Dezeen Events Guide has launched its guide to Stockholm Design Week 2024, spotlighting the key showrooms, pop-up events, exhibitions and fairs taking place in the city.

This year marks the 22nd edition of the festival, which takes place from 5 to 11 February 2024.

One of the festival's largest events is the Stockholm Furniture Fair, which showcases upcoming and established designers in the furniture, lighting and architecture fields from 6 to 10 February.

Find out how you can feature in the guide below.

There is still the opportunity to feature in the guide

Dezeen offers standard and enhanced listings as part of its Stockholm guide.

Standard listings cost £100 and include the event name, date and location details plus a website link. These listings will also feature up to 50 words of text about the event.

Enhanced listings cost £175 and include all of the above plus an image at the top of the listing's page and an image in the listing preview on the Dezeen Events Guide homepage. These listings will also feature up to 100 words of text about the event.

For more information about partnering with us to help amplify your event, contact the team at eventsguide@dezeen.com.

About Dezeen Events Guide

Dezeen Events Guide is our guide to the best architecture and design events taking place across the world each year.

The guide is updated weekly and includes virtual events, conferences, trade fairs, major exhibitions and design weeks. For more details on inclusion in the Dezeen Events Guide, including in our guide to Stockholm Design Week, email eventsguide@dezeen.com.

The illustration is by Rima Sabina Aouf.

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As Tesla rolls out deliveries of its controversial Cybertruck, this Dezeen video shares a look inside the electric pickup and showcases some of its unique features, including the hexagonal steering wheel and retractable truck bed cover.

The release of the car has been hotly anticipated since Tesla founder Elon Musk unveiled the concept in 2019, leaving commentators divided about whether its unconventional angular design is "courageous" or "ridiculous".

 

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Dezeen has produced a video showcasing Tesla's new Cybertruck 

Now, the five-seater is finally being delivered to the first buyers, although at a 50 per cent markup from what was originally promised five years ago.

Musk claims the Cybertruck combines a sports car's acceleration with off-road driving skills, making it a "better truck than a truck, while also being a better sports car than a sports car".

A new video produced by Dezeen demonstrates the suspension on the vehicle's all-terrain tyres being raised for cross-country driving, as well as showing its octagonal steering wheel, reminiscent of that of a racing car.

The car's six-by-four-foot trunk bed is concealed behind an electric tonneau cover and tailgate, which can be seen opening at the touch of a button.

Instead of separate headlights, the Cybertruck features a long "light bar" at the front that can illuminate up to 480 metres ahead.

The car's chunky body is formed from angular panels of stainless steel that were left unpainted, with a panel of panoramic glass for a roof.

Both the body and the glass are reportedly bulletproof against nine-millimetre cartridges leading James McLachlan, editor of Car Design News, to compare it to a "mobile fortress".

"The Cybertruck encapsulates a dystopian future vision where the United States is sliding into lawlessness," he wrote in a recent opinion piece for Dezeen.

Cybertruck provided by VoyageATX, footage and edit by Sonia Singh.

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Design studio Raw Edges has created Sense of Surface, a 3D-printed installation exploring the interplay between light and textured surfaces that was shown at trade show IMM Cologne.

Sense of Surface consisted of a semi-transparent printed curtain and four 3D-printed "volumetric spheres" that were design to appeared as if they were floating freely in the space.

"The installation is a captivating exploration of the interplay between light and textured surfaces, created specifically for IMM Cologne 2024," said Raw Edges.

The installation's 3D structures, which were hung from above, were constructed using a Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) printer that fused together layers of polymer power.

Once printed, the pieces were joined into three-dimensional volumetric shapes on-site "almost like a tailor's work", according to Raw Edges co-founder Shay Alkalay.

The installation responded to IMM Cologne's 2024 theme The Sensuality of Surfaces and examined how a flat surface can be transformed into a "complex and three-dimensional body".

"For a long time we have been fascinated by the relationship between 2D graphic patterns and three-dimensional forms," Alkalay told Dezeen.

"It can be seen in our wood-dyed Endgrain collection, where we turn flat graphic surfaces into three-dimensional objects and enjoy the distortions and how they affect each other."

Lighting levels were manipulated throughout the space, altering the 3D structures' appearance.

"We started to play with the idea of see-through surfaces, patterned structures and transparency and to see how light can interact with it," Raw Edges told Dezeen.

"We were interested in exploring how three-dimensional structures can feel transparent in a space when there is no light, but become more diffused and opaque when illuminated. "

Alongside the sculptural forms, a curtain was made from Apollo – a semi-transparent textile created from German textile brand Rökona.

The pattern was 3D printed onto the fabric using pigment ink developed by printing brand Kornit.

"The result is a see-through printed surface that beckons visitors to step into the installation, creating an immersive and interactive experience," said Raw-Edges.

Raw Edges designed Sense of Surface in a bid to create an area of tranquillity for visitors to enjoy while experiencing the trade show.

"It is an immersive installation that was there to let visitors take a break from the busy fair and to step into a different environment that allows you quietly to focus on the way light can interact with the surfaces," said Raw Edges.

Raw Edges was launched in 2007 by Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay to transform everyday objects into playful and inventive furniture, product, interior and installation designs.

IMM Cologne took place from 14 to 18 January 2024. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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Dutch studio AMO emphasised the "paradoxical dichotomy" between office interiors and the natural world for the Prada Autumn Winter 2024 menswear show, which featured a plexiglass runway above grass and streams.

AMO, the research and creative studio of architecture office OMA, created the scenography for the 14 January show at the Rem Koolhaas-designed Fondazione Prada during Milan Fashion Week.

The arts centre's Deposito space was covered with forest-like swathes of real grass interspersed with rocks, pebbles, leaves and running water to emulate natural streams.

In stark contrast, AMO constructed a clear plexiglass runway mounted onto a gridded structure that was positioned above the unmanicured grass.

"The studio created a set design juxtaposing an office interior with a natural landscape," said Prada, which is headquartered in Milan.

Uniform rows of familiar black swivel chairs snaked across the geometric runway, providing seating for the guests and creating pathways for the models.

Embedded in the ceiling, office-style strip lighting was reflected across the plexiglass in rigid patterns, while mist was released into the space for an atmospheric effect.

On the edges of the set, AMO installed walls formed from recognisably corporate blue panels, often found in office environments.

One section, where guests entered the runway, featured whole booths created with the panels, complete with large desks, swivel chairs and desktop computers emblazoned with the Prada logo on their otherwise blank screens.

Presented by the fashion house's co-creative directors, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, the show's looks echoed the contrasting scenography.

Classic suit-and-tie pairings finished in neutral textiles were combined with more vibrant pieces such as swimming caps and goggle-like sunglasses crafted as a nod to the outdoors.

"This collection is about something basic – the emotional instinct to remain attached to something we know, the cycles of nature," said Prada.

"There is a simple assertion, of a deep and essential human need to connect with the world around us," continued the brand.

"Demonstrating the paradoxical dichotomy between two coexisting worlds [offices and nature], this show explores fundamental truths of humanity, our natural instincts and our emotional needs."

Longtime-collaborators AMO and Prada have been creating catwalks together at Fondazione Prada since 2004, including the brand's previous Autumn Winter menswear show, which took place below a retractable ceiling that moved to reveal a series of art deco chandeliers.

More recently, the studio also designed the scenography for Prada's Spring Summer 2024 menswear show – an aluminium-clad space with slime falling from the ceiling to form liquid walls.

The photography and video are courtesy of Prada.

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Packaging designs aimed at boosting recycling rates and reducing the prevalence of single-use plastics are destined to fail unless they help to change people's behaviour, writes Matt Millington.

No one is particularly happy when they find out there's plastic waste on Mount Everest, or in the deep oceans, or in human blood. It's not controversial to say that we need to stop churning the stuff out and throwing it away.

One way for businesses to tackle single-use plastics is to design their packaging to be reusable, but so far efforts have not succeeded at scale.

For example, reusable McDonald's cups are only getting a 40 per cent return rate from customers in Germany, despite consumers paying a €2 deposit. When Starbucks trialled reusable cups in the closed environment of its Seattle HQ, where returning them is presumably straightforward, the return rate still didn't exceed 80 per cent.

We weren't exactly succumbing to dehydration on the streets before coffee shops designed takeaway cups

It's not that we don't care: research suggests consumer motivation towards environmentally positive behaviour is high. It's that as a society we have developed an expectation of convenience: to have what we want, when we want it, without any consequences.

This is entirely unreasonable – we weren't exactly succumbing to dehydration on the streets before coffee shops designed takeaway cups – but while it persists, consumers are very unlikely to switch to reusable alternatives if it puts them out. And without a high return-and-reuse rate, reusable packaging is usually worse for the environment, owing to the much higher quantities of plastic involved.

This is why we need to design for human behaviour if we're ever to get rid of single-use plastics. You cannot control what people will do with packaging once it leaves your premises, but you can influence them by factoring behavioural psychology into the design of the packaging itself.

The first step is understanding how consumers interact with the pack, throughout its lifecycle. Where are they and what are they doing when they open it? What's their headspace? How about when they're finished with it? There's a big difference between how someone interacts with a reusable plate after a meal in a cafeteria, and how they interact with the reusable salad bowl they're gobbling from on the lunchtime rush back to the office.

Then it's about understanding the levers you can pull to nudge people towards more planet-positive decisions. Behavioural psychology shows there are three factors that work together to drive behavioural change: increasing consumer motivation to recycle or reuse, raising their ability to do so, and providing a trigger to remind them.

Take plastic bags. While usage of single-use bags has dramatically decreased in the UK since legislation requiring retailers to charge for them came into force in 2015, reusable alternatives have had mixed success. According to a report by the Environmental Investigation Agency and Greenpeace, 57 "bags for life" were sold for each household in the country in 2019 – more than one a week.

It's possible to go too far in signalling that a pack isn't disposable

Online grocer Ocado uses recyclable bags instead, but it has had success in achieving returns because it pulls all three behavioural psychology levers. Consumers are happy to receive bonus reward points for each bag they give back (motivation).

The bags are straightforward to return and customers know not to throw them away because of their clear messaging and distinct off-grey colour, which follows from not using harmful bleaching agents (ability). And because the driver usually asks for old bags after delivery, they're unlikely to forget (trigger).

Ability is the key consideration. If you wanted to return the packaging from a takeaway burger meal, it would mean washing and then carrying around a bulky burger box, fries box and cup, and either making a special trip to the restaurant or waiting until you happen upon another branch.

New Zealand start-up FOLDPROJECT has done some interesting work here, trying to make boxes more portable. It's a simple idea: a machine-washable lunch kit that packs down to a flat sheet. The challenge is that because it is so minimal, its form and material make it look disposable.

One way to ensure a reusable design communicates its intended purpose is through material choice. For example, using explicitly post-consumer recycled plastic could be a visual shorthand to communicate a planet-positive intent, as could using longer-lasting materials like glass or stoneware.

Interestingly, it's possible to go too far in signalling that a pack isn't disposable. When McDonald's introduced reusable packaging in its restaurants in France, it found the packaging kept disappearing, only to reappear on eBay. It looked reusable and on-brand, but was too novel for some, defeating the object.

So long as we have bins on every street that lead directly to landfill, we are going to struggle

Businesses cannot just switch to reusable packaging – even when intelligently designed – and expect results. So long as we have bins on every street that lead directly to landfill we are going to struggle.

We therefore need to think beyond just designing the packaging to be sustainable, and think about how we design systems to be sustainable. In a circular economy that means service and experience design, packaging, industrial design, marketing, data, artificial intelligence and logistics all working hand-in-hand to keep the pack "in the loop". It will therefore need to be an ecosystem effort.

We're already seeing innovations that can help make reuse and return viable in the age of convenience. For example, when is a bin not a bin? When it's a Bjarke Ingels Group-designed TURN system – a remote, digitally connected, RFID-enabled, packaging-asset reclaim and sorting network, which rejects unwanted trash.

Similarly, we're seeing nudge messaging along the pack journey, and even packs that communicate their status themselves. Scottish start-up Insignia has designed colour-changing labels that reveal how long a pack has been exposed to the environment. Imagine taking this further, with reusable packaging telling you what to do with it, and offering prompts or rewards to encourage you.

Reusability hasn't hit scale yet, but we should be optimistic that it can, not least because we've been there before. Milk deliveries were once the norm, with bottles returned, not discarded.

There's no reason that we can't get back to this more sustainable approach across the board, without having to endure too much inconvenience. All that's required is a little ingenuity, and a lot of collaboration.

The photography is by Jas Min via Unsplash.

Matt Millington is a sustainable-design strategist at PA Consulting.

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The Transhumances III exhibition will see designers Andres Monnier, Morghen Studio, Elsa Foulon and Laura Pasquino present a selection of works they created in ancient cave dwellings in Cappadocia, Turkey.

The works on show, from a chandelier made out of a tree to candleholders crafted from local stone, will be showcased in a series of caves where the designers undertook their residency.

Organised by design gallery Philia, formerly known as Galerie Philia, the residency encouraged the designers to craft works inspired by the UNESCO World Heritage site in collaboration with local artisans.

Titled Transhumances III, the residency took place across 10 days in November, and was the third in a series organised by Philia that takes designers to destinations with a rich craft heritage.

"I've loved Cappadocia for a long time – it's really a region of pottery and ceramics," said Ygaël Attali, director and co-founder of Philia.

He chose the Taşkonaklar hotel in Uçhisar as the location, which operates a series of studios for artist residencies within ancient caves carved into the cliffside.

Mexican designer Monnier, known for his monumental candle holders and fire pits crafted from slabs of raw stone, worked in collaboration with local stonemasons in Cappadocia.

He made new sculptural candle holders from red onyx offcuts quarried in the region, alongside a travertine side table and black stone candelabra.

Monnier's works took inspiration from the surrounding landscape, including the unique vertical rock formations known as "fairy chimneys", and one of the mountains he passed regularly during his residency. "Cappadocia has beautiful, beautiful stones," he said.

Installed in the dark caves and topped with burning candles and incense, Monnier's works – with titles including Spiritus and Laberinto – were designed to have a ritualistic presence.

Ceramic designers Pasquino and Foulon crafted vessels and sculptural lighting respectively. As such, they both engaged in the pottery traditions of the region, working with a local potter and regional clay to translate Cappadocia's craft techniques into their own works.

Named Landforms of the Red River, Pasquino's large, spherical, hand-built vases in warm terracotta hues were made using red clay and crushed stones from a local river.

"I'm really into textures," Pasquino said, adding that she wanted the surface of her vessels to be rough, recalling both the river bed and the roughly hewn stone walls of the caves she undertook her residency in.

The Dutch designer researched the techniques and tools of local potters to learn from and apply in her work. She had never worked with terracotta before – preferring porcelain and stoneware – but since her residency, she has grown to appreciate the "powerful" effect of the material, she said.

Foulon worked with a local white clay to create a series of pebble-like table lamps, named Troglodyte Glows, that emit a warm glow from within.

The French designer was drawn to the way that light in Cappadocia "changes constantly" and impacts the colours and details of the landscape, as well as the unique quality of sunlight spilling into caves. She added a yellow underglaze in her lights to create the effect of a golden glow.

Both Foulon and Pasquino helped another of the residency's designers, Rodolfo Viola of Milan-based Morghen Studio, to work with ceramic for the first time.

The Milan-based studio creates statement sculptural lighting, mostly using brass. But to make a large-scale lighting piece in 10 days, Viola had to use a different material.

"I wanted to make a chandelier but didn't know how to go big in only a few days," he told Dezeen. "I thought it would be nice to source something from nature."

He found a tree on a local walk, charred it, and added fired ceramic "petals" covered in black ink around LED lights on its branches, attached with twine.

After creating the dramatic black chandelier in one of the caves, he installed it by hanging the tree upside-down from the cave ceiling; there, it appears almost like exposed subterranean roots.

"Having just a week to come up with something is a perfect exercise for designers," Viola said. "You don't have time to overthink. I had to learn a new material in a few days."

