected to reach €31.1 million next year, part of an overall market projected to be €66.8 billion by 2025. In the office, fitness trackers are becoming a staple of corporate wellness programmes, linked with health insurance plans. PwC’s 2021 survey of 32,500 workers showed 44 per cent expressing willingness to use sensors and wearables to track productivity in ways their employers could access. As these devices get more sophisticated – measuring pulse rate, body temperature, sleep, posture and skin conductivity – they are help ing us understand more about our emotional response to the work environment.‘Itwould be helpful if we can gain a better understanding of the type of people that we are designing for, and their specific requirements,’ says Ron Bakker, PLP Architecture cofounder. ‘For comfort, happiness, productivity. Everything.’
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Burr Studio on not doing the same thing twice. Tatiana Bilbao on how spatial design can tackle some of the world’s big issues. Oio on working with bots to augment the creative process.
TICEPRACIN
For the second outpost of Brutal Burrito in Madrid, Burr Studio combined cushiony yellow vaults with granite surfaces. What’s Burr Studio’s origin story? Share how your philosophy came to be.
JSN: Everyone is affected by the phenomenon of looking at a project and thinking directly of the picture that will be posted of it. We can try to fight it, we can try to avoid it, but up to a certain point, that’s the reality. People demand an Instagrammable picture, and at »
Social media has greatly changed the scope of ‘good design’; likes are increasingly being used as a measure of desirability and quality. Is this a hurdle in doing the kind of work you want?
RAMÓN MARTÍNEZ PÉREZ: A decade ago, when we were still in school, ten of us started a studio called Taller de Casquería. The for mation was organic. It wasn’t only architects: there were performance artists, and a graphic designer too. We rented an old warehouse here in Madrid.JORGE SOBEJANO NIETO: In the beginning, we did more artistic work. Everything started developing in different ways. Now, only the four of us are still in the group. We changed the name two years ago because we wanted to focus more on architecture and spatial design. But we inherited that collective structure. We’re the first generation of archi tects to emerge out of the 2008 financial crisis. It was such a big deal here in Spain, especially for those in architecture and construction. Our perspectives changed while we were in school – when we started our education, we expected the profession to be wildly different. The precarious situation was bad for everyone. But luckily we didn’t suffer that much. Let’s say that, as children – as people who didn’t really experience the change – we weren’t as disappointed as those who were older than us. And we had a chance to be inde pendent after that: working for someone was as bad as working for yourself, because you didn’t get paid or there wasn’t a job at all. We never wanted to be interns for free. Sometimes that’s difficult to manage – to get things work ing – but it’s nice when you do manage to. We always work in a group. And we want to stay small, and horizontal, so that we can take a critical, conceptual approach to architecture, despite the harsh ÁLVAROmarket.MOLINS JIMÉNEZ: Challenges do encourage people to find their own ways to work. If you don’t push the limits of what’s being asked for, you’re going to end up doing the same jobs as everybody else. How does this attitude of cooperation lend itself to conceptual work?
ÁMJ: The best thing would be to be called for your sensitivities and originality.
Words Lauren Grace Morris Photos Maru Serrano
Introducing 35
JSN: If we get a bigger commission or win a competition and we don’t know how to do something, we can call our past teachers and ask: ‘Hey, can you share that contact with me?’ These are people who normally compete with us, but now there’s a certain companion ship. Because if your peer is doing well – if their work is getting attention – it’s a sign that you will probably also find a way to get there. And what does this ‘way’ look like for your team so far?
JSN: Our goal is to stay as open-minded as possible. We already feel a bit constrained by being called architects.
Madrid-based experimental architecture practice Burr Studio advocates for an alternative, collective approach to spatial design. With the 2008 financial crisis and Covid-19 pandemic as the background of their emerging careers, the four leaders develop spaces highly attuned to modern issues.
ÁMJ: We tend not to do the same thing twice. I think that inspires clients to try new things.JSN:Nevertheless, it’s still nice that when we get called, we normally get called for something that we did before.
RMP: We have strong relationships with other architects and designers. The years of not knowing what was to come did give way to a more collaborative mood in the design com munity, at least in Madrid. There’s camaraderie and a support structure, which redefine our relationship with competitors.
Another instalment of the Elements for Industrial Recovery series in Madrid, Blasón is a structure in which all the spaces are connected at different heights. The renovation made room for a combination of public and private living areas.
In Practice36
WHAT I’VE LEARNED
Practice42
uncomfortable with that idea because it felt so far removed from what I understood architecture could and should be, especially in Mexico, where the context confronts you at every single moment. As Elisa Iturbe discusses in her essay ‘Architecture and the Death of Carbon Modernity’, which I love, our contemporary global world is built on the era of energetic abundance. I’d go further and say it’s built on any type of abundance, and you can only use all these resources because you have them. In Mexico, we never had them. Even though I wanted to at the beginning of my career, it was very hard to think about inventing new kinds of geometries and uncharted spaces in a context that lacked the technology, the resources, the possibilities. Rather than thinking that architecture could be a sculpture or a spectacular element that symbolizes capital or power, I always understood that architecture is a basic form of care and provides shelter for the body. I couldn’t consider designing iconic buildings if the majority of the population doesn’t even have a decent place to live. In the early 2000s, I realized there was a lack of interest on the architecture side in the production of social and affordable housing. I felt it was an urgent necessity for me and my team to immerse ourselves in the process, so we met at my house. I told them we all complain about the system, we agree it needs to change. But no one’s coming to knock on our studio door to ask us if we want to do housing, so why don’t we become active in the politics of housing? We started raising these topics with politicians, developers and producers. There was energy in the air, and many people were already questioning these things. This period coincided with the president of Mexico basing his campaign on providing 3 million new homes per year for Mexicans. He engineered a system of producing ‘boxes’ for people to live in – a financial, economic response that produced a lot of revenue for a lot of people, but never really produced habitable houses. In 2010, 40 per cent of the 11 million homes built were already abandoned because people couldn’t live in them anymore. When they abandoned the houses they abandoned the credit, prompting a huge economic problem for the government. A break ing point never really arrived because I believe Mexico lives in a permanent crisis. These people simply returned to their previous precarious situ ations, and somehow the government filled in the holes for the unpaid loans.
Has anything changed since then? No. But maybe some thing has started to change, which gives me hope. The conversation is shifting, especially after the pandemic »
TATIANA BILBAO: I’ve been an architect since birth, or even before that. From a young age, I was very aware of space and my experience of it. I don’t know if it’s because I had it in my blood, as my father would say – a lot of my family members are architects – or if I was raised with the sensibility. Probably both. My grandfather, Tomás Bilbao Hospitalet, was an important architect in Bilbao, but I didn’t grow up with his buildings. He was also a politician, and left Spain as a refugee in 1942 during the war before settling in Mexico. I never met him, as he died some years after that, but I grew up with his political stance and our family’s position as refugees. When I turned 18 and had to choose what to study, I didn’t want to do the same thing as my whole family – at that time I thought it was because I was a rebel, but maybe it’s just because I’m always questioning everything. I was even thinking of studying biology. That thought led me to industrial engineering, but industrial design felt closer to what I wanted. I studied that for around two years before realizing I wanted to be an architect after all, so I switched. Over half of the architecture students were women. I never thought that being a woman architect was different until I moved into the public eye. The first question I was ever asked in a lecture was: What is it to be a woman in a man’s world? That was the first thing I became aware of that I hadn’t known before: that unfortunately the world is not equal for men and women. Understanding that differ ence was my first big lesson, and it became an important position for me. At the beginning of my career, I actually thought I had a learning disability because my peers seemed so sure they could create spaces for people to live in, whereas I was like, really? Out of insecurity, I decided to design with other crea tives. I soon realized it was not insecurity – it was a lack of conformity with the system. It was also an honesty. Even geniuses don’t design spaces alone – so many people are involved in translating their ideas into reality. My collaborative way of working has become really rich because it allows many minds to be reflected in the result, but it needs to go even deeper – to also involve everyone who will use the building. That’s the biggest goal, one that’s very hard to achieve in today’s economic and political climate. We have to look at all the pos sibilities to open these channels so that everybody can basically build their own space – or at least have a platform for building their own lives.