Together, the collection of objects are both made from and presented in the unique landscape of Cappadocia. Exhibiting them locally was vital for Attali, who wanted to avoid the carbon-heavy shipping so prevalent in the collectible design market.

Instead of importing materials and exporting works, the designers on the nomadic residency work with local materials, exhibit locally, and sell locally. "It shows that we can do things differently," said Attali.

The photography is courtesy of Maison Mouton Noir and Philia.

Transhumances III will run from 15 February to 16 March 2024 at A.R.C Taskonaklar. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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Stools from local designer Caleb Ferris and design firm Prowl Studio were among the works displayed at a San Francisco exhibition centred around contemporary Bay Area design.

The Works in Progress show displayed stools, chairs and other furniture from local designers to highlight the diversity in methods and backgrounds of an evolving Bay Area design scene.

"As the Bay Area creative scene evolves in real-time, there are boundless possibilities for how it might bloom," said curators and designers Kate Greenberg, Kelley Perumbeti, and Sahra Jajarmikhayat in a statement. 

"For now, we are here to acknowledge its depth and say: it's a work in progress."

The team distributed the exhibition's pieces across metallic platforms supported by foundations of bricks.

Pieces ranged from a curvacious, duck-footed poplar wood stool marked with paint and silver leaf by Caleb Ferris, to Prowl Studio's cubic stainless steel stool wrapped in a 3D knit cover.

"Across a range of materials, forms, and functions, the participants have found a groove in the original, the introspective, and the off-center," said the team. 

Designer Ido Yoshimoto displayed a sculptural side table made of old-growth redwood and finished in a dark red textured hue. The table consists of a geometric, curved corner that runs into a darkened raw edge.

Studio Ahead created a fuzzy Merino wool stool informed by northern California rock formations, which contrasted with the smooth surface of a glass stool by curators Jajarmikhayat and Greenberg.

Other works included a baltic plywood side table with grooved sides and small, chunky sky blue legs by NJ Roseti and a white oak chair topped with a wild fleece and suede cushion by Rafi Ajl of studio Long Confidence.

Office of Tangible Space showed a flat-legged chair designed in collaboration with CNC design studio Thirdkind Studio, while Duncan Oja of Oja Design displayed a charred white oak stool with an organic, rough-sawn profile.

Fyrn Studio showed a charcoal-black hardwood stool with aluminium hardware created with replaceable parts and studio Medium Small and designer Yvonne Mouser both displayed chairs made of ash, one blackened and the other not, supported by bases of elegant, simple lines.

"As simple as it sounds, the soul of this exhibition is in the representation of physical craft and the people behind it. It's important to shine a light on this vibrant slice of the Bay Area that is not always as visible amidst a city focused on the digital realm," said Perumbeti.

"There's something really exciting brewing in this community that is just beginning to get teased out," said Greenberg.

Works in Progress was part of the wider San Francisco Art Week, which highlights art and design from the city and took place from 13-21 January.

Other recent furniture exhibitions that highlighted California designers include INTRO/LA with pieces by Adi Goodrich and Sam Klemick and the first Miami edition from Milan-based design exhibition Alcova held in a motel during Miami's art week.

Works in Progress took place at the American Industrial Center in San Francisco from 18 to 23 January 2023. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.

The photography is by Sahra Jajarmikhayat unless otherwise stated. 

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US start-up Clicks Technology has launched a mechanical keyboard attachment for iPhones, featuring tactile raised buttons that mimic the phone's virtual keyboard while adding a few extra keys.

Unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show, the Clicks Creator Keyboard was informed by early smartphones such as the BlackBerry, which were popular in the early 2000s prior to the launch of Apple's touchscreen-only iPhone.

Available for the iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, the accessory aims to provide a more tactile experience and allows users to type with greater accuracy whilst on the move due to the feedback of a physical key click.

According to Clicks, the company's first product also frees up on-screen real estate that was previously occupied by a virtual keyboard to make more space for apps and other content.

The device features a silicone unibody design, available in grey or yellow, with 36 polycarbonate keys arranged in the same format as an English-language Qwerty computer keyboard.

Features such as keyboard shortcuts and dedicated buttons – including a Command and Tab key – that are missing from the iPhone's digital keypad help to enhance the product's functionality.

"We use keyboards on our desktops, laptops and tablets every day – so it's kind of odd that we abandoned physical buttons on the smartphone," said Clicks Technology co-founder Michael Fisher, who moonlights as a YouTube tech reviewer with 1.2 million subscribers.

"Clicks brings the tactility and precision of a physical keyboard to iPhone, so people don't have to wait until they get back to their desks to create or communicate with the satisfying feedback only real buttons can provide."

Fisher, who is known online as MrMobile, founded Clicks Technology with fellow content creator aKevin Michaluk – known as CrackBerry Kevin – alongside a team of designers with experience at Apple, BlackBerry and Google.

The keypad design mimics the virtual keyboard in Apple's iOS operating system, with punctuation and alternate keys configured in the same way to make interacting with the device intuitive for existing iPhone users.

The phone slides into the case and connects through its lightning or USB port so it does not rely on Bluetooth. A built-in backlight illuminates the keys at night, while a pass-through port on the bottom means the phone can be charged while the case is attached.

Other practical design details include a vegan leather grip pad on the rear of the case and a small metal ballast to improve weight distribution when the accessory is attached.

Clicks is currently only available for iPhone but Fisher said he hopes to evolve the design for use with Android phones as well.

Other products launched at this year's Consumer Electronics Show include Rabbit's AI-powered R1 device, which is designed to carry out tasks such as booking flights or editing images, as well as a device that allows users to conduct four different medical checks at home.

All images courtesy of Clicks Technology.

CES 2024 took place in Las Vegas from 9 to 12 January 2024. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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Kvadrat CEO Anders Byriel discusses why the Danish textile producer is deliberately tackling sustainability "the hard way" in this exclusive interview.

The company sees itself as having a history of corporate responsibility – but Byriel said he was taken aback after it signed up to the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTI) on reducing emissions in 2019.

"When we measured our footprint I [was] surprised – I thought we were close to net-zero," he told Dezeen.

Far from being net-zero, the brand found it was actually emitting 2,364 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from direct company operations.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg. A staggering 98 per cent of Kvadrat's emissions occur in its supply chain – known as scope three emissions – outside of its direct control.

One major contributor to the company's direct (scope one and two) emissions is the company fleet of vehicles. Kvadrat therefore has decided to replace all fossil-fuel based and even hybrid company cars in Denmark to an all-electric fleet in 2024.

It is also considering adopting the same standard in countries with well-established electric-vehicle infrastructure as it seeks to halve its direct emissions by 2026.

Meanwhile, the company's biggest sustainability challenge is persuading its suppliers to follow suit.

Crucially, the SBTI does not allow for carbon offsetting, so emissions targets must be achieved principally through direct reduction.

"It's the hard way," said Byriel. "But we want to be the undisputed leader in sustainability."

"If you don't measure your footprint scientifically, how can you measure your goal anyway?" he added.

Kvadrat has also recently committed to the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), a global standard that seeks to measure and reduce the environmental impact of products and services transparently.

"As a company with a history of using clean and responsible materials and manufacturing, following these new standards, is still eye-opening for me," said Byriel.

"It comes with pains but we all need to transform"

He took wool as an example of the surprising things to emerge from Kvadrat's deep dive into its environmental footprint.

"Wool is a wonder material that we are very close to – it lasts three times longer than a man-made material, it's grown in nature," he said.

"But if you calculate the footprint of the textile against that of recycled polyester, it does not perform that well due to the footprint generated by transport and the sheep."

"So we have to adapt one-third of our wool production using hydropower to reduce the overall footprint of wool, so that it can compete with recycled polyester."

Taking sustainability seriously comes with challenges, Byriel acknowledged.

"It's not making our lives easier because it makes our product more expensive," he said. "It comes with pains but we all need to transform."

However, the company hopes that by getting ahead of the curve it will be left in a stronger position if and when governments start regulating to reduce the industry's environmental impact.

"Due to all these things that we have done for many years, when the regulation eventually catches up we would already be compliant with that – we don't have to do anything to change," said Byriel.

Kvadrat has committed to spending 80 per cent of its investment over the next five years on sustainability-related projects, including material innovations and developing machines to aid re- and up-cycling.

As part of that work, it is on a mission to replace all man-made plastic in its products with recycled plastic.

In October, it launched a new textile developed in collaboration with 2023 Dezeen Awards winner Patricia Urquiola that it claims is the world's first recycled polyester upholstery textile made from 100 percent ocean-bound plastic waste.

Named Sport, the new textile was created through four years of research together with Tide, a Switzerland-based company that specialises in building a global supply chain for premium second-life materials made from ocean-bound plastic waste.

"It's made out of 100 per cent ocean plastic, which is a big achievement, as the ocean-plastic-made textiles out there usually only contain 10 to 15 percent ocean plastic," Byriel said.

Speaking to Dezeen during Design Republic's Festival of Design in Shanghai, where Sport was on display in an exhibition, Byriel claimed that ocean-plastic polyester textiles often incorporate plastic collected up to 50 kilometres from the coastline.

As a result, the plastic has already started to disintegrate so the textiles typically have to integrate either virgin polyester or polyester recycled from other post-consumer plastic sources.

Biomaterial textiles and recycling factory

The plastic used to manufacture Sport, on the other hand, is mostly collected less than 10 kilometres away from the coastline of remote islands in Thailand.

"We collect good-quality plastic to make yarn from," explained Byriel.

"The dissolving process only comes with the mechanical movement of the waves and the exposure of the sun, so once it's been taken out of the ocean and made into textile, it's safe to use just like every other plastic product we live with everyday."

Kvadrat is also working on bio-based materials, including a leather alternative made out of hemp and food-waste polyesters, with the first product due for release in two years' time.

Meanwhile, it has set up a 20,000 square-metre factory to take back waste materials from clients and turn them into new products.

"This is the result of a six-year technology development," said Byriel.

"For example, we can take back old uniforms and press them with our machines to make a tabletop," he continued.

"When the tabletop is at the end of its lifecycle, we can take it back again and create something new – this is an endless loop."

The images are courtesy of Kvadrat unless stated otherwise.

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New York design studio Order has created a nostalgic new brand identity for Herman Miller that harkens back to the mid-century modern heritage of the American design brand.

Last updated at the end of the 1990s, in the era of Web 1.0, the branding previously featured the "computer-friendly" FF Meta font and the company's enduring M logo from 1946, emblazoned on a red circle.

Tasked with bringing this identity into the 21st century while staying true to Herman Miller's legacy, Order took inspiration from the brand's own history – specifically the modernist branding that was introduced by graphic designer John Massey in the late 1960s.

Much like this predecessor, the updated logo now features a Helvetica-style typeface, while the swooping M symbol was once again freed from the confines of its circular backdrop so it can be used as a graphic design element rather than just a trademark.

"The M symbol has stayed consistent through every iteration of the identity since Irving Harper drew it in 1946, so changing it was never an option," Order design director Garrett Corcoran told Dezeen.

"As we looked at its role over time, we saw early uses embraced it as both an identity mark and in the full visual language. However, in the 90s it evolved to the circle, which created some limitations around its use."

"Removing the circle was a way to again celebrate the symbol in its simplest form and allow it to seamlessly integrate with other brand elements like typography or photography," Corcoran continued.

The Herman Miller wordmark is now styled in the Söhne typeface by Klim Type Foundry – a modern homage to the Helvetica originally used by Massey.

"John Massey introduced Helvetica as the typeface of Herman Miller's new corporate identity in 1968," explained the company's brand creative director Kelsey Keith.

"That turn toward corporate is a key period in the history of Herman Miller," she added. "The introduction of the Action Office AO1 and AO2 under Robert Propst, with the help of George Nelson, invented the modern office as we know it."

Combined with an expanded colour palette, Keith believes the new typeface will give Herman Miller more freedom to play with the individual elements of its identity.

Much like in Massey's mid-century modern branding, the typography and the M motif can now be used separately or together as graphic elements across a range of different mediums, whether printed onto a tote bag, a catalogue or the side of a truck.

"From a brand point of view, we required a lot more flexibility than we had had previously in our brand identity, such as the ability to scale from a handheld mobile phone screen to a physical space, like a retail store or showroom," Keith explained.

"There are elements of the Herman Miller identity that I hope are more legible to the public because of this new design system: boldness, joy, tactility, respect for the past with an eye toward the future."

The rebrand comes on the heels of Herman Miller celebrating its 100th birthday last year.

Since its founding in 1905, the company has worked with some of the most important designers of the day, from Isamu Noguchi and Charles and Ray Eames to contemporary greats including Yves Béhar and London studio Industrial Facility.

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Coats that convert into cushions and scarves that can be worn as hats feature in the latest collection from fashion brand Issey Miyake, created in collaboration with French designer Ronan Bouroullec.

Presented during the Homme Plissé Issey Miyake Autumn Winter 2024 menswear show in Paris, the collection reinterprets Bouroullec's growing body of abstract drawings into a collection of garments and accessories.

The collaboration with Homme Plissé Issey Miyake, an offshoot of Japanese fashion house Issey Miyake, comes after Bouroullec told Dezeen in an interview last year that he had turned down numerous requests from fashion designers who were keen to use his artworks.

"I didn't want my drawings to be used as patterns," he said at the time.

Instead, the new collection focused more on translating the spirit of the various artworks, according to the design team at Homme Plissé Issey Miyake.

"The interpretation of creative visuals goes beyond turning them into motifs and patterns," the team explained.

"The body of work acts as ingredients to be incorporated into the design and making of the collection, forming a harmonious creative process."

The gradient strokes of Bouroullec's felt-tip drawings, for example, were transposed onto garments fashioned from the brand's signature pleated fabric, which were cut into asymmetrical silhouettes to correspond to the blank spaces found on the page.

Elsewhere in the collection, these felt-tip brush strokes were silkscreen-printed in layers onto all-white outerwear or translated into scarfs made from multi-coloured yarn.

Strategic head and arm holes were added to these scarfs, so they can be worn in various configurations and even function as a turban-style hat.

"The items are knitted with multi-colored yarn and have holes in considered places, allowing them to be wrapped and worn in multiple ways by passing the head or arms through them, creating wearable art," the brand said.

Bouroullec's Stylo-Bille works, which are painted with a ballpoint pen, called for a different approach and were realised through precise embroidery and a traditional Gobelins tapestry weaving technique.

The latter was used to form giant square pockets fixed to the outside of several puffer coats, which the garment can be stuffed into when not in use, effectively turning it into a cushion.

"As a cushion, the colours of the work are replicated as per the original drawing," explained Homme Plissé Issey Miyake. "And when worn as a coat, the colours are inverted, offering a different colour scheme."

A series of pleated ensembles based on Bouroullec's All Over prints hopes to capture the immersive feeling of the artworks with their blocky colours and dense stripes.

"The original drawing is filled with countless lines, creating a pattern so lively that the wearers could imagine immersing themselves in, as opposed to viewing it at a distance," the design team explained.

This idea was translated into voluminous garments with extended shoulders, sleeves and hems that can be draped over the body.

The collection was shown inside the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, on a runway reminiscent of a gallery, where Bouroullec's original drawings were pinned up next to flattened versions of the garments to further blur the boundary between art and fashion.

"It was an extraordinary experience to work with the design team, where I discovered many things over the course of the creative session about what my work has in common and in contrast with their clothing design," Bouroullec said.

"And it is the synergy as well as the distance between us that have made this project both inspiring and rewarding."

Both the drawings and the collaboration with Homme Plissé Issey Miyake are part of a growing body of solo work from Bouroullec, as his collaboration with brother Erwan Bouroullec as part of their joint design studio has come to an end.

Just last year, the designer created a set of pared-back furnishings for a 17th-century chapel in Brittany as part of a restoration project financed by François Pinault, founder of luxury fashion group Kering.

The post Issey Miyake turns Ronan Bouroullec drawings into "wearable art" for Homme Plissé collection appeared first on Dezeen.