I grew up at a time when random parametric algo rithms began to define architecture. I was always very Spatial design plays a significant role in some of the world’s big issues, believes Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao. By constantly questioning everything, she and her team tackle topics like inequality and discrimination to arrive at spaces that aim to help people thrive instead of merely survive, regardless of their social demographic.
As told to Tracey Ingram Photos Luis Garvan In
Located in Mexico City, Tatiana Bilbao Estudio has a team of 55 that includes architects, academics and model makers. What I’ve Learned 43
further exposed the cracks in the system. These issues go beyond architecture, but I do think architecture can do many, many things. If architects stop talking about it, there’s no way we can even enter into the battle. We should become very critical, and not only that, but become part of the system and be critical within the system. Taking action is the only way for things to really change.
Nowadays everyone is talking about the urgency surround ing protecting nature, but we are nature. We need to be allowed to be our natural selves, and architecture needs to be the negotiator because we won’t survive in the wild. How can architecture protect us without disconnecting us from our ecosystem? That’s the challenge.• tatianabilbao.com
Sure, we all need to eat, but we don’t all need a kitchen. And we all need to sleep, but not in the same way. Who decided the precepts of having to co-sleep with your partner? Of having a larger room for yourselves and a smaller room for the kids, and separating girls from boys? And why do we accept these precepts? What’s more, some people sleep in completely different ways. The Mayans, for instance, typically sleep in portable hammocks, which allow them to sleep in different spaces depending on the climate, keep them away from certain bugs, and provide a swinging motion that helps to cool them down. But the code right now in Mexico dictates that they should buy beds and change their way of living and sleeping. This is an extreme example, but every civilization, every community, has developed its own way of sleeping, and right now we’re standardizing that, thinking that we can homogenize the way we all sleep. We can’t, because our behaviour responds to the environment in which we live. These kinds of issues led us to explore how we can create housing that doesn’t prescribe a programme.
What I’ve Learned 45
Humans have proven that we not only need a roof over our heads, but a place to nurture our bodies, which architec ture can provide by being a source of inspiration. If we holistically understand the broad and somewhat cliched term ‘inspiration’, we can arrive at spaces in which we not only sit and relax but that nurture us through their light, ventilation, proportions. Places that become platforms for experiencing your own interpretations of inspiration and beauty. But there’s a big friction with architecture: it should be a place for you to create your own possibilities, but it’s made by someone else who, as generous and well-meaning as they might be, is not able to be you. How can we create possibilities for the other without being the other, without fully understanding the other? For me, this is one of the biggest questions. I don’t have the answer, but I try to address it when I create anything. Architecture is built for a specific time and place – it freezes and frames those elements – but it also needs to evolve because it will persist much longer than we do, and places become other places over time. Architecture also needs to truly become part of the ecosystem in which we live. To date, architecture has been avoiding – and even counterposing – these truths. Instead, it’s been focused on protecting bodies, on allowing us to exist in the same temperature and in the same light throughout the whole year. In some places in the US, for instance, bodies live in a constant state of 22ºC. Homes are air conditioned to 22ºC, cars are set to 22ºC, the shopping mall is 22ºC, the office is 22ºC – it doesn’t matter if it’s -19 or 40ºC outside. These bodies have started to dis-adapt, and as soon as they break out of this norm for a while, they get sick. I’m not exaggerat ing. Architecture is a big culprit of this condition because it’s allowed us to erase our relationship with the environment in the pursuit of comfort, and, as I mentioned earlier, because we have an abundance of resources, so why not use them?
Prior to the pandemic, homes were viewed as places for rest and leisure. Suddenly, people were talking about them becoming places in which we now had to live and work simultaneously, but that’s always been the case. The house is the most important place for labour – the reproductive and domestic labour that allow us to exist. To eat, to remain clean and healthy, to be raised and nurtured and so on. In the home, this labour is not recognized, let alone paid. It’s hidden in the back. Only in the last 200 years, thanks to the Industrial Revolution, did we start to create those divisions, which are completely fictional. This realization has completely changed my understanding of the produc tion of housing.Architecture can do a lot to recognize that labour is the most important part of the space, even if society doesn’t yet. This requires a social approach, because being tucked into small units is also discriminative – as if there are no other forms of social interaction than a patriarchal family. In Mexico, for example, there’s the multigenerational factor. My work has always challenged the notion of ‘normal’ living because we all live differently and have different needs.
Just prior to the pandemic, I was invited to give a lecture for the International Women’s Day celebration in Oaxaca. Until then, I thought I’d been working towards eliminating discrimination, but as I started to put together my presentation, I realized not only that my work hadn’t done anything to eliminate discrimination, but that it had been perpetuating it by repeating models that don’t allow women – or, more aptly, anyone with fewer opportunities – to emancipate themselves from many activities. The main reason is that we live in a hyper-capitalist society that relies on discrimination to exist. But beyond that, and related to the topic that concerns us, architecture has become the tool for perpetuating that system. That’s because our cities respond completely to that system – and the house is the core of it.
Our project for the 2015 Chicago Architecture Biennial responded to the code in Mexico, but its spaces were modular and could become whatever you wanted them to be.
‘HOW CAN ARCHITECTUREPROTECTUS WITHOUT DISCONNECTING US FROM OURTHAT’SECOSYSTEM?THECHALLENGE’
Oi INFLUENCER
iO INFLUENCER
PREVIOUS SPREAD Trained industrial and interaction designers, Oio founders Matteo Loglio and Simone Rebaudengo have worked with the likes of Google and BMW. THIS PAGE When asked by Google to explore the possibilities of its new web-based AR platform, Oio developed Bouncing Band, which turns any space into a playful instrument.
GoogleandOioofCourtesy
Words Tracey Ingram
Portrait Andrew Meredith
Born during the pandemic and distributed across Europe, Oio epitomizes its goal: to find a new model of what a design company should be. The Italian founders head what they call a ‘hybrid team of humans and machines’ to turn emerging technologies into approachable, everyday and sustainable realities.
In Practice48
SR: People tend to have a binary view of tech nology – it’s either life-changing or will take over the world. We think the interesting bits are in the middle, and call ourselves ‘critical optimists’. You need to have a certain level of criticality to understand these technologies and their impacts, but it’s more important to find solutions for their use. We’re talking
» Influencer 49
MATTEO LOGLIO: Technology has always been part of the design landscape. When machines made it possible to reproduce a design as a series, the designer became the mediator between humans and industrial manufacture, the one who could make the complexity of the industrial world human, fun and playful. Today we’re just talking about different technologies – digital products like the metaverse and AI that move in a different space in a different dimension.
How do you see the role of technology in today’s design landscape?
SIMONE REBAUDENGO: When people talk about technology, they make it seem like the developer is the one in control – the designer comes in before or after, either feeding ideas or painting on top of the result. But for us, it’s like a new material. Designers are used to shaping products by understanding materials like wood or metal – What can you do or not do with them? Similarly, you need to understand what’s behind a technology like AI or AR to realize the possibilities. Does that mean today’s designers have to be well-versed in technology? ML: Even if you’re not an expert, you should at least be familiar with the technologies people use in dailySR:life.Neither of us comes from a technology background like computer science or engineering, but we pushed ourselves to learn about and experiment with technology in order to show others what can be done. You don’t have to become a developer but you need to know the right words, even just to explain yourself, because the reality of design is that you always work with others to bring products and projects to life. You need to know enough to push the limits, but not so much that you’re aware of all the limitations. It’s a fine line. You say working with new technologies is like learning the limitations of a physical material, but some people may feel there are no limitations with new technologies. How do you make them less daunting and bring them back to the human level?