At Fendi's autumn winter 24 menswear show in Milan, the fashion house unveiled sneakers and handbags designed by MAD Architects founder Ma Yansong as an "extension of the experience of architecture and the city".

Yansong's debut excursion into fashion design saw the architect develop a range of accessories defined by the same sinuous lines as his buildings.

His take on Fendi's classic Peekaboo bag features dramatic slashes across the front, inlaid with pieces of varnished aluminium that peek out through the gaps. Aluminium was also used to form the bag's double-curved handle, designed to fit neatly into the palm of a hand.

Matching slip-on trainers feature a curvaceous injection-moulded sole, accented by glossy air bubbles and eyestays.

"It's my first time designing shoes and bags," Yansong told Dezeen. "I'm always interested in designing something closer to the people."

"That's also my understanding of architecture. I think it's always about how people use the space, the feel of the space and about their emotions."

Created under the creative direction of Silvia Venturini Fendi – Fendi's artistic director of accessories and menswear – both products are available in either a monochrome black colourway or in metallic grey with bright yellow detailing.

Although new to fashion, Yansong has long experimented with designing smaller-scale objects, whether reimagining Dior's Medallion chair or releasing a range of idiosyncratic homeware pieces from rugs to fish tanks.

"Maybe in the future, I want to design more furniture or more clothes," Yansong said. "Maybe automobiles. Really, everything around our lives that needs design."

"I think those are extensions of the experience of architecture and the city. So maybe the designers should be more multi-disciplinary, working more based on human experience not just in the traditional categories that divide our profession."

The collaboration is the latest in a line of "progressive partnerships" from Fendi that hope to "align the worlds of fashion and architecture".

Just last year, Japanese architect Kengo Kuma created a collection of accessories for the brand from tree bark and washi paper, while the late Zaha Hadid created a many-layered version of the Peekaboo bag as part of a charity auction in 2014.

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New York architect Dong-Ping Wong, who came up with the idea for a floating, cross-shaped swimming pool proposed for New York City, claims that he has been "frozen out" of the project.

Wong made the claim in a post on Instagram, which addressed the recent news that the + Pool project has been granted $16 million to advance.

In the post, Wong also expressed concern that his original civic vision for the project had been lost, claiming that "the ideals that grounded the project slowly gave way to interests that prioritized money, exposing the project to the levers of gentrification".

Wong, now director of New York-based practice Food Architects, led the design of + Pool under defunct studio Family along with PlayLab Inc co-founders Archie Lee Coates IV and Jeff Franklin and architect Oana Stănescu when it "was launched as a lark" in 2010.

The floating pool, which will reportedly filter up to 1,000,000 gallons of river water a day without the use of chemicals, was designed to float in the waterways of New York City to provide publicly accessible swimming.

"The goal wasn't to just build a pool"

"When I started + Pool, the goal wasn't to just build a pool," said Wong in his post. "The goal was to see if it was possible to make big civic changes to the city from the ground up for places that often get overlooked."

Since the project's launch, it has faced a series of starts and stops, as both its now-patented technology and design faced approval from municipal, commercial and environmental organizations.

In 2015, the 501c3 non-profit Friends of + Pool was formed to be the organising body of the project.

"When we decided to start a non-profit in 2015, it was based on the ideal that a non-profit would protect the project from private interest and ensure it remained a project for everyone," Wong said in his post.

"I was never invited back to a board meeting"

Since 2022, Wong claims that he began to be "frozen" out of the project after he raised internal concerns about what he describes as the "long-standing lack of diversity of the + Pool board".

"These issues were repeatedly dismissed, I was frozen out of the project," he wrote on Instagram.

"I wrote to the board in 2021 that we should establish a clear position on race and discrimination as an organization," Wong told Dezeen.

"About a year later, I joined a board meeting and listened as the board discussed a DEI statement that they were preparing. In the statement, the only actionable item was to take an annual survey of the number of people of colour involved in the project," he continued.

"I asked whether there was more being done and they said no. After that board meeting, which was in April 2022, I was never invited back to a board meeting, design or engineering meeting, gala or fundraising event or any internal discussions."

Record on accessibility "speaks for itself" says + Pool

Friends of + Pool disputes Wong's account.

In response to Wong's Instagram post, the non-profit told Dezeen that Wong had decided not to be involved in the progression of the organisation but rather to centre his work on the architecture of  + Pool. The organisation also claimed that Wong continues to be invited to all events and activities.

"+ Pool's record on swim education and swim accessibility for communities of colour speaks for itself," managing director of Friends of + Pool Kara Meyer told Dezeen.

"Friends of + Pool has made DEI a major priority in its policies and programs, which is why it was a centrepiece of both the Governor and the Mayor's announcements at the Jan 5 press conference."

None of the project's founders sit on the board, according to the non-profit, although it said that they continue to have a voice in making recommendations.

The other co-founders told Dezeen that they felt the project was still aligned with its original intent.

"We are proud of how the non-profit is fulfilling our original vision," co-founders Coates IV, Franklin and Stănescu told Dezeen in a joint statement.

"In fact, it's gone beyond what any of us imagined. This should be a moment of collective celebration and is when the work truly begins."

Funding approval "bittersweet"

A location for + Pool has also been disputed. In 2021, ​​New York's Economic Development Corporation confirmed a provisional site for the project north of the Manhattan Bridge, although Friends of + Pool told Dezeen that a final site has yet to be chosen by the government.

The provisional location sits between Wong's residence and the Food Architects office in New York City's Chinatown neighbourhood. While + Pool was "never originally intended to come to Chinatown" according to the designer, its proposed location further cemented a personal connection to the project for Wong.

"I'm Chinese-American, and we've had the office in Chinatown for seven or eight years, depending on where you count the borders of Chinatown," he told Dezeen.

"I felt like I could speak to and about the project and its relationship to underserved communities in a way that was much more personal and specific than I could before it was located here."

Wong called the recent $16 million of funds approved for the project "bittersweet" on Instagram.

"With + Pool closer to reality, I worry about how the leadership will treat the neighbourhood's long-standing communities – the majority of whom are people of colour and lower income," he wrote.

"I'm concerned about what concession to access might be made in the service of commercial interest and about what agreements with predatory developers might be taking place without my knowledge."

Friends of + Pool recently announced the $16 million will be used to create a 2,000-square-foot (185 square metres) version of + Pool to be built for testing come summer 2024, with plans to open it to swimmers in 2025. Original versions of the project held that the modular pool could reach up to 9,000 square feet (836 square metres).

According to the team, it will also serve as a pilot project for + Pool's design and technology to be used throughout New York state.

The images are courtesy Friends of + Pool.

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British design studio Layer has aimed to bring sustainability to mattress design in a collaboration with Chinese start-up Mazzu, creating a modular, foamless product made up of textile-covered springs.

The Mazzu Open mattress was designed to have the comfort of a traditional sprung mattress while being adaptable, repairable and easy to pack down when moving house, so as to prolong the product's life.

The design features row upon row of individually textile-wrapped pocket springs, which sit sandwiched between a base "matrix" and a cushioned topper to hold them in place.

All its components are either recyclable or biodegradable, and no glue was used in the construction of the mattress.

The structure — left open at the sides for a distinctive, utilitarian look — also has the benefit of being hygienic, according to the studio, as users can check the inside of the mattress and take it apart to clean every element.

The modular design of the mattress means buyers can treat the springs like "pixels", choosing between three levels of firmness for each point in the matrix to create a support pattern of their choosing. This also allows couples to customise their own side of the bed.

Additional spring modules and a different base and topper can be added to change the size of the mattress, and the whole kit can compress down to around 80 per cent of its size when disassembled.

The mattress comes in a reusable packaging system, also designed by Layer, that sees it divided into small components and split across several cartons, each weighing less than 10 kilograms. The spring modules compress from 250 millimetres to 50 millimetres in height as part of this.

Layer founder Benjamin Hubert told Dezeen that the studio tried to tackle multiple problems with current mattresses in one go with Mazzu, ranging from the impracticability of transporting them to the lack of customisation.

"They are too bulky once you unpack them and they 'inflate' from their compressed shipped form," said Hubert. "They contain huge amounts of foam, which is next to impossible to recycle, and for the most part you can't pack them down again for storage or transport."

The studio wanted to avoid using polyurethane foam, a common mattress material, because as well as being difficult to recycle, it is energy intensive to produce and generates volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are harmful to health.

The material is technically recyclable, but most mattresses do not reach the scarce recycling facilities, and they are often discarded before their time. In the UK, for instance, around 6.4 million mattresses are thrown away each year — about one for every ten people — and only around 14 per cent of them are recycled.

Instead of foam, the Mazzu Open mattress's hourglass-shaped springs are shrouded in a two-tone 3D-knit polyester sleeve. The other materials used are steel for the springs, ABS plastic for the connection system and wool for the topper. The wool is biodegradable, while all the other materials are recyclable.

Hubert describes Mazzu as "leading the way" in delivering sustainable, high-performance bedding, and says the companies worked together for three years through the pandemic.

They went through many iterations of the mattress design in that time, as the studio tried to find a connection solution that would be both simple and comfortable.

"We must have tried about 20 different connection techniques," said Hubert. "We had to find an optimum size that could be calibrated to fit all the standard mattress sizes too — not easy given there are a lot of international sizes."

"The system needed to be highly cost-effective by using the least amount of parts and the simplest connection feature," he continued. "The design of the connection systems changed dozens of times as we tested strength, ease of use, noise and comfort — we had hundreds of springs in the studio at times!"

Other recent designs from the London-based design studio have included sustainable dog toys for Canadian company Earth Rated and a green hydrogen vehicle retrofitting system for US start-up Croft.

Mazzu and Layer launched the Mazzu Open mattress at the German furniture fair IMM Cologne, which was held from 14 to 18 January. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

The post Layer rethinks bed design with foamless and disassemblable Mazzu mattress appeared first on Dezeen.

The latest edition of our Dezeen Debate newsletter features AI smart binoculars designed by Marc Newson. Subscribe to Dezeen Debate now.

At this year's Consumer Electronics Show, sports optics brand Swarovski Optik unveiled its AX Visio Binoculars by industrial designer Newson. The binoculars are equipped with artificial intelligence, which allows them to identify bird and animal species.

Commenters were sceptical about the design. One asked, "Doesn't this ruin the fun of bird-watching?", noting that it takes away the challenge of "learning to recognise birds.'" Another loved the "cool" design, however, describing it as a "real-life Pokedéx".

Other stories in this week's newsletter that fired up the comments section included a pair of spiky high-rise towers by BIG nearing completion in Copenhagen, Tadao Ando's plans for a luxury residential complex in Dubai and a prototype trainer that is 3D-printed from compostable materials created by shoe brand Vivobarefoot and material science company Balena.

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Dezeen Debate is sent every Thursday and features a selection of the best reader comments and most talked-about stories. Read the latest edition of Dezeen Debate or subscribe here.

You can also subscribe to our other newsletters; Dezeen Agenda is sent every Tuesday containing a selection of the most important news highlights from the week, Dezeen Daily is our daily bulletin that contains every story published in the preceding 24 hours and Dezeen In Depth is sent on the last Friday of every month and delves deeper into the major stories shaping architecture and design.

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Climate fatalism stands in the way of a sustainable future but designers and architects are in an ideal position to overcome it, writes Katie Treggiden.

The mainstream media is finally waking up to the realities of climate change. As wildfires, floods and storms wreak havoc across the world, journalists and activists far braver than me are speaking truth to power to make sure we all know just how serious this thing is. And that is vital and right and proper.

However, fear doesn't motivate action. The biggest obstacle for the environmental movement is no longer climate-change deniers – the evidence is incontrovertible to all but conspiracy theorists. It is those who are fully on board with the fact that humans are the root cause of some very real problems, but just don't believe that we have what it takes to solve them. Our biggest climate challenge is no longer denial, but despair.

Fear doesn't motivate action

To spark meaningful change, we need hope. We need to believe not only that a better world is possible, but that we each have the power to help bring it about.

I'm not talking about blind faith or passive optimism. I'm talking about active hope. I'm talking about waking up every morning and making a choice to believe that we can solve this wicked problem, and then choosing to act accordingly. And in today's climate – political, economic and social as well as environmental – hope is an act of defiance.

So, how can architects and designers inspire defiant hope?

The Berkana Institute's "two loops" model of systems change proposes multiple roles that people and institutions can play in the transition from a declining system to an emerging one. As the dominant system begins its decline, "stabilisers" keep what is required in place until something better is ready, while "hospice workers" support the process of decline, minimising harm to those still within it.

In turn, the emergent system gathers pace as "pioneers" come up with new ideas, products and systems and they are joined together into networks by "connectors". Together, they form supportive "communities of practice" that enable them to grow their influence and, eventually, rise up to replace the old system.

In the transition from the declining linear take-make-waste economy to an emerging regenerative and circular economy, we might cast architects and designers in the role of "pioneers" – problem-solvers who can create pragmatic ways to move society towards a better world.

And that is valid; if architecture and design solve problems, then surely they should contribute genuine, impactful, and replicable solutions to arguably the biggest problem ever to have faced humanity.

In today's climate – political, economic and social as well as environmental – hope is an act of defiance

However, I believe they can also play another part. On the emerging-system loop, there is a role for "illuminators": people who paint a picture of what a better world might look like.

You see, there is no point in the model where the two loops touch, no simple juncture where people can step off one system and onto the next – they must take a leap of faith. Illuminators are the people who can give them the courage to do that.

One of the questions I get asked most often when I speak at conferences about craft and design in the transition to a circular economy is: "Okay, but how does it scale?"

Firstly, I would contend that scalability is what got us into this mess, and what we need instead are locally replicable solutions, but increasingly I am questioning whether everything we propose as an industry even needs to do that. Perhaps part of our role is simply to inspire hope – defiant, stubborn, active hope.

Kyloe Design's kelp chair, showcased recently as part of Green Grads at the London Design Festival, may never make it into production and it's highly unlikely that it will drive the wholesale replacement of leather across the furniture industry. But it does showcase the potential of this incredibly renewable, climate-positive, underutilised material, while provoking the curiosity to learn more.

From responsible material sourcing and advocating for worker welfare to using smartphone components anyone can switch out, Fairphone is offering real-world solutions. But its founder, Bas Van Abel, was realistic about what he could achieve directly, so launched the company with the stated aim of motivating the rest of the industry.

There is little doubt that his efforts have had a hand in both the incoming EU legislation that will require smartphone batteries to be "easily replaceable" and the recent launch of a repairable Nokia phone.

Part of our role is simply to inspire hope – defiant, stubborn, active hope

Zaha Hadid Architects principal Patrik Schumacher might have criticised the "lack of architecture" at last year's Venice Architecture Biennale, but what if contributions such as the German pavilion (pictured), which he described as nothing more than "piles of construction material", are exactly what we need to inspire alternative ways of working? Entitled Open for Maintenance, the exhibition was billed as "an action framework for a new building culture" and collated materials recovered from previous installations to be used for repairing and upgrading buildings and public spaces all over Venice.

One of my favourite quotes about hope is from the author Arundhati Roy, who says: "Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." The question I would like to pose is: how can we, as an industry, help everyone to hear the sound of her breath?

Katie Treggiden is the founder and director of Making Design Circular, a membership community and online-learning platform for sustainable designers and makers, and the author of Broken: Mending and Repair in a Throwaway World (Ludion, 2023).

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Heatherwick Studio's Building Soulfulness exhibition and the inaugural edition of the Guangzhou Design Triennial are among the Chinese architecture and design events featured in Dezeen Events Guide this month.

Also in the guide are the Seventy Years Leading Italian Design Trends exhibition by Compasso d'Oro, Pradasphere II and Beauty Changes: 100 Years of Italian Fashion and Costume.

Compasso d'Oro Award: Seventy Years Leading Italian Design Trends
9 November 2023 to 24 February 2024, Shanghai

Seventy Years Leading Italian Design Trends is award organisation Compasso d'Oro's first public exhibition in China, displaying over 100 winning pieces.