www.neolith.com
SPACENEXTTHE
Dissecting key lessons from our think-tank The Next Space, this white paper discusses the role of spatial design in building future-proof residential habitats that are resilient to change – responding dynamically to shifts in lifestyles, life stages and lifeWordstransitions.FloorKuitert
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The Next Space
‘If you look at our housing stock, it’s largely undesirable, unattainable and unsustainable. There’s a gap between people’s aspirations and needs, and what’s actually available with respect to inventory,’ said Cara Eckholm, head of growth at the Bjarke Ingels Group-backed, direct-to-consumer housing start-up Nabr. Her words recapitulate the ‘why’ behind the theme of the second iteration of Frame’s think-tank The Next Space: The Adaptive Home. Acknowledging the myriad ways that domestic environments have had to shift functionalities since the beginning of the pandemic, the two-day event, which was organized in partnership with the IBA and took place in Madrid on 11 and 12 May 2022 at IE University’s School of Architecture and Design, examined how our existing and future habitats can become more adaptive to our shifting needs and changing circumstances.AsIESchoolof Architecture and Design dean Martha Thorne urged ahead of the event: ‘The Adaptive Home theme should not be seen as simply a reaction to the challenges of Covid, but as an opportunity to rethink and transform traditional definitions of space to be more agile and adaptive to our changing world.’ What’s more: it soon became clear by the attendees’ contributions to the event’s interactive make-a-thon that the definition of the home reaches far beyond that of the house. ‘Feeling at home isn’t necessarily defined by your place of residence. A sense of belonging can manifest itself in many ways,’ Frame’s founder and director Robert Thiemann reflected. In fact, Ikea’s 2021 Life at Home report, which was presented by research leader Jenny Lee, revealed one in three people feel more at home in places other than where they live, and that number is rising. Lee continued by saying that ‘the very definition and concept of home in the 21st century has been homogenized to a one-size-fits-all format, making it a place that does not always fulfil our basic needs. And, the home is not just a functional need, but also an emotional one.’ Recognizing this broadening scope of the home, The Next Space embraced its topic in a more radical way, examining the adaptive home through the lenses of health, community, sustainability, technology and more. The ultimate objective? To use the event’s most pressing takeaways to arrive at a veritable action plan for designing the future adaptive home, and to outline the steps required from the larger spatial-design industry to get there.Apart from adapting design strategies at large, one of those crucial acts in realizing living environments that are truly responsive and responsible will be for architects and designers to reposition themselves and meet the role of mediator or advisor, think TNS speakers Lekshmy Parameswaran and László Herczeg of The Care Lab, a global network of designers-turned-activists that seeks to transform the world of care utilizing a humancentric approach. ‘We see a new role for designers and architects as facilitators of co-creative processes that empower people and their communities – with citizens leading the design of their own life transitions as they live, work and age,’ they said. »
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01 03 02 HABITATSFLUID establishing elastic abodes 58
Fluidity and adaptivity have become cornerstones of conversation in the spatial-design industry. But how do these concepts relate to –and have the potential to improve – residential design?
PLIANTCLIMATE-PLANNINGThebuiltenvironment–ourlivingspacesincluded–generatesnearly50percentofannualglobalCO2emissions.Howcanspatialdesignhelpusrealizeamoreself-sufficient,climate-adaptiveand(ultimately)energy-positivehousingstock? giving rise to responsible residences 03 01 02 MachinesNaturalofCourtesy LinetonDavid RobenstoneJoshua 60
SOCIALSYSTEMS building sharing and caring communities MirallesLluc ToranEriceJaime Bingham-HallPatrick 62 01 03 02
Why dining spaces are borrowing the sun’s cycles. Climate exhibitions set new directions for sustainability. Fake nature grows in stores. Healthcare takes cues from the hospitality sector.
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StudioDesignMandalakiofCourtesy Halo Evo 2 by Mandalaki Design Studio in Italy.
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In each issue we identify a key aesthetic trend evident in our archive of recent projects and challenge semiotics agency Axis Mundi to unpack its design codes. Here, we look at how contemporary hospitality venues are energized by the rhythms and power of the sun. Rosamund Picton and Kourosh Newman-Zand
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Visitors enter the Atelier Brücknerdesigned Journey of the Pioneers exhibition via OSS Hope, a fictitious space station where technological advancements and the ongoing challenges of climate change are projected onto the walls.
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SHOWS
As the general public is inundated with climate crisis data and ecoanxiety rises, several cultural institutions are avoiding the doomsday scenario with shows that not only empower individuals, but set a new direction for sustainable exhibition design.
Optimism through experimentation It’s Our F***ing Backyard at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum highlighted how designers are contributing to a more sustainable future by developing new materials. The exhibition combined larger installations with smaller pieces that people can purchase. ‘It explores what individual designers are doing but also what consumers can do,’ says curator Amanda Pinatih. Wanting the exhibition design to express the same optimism, the museum commissioned Envisions, known for its playful material experimentation. Using only recycled, recyclable or loaned materials, the studio assembled a setting that turns the likes of misprinted paper into a pastel-pink ‘pebble’ garden, and borrowed sound-installation panels that normally sit alongside roadways to turn them into tactile display plinths. stedelijk.nlenvisions.nl RooijvanJanGert Spaces82
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For decades, researchers have demonstrated that incorporating elements of nature into commercial environments can have a positive impact on consumer attitudes and activities. Now, retailers are bringing simulated nature into their stores, but is there any point if it’s not the real deal?
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Nature meets tech E-tailer Wow’s first foray into physical retail is a marketplace at the site of the Roma Hotel in Madrid, Spain, which was built in 1915. Designed by External Reference, the 5,500-m2 space dedicates six levels to retail and two to hospitality. The tech-products level is inspired by the convergence of nature and technology, with a landscape of 3D-printed coral. externalreference.com
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‘Local’ landscapes
The design of Glossier’s Captiol Hill store in Seattle references the Pacific Northwest’s landscapes, focusing particularly on the world of fungi. A central Alice in Wonderland-esque moss-and mushroom-covered installation is mirrored by fern-coloured seating that mimics natural topographies. glossier.com
The description of a space as ‘clinical’ has long been shorthand for a sense of impersonality and indifference – a setting wherein very serious and necessary medical function can often trump form. Now, though, designers with knowledge of the hospitality sector are infusing healthcare spaces with the same signals you might find in hotels, restaurants or spas. The connection between design choices and health are well documented. Stud ies have shown the presence of windows and plant life to improve recovery speed, while the humble circle can go a long way in engender ing psychological reactions of calmness and reassurance. But perhaps this intersection is also driven by commercial influences, such as patients in private medical practices seeking more value than premium care alone. In this context, some material factor of difference beyond shorter waiting times is required, be that a bed several degrees comfier than the standard units, or a private patient area that channels the tone of a hotel lobby as opposed to a hospital.Inthe reverse, for public healthcare environments the introduction of hospitality design strategies can open up revenue streams to support the main operation. Patients rarely occupy these spaces out of choice, after all, and few will stick around a minute longer than required. However, if offered settings more akin to spas than surgery theatres, guests are much more likely to occupy these spaces for leisure purposes and thus engage with them beyond their core care function. Many facilities offer their own line of treatments or comple mentary care products, for instance, and the experiential design of these retail add-ons can directly impact sales. Meanwhile, the psycho logical impact of hospitality-infused healthcare spaces is one of comfort, with guests in a hotel or spa typically feeling more command over these environments than they would as patients at the whim of cold, hard science. Again, this ties back into fiscal sensibilities. As Courtney Suess-Raeisinafchi – assistant professor at Boston University’s School of Hospitality Administration – and Makarand Mody – a hospitality marketing assistant professor at the same school – write in the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management: ‘Consistent with supportive design principles, the infusion of hotel-like features that foster a sense of »
Dispelling the notion that healthcare has to look ‘clinical’, a wave of recent projects taps into tropes from the hospitality sector, elevating interiors and repositioning patients as guests.
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Slowing down for self-care Tactility, materiality and light play leading roles in making Norm Architects’ design for Dentology+ in Belgium’s Antwerp feel more like a visit to a spa than a clinic. To enhance feelings of wellness, the architects replaced institutional cues with the likes of warm wood and textured concrete, and let in natural light through translucent curtains.
From large-scale healthcare infra structures like the Matteo Thun-designed Waldkliniken Eisenberg orthopaedics centre in Germany to one-off boutiques and independ ent facilities like the Foolscap Studio-designed Ode dermatology clinic in Melbourne: this movement takes wellness-centred design a step further than rounded edges and neutral palettes, leveraging the welcoming aesthetic sensibilities of hospitality environments to blur the line between guest and patient care. That said, it’s important to remember that hospitality guests and patients have different needs. In hospitality the guest is king, and staff are there to support this notion. In medical spaces this hierarchy is flipped – above all, staff need to be able to do their jobs as efficiently and safely as possible, which may mean a reorientation of flow, the regulated use of specific materials or ceding some aesthetic ground toTheequipment.fine-tuned function and look of ‘clinical’ spaces are formulaic for a reason, and there will be material consequences should the balance shift too far in favour of the guest experience or hospitality’s commercial potential.