Celebrating its 70th anniversary, Compasso d'Oro showcases projects from 1954 to the present day across seven design themes, including Craft and Industry, The Power of Communication, Invention and Creation.

Designed by Aldo Cibic and Joseph Dejardin, the exhibition takes place at Bund 18 Jiushi Art Gallery and aims to explore how craft, technology and culture interact with one another in the process of design.

Beauty Changes: 100 Years of Italian Fashion and Costume
17 November 2023 to 29 February 2024, Shanghai

The Beauty Changes: 100 Years of Italian Fashion and Costume exhibition presents Italian fashion and costume designs spanning from 1900 works to contemporary pieces, which demonstrate the country's evolution of fashion, women and cultural identity.

Over 100 fashion items are on display at the 170-year-old historical No. 1 Waitanyuan, as well as sketches and videos highlighting fashion, opera and film.

Highlights include classic designs from 20 leading international fashion designers, such as Maria Monaci Gallenga, Emilio Schuberth, Roberto Capucci, Sorelle Fontana, Emilio Pucci, Giorgio Armani and Valentino Garavani.

Pradasphere II
7 December 2023 to 21 January 2024, Shanghai

Pradaphere II is a retrospective exhibition by fashion house Prada. Drawn from its archive, the showcase spotlights the brand's engagements across architecture, art, culture and sport in recent decades.

This free exhibition is curated by the brand's co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, and includes more than 400 physical and digital artefacts that document its history and culture since its beginning in 1913.

The exhibition is on show at the Start Museum, located in the historical building of the Nanpu Railway Station, which was renovated by French architect Jean Nouvel and opened in 2022.

Guangzhou Design Triennial
16 January to 31 May 2024, Guangzhou

The first edition of Guangzhou Design Triennial launches in January 2024, located at the Guangdong Museum of Art.

The event – which follows the theme The Warm-beings – invites interdisciplinary designers, architects, scholars and cultural practitioners to re-think politics and ethics through design to address global challenges.

Curated by researcher Naiyi Wang, the triennial aims to be an international platform for creative exchange between the local Greater Bay area and the contemporary design community.

Heatherwick Studio: Building Soulfulness
17 January to 14 March 2024, Shanghai

British architecture practice Heatherwick Studio opens its Building Soulfulness exhibition at the Bund Finance Centre in Shangai, after having previously taken place in Japan and South Korea.

Curated by Mami Kataoka of the Mori Art Museum, the Shanghai exhibition features models of the studio's completed buildings and collaborative projects across the globe, such as a full-scale model of Airo car and spun chairs. A dedicated section introducing West Bund Orbit, the studio's newest project in Shanghai, is also on display.

Dezeen's China editor Christina Yao joined the practice's founder Thomas Heatherwick on 16 January at the opening forum to discuss cross-boundary synergies between architectural design and urban planning, as well as sustainable urban development under the theme of Polyphony of the City.

About Dezeen Events Guide

Dezeen Events Guide is our guide to the best architecture and design events taking place across the world each year. The guide is updated weekly and includes virtual events, conferences, trade fairs, major exhibitions and design weeks.

Inclusion in the guide is free for basic listings, with events selected at Dezeen's discretion. Organisers can get standard, enhanced or featured listings for their events, including images, additional text and links, by paying a modest fee.

In addition, events can ensure inclusion by partnering with Dezeen. For more details on inclusion in Dezeen Events Guide and media partnerships with Dezeen, email eventsguide@dezeen.com.

The post Five architecture and design events from China in January appeared first on Dezeen.

University of the Arts London graduate Yalan Dan has fabricated a series of 3D-printed bioplastic joints that can be used to repair furniture or construct it from scraps.

His Furniture First Aid Kit, FFA for short, provides users with the means to mend broken or discarded items and give new life to waste materials such as plywood or chipboard by combining them to form new items.

The project was informed by the concept of stooping and skip diving, which involves salvaging abandoned, damaged and unwanted furniture from skips or sidewalks.

Dan aims to change perceptions about furniture as being readily disposable and hard to repair in a bid to keep items in circulation for longer.

"FFA can change the neglect of street furniture materials and encourage more people to act on their own to remake furniture that is going to be thrown away," he told Dezeen.

"It also encourages people to be more active in picking up unwanted street furniture to create new value."

Four distinct joints allow surfaces to be fixed at different angles, including L-shaped, T-shaped and cross-shaped pieces, as well as a joint that attaches a broad, flat surface to a narrow, upright piece.

Holes in the joints allow screws or nails to be inserted, holding the surfaces together.

The joints are 3D printed using polylactic acid (PLA) bioplastic, coloured red and orange to reference the visual language of medical first aid kits.

"[The FFA is] inspired by medical first aid kits – most are bright red, enabling people to see them quickly," Dan told Dezeen. "At the same time, it is an eye-catching cue to differentiate the restored furniture from other furniture."

So far, Dan has used the FFA mainly to join wood-based materials such as chipboard and plywood. However, the designer says the kit can also be used in conjunction with other types of surfaces.

"Based on my research, most of the waste furniture thrown away on the streets is made of wood or plywood," Dan told Dezeen. "However, [the FFA] is not limited to wooden furniture – it can be fixed on the surface of many hard things, such as plastic, plaster and stone."

The Furniture First Aid Kit is Dan's graduation project from the University of the Arts London.

Other student-designed projects published on Dezeen in recent months include a trio of satirical smart home devices informed by feng shui and a portable treehouse-style tent that can be towed behind a bicycle.

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Pieces by Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand, and Charles and Ray Eames are included in this roundup of modernist furniture designed by architects working in the 20th century.

Many of the architects whose work is featured below turned their hand to furniture design after training in architecture.

For some, it was a career change, while others treated it as an addition to their architecture work, opting to design some of the furnishings for the homes they were building.

After making an impact on 20th-century design, some of the furniture pieces are still in production and recognisable today, while others have influenced contemporary designers and manufacturers to reinterpret them for modern-day customers.

Read on for 12 furniture designs by 20th-century architects:

E1027 side table by Eileen Gray (1927)

Designed by Irish architect Eileen Gray as a multifunctional table that could be used in living spaces and by the bedside, E1027 comprises two circular metal tubes held together by a metal stand.

The table was created for the modernist E-1027 villa on the south coast of France, which was completed in 1929 as Gray's first major architecture project.

LC4 Chaise Lounge by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand (1928)

French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier worked with his cousin and fellow architect Pierre Jeanneret and Perriand on multiple recognisable furniture designs.

Pictured above in a home in Wyoming is the LC4 Chaise Lounge, which was designed by the trio to follow the natural contours of the human body.

Cesca Chair by Marcel Breuer (1928)

Hungarian-American architect Marcel Breuer designed the cantilevered Cesca Chair in 1928 with a tubular steel frame and a rattan seat and backrest.

GRT Architects furnished a Manhattan restaurant and cocktail bar with upholstered versions of the Cesca Chair, which furniture brand Knoll has produced since 1968.

Barcelona Chair by Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich (1929)

Designed by Mies van der Rohe in 1929 with his long-term partner and fellow architect Lilly Reich, the Barcelona Chair is considered an iconic piece of furniture from the modernist movement.

Pictured above is the chair with its matching stool at the Mass is More installation at the Barcelona Pavilion, a home also designed by Mies van der Rohe.

Find out more about Barcelona Chair ›

Stool 60 by Alvar Aalto (1933)

Stool 60 was created by Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto in 1933 with a simple, flat-packed design made up of a circular seat and three legs.

Architect Daisuke Motogi took the iconic stool and reinterpreted it into one hundred different iterations for the Hackability of the Stool exhibition (pictured above), including designs where the stool became a chess board, loo roll holder, drying rack and vinyl record player.

Find out more about Hackability of the Stool ›

Racine Collection by Frank Lloyd Wright and Steelcase (1939)

American company Steelcase used archival designs by architect Wright to create the Racine Collection of furniture, which includes desks and office chairs.

Steelcase looked to furniture designed by Wright for his SC Johnson Administration building, completed in 1939 and located in the town of Racine, Wisconsin.

As part of Dezeen's review of 2023, our readers named the Racine Collection the best furniture design of the year.

Find out more about the Racine Collection ›

Ball Chair by Lina Bo Bardi (1951)

Defined by its encompassing semi-spherical seat that can be rotated to different angles, the Ball Chair by Italian-Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi is supported by a metal ring on four legs.

Designed by Bo Bardi in 1951, the chair was relaunched by Italian design brand Arper in 2014 in a range of upholstery options, including black leather and various colourful fabrics.

Find out more about Ball Chair ›

Florence Knoll Sofa by Florence Knoll Bassett (1954)

Florence Knoll Bassett – who trained as an architect before founding the furniture brand Knoll Associates with her husband Hans Knoll – designed multiple pieces of furniture for her brand.

Knoll, who died in 2019, described her designs as the "bread and butter" of the brand, including the Florence Knoll Sofa pictured above. The pieces were sold alongside sculptural designs by other modernist designers.

Eames Lounge Chair by Charles and Ray Eames (1956)

American husband and wife duo Charles and Ray Eames designed a lounge chair with an accompanying ottoman in 1956 made from moulded plywood, a production method the Eameses had been pioneering since the early 1940s.

Pictured above is the Eames Lounge Chair and ottoman in a Los Angeles apartment that architecture and design studio OWIU Studio updated with beige-toned furniture and materials.

Find out more about Eames Lounge Chair ›

Egg chair by Arne Jacobsen (1958)

Created by Danish architect Arne Jacobsen in 1958 for the interior of the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen, the Egg chair is made by glueing leather or textile onto polyurethane foam, which is then moulded over a metal or fibreglass structural frame.

In a statement to Dezeen, design studio Pearson Lloyd founders Luke Pearson and Tom Lloyd claimed the concave chair would not be designed today as the amount of glue needed in its production makes it too difficult to recycle.

Wiggle Chair by Frank Gehry (1972)

Utilising the materials he typically used to make architectural models, architect Frank Gehry combined 60 layers of corrugated cardboard to create the sculptural Wiggle Chair in 1972.

Dutch interior design practice DAB Studio added the rounded chair to the transformation of a kitchen in a family home in the Netherlands to balance the space's rectangular forms.

Find out more about Wiggle Chair ›

Ventaglio table by Charlotte Perriand (1972)

After working on furniture with Le Corbusier between 1927 and 1937, Perriand pursued a solo career. Her designs were heavily influenced by nature and her time spent in Japan during the second world war.

In 1972 she designed the Ventaglio oak table with a geometric tabletop, which is currently manufactured by Italian furniture brand Cassina.

Find out more about Ventaglio ›

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Former Ferrari-designer Lowie Vermeersch has created a new type of micro vehicle intended to push traditional cars off the road. In this interview, he discusses new start-up Komma and his vision for the future of mobility.

"I always say, moving an 80-kilo person with 2.5 tonnes of material is not something we should consider as the best we can do, especially in an urban environment," said Vermeersch.

The Granstudio founder has previously overseen the design of the Ferrari FF and 458 Italia while design director at Pininfarina and led work on the Maserati Birdcage 75th concept car.

His latest project – Komma, invented together with Punkt founder and CEO Petter Neby – has a much smaller footprint. A covered, electric two-seater vehicle with car-like seats but a narrow width like a motorcycle, it is designed to take up less space on the roads and use less material to manufacture.

"Just making cars electric is not fully answering what is needed," Vermeersch told Dezeen. "We also need to be looking at how we can use less resources."

Neby and Vermeersch intend to do more with Komma than only manufacture vehicles, however; they plan to use the company to advocate for a shift in mobility away from the car and towards other, diverse modes of transport.

They hope that Komma can influence urban design in the 21st century in a similar way to how cars shaped cities in the 20th century, this time not with highways and suburbs but features that promote sustainability and wellbeing.

Startup seeks to "ignite a change in urban mobility"

Komma began life in late 2019, after Neby approached Vermeersch with "a need that he had lived himself, for a type of vehicle that he felt was missing", Vermeersch said.

The design and development were handled by Vermeersch's team at Granstudio, the transport-focused design studio he founded in 2010, while entrepreneur Neby brought experience in minimalist electronics from his company Punkt, whose devices include a dumbphone designed by Jasper Morrison.

The Komma car – which comes in two models, one fully closed and one open at the sides – is designed to carry one or two people as well as a small amount of cargo, such as shopping, on trips around the city or suburbs.

The company claims the vehicle covers 90 per cent of car-use needs while requiring only 30 per cent of the material resources and energy, and that it can bring pleasure back to the daily drive.

The narrow maximum width of 90 centimetres is, says Vermeersch, particularly key to the transformative potential of the vehicle.

"We always looked at: what will be the consequence if you have mass adoption of this kind of vehicle, and is that consequence positive?" said the designer.

"That's why we worked so hard on making a vehicle that is only half of a car width – which is narrower than a motorcycle – because only then can you ignite a change in urban mobility."

"At a certain point, a city could decide to just paint one extra line in the middle of the street that could become dedicated to such kinds of vehicles," he argued. "Whereas most of the microcar offerings, which are wider, do not have that potential because they need to behave like cars and need to move together with cars."

Push for change in mobility about being "true to what in essence cars stood for"

Vermeersch and Neby plan to be active in shaping the future of mobility through Komma. They see vehicle design and urban design as feeding into each other, and believe that if a new, nimble vehicle archetype emerges, it could enable cities to gradually reduce the road space and parking given to cars and allocate more room to pedestrians and community activities.

Vermeersch says the company will try to partner with local governments and infrastructure and mobility companies to develop pilot projects in this space, claiming the Komma is a good fit for car share schemes, taxi services and private ownership alike.

While it may seem like blasphemy for a car-lover to actively pursue a reduction in their manufacture and use, Vermeersch contends that his position is about honouring the idea behind the invention rather than being "stuck to the object" itself.

"If you want to be true to what in essence cars stood for, they stood for a sort of individual freedom of mobility," he said. "And I think everybody would agree that a car being stuck in a traffic jam is not living up to that."

Future vision for transport needs to have "human pleasure at its heart"

Vermeersch insists he is not anti-cars. He believes they will, and should, continue to play a role in the transport ecosystem, albeit a reduced one.

"For me, the future of cars is as part of a more diverse mobility spectrum, whereas until now, the car has been rather dominating the spectrum," he said. "The problems that we have with cars are not so much in the car itself but how we use it and where we use it."

"I think the car will still be in the future the best and most ecological solution for many, many uses," he continued. "And with 'car', I mean a kind of improved future car, so electric is definitely one step of it. I'd also like to see cars developing more lightness."

Vermeersch is also keen to shift the discourse away from being either "for or against" cars, which he sees as feeding into a culture war where freedom is pitched in opposition to over-consumption.

"The search for a better way of living is not helped if we take these absolute positions," said Vermeersch. "It's as if the car is the origin for all the bad things that's going on. That's not true."

Rather, he thinks we should see the move away from cars in cities as a "positive story" of the evolution of mobility.

"For me, in that picture of a more diverse mobility spectrum there's also place for having the cars that you really have fun with," he said. "And maybe it's not the car you own; maybe it's the car that you use on the weekend or share."

"Any scenario that we think about the future, if it will not have human pleasure at its heart, it's destined to fail. I think that's the part that keeps me connected to what people are passionate about with cars."

Designers must "look beyond the archetype of cars"

Komma hopes to release its vehicle by the end of 2025 targeting Europe as well as the USA and Canada as its first markets.

It will have a top speed of 130 kilometres per hour, equivalent to some of Europe's highest road-speed limits, and include car-like active safety features such as anti-lock brakes, airbags and anti-collision controls.

For the battery, there will be the option of either a single 7.5 kilowatt-hour or twin 15 kilowatt-hour module – both much smaller than in a standard-sized electric car but giving an expected range of up to 200 kilometres, similar to an electric Mini Cooper.

Vermeersch says that Granstudio designed the vehicle from the ground up to take advantage of the "geometric freedom" offered by electric drivetrains, which allow the engine to be virtually hidden inside the wheel rather than shaping the layout of the vehicle.