More and more hospitals are increasingly beginning to look and operate like hotels, not just in terms of their design but also the services they offer. Patient satisfaction scores have increased, as have patient and family perceptions of well-being.’
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‘As our fast-paced lives demand ever more of our attention,’ says Sofie Thorning of Norm, ‘so too does the need for calm surroundings, which is why we have opted for a protecting architecture that encases those within.’ normcph.com control for patients, create positive distractions and provide access to social support was found to positively impact patients’ physical and mental well-being, which, in turn, increased their likelihood to choose a hospital room with hotel-like features and their willingness to pay for such rooms.’ On average, the patients who took part in this study were willing to pay 38 per cent more for healthcare facilities with the design values of hospitality spaces. As such, this intersection can be considered an exercise in upselling as much as a genuine attempt to improve recovery conditions.
As Mody tells Boston University Publi cation The Brink: ‘Most of us have had to visit hospitals before. We have had to stare at the cold, dreary walls and decor, bear the aroma of medical concoctions, and wait anxiously to hear from the doctor. These are stressful times indeed, for both patients and their families.
The Healthy Indoors candidly addresses the increasing need for spaces designed to serve multiple and diverse uses while promoting a culture of wellbeing and innovation. Laying claim to significance beyond that of aesthetics, the case studies selected for this book are thoroughly presented in a way that will appeal to both professionals and enthusiasts alike.
OUT THE HEALTHY INDOORS New Challenges, New Designs
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store.frameweb.com WHERE WE ReimaginingLEARNEducational Spaces Where We Learn investigates how learning spaces are evolving to be made more engaging, flexible and all-around better suited to today’s challenges and opportunities. Geared towards readers interested in understanding the broader impact of design on the human experience, this book highlights imaginative projects while remaining grounded in practical contexts and real-world settings. €49 NOW
coverlambygrespania.com Slab of large dimensions and reduced thickness. High mechanical strength and immune to heat, ice and chemical agents. Ideal for coating interiors, exteriors, facades, floors, furniture and countertops. Single family-house in Chicago, United States Wall: COVERLAM DISTRITO ZINC 1200x2600 mm / Floor: COVERLAM DISTRITO MARFIL 1200x1200 mm
LABRETAIL
As consumers reassess their core values, community and sustainability are establishing their footholds in the future of retail. What will this mean for the role of the retailer? And how can the design of store spaces prioritize and promote community over commodity?
63% of consumers expect businesses to know their unique needs and expectations MezulisMaris Frame Lab118
As part of the events programme at the Citadium Caumartin flagship in Paris – a design by Ciguë – DJs perform in a glass box at the centre of the store.
‘We need certain materials that can survive a place that can be a living space, a nightclub and a store’
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As The Future Laboratory’s Equilibrium Cities report high lights: ‘Revealing stark inequalities between the lived experience of global citizens, the pandemic exposed issues of urban safety, public services, access to green spaces and the need for immediate change.’ What citi zens are now demanding are more liveable, community-centric cities that have more in common with rural villages than sprawling metropolises.Thissmaller-is-better mindset is man ifesting in people’s consumption choices, too.
BECOME LARGER, GREENER
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If 68 per cent of the planet’s citizens live in cities by 2050, as per the UN’s predic tions, we’re going to need to see real change in how our cities operate.
Accenture found that, post-pandemic, con sumers are not running back to the branded convenience chains that once dominated their lives – some 79 per cent of consumers plan to continue shopping in neighbourhood stores.
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As retailers increasingly become purveyors of everything and anything – from nightclubs to hotels and even impromptu sustainability schools – it’s only a matter of time before they morph into towns in their own right.
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Dunhill’s Matt Spoors is just one expert championing this concept. He argues that, when a typical shopping mall opens, there’s a lack of essentials: ‘It doesn’t have a butcher, a baker or a post office.’ Positioning a mall as » NEO MARKET
A OF COMMUNITYCITIES. AS RETAIL DESTINATIONS AND MORE WILL THEY BE DESIGNED OUR URBAN NEEDS?
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But what does this mean for non-inde pendent retailers? How can these brands or retail developments tap into this shift towards hyper-local spending without hiding their true identities? Perhaps the answer lies in provid ing services instead of products. Rather than saturating a mall with rival businesses com peting for custom, the next retail hub could replicate a market square, in which citizens are presented with facilities to fulfil every one of their needs – no matter how trivial.