To add the desired element of pleasurability to the driving experience, there is torque vectoring on the wheels for improved grip, and the semi-open version of Komma has been given motorcycle-like handling, with a handlebar for steering and a tilt mechanism on the wheels.

"Knowing so well how cars are made also allows you to see new opportunities when new technologies come," said Vermeersch. "I think what is needed is more people looking into solutions who are, on one hand, broad-minded enough to look beyond the archetype of cars, but on the other hand, have enough knowledge of them to also understand how you can do that."

"There's fantastic things happening within the car business, and there's fantastic ideas about mobility at the broader scale, the urban scale, but they have a hard time overlapping," he continued. "Komma and also Granstudio for me is really about that."

The photography and images are courtesy of Komma.

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Dezeen Showroom: Croatian design brand Martina Banozic Textiles draws on the textures found in nature for its range of wallpapers.

Martina Banozic Textiles' wallpaper collections include various patterned wall coverings, all printed on linen and silk, which are informed by both nature and art.

Among the wallpapers offered by the studio is Stone, a collection of textural wall coverings informed by the appearance of natural stone and its characteristic striations and mottled areas.

Another wallpaper informed by nature is Sand, which has an organic, linear appearance reminiscent of raked sand.

Kintsugi is also a wallpaper offered by the studio and is decorated with lines of varying thicknesses, drawing upon objects treated with the Japanese art of Kintsugi, which involves mending cracked objects with gold lacquer.

MB Studio wallpapers come in various sizes and colours with custom variations available on request.

Product: Wallpaper collections
Brand: Martina Banozic Textiles
Contact: info@martinabanozictextiles.com

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If you're hosting an event during Milan design week 2024, get in touch with the Dezeen Events Guide team to be featured in our digital guide to this year's festival.

Milan design week is the largest annual design event, and the 2024 edition will be no exception. Hosting hundreds of fringe events, known as Fuorisalone, as well as the design fair Salone del Mobile, the festival takes place from 15 to 21 April.

Every year, the festival presents a programme of exhibitions, installations, tours, talks, workshops, open showrooms, conferences and parties.

The fringe events take place across districts in Milan, such as Brera Design District, Isola Design District, Tortona Design Week and 5Vie Design Week.

During the design week, the 62nd edition of Salone del Mobile takes place from 16 to 21 April, hosting the biennial kitchen exhibition titled EuroCucina, alongside thousands of other design products.

This year's festival guide follows the success of the 2023 edition, which received 100,000 page views. The guide will feature the key information about each event, including dates, times and locations, and will be updated regularly leading up to the festival.

How to get listed in Dezeen's digital guide to Milan design week

Get in touch with the Dezeen Events Guide team at eventsguide@dezeen.com to book your listing or to discuss a wider partnership with Dezeen. There are three pricing tiers:

Standard listings cost £125 and include the event name, date and location details plus a website link. These listings will also feature up to 50 words of text about the event. Standard listings are included at the discretion of the Dezeen Events Guide team.

Enhanced listings cost £175 and include all of the above plus an image at the top of the listing's page and a preview image on the Dezeen Events Guide homepage. These listings will also feature up to 100 words of text about the event.

Featured listings cost £350 and would include everything as part of an enhanced listing plus a post on @dezeen Threads channel, inclusion in the featured events carousel on the right hand of the homepage for up to two weeks and 150 words of text about the event. This text can include commercial information such as ticket prices and offers and can feature additional links to website pages such as ticket sales, newsletter signups etc.

About Dezeen Events Guide

Dezeen Events Guide is our guide to the best architecture and design events taking place across the world each year.

The guide is updated weekly and includes virtual events, conferences, trade fairs, major exhibitions and design weeks.

For more details on inclusion in the Dezeen Events Guide, including in our guide to Milan design week, please email eventsguide@dezeen.com.

The illustration is by Justyna Green.

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US start-up Rabbit and tech company Teenage Engineering have designed the R1, a "pocket companion" that aims to upturn the dominance of smartphones in our lives by using artificial intelligence to complete tasks.

Revealed at last week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the Rabbit R1 is a palm-sized, bright orange AI assistant that is designed to take actions on behalf of its user, even where those actions involve multiple or complex steps.

The device, which the company described as a "pocket companion", could be used to book flights, stream music or edit Photoshop images, among other uses.

Users push and hold a button on the right-hand side of the device to talk to their R1 as they would a walkie-talkie, issuing commands in natural language and viewing a simplified visual interface that represents their assistant as a pixel art-styled bunny.

Rabbit is asking consumers to rethink many of their digital habits with the pared-back invention, including how they interact with apps, what security norms they accept, and how their devices can look.

At a CES keynote address, Rabbit founder and CEO Jesse Lyu said that the company had aimed to create "the simplest computer" and a "delightful" user experience — "something so intuitive that you don't need to learn how to use it".

"The best way to achieve this is to break away from the app-based operating system currently used by smartphones," he said. "Instead, we envision a natural language-centred approach."

The R1 hosts Rabbit's custom AI, a type of Large Action Model (LAM). LAMs represent an evolution of the Large Language Models (LLMs) that have become well-known from chatbots like ChatGPT.

Whereas those merely generate text in response to human input, Lyu explained, Rabbit's AI also generates actions on behalf of users — activities like buying groceries online or booking taxis or tickets.

These sorts of personal AI "agents" have been increasingly hyped online, but Rabbit claims theirs is the first operating system built with such a LAM.

The LAM works by first learning to understand people's intentions and behaviours on specific apps, then mimicking those actions. There is no need for custom integrations like Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for each app, as the model is universal and functions across all mobile and desktop environments.

At launch, Rabbit says the R1 will already have been trained to work with the most popular apps, and it will continue to roll out more functionalities in the future. It will also add the ability for users to train their own agents — or "rabbits" — on more niche apps.

The device is standalone and does not need to be connected to a smartphone to function.

For the industrial design, Rabbit worked with Teenage Engineering — known for its innovative takes on music gadgets like synthesisers and speakers — to develop an original look with a nostalgic touch.

The company says it took cues from the Tamagotchi – the Japanese digital toy pet – and aimed to make the device "as strikingly beautiful as it is intuitively functional".

As well as a 2.88-inch touchscreen display and the touch-to-talk button, the physical components include a scroll wheel to navigate the display and the "rabbit eye" — a rotating camera for computer vision. This enables the agents to carry out tasks like "looking" in the fridge and identifying the ingredients there to suggest a recipe.

As an avatar, the operating system is represented on the screen by a bunny head that jumps up and down while processing information and bops along with headphones when playing music.

Rabbit says there are security benefits to many of its design choices. The touch-to-talk button avoids the "always listening mode" of smart speakers, a gadget that Lyu described as "outdated" in his keynote.

Similarly, the rotating capability of the "eye" keeps the camera lens in a position where it is physically blocked until the user requests it, cutting off another avenue for surveillance.

Rabbit also promises a high level of encryption, and says that users will always have awareness and control of the actions delegated to the agents. The device will not store the user's credentials for third-party services.

All of the processing is done within data centres rather than on the device, which Rabbit says means the device is inexpensive — it retails for US$199 (£159) — and consumes little power.

It does, however, add to the demand on data centres, which require huge amounts of water and electricity.

Lyu said that with the LAM fast evolving, the R1 would eventually help users do things that could never be achieved on an app-based phone, but that the device is not intended as a direct substitute.

"We did not build Rabbit R1 to replace your phone," he said. "It's just a different generation of devices. The app-based system was introduced more than 15 years ago, and the new generation of AI-powered devices are just getting started."

Since CES, Rabbit has since taken pre-orders for more than 30,000 R1 units.

Other devices on show at the trade fair, the largest in the field of consumer gadgets, included a world-first transparent OLED television by LG and a "thermometer of the future" by Withings.

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Designers from ten high-profile companies have joined forces to help improve access to clean water and sanitation as part of the Design for Good consortium. Chief experience officer Fazilat Damani shares five of the most promising.

Design for Good (DfG) was originally launched in 2022 as a non-profit alliance of ten businesses from different industries, including tech companies Microsoft and Philips and London's Royal College of Art.

The alliance also includes food corporations Nestlé and PepsiCo, which have previously been named among the five most plastic-polluting companies in the world.

Working in two-year cycles, designers from each of these companies are donating their time and skills pro bono, collaborating in teams to tackle one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out by the United Nations.

"The sustainability challenges identified by the United Nations are too large to be addressed by any single institution," DfG co-founder Ben Sheppard told Dezeen.

"We are delighted to see many of the world's leading companies, including direct competitors, uniting as part of the DfG alliance in order to have an increased chance of making lasting, sustainable change together."

Need for clean water underlies all other SDGs

DfG's first cohort has already completed the research and prototyping stage for 26 different solutions to address Sustainable Development Goal number six: access to clean water and sanitation.

Now, in the second half of the two-year cycle, the teams are focused on implementing these ideas in collaboration with various development organisations.

According to DfG's chief experience officer Fazilat Damani, the ten founding members voted for water and sanitation as the first SDG to tackle since it is also one of the most fundamental.

"SDG six kind of permeates all the other 16 UN SDGs," she explained. "Take quality education – sanitation and water is important because if you drink unclean water, you get sick and you can't go to school."

"So it goes through all of them," she added. "And there's a lot of breadth in terms of the type of innovations that can come through."

DfG will choose a new SDG to tackle every two years, with education set to be the theme of the next cycle starting in September 2024.

"It's absolutely amazing to see how our designers can shift their thinking from designing in a commercial setting to designing for vulnerable communities," Damani said.

"They're really passionate about human-centred design, wanting to understand how these communities live and how it's different from what they know so that they can innovate something that can genuinely solve a problem."

Below, Damani shares five of the most exciting projects that have come out of the first cohort so far, including a DIY toilet and a gamified handwashing kit for children.

Germ Buster

This portable handwashing kit includes a germ-monster stamp that – much like viruses and bacteria – takes at least 20 seconds to wash off in a bid to teach children about the importance of proper hand hygiene.

The set also includes a monster-themed mesh bag (top image) filled with dry soap sheets, plus a bottle holder that screws onto a PET water bottle and can be hung up so that kids can wash their hands no matter where they are.

The project by designers from technology company Logitech and Grohe's parent company Lixil is a response to research showing that a million deaths could be prevented globally every year if people routinely washed their hands.

"What's neat about this is that it's designed for children and it plays into this playfulness," Damani said.

"They love stickers and things like that. And by having a stamp, they can visually see okay my hands are clean and just have a bit more fun with learning how to be hygienic."

The team is now hoping to work with a consumer packaged goods company to turn the Germ Buster concept into reality.

Team 118

Led by designers from Microsoft, Lixil and management consultancy McKinsey & Company, this collaboration with the Liberian Youth Parliament for Water sought to improve access to period products in the West African country of Liberia.

Instead of presenting a one-size-fits-all solution, the team developed a kind of match-making app, which recommends an appropriate product based on the financial resources and sanitation facilities available to people in the local area.

From menstrual cups to reusable pads, the app also shares details about how these period products should be used and cleaned, and how they can be locally sourced or DIYed.

"This is all about self-empowerment and female liberation," Damani said. "To ask for a menstrual product is a bit embarrassing. There's still a stigma around it. So this is about allowing a female to be self-sufficient."

"We take for granted that now we have everything at our disposal," she added. "We have underwear, we have menstrual cups, we have tampons. But in other vulnerable communities, they don't even know half of this stuff exists."

With the app completed, the team is currently working out a distribution model via social media.

WaterStarters

Regular maintenance is one of the key hurdles standing in the way of a reliable water supply in rural Kenya, with research suggesting that up to 40 per cent of hand pumps in sub-Saharan Africa are broken at any one time.

Social enterprise WaterStarters aims to tackle this issue by using a franchise model to encourage locals to make a business out of establishing and managing a groundwater pump for their community.

To support them through the maintenance process, a team of designers from Philips and McKinsey & Company created an app that prompts users to conduct check-ups and provides guidance on how to fix any issues through tutorials as well as voice and video calls.

"We're not only focusing on maintenance but it provides an income-generating opportunity for an entrepreneur in the vulnerable community," Damani said.

"So they can take ownership of this. They can generate money and they're fully equipped with how to do the maintenance so they're not left on their own. They have a support system in place."

Currently, the platform is being trialled in Kenya's Kajiado County so that feedback can be gathered to build an app store-ready version. Once implemented, the team believes the initiative could help to bring clean water to 63,000 people within two years.

Sabal

Sabal is a make-your-own-toilet kit, designed to offer girls and women living in urban slums across India a safer and more sanitary alternative to shared community restrooms.

Faced with paying fees for unhygienic public toilets and the added risk of violence at night, nearly a quarter of women in these communities frequently hold their pee or refrain from drinking liquids to avoid bathroom use, according to research conducted as part of DfG.

Created by a team of designers from the Royal College of Art (RCA), Philips, Lixil and McKinsey & Company, the Sabal kit allows women to take back their agency by creating a DIY toilet for themselves using readily accessible materials.

The at-home version consists of a bucket topped with a plastic toilet seat and lined with a compostable bin bag, which can be tied up and composted after the urine is solidified using an absorbent powder.

Meanwhile, the portable version is housed in a carrier made of an old sari and contains a Shewee-style portable urinal, a torch, rape whistle and reusable wet wipes.

"It's like a toilet in a purse," Damani said. "You can also build these kits so that you can then sell them and use it as an income-generating opportunity."

"A prototype has been made for this one," she added. "And what we're doing right now is working with development organisations to see who wants to take it forward and really hone in on some of the aspects of culture to make sure we don't offend anyone."

People's Public Toilet Builder

The World Toilet Organisation partnered with designers from the RCA, PepsiCo, Nestle and McKinsey to create the "world's first" centralised guidelines for designing public toilets in different regions across the globe.

The project aims to compile often disparate, incomplete and hard-to-find information into one central online compendium for the first time, to ensure that all communities can have access to safe and hygienic restrooms that are appropriate to the local culture, climate, building codes and affluence level.

"If you're an architect or if you're a community member and you need to build a toilet in a country that's predominantly Muslim, for example, there are certain standards that need to be held up around that," Damani explained.

"So it would be great if you could just put in your context and it spits out everything that you need."

The team has designed a prototype user interface for the platform and is now looking to work with a large language model AI to spot and fill any gaps in the data.

"It's still at a kind of idea phase," Damani added. "We're looking to partner with one of our alliance members or a development organisation that can actually invest the money in this particular expertise to help build out the back end."

All images courtesy of Design for Good.

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Designed by Marc Newson and unveiled at this week's Consumer Electronics Show, Swarovski Optik's AX Visio binoculars are equipped with artificial intelligence so they can identify bird and animal species.

Swarovski Optik — the segment of the Swarovski group dedicated to sports optics such as binoculars and rifle scopes — said it considers AX Visio to be the world's first smart binoculars, capable of identifying some 9,000 species of birds and wildlife in real time.

It targets mainly birdwatchers but also hunters with the invention, which has an augmented reality display so users can see species information overlaid on the image in front of them, and don't need to look away to consult a book, phone or friend.

Users turn a digital camera-like dial to the bird or mammal identification mode to enable the feature and click a button to begin identification.

The AX Visio also includes a camera for taking photos and videos and a "share discoveries" mode that lets users mark the location of an item of interest before passing the binoculars to another person.

Without the digital features switched on, the AX Visio still functions as a set of analogue binoculars, and there is an extra lens in between the usual two objective lenses to enable the digital functions.

"The AX Visio's added value for users consists of a real viewing experience that is enhanced with digital input," said Swarovski Optik chief technology and operations officer Andreas Gerk.

In an interview on the Swarovski Optik website, industrial designer Newson said that it had been special to work on a product that was the first of its kind and that integrating all of the technology — including augmented reality, Bluetooth, GPS and a camera — inside the small package had been a challenge.

"It's rare for a designer to work on something that is the first product within a category, which is naturally exciting and suffice to say, challenging," said Newson. "Binoculars are traditionally solely analogue objects, which, while compelling and 'future proof', are essentially bi-dimensional."