At OMA’s Post Houston – which includes a bustling market with over 30 food vendors and retailers, and even co-working spaces – monumental staircases are designed to encourage interaction among visitors.
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ORGATEC Cologne 26 OctoberTHEEMPATHETICWORKPLACEPARTNER frameweb.com/events
Highlights from Milan’s Salone del Mobile and 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen, modular and extendable lighting, furniture for social workplaces, and 3D-printed stoneware. KETMAR
LINK Link’s sculptural form resembles two chain loops linked together to form a pouf. When designing the piece for Sancal, Raw Color sought to create a piece that appears as a piece of art when not in use.
Reva Cocoon is a system of modular lounge seating designed by Patrick Jouin for Pedrali. As an evolution of the Reva Twist sofa, a previous collaboration between the brand and designer, the series comprises linear and corner elements in addition to chaise longues to provide agility in outdoor spaces. Handwoven backrests offer privacy while maintaining the open-air feeling of alfresco lounging.
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Upholstered in Sunbrella fabric to ensure their durability, the colourful, cylindrical outdoor poufs for Connubia’s first collection add flexibility to exterior spaces. Pof, which can be used as a pouf, seat, stool, footrest and more, has a built-in rubber handle, allow ing it to be moved easily and freely.
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LUXE EDITION
Kriskadecor presented two new product lines, Volume and Luxe Edition, at its Estudi{H}ac-designed stand at Salone del Mobile. Luxe Edition (pictured) can be finished with a thin coat of varnish available in the extensive RAL and Pantone colour palettes, allowing for ultimate customization. kriskadecor.com
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COSENTINO KRAFTIZEN Cosentino released Kraftizen, a new colour col lection of its ultracompact surface Dekton. From terracotta to deep grey and powdery white, the zero-carbon, textural surface includes five rich, deep colours. Applicable in both indoor and outdoor set tings, the large-format stucco material draws on the simple beauty of Venetian plaster. cosentino.com
DesignedALMENDRAtocreate atmospheres of domestic warmth across settings, Almendra – a modular, customizable and extendable lighting system con ceived by Patricia Urquiola for Flos – is inspired by the way almond husks open up to release the fruit, which for Urquiola is the embodiment of the union between nature and mechanics. Thanks to the use of extruded aluminium and a polycarbonate derived from a by-product of paper production, as well as the elimination of adhesives, the light is more easily disassembled, repaired and recycled.
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CONTARDI STICK Design duo Chiara di Pinto and Arianna Lelli Mami of Studiopepe created a special edition of Contardi’s Stick lamp for Mohd, presented during Milan Design Week. Its simple, geometrically shaped base allows for the pendant and applique lamps to be expressed in numerous tessellations.
Kuitert 160 25,000 years ago the ice age caused a large amount of sediment deposit in Switzerland. This, along with the erosion of the Alps, explains the above-average occurrence of gravel in the area today 1.7
70 billion tonnes of salt is contained in the ocean, while 2 to 4 trillion tonnes of halite – better known as rock salt – is present in the Earth’s crust
In Numbers
37 kilometres is the radius within which the three ingredients for Ocean Articulated are sourced by Studio Eidola
g/cm3 is the density of the material used for Ocean Articulated, which is lighter than hard stones (on average 2.5 g/cm3) and concrete (2.6 g/cm3) studioeidola.ch 160 metres is the depth at which a layer of salt rock can be found to the north of the High Rhine. It was created by the evaporation of a prehistoric ocean covering the area 250 million years ago
SANDS OF TIME Whereas salt is abundant on Earth, sand is a scarcer resource – especially the kind used in construction. On top of the environmental impact of sand extraction and the associated transportation costs, a big issue is that once the raw material becomes part of a concrete mixture, it can no longer be recovered. With Ocean Articulated, Swiss Studio Eidola set out to develop an alternative material that’s both recyclable and loadbearing. Combining locally extracted (dissolved) salt and sand with a plant-based binder in a sand-casting process, the team managed to create objects that are easily dissolved into their raw materials either by natural decomposition or rapidly with Wordswater.Floor