"The AX Visio belongs to a different typology, and one that is totally new in the combination of optics and technology," he added. "Similar to a modern camera, they are optical, electronic and digital."

The AX Visio is Newson's second product for Swarovski Optik following the CL Curio, a compact pair of traditional binoculars. AX Visio has a similar extruded aluminium bridge and focus wheel placement as that design.

Newson said he aimed for the AX Visio to be "intuitive, modern and crucially, comfortable in the hand and on the eye", while also having a bit of personality.

"I wanted them to feel approachable and usable," he said. "The inclination when designing high-performance items tends for them to be purposefully complex, and I was hoping to create something that was the opposite — intuitive and inviting."

"The three-scope construction is an obvious visual departure from other binoculars, and this encompasses the solid hinge and bridge detail, joining the dots between the three lenses," he continued. "This structure took a significant amount of time to rationalise — and manufacturing expertise to realise."

The AX Visio are designed to be repairable and able to be taken apart, which Svarovski Optik says is standard for its brand, and that future updates will be available through the companion app so that the product's life cycle will be "many years".

It also has an open programming interface and welcomes external providers to develop new functionalities for the binoculars.

The data and part of the AI model for bird identification came from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, a research institute that publishes the Merlin Bird ID app. The integration into the device was handled in house at Swarovski Optik.

The binoculars were revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the world's largest gadget trade fair, held yearly in Las Vegas.

Australian-born Newson is one of the world's most well known industrial designers. One of his early works, the 1990 Lockheed Lounge, is now the world's most expensive design object, and luxury items like an all-diamond ring and limited-edition samurai sword feature heavily in his oeuvre.

Among his more accessible designs are a toaster and kettle for Australian brand Sunbeam and a public toilet in Tokyo, and he is also known for working with Jony Ive at Apple.

CES 2024 takes place at various locations in Las Vegas from 9 to 12 January 2024. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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When textile company Byborre launched a digital platform, the aim was to be a disruptor like Airbnb or Uber. In an interview three years on, founder Borre Akkersdijk says it was "too big a jump" for an industry resistant to change.

Akkersdijk hoped that Byborre Create, billed as "a Photoshop for textiles", would kickstart a digital revolution by enabling fashion and furniture manufacturers to source their fabrics more responsibly.

With the textile industry producing 92 million tonnes of waste every year, he thought that brands would welcome a free-to-use tool that made the process more transparent.

Instead, the Dutch designer and entrepreneur found brands unwilling to deviate from what they were used to.

"We wanted to change the textile industry but it wasn't ready for it," Akkersdijk told Dezeen.

"We made the process easier, faster and more responsible, all at the same price. What we didn't anticipate was for the conversation to stop, just because it's not the normal routine."

"The industry is broken"

Byborre made its name as a fashion label, but after the launch of Create – named product of the year at the Dutch Design Awards in 2021 – it stopped releasing clothing collections and rebranded as a mission-driven innovation company.

Now, the company's sole focus is to make the textile industry fairer and more sustainable with the use of digitisation.

"The industry is broken; it has scaled to a size that we cannot comprehend," Akkersdijk said.

"Digitisation is the only way to [fix it]," he continued.

"I want to digitise the textile industry so that there is less overproduction and more balance. I want everybody who makes products using textiles to have access to a fully transparent supply chain."

When Dezeen interviewed Akkersdijk in 2021, he said the aim of Create was to start the ball rolling on this process.

The open-source platform provides free access to the pioneering 3D-knitting technology on which Byborre built its reputation, as well as the company's wide-ranging supplier network.

This makes it possible for users to easily create bespoke textiles and find the most efficient and eco-friendly way of producing them – but Create has failed to have the impact Akkersdijk had hoped for.

Now he understands that this shift was too radical for furniture manufacturers, who rarely design or produce their textiles.

Most source their fabrics from multinational textile producers, which gives them less control over the material supply chain or the production volumes.

"Everybody in the business is so used to selecting from existing textiles without understanding the consequences of doing that, and it results in so much overproduction," said Akkersdijk.

"We gave them the innovation to change. But because the system is already set, the heels just went into the sand."

"I never set out to compete"

In response, Byborre has had no choice but to adopt a more traditional approach.

In November 2022, the brand launched a ready-to-order textile collection of its own, aimed at the interiors market. The collection currently includes 19 designs, available in 147 variants that are all fully customisable.

Akkersdijk said the aim was not to take business away from other textile brands, but rather to demonstrate how the system could be improved by introducing on-demand production.

It led to collaborations with furniture brands including Fogia and Lapalma, but also created friction with textile brands.

"There are so many great textile companies; I never set out to compete with them," Akkersdijk said.

"I just wanted them to change for the better. But I realised the only way to do that was to compete with them."

Akkersdijk had envisioned that other textile producers would join the Create platform, allowing it to evolve into a complete ecosystem for sourcing responsible textiles.

So far, he said he has been mostly met with either resistance or confusion.

He claims that one brand he approached thought he was looking for a buyout. He accuses another of actively blocking partner companies from working with Byborre.

"I want us all to move together, but that's not how it is seen," he said.

Many of the major textile producers, meanwhile, are working on in-house digitisation. Akkersdijk likens the situation to the early days of satellite navigation in the car industry.

"All the big car companies built their own navigation systems, but today everybody just uses Google Maps," he said.

"Why didn't the car companies just work together with Google? Why did they think they had to do it themselves? And that is a bit like what the textile industry is doing right now."

"Small stepping stones" towards change

Akkersdijk trained as a designer, studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and Design Academy Eindhoven before going on to work in the Paris studio of trend forecaster Li Edelkoort.

He co-founded Byborre with former business partner Arnoud Haverlag in 2015, on the back of a series of high-profile collaborations with brands including Nike, Moncler and Louis Vuitton.

In February 2023, the company secured €16.9million in Series B funding from a consortium of investors that include Invest-NL, VP Capital, SHIFT Invest and Amsterdams Klimaat en Energiefonds (AKEF).

The brand has unveiled numerous fashion collaborations in recent months, with brands including Ace & Tate, Palace, NN.07, Diemme and Albino & Preto.

However Akkersdijk is particularly focused on interiors, where the lifespan of products is typically much longer and customers are more accustomed to paying for high-quality textiles.

"If you look at the markets where textile is used best, it's not fashion," he said.

"We're not neglecting the fashion world, but when we started growing the business it became contradicting to what we wanted to do. For the average garment, you talk about use in terms of days of use, while for a sofa it's years."

The company staged the exhibition The Elephant in the Room at Milan design week in April and Dutch Design Week in October, to give insight into the impact of material supply chains.

Byborre has also hosted workshops that introduce emerging and established designers to the Create platform, in the hope they might become brand ambassadors.

Akkersdijk still believes change is possible, but understands that it can only be achieved with "small stepping stones".

"If I had anticipated all the obstacles we have faced, I would have never dared to start," said Akkersdijk.

"It gives me hope and energy every time I hear that somebody has used our textiles because it is a little step closer to changing the status quo."

The photography is courtesy of Byborre.

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Academic and designer Neri Oxman has responded to allegations of plagiarism following a report by the news website Business Insider.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Oxman apologised for citation errors in her PhD, which she completed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2010, stating that she "omitted quotation marks for certain work that I used".

"I regret and apologize for these errors"

The American–Israeli academic and designer made the statement following a piece published on Business Insider, which alleged that her dissertation was "marred by plagiarism".

"I was forwarded an email this morning from a reporter at Business Insider who noted that there are four paragraphs in my 330-page PhD dissertation: "Material-based Design Computation," which I completed at MIT in 2010, where I omitted quotation marks for certain work that I used," she wrote.

"For each of the four paragraphs in question, I properly credited the original source's author(s) with references at the end of each of the subject paragraphs, and in the detailed bibliography end pages of the dissertation," she continued.

"In these four paragraphs, however, I did not place the subject language in quotation marks, which would be the proper approach for crediting the work. I regret and apologize for these errors."

"I have always recognized the profound importance of the contributions of my peers"

In her response, Oxman also responded to a series of other apparent citation errors in her PhD that were highlighted in the Business Insider article, including paraphrasing German physicist Claus Mattheck in a sentence without a proper citation.

"I deeply apologize to Mattheck for inadvertently not citing him when I paraphrased [him]," Oxman said, stating that Mattheck's work is properly cited elsewhere in her thesis.

"As I have dedicated my career to advancing science and innovation, I have always recognized the profound importance of the contributions of my peers and those who came before me," she added.

The accusations of plagiarism directed at Oxman follow the resignation of Harvard University president Claudine Gay, who has also been accused of plagiarism.

Gay resigned following a campaign against her presidency, in which billionaire hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman, who is married to Oxman, played a significant role.

Gay was initially under pressure due to criticism of Harvard University's response to the Israel-Hamas conflict and alleged campus antisemitism. The pressure intensified when an investigation by conservative activist Christopher Rufo and journalist Aaron Sibarium alleged multiple instances of plagiarism in her dissertation and journal pieces.

"We expect to dispute a substantial number of facts"

Following the Business Insider article, Ackman posted a series of posts on X criticising its reporting.

"We expect to dispute a substantial number of facts in the story," he wrote on X.

"Unfortunately we were never given the opportunity to analyse the facts before Business Insider published its story 90 minutes after alleging plagiarism in a 6,900 word email," he continued. "Once we have completed our analysis we will revert with corrections of the record."

Oxman, who is known for her pioneering work in the field of material ecology, is a former tenured professor at MIT and led The Mediated Matter Research Group.

She was a contributor to Dezeen's recent Dezeen 15 series marking our 15th anniversary. Oxman used her Dezeen 15 manifesto and an accompanying movie to set out the vision for her new studio.

In her statement on X, Oxman gave more details of the studio, which is called Oxman and "has been in stealth mode" since she founded it in 2020.

"I have continued my work in a new company I founded in New York City called Oxman, which along with 27 other members of my team, we are working to advance innovation in product, architectural, and urban design," she wrote.

"Oxman has been in stealth mode. I look forward to sharing more about Oxman later this year."

Comments have been turned off on this story due to its sensitivity.

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Shoe brand Vivobarefoot and material science company Balena have created a prototype trainer that is 3D-printed from compostable materials.

Unveiled today at materials conference Biofabricate, the mono-material shoe was 3D-printed from a compostable, thermoplastic material created by Balena.

Described by Vivobarefoot as "scan-to-print-to-soil", the product will be created in a "fully automated process – scanned on phone and automatically printed". The shoes were designed to be composted in an industrial facility.

The company believes that the shoe will form part of a process of rethinking the current industrialised system of designing, manufacturing and disposing of trainers.

"Whilst the current system might have been fit for the early part of industrialisation, it's definitely not fit for the future" Vivobarefoot co-founder Asher Clark told Dezeen.

"In contrast to that, our goal is to create a flagship solution – one that's on demand, rather than from stock. We want it to be fast, digital, simple and ultimately an additive process," he continued.

"We want to build a system that creates product when you need using the only the materials you need when you need it, as opposed to an industrial system that's making huge mountains of stock with subtractive processes."

The trainers build on Vivobarefoot's VivoBiome shoes, which are also 3D-printed based on scans of user's feet, but are made from more traditional materials. Currently 176 "paying pioneers" are testing the first generation of the red VivoBiome shoes.

Vivobarefoot's on-demand "scan-to-print" process sees customers scan their own feet to create shoes that are much more fitted to the shape of an individual's feet.

"All of our feet are different in shape," said Clark. "So even if we want to make the perfect footwear, perfect feet, it's incredibly difficult to do that in a one-size-fits-all industrial model."

The prototype shoes were made from BioCirflex, which was developed by Balena, and complies with international biodegradation standard ASTM D6400-04 and European biodegradation standard EN 13432.

Although the product is biodegradable and compostable, it was not designed to be composted in a back garden. Vivobarefoot expects the product to be composted in an industrial facility, and establishing this process will be one of the tasks that need to be set up before a mass launch.

"The polymers will biodegrade in any compost environment," Balena founder David Roubach told Dezeen.

"In a compost environment you have specific enzymes that know to digest the monomers and it's the same enzymes you have in industrial and the same one you will have in your home compost," he continued.

"But it is not enough just to tailor the material, or to know how it will break down, you need also to work with a brand to really build an infrastructure for circularity."

"So legally, we can say yes, put it in your home compost, and it will biodegrade. But the truth is that we don't know how long it will take and we don't know if you have a compost in your garden," he continued.

"As a material science company, we understand that part of our responsibility is also to build the logic circle behind the material."

The trainers form part of Vivobarefoot's wider aim to radically change the footwear business as it believes that heavily cushioned shoes are damaging people's feet. It aims to create shoes using as little material as possible.

"Millions of years of evolution have done an amazing job – your feet are amazing bits of kit, we like this idea that the best bit of technology to go into a shoe is the human foot," said Clark.

"What we're trying to do is make is shoes that follow your feet, we're trying to make as little footwear as possible, to allow your feet to do what they were designed to do," he continued.

"Shoes aren't just trashing your health, all that fancy underfoot, cushioning and support that you're used to under your feet is actually making them shoe shaped and weak, which negatively impacts the way you move and ultimately negatively impacts your health."

Clark believes that the majority of "shoes are trashing your feet and the planet". Along with reducing the amount of material that goes into shoes and considering what happens at the end of their life, he believes that the whole manufacturing process needs to radically change.

"Shoes are made in offshore industrial supply chains that have huge environmental costs," he said.

"They're subtractive, which means that the way industrialisation works is that you're cutting away lots of material – there's lots of waste in order to get to a product, so ultimately, this whole process is slow, its analogue," he continued.

"It's also complicated, there's multiple layers to the supply chain and it's almost impossible to get your hands around in terms of the true environmental impact. But it's ultimately wasteful by design."

Brands that have launched footwear described as biodegradable include Bottega Veneta with its sugarcane and coffee boots and Adidas with the uppers of its Futurecraft trainers.

A more experimental composition came from German designer Emilie Burfeind, whose compostable sneakers are made with a mushroom mycelium sole and a canine hair upper.

Images courtesy of Vivobarefoot.

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Health tech company Withings has used the Consumer Electronics Show to unveil its BeamO "multiscope" – a device that allows people to conduct four routine medical checks at home, designed together with Elium Studio.

The small and portable device combines a contactless thermometer for measuring body temperature, an electrocardiogram (ECG) for heart rate, an oximeter for blood oxygen levels and a digital stethoscope for listening to heart and lung sounds.

Withings calls BeamO "the world's first multiscope" and says it is designed to allow people to conduct at-home check-ups or enhance their telehealth appointments with the sort of tests that a doctor would typically conduct in their office.

"BeamO will revolutionise the measurement of the core vitals carried out during medical visits from the comfort of one's own home," said Withings founder and president Eric Carreel. "This crucial data will provide a vital overview of overall health or warning signs of potential areas of concern."

"BeamO will be the thermometer of the future, providing the ability to assess temperature and observe the state of the heart and lungs," he continued.

The design and technology of BeamO is an evolution of Withings' Thermo, a no-contact infrared thermometer that came out in 2016.

BeamO carries on the rounded edges that feature in the original design but this time within a package that looks more like a compact remote control. As with all of Withings' products, it was designed together with fellow French company Elium Studio.

BeamO uses various sensors to carry out its multiple purposes, most of which work by sending out light waves and detecting how they bounce off the body.

Photoplethysmography – the technology in pulse oximeters – and electrodes along the sides of the device measure blood oxygen levels and heart rate while the user holds it in their grip.

Piezoelectric discs that convert pressure changes into electrical signals power the digital stethoscope, capturing sound waves through the back or chest. Users can listen to the audio through headphones or record and send it to their doctor via the Withings app. The app can also be used for health tracking.

Withings says there have also been improvements to the infrared thermometer since the launch of Thermo, with the latest sensor now producing a narrower focal area that gives more accurate measurements.

The company says some of the conditions and irregularities that BeamO could potentially detect include arrhythmias, abnormal heart rates, heart murmurs, lung wheezing and low blood oxygen, as well as possible fever and infection.

The vitals it measures overlap with what people are advised to monitor with Covid-19 and other respiratory infections.

"Post-pandemic, telemedicine is commonplace," said Careel. "While convenient and cost-effective, remote visits lacked the ability for health professionals to carry out the routine checks they perform in person."

"BeamO will make this possible remotely with a device that combines the functionality of four different pieces of medical equipment."

BeamO is expected to launch in Europe and Australia in summer 2024 and in the USA once it has clearance from the Food and Drug Administration.

The device was on display at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the world's biggest tech trade show, held at the start of each year in Las Vegas. Other highlights from this year's event include LG's transparent OLED television and AI-powered robot assistant.

CES 2024 takes place at various locations in Las Vegas from 9 to 12 January 2024. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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Materials companies Circular Matters and StoneCycling have used corn cobs – one of the world's most plentiful agricultural waste materials – to make interior cladding that is biodegradable and almost entirely bio-based.

Available in the form of tiles and sheets, CornWall is intended as a more sustainable alternative to ceramic interior wall tiles or plastic laminate.

The material is derived from more than 99 per cent renewable, biological sources, is created at low temperatures using mainly solar power and emits less carbon dioxide in its production than was captured by the corn as it grew, the manufacturers claim.

To give the products a long lifespan, Circular Matters and StoneCycling have produced the tiles with a mechanical fixing system, so they can be demounted and reused or given back to the company for cleaning and recycling.

The technology behind CornWall was invented by Circular Matters – a start-up spun out of a lab at Belgium's KU Leuven University, where founder Pieter Dondeyne and his team found a way to process plants to enhance their natural biopolymers and create durable materials.

The team then partnered with Dutch company StoneCycling to channel their technology into a product.

StoneCycling co-founder Ward Massa told Dezeen that the focus on corn came because it is one of the most grown crops on the planet and its waste is abundant.

"What happens when you grow corn for human consumption is when it's ready to harvest, you take off the corn and the corn cob is a leftover material because it doesn't hold any nutritious value," he said.

"Usually, that means that these corn cobs remain on the field and rot away, or they are burned as biomass to generate energy," he continued. "In both cases, you release the carbon that was stored in those fibres – it rots away and it gets released, or you burn it and it gets released."

With CornWall, the carbon is locked away until the tiles reach the end of their life and are left to decompose.

The production process begins with the discarded cobs being collected, dried and shredded into biomass.

This material is then mixed with other agricultural waste, binders and pigments and pressed into a plate material at a relatively low heat of 120 to 150 degrees. As a final step, the tiles are given a thin coating for water resistance.

All of the ingredients are derived from biomass apart from the pigment, which accounts for the 0.5 per cent of the product that is not bio-based – a very low percentage in a field where even products containing small amounts of materials of organic origin are sometimes labelled as bio-based.

According to Massa, the companies were able to keep the product pure by focusing on interior wall applications only.

"If you want to create a product that can also be used on the exterior or as a flooring or in the shower, then you have to start adding chemicals to bind it, to make it more water resistant and stuff like that," he said.

"We chose to start with this application because it's relatively easy and the binder and the product is nothing else than the natural polymers that are already part of this biomass. Because of adding heat and pressure, these polymers are activated and bind together."

CornWall is also biodegradable according to official standards, with Massa saying it could be buried in a field and disintegrate in a couple of months.

The only thing that would remain is the water-resistant coating, which is not biodegradable but makes up less than 0,001 per cent of the total product meaning it does not affect its biodegradability overall, according to Massa.

"Unfortunately there are no 100 per cent biodegradable coatings on the market yet," he said. "We're working with our suppliers on this but it'll take more time."

Instead, the intent is to keep the product in use for as long as possible.

The companies wants to target retail and hospitality chains that frequently open and close locations – Starbucks is an example Massa gives – and work with them to make sure the tiles stay in a closed loop of material reuse.

He also believes CornWall offers good options for these kinds of businesses in the design stage, as it can be ordered in custom colours and embossed patterns to complement their branding.

"As far as we are concerned, this will become the new retail material," said Massa. "Especially in those places in retail where they now use materials that are either glued or take a lot more energy to make or create a lot of waste when the shops are being renovated or demolished."

"Production can also be done regionally because you don't need a very complicated factory for it."

CornWall is currently available in a base range of six colours and two sizes, developed in collaboration with Dutch design practice Studio Nina van Bart. Massa says additional textures will soon be added to the line.

CornWall is the fourth product from StoneCycling. The first was the WasteBasedBrick, which is made from 60 per cent waste and was used by Dutch architects Nina Aalbers and Ferry in 't Veld of Architectuur Maken to build their own house in Rotterdam.

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Design festivals Stockholm Design Week, NYCxDesign and Design Doha are among the architecture and design events featured in Dezeen Events Guide for 2024.

Other events taking place in 2023 include IDS Toronto, Miami art week and Design Shanghai.

Read on for the 2024 highlights and see Dezeen Events Guide for more design events around the world.

IDS Toronto
18 to 21 January, Canada

Trade show IDS Toronto returns to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre for its 25th edition in 2024, hosting talks, seminars and an exhibition across five days.

The event's exhibition features almost 200 brands across fashion, textiles, furniture, landscaping, surfaces, wellbeing, design objects and accessories.

Among the talks are two held on 18 January, led by Ben Dreith, Dezeen's US editor. Dreith explores the concept of a circular economy and product development with designers Russell Greenberg, Ranee Lee and Guy Snover, and career development with architect Alison Brooks.

Dezeen is a media partner for IDS Toronto 2024.

See Dezeen Events Guide for more details.

Stockholm Design Week
5 to 11 February, Sweden

Stockholm Design Week presents a schedule of open studios and showrooms, talks, exhibitions and installations.

Stockholm Furniture Fair is the largest event taking place during the festival, hosting an exhibition, discussions and awards programme.

The fair presents over 200 furniture, textiles, surfaces and lighting brands from 6 to 10 February.

Dezeen is releasing a guide to Stockholm Design Week 2024. Find out more here.

See Dezeen Events Guide for more details.

Design Doha
24 February to 5 August, Qatar

The first edition of Design Doha launches in 2024, with the initial events taking place across Qatar's capital city from 24 to 28 February. Exhibitions at the biennial, which is predominantly located Doha Design District in the city's Msheireb region, will then continue until 5 August.

The festival explores multiple disciplines, including crafts, textiles, ceramics, architecture, wood and glass work, graphic design and landscaping through exhibitions, commissioned projects, talks and workshops.

The event is organised by art and culture institution Qatar Museums.

Dezeen is a media partner for Design Doha 2024.

See Dezeen Events Guide for more details.

DW! Sao Paulo Design Week
14 to 24 March, Brazil

Sao Paulo's annual design week returns in March for its 13th edition. The event focuses on innovation in design, architecture, urban planning and art.

Taking place across seven districts in the city, last year's DW! Sao Paulo Design Week hosted more than 220 events and 120 exhibitors.

Brazil's 11-day festival serves as a platform for exhibitions, talks, fairs, workshops, tours and product launches, as well as networking for architects, designers and enthusiasts.

See Dezeen Events Guide for more details.

Design Shenzhen
21 to 24 March, China

Design Shenzhen is a trade show that launched in 2023 and spotlights global design brands in furniture, lighting, surfaces and textiles.

Alongside the exhibition, the event hosts a forum following the theme The Fusion of Design and Technology, with talks led by creative directors, founders and strategists in the architecture and design industries.

The trade show's Rural Future Awards programme praises architecture in rural areas of China, with a focus on sustainability. There are three awards under the programme: Construction, Reactivation and Symbiosis.

Design Shenzhen 2024 takes place at the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Centre.

See Dezeen Events Guide for more details.

Milan design week
15 to 21 April, Italy

Each year, the largest annual design event in the world Milan design week returns in April, spanning hundreds of venues in design districts across the city.

The Italian festival's fringe events such as exhibitions, open studios and tours are known as Fuorisalone and take place across seven days.

Design fair Salone del Mobile is the largest event of the week, running from 16 to 21 April at Fiera Milano. Every year, the fair alternates between the EuroCucina kitchen and Euroluce lighting exhibition, this year hosting EuroCucina.

Dezeen will be releasing a guide to Milan design week 2024. Take a look at last year's guide here.

See Dezeen Events Guide for more details.

DesignMarch
24 to 28 April, Iceland

The 16th DesignMarch festival takes place in 2024, showcasing Nordic and global designs across nine regions of Reykjavík, Iceland.

The districts are Downtown Reykjavík, Elliðaárdalur, Garðabær, Grandi, Gufunes, Hafnartorg, Kópavogur, Skeifan and Vatnsmýri.

Last year's programme included open studios, solo and group exhibitions, discussions, tours and product launches, as well as the DesignTalks conference co-hosted by Dezeen's editor Tom Ravenscroft.

See Dezeen Events Guide for more details.

NYCxDesign
16 to 23 May, USA

Design festival NYCxDesign is hosted in Spring, and while the programme is yet to be announced, the festival expects to feature trade shows, exhibitions, art and design fairs, installations and talks.

ICFF and WantedDesign Manhattan and Lightfair are two of the largest trade shows taking place in the city during the festival.

The events take place across all five of New York's boroughs, fringe events include the Design Homecoming student showcase, the Design Corps social initiative and the Design Pavilion outdoor exhibition, which takes place later in the year in October.

Dezeen will be releasing a guide to NYCxDesign 2024. Take a look at last year's guide here.

See Dezeen Events Guide for more details.

Melbourne Design Week
23 May to 2 June, Australia

Also in May, Melbourne Design Week welcomes its ninth edition with the theme Ecology, Ethics and Energy.

The more than 350 events at the festival include workshops, installations, talks, tours, exhibitions and launches, which take place in Melbourne and wider Victoria.

Art and design galleries, universities, studios, stores, cultural institutions, gardens and other public spaces are all expected to partake in the festival, which is organised by the National Gallery of Victoria.

See Dezeen Events Guide for more details.

3 Days of Design
12 to 14 June, Denmark

Copenhagen's 3 Days of Design is located across 13 districts in the Danish capital, with each region named after a landmark situated nearby.

Launched in 2013, the festival celebrates its 11th anniversary with more than 250 global brands and designers expected to partake in the exhibitions, talks, open studios and fairs.

The events showcase and explore different aspects of design, such as furniture, materials, accessories and lighting.

Dezeen will be releasing a guide to 3 Days of Design 2024. Take a look at last year's guide here.

See Dezeen Events Guide for more details.

Design Shanghai
19 to 22 June, China

The sister event to Design Shenzhen, trade show Design Shangai takes place at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center.

Products on display at the trade show are separated into three categories across the building's halls: furniture and lighting; kitchen and bathroom appliances; and living and lifestyle design.

As part of the four-day event, the Design Shanghai Design Forum provides a platform for 40 speakers, with last year's following the theme Beyond Sustainability lies Re-Creative Design – Design for Wellbeing.

See Dezeen Events Guide for more details.

Helsinki Design Week
6 to 15 September, Finland

The 20th edition of Helsinki Design Week invites architecture and design professionals and enthusiasts to celebrate creativity and innovation in Finland.

The week hosts exhibitions, parties, open showrooms, talks, workshops and tours centred around fashion, interiors, graphic design, urban planning and material development.

Each year follows a theme, and while the 2024 one is yet to be announced, previous editions have been titled Once Upon a Time, We Are Open and What is Wise to Design Now?

See Dezeen Events Guide for more details.

London Design Festival
14 to 22 September, UK

London Design Festival returns to the UK in 2024 for its 22nd edition, with installations, exhibitions, talks and workshops taking place across nine days in the capital city.

The festival is expanding year-on-year, with last year's edition introducing four new districts, bringing the total to 13.

Dezeen held two collaborative events during last year's festival: the Tala showroom launch party and the Bentley Lighthouse Talk, held by editorial director Max Fraser.

Dezeen will be releasing a guide to London Design Festival 2024. Take a look at last year's guide here.

See Dezeen Events Guide for more details.

Singapore Design Week
September, Singapore

While the dates for Singapore's design week are yet to be announced, the festival usually takes place each year in September.

Organised by the DesignSingapore Council (Dsg), the programme includes events such as design fair FIND and the Design Futures Forum, as well as exhibitions, open studios, workshops and networking opportunities.

Last year's festival was located across three districts in Singapore: Bras Basah.Bugis, Marina Bay and Orchard Road Design District.

Design Week Lagos
16 to 27 October

Design Week Lagos explores the "economic, social, cultural and environmental" impact of design in Nigeria and beyond.

Following its launch in 2019, the design week has grown each year to host the annual fair MADE by Design Show
and DWL Design and Innovation Exhibition, among talks and other fringe events.

Founded by Nigerian designer Titi Ogufere, this year's advisory board includes textile designer Nike Davies-Okundaye and architect Olajumoke Adenowo.

See Dezeen Events Guide for more details.

Dutch Design Week
19 to 27 October, The Netherlands

Eindhoven-based festival Dutch Design Week presents workshops, films, music, exhibitions, seminars and talks.

The nine-day event addresses multiple disciplines, including social, graphic, landscape, animation, game, graphic, circular and bio design.

In 2023, the design week launched the interCHANGES initiative, creating interactive events that focus on safe spaces for future planning. The events explored themes of the environment, health, wellbeing and social equity, and digital and innovation.

See Dezeen Events Guide for more details.

Designart Tokyo
October, Japan

Expected to return in October 2024,  Designart Tokyo is a city-wide festival that takes place at various locations, including galleries, department stores and museums.

The event follows an annual theme, with last year's being Sparks: Freeing Your Thoughts, addressing computational design.

The 2023 edition welcomed over 200,00 attendees to its opening ceremony, parties and exhibitions across Tokyo.

Design Week Mexico
October, Mexico

The 16th edition of Design Week Mexico is expected to take place in Mexico City in October this year, with a new guest nation and guest state of Mexico to be honoured in exhibitions.

The last festival spotlighted the relationship between Mexico and France, highlighting cultural exchanges between the nations at the French Design Expo.

The design week also hosts the annual Design House exhibition, which invites visitors to explore a recently renovated or remodelled space.

Dubai Design Week
November, UAE

2024 marks the 10th edition of Dubai Design Week, a festival organised in partnership with Dubai Design District (d3).

The event, which is yet to confirm dates for its latest edition, hosts workshops, exhibitions, installations and talks spotlighting craft, furniture making, cultural design and materials.

The largest event taking place during the festival is design fair Downtown Design, which has previously taken place across four days at the Waterfront Terrace.

Miami art week
December, USA

Miami art week encompasses a series of art fairs, exhibitions, installations and pop-up events predominatly located in the Miami Design District and Miami beach areas of the city.

The week-long festival takes place annually in December, hosting events such as Art Basel and Design Miami. In 2023, Milan-based fair Alcova hosted its first international event at Miami art week.

The events attract art and design professionals and enthusiasts to explore the programme contributed to by over 1,000 global galleries.

Dezeen will be releasing a guide to Miami art week 2024. Take a look at last year's guide here.

About Dezeen Events Guide

Dezeen Events Guide is our guide to the best architecture and design events taking place across the world each year. The guide is updated weekly and includes virtual events, conferences, trade fairs, major exhibitions and design weeks.

Inclusion in the guide is free for basic listings, with events selected at Dezeen's discretion. Organisers can get standard, enhanced or featured listings for their events, including images, additional text and links, by paying a modest fee.

In addition, events can ensure inclusion by partnering with Dezeen. For more details on inclusion in Dezeen Events Guide and media partnerships with Dezeen, email eventsguide@dezeen.com.

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Electronics brand LG has unveiled the Signature OLED T, a television with a transparent screen that was on display at this year's Consumer Electronics Show.

LG has described the Signature OLED T as "the world's first wireless transparent OLED TV".

The television features a 77-inch OLED screen, which stands for organic light-emitting diode and is a technology used in lighting. It facilitates digital displays on products including televisions and smartphones.

Thanks to its transparency, the TV does not need to be placed against the wall like a traditional screen.

Rather, the Signature OLED T can be used as a subtle room divider while switched off, or positioned against a window without compromising its view.

"Practically invisible when turned off, the TV blends into the environment and frees users from the long-standing problem of what to do with the 'big black screen'," said the brand.

The model uses wireless video and audio transmission technology, which is facilitated by LG's Zero Connect Box.

This box sends 4K images and sounds to the TV, allowing users more freedom to place the model anywhere without having to depend on electrical outlets, according to LG.

An artificial intelligence (AI) processor powers the screen's picture quality. Users can pivot between two settings – transparent and opaque – depending on how they would like content to appear on the screen.

"Content displayed on the transparent screen appears to float in the air, yet simultaneously fuses with the surrounding space to create a compelling and atmospheric visual effect," said LG.

Custom widgets were also integrated into the design, including an "info-ticker" on the lower part of the screen that displays information such as weather updates and news alerts, as well as the option to transform the entire screen into an animated fish tank.

The Signature OLED T will be available as a standalone TV or in against-the-wall and wall-mounted options.

Held in Las Vegas, the Consumer Electronics Show is an annual trade show of the latest technology.

This year, LG is also showcasing a two-legged house robot on wheels that uses AI to operate. Previous editions of the event have seen brands present products ranging from a voice-absorbing facemask by PriestmanGoode to a Hyundai concept for a flying car.

The images are courtesy of LG.

CES 2024 takes place at various locations in Las Vegas from 9 to 12 January 2024. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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Testing for the floating +Pool swimming pool proposed for New York City's waterways will begin this summer upon the project receiving $16 million to advance.

Designed by LA-based design studio PlayLab Inc and the now-dissolved studio Family, +Pool is a cross-shaped pool that will filter pollutants from the surrounding water without chemicals and provide publically accessible swimming for New Yorkers.

Non-profit organiser Friends of +Pool announced recently that the project received $4 million from the City of New York and $12 million from New York State to "pilot and scale" the project for summer 2024.

"This summer, the Governor and the nonprofit Friends of + POOL plan to launch an approximate 2,000 square foot (185 square metres) version of the water-filtering swimming pool utilizing + POOL's design and technology," said the team in a statement.

"The installation in New York City this summer will demonstrate how the +Pool, and its unique filtration system, will provide access to our waters and meet new regulations outlined by the government."

The pilot project will also serve as testing for the +Pool's design to be used elsewhere in New York state, with renderings depicting it floating in waterways in Buffalo, Newburgh, Rochester and other locations.

According to the team, the full-sized +Pool will be capable of cleaning 1,000,000 gallons of water a day by filtering water through its walls without chemicals or additives.

The patented filtration system created by Friends of + POOL  "brings raw river water to an acceptable microbiological standard for swimming" using the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (US EPA) water quality modelling software.

The four branches of its cross-design are also adaptable and can reconfigured for a variety of activities including lap swimming, lounging watersports and children's activities.

The sections can be used independently or combined to form an Olympic-length or 9,000-square-foot pool.

"This summer's public demonstration of the system will provide New York State and Friends of + POOL with the final data needed to secure permits and greenlight the completion of the pool's installation," said the team.

The pool is expected to be open for swimmers summer of 2025.

Previously, a location for +Pool was approved to be placed north of the Manhattan Bridge.

A floating installation based on the project was created by PlayLab Inc, Family New York, Floating Point and Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in 2019.

The images are courtesy of Friends of +Pool.

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Elon Musk's bulletproof Cybertruck represents a dystopian vision of America but exactly who it's intended for remains unclear, writes James McLachlan.

Outside of politics, few figures are as polarising in American life as Elon Musk. A hero to some owing to his perceived willingness to challenge progressive orthodoxies, for others he represents the worst of ego-driven toxic masculinity. Musk's latest venture, the gargantuan electric Cybertruck, is almost as polarising as the man himself.

The Cybertruck has been with us for a while now. When it launched in late 2019, some designers welcomed its stealth-bomber architecture, chiefly because the sharp angles punctured the soft, jelly-mould forms that dominate contemporary automotive design. Others likened it to a rebooted version of Giugiaro's origami form language, minus the depth or sophistication. Nevertheless, Musk, via his designer Franz von Holzhausen, had shaken things up.

The Cybertruck retains its killer-droid aesthetic – grim, impassive mask slashed by a single blade of light

At that point it was a concept car, where designers stretch the boundaries as far as they dare without being burdened by the feasibility of their thought experiments. In that context, the Cybertruck was just another provocation.

But Musk claimed his Pythagorean beast would make it to production. What's more, he claimed 250,000 customers had already signed up for one. All but the most ardent Elon fanboys were sceptical.

Then came the Covid-19 pandemic, which precipitated a global shortage of computer chips. The industry ground to a halt and few believed a production version of the Cybertruck would see the light of day.

But here it is and from a design perspective, remarkably little has changed. From the front, the Cybertruck retains its killer-droid aesthetic – grim, impassive mask slashed by a single blade of light. The windshield is greenhouse levels of big, served by a necessary, but nevertheless comically large single wiper.

The lighting signature repeats itself on a boxy rear that lacks definition. Other angles are more favourable – the folded body panels, unpainted 1.8-millimetre-thick cold-rolled stainless steel, are bent along straight lines rather than elaborate curves, creating dynamic angles. These pieces are simply bolted on to a two-piece subframe created by Tesla's vaunted Giga Press casting machine.

Virtually indestructible, these strong lines have saved Musk a small fortune in manufacturing costs. The truck is retailing at $60,000 for a base model, and though that is 10 grand more than first announced, it is still competitive. This understanding of the importance of design and manufacturing working together is Musk's genius.

But who is the Cybertruck for, exactly? Is it a lifestyle truck aimed at libertarian tech bros? A radical alternative to working vehicles from legacy automakers?

The ethical sheen that came with Tesla ownership has patinated

It is worth charting how we arrived at this point. In making electric cars that actually worked with Tesla, Musk was rewarded by Californian consumers who viewed themselves as more enlightened than those clinging to their gas-guzzling SUVs. Among the first customers was California design royalty Yves Behar, who owned an early Tesla prototype.

Tesla was the green face of car ownership, to the extent that some owners found themselves at the sharp end of a culture war in which climate-sceptic truck drivers would blast black soot all over their shiny paintwork: "rolling coal".

Perhaps these are the consumers that Musk is now courting with his self-declared war on progressive culture. Either way, the ethical sheen that came with Tesla ownership has patinated. Enterprising souls are selling bumper stickers disowning Musk (though not his car) to those who want the world to know they are still the good guys.

When the car world emerged from self-enforced isolation in 2022, it brought with it a hatful of concepts that tapped into ideas of escape. Audi and Lamborghini revealed jacked-up off-roaders, which evoked a desire to flee the cities in search of rural isolation and safety. The Cybertruck goes further, encapsulating a dystopian future vision where the United States is sliding into lawlessness.

For some, the unrest following the murder of George Floyd, which saw city centres across the US incinerated, confirmed Musk's bleak outlook. A mobile fortress complete with bulletproof glass and frightening levels of power was the logical defence.

Musk appeared on the Joe Rogan show, talking up the Cybertruck's "beast" mode. Precisely what this beast mode entailed was unclear, but footage emerged of Rogan firing an arrow at the window like a roided-up Robin Hood.

It could be that Musk has changed the game once again

With PR like this, it is hard to imagine a progressive Californian wanting to own one. But what about the prospect of stealing customers from the legacy brands like Ford and General Motors? Because when it really comes down to it, for truck owners capability is what counts. The most obvious rival is the tradcore Ford F-150 – the best-selling truck in the US and itself a colossus. Or the new Hummer, reinvented as an electric vehicle (EV) for eco-conscious fans of military-derived hardware.

Ford's flagship electric truck has a huge and versatile loading bay, a front trunk where the engine used to be, and can power your house should there be a power cut. So too, does the Cybertruck, but footage of the new pretender, wheels scabbling fruitlessly for traction on earthy terrain, has been shared gleefully across the internet.

Musk has been remarkably good at retaining a dedicated band of haters, so how true a picture this kind of footage paints of the Cybertruck's abilities is hard to say, but reviews from road-testers have been very favourable so far. It could be that Musk has changed the game once again, as he did with Tesla.

And then there is the climate question. The Cybertruck may be an EV, but given the sheer size of the thing it is hard to defend its eco-credentials. A car enthusiast, Joe Biden's vision for a decarbonised America partly focused on wholesale transition to battery power. Tax breaks to EV buyers reflected this, but also rigged the market.

What this mostly means in practice is electrified versions of existing products, which take a heavy toll on the planet. The Ford F-150 battery weighs the same as a Volkswagen Beetle. The Cybertruck is even heavier.

For years, the larger-than-life American boxing promoter Don King had a catchphrase that he rolled out when hyping up his latest show: "Only in America!" he would bellow. King understood better than most that in American society, relentless self-promotion is often enough to carry you through, regardless of substance.

But King also knew his audience better than anyone. We are about to find out how well Musk knows his.

James McLachlan is the editor of Car Design News. He is also a former editor of Icon and writer for Architects' Journal.

The photo is courtesy of Tesla Inc.

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Underwear brand Modibodi and illustrator Justyna Green have collaborated on the relaunched First Period Kit, which includes a comic that speaks to teenage girls' first experience of getting their period.

The kit includes a comic and sticker kit designed by Green and several Modibodi products, including a waterproof bag for changing, two pairs of Black Hipster Bikinis and a handheld mirror intended for exploring the body.

Green's comic tells the story of two teenage friends – Rosie and Riya – and begins on their school bus when Riya gets her first period.

Green aimed to depict Riya's experience in an "honest and warm way", intending to normalise the physical changes teenage girls go through during puberty while depicting the various emotions they can experience during the time, from embarrassment to anger.

The comic aims to break the taboo around female anatomy that has "left too many girls disconnected from their bodies, or even worse – ashamed of them," said Green.

In the comic, Riya holds up the kit's mirror to inspect her vulva for the first time.

According to Green, this was a conscious choice in prompting teenagers to understand their body parts better, which the illustrator says is the first step toward wider change needed to destigmatise periods as "shameful and taboo".

"It's important to break the taboo around female anatomy so that people with vulvas, vaginas, clitorises, uteruses, labias majoras and minoras can confidently describe their body parts, understand them better and in turn communicate their needs better too," Green told Dezeen.

"And for everybody regardless of their sex, to be able to say 'vulva' without looking away or blushing."

Green believes that there is a gap for content that is both entertaining and humourous to tackle female health and wellbeing.

"It's paramount that girls know their bodies so that they can take care of them and communicate their needs," said Green. "I want the girls who read it to have a laugh, grab a mirror, take a look at their vulva, and get to know their bodies."

The comic's visuals are translated into a sticker pack and on the kit's packaging assets.

Modibodi's First Period Kit was first launched in 2021 in a bid to take the uncertainty out of the experience.

Other period-related projects published on Dezeen include a smart menstrual cup that tracks periods automatically, a sanitary pad washing device for refugees and a portable menstrual cup cleaner designed to save water.

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Industrial designer Mary Lempres has created a bio-cement structure developed to mimic naturally occurring oyster reefs that tackle coastal flooding, filter seawater and promote biodiversity.

Called Reef Rocket, the structure comprises a duo of bio-cement modules with ridged surfaces that can be stacked in two directions and create a rocket-like shape when assembled.

Norwegian-American designer Lempres drew on biomimicry for the project, a practice that looks to nature to solve human design challenges.

The ridged modules were created to be placed underwater and emulate coastal oyster reefs, which naturally filter algae from seawater as well as attract and provide shelter for other aquatic organisms.

Oyster reefs also dissipate wave energy, mitigate storm surges and manage eroding coastlines, explained the designer.

Lempres collaborated with bio-geotechnical specialist Ahmed Miftah to develop a method for growing plant-derived cement that makes up the modules, which she described as "similar to the irrigation systems required for growing a plant".

The pair poured a bio-based, non-toxic solution containing a crude extract from globally grown plants over crushed aggregate.

Sourced in New York City, the aggregate was created from crushed glass and oyster shells salvaged from local restaurants and New York Harbour.

"The packed substrate grows similarly to a plant," Lempres told Dezeen.

Saturated for three to nine days, the substance becomes natural concrete after the extracted biocatalyst causes minerals to form "mineral bridges" between the glass and shell waste.

"The resulting product is water-resistant, durable and comparable with standard concrete containing the same amount of aggregate," explained the designer.

"It can be grown in any environment without heat or otherwise burning fossil fuels and is derived from waste products, making it an affordable and scalable alternative to cement," she continued.

"Bio-concrete is chemically identical to the material oysters produce to grow their reefs. The key difference is the bio-concrete we've developed grows in just several days, while oyster reefs take millennia to grow."

This process closely mimics the natural processes that occur when oyster shells and coral reefs are grown, according to the designer.

"I was inspired by the ability of this reef-growing material to withstand extreme wave energy and corrosive saltwater," she said.

When creating the modules, Lempres and her team made "hundreds" of prototypes.

Eventually, they settled on prefabricated moulds, which the bio-cement can be packed into and set – "like sand" – without the need for heat or chemicals.

Reef Rocket was deliberately developed to be small in size, lightweight and easy to assemble, making the design accessible to as many people as possible, according to the designer.

"Nature has the incredible ability to grow intricate and durable material, like shells and coral, without polluting its surrounding environment," said Lempres.

"Reef Rocket harnesses the natural process of growing durable minerals to re-grow vital reef structures, benefiting humans and our ecology from the worsening effects of climate change," she added.

"This paves the way for a future where hard and durable material can be grown like a crop, regenerating waste rather than polluting our environment."

Previously, US design workshop Objects and Ideograms conducted a research project that involves 3D printing with calcium carbonate to create sustainable underwater "houses" for coral reefs and marine life to grow. Chinese materials company Yi Design developed a porous brick made from recycled ceramic waste that could be used to prevent flooding in urban areas.

The photography is courtesy of Mary Lempres. 

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Taiwanese designer Pao Hui Kao has unveiled her first solo exhibition, featuring colourful furniture made out of rolls of tracing paper.

On show at Spazio Nobile Gallery in Brussels, the show – called 25 Seasons, Landscapes of Paper and Lacquer – brings together 50 objects and paintings produced by Kao.

These include new versions of her Paper Pleats furniture, which she makes by combining rolls of tracing paper into honeycomb structures and soaking them in rice glue.

Once hardened, these pieces – which include benches, sideboards, stools and tables – are surprisingly strong.

Kao recently developed a technique of coating her paper structures with colour pigments and Urushi, a type of Japanese lacquer, to highlight the crinkled surfaces.

In contrast with earlier works in the Paper Pleats series, which have a more ethereal quality, the coloured Paper Pleats pieces are highly graphic in appearance.

Kao's choice of colours includes rich shades of red and blue, as well as black, which she applies with a self-made tool.

"Alongside school, I also studied Chinese ink drawing from the age of 10, mixing it with other materials like oil in a very creative way," the designer said.

"Urushi lacquer is similar to Chinese ink; it allows for creating thickness in successive lines like an imaginary calligraphy," she continued.

"I don't use a brush like in Chinese ink drawing but a paper tool that I specially created to trace the colour lines or paint my pieces," she added.

Kao's first experimented with paper constructions while she was studying at Design Academy Eindhoven. Still based in the Dutch city, she has continued working with the material since graduating in 2016.

She was first drawn to plant-based materials after discovering she was allergic to some of the chemical ingredients typically used to manufacture other types of materials.

In time, she learned to appreciate the sustainability and health benefits of working with natural, non-toxic materials.

Speaking to Dezeen in 2020, at her first exhibition with Spazio Nobile, she told Dezeen: "From my personal experiences of collaborating with eco-friendly industries, I was aware how a small decision made by designers could affect not only the manufacturing process but a whole recycling system."

For this exhibition, Kao has also unveiled new versions of her Lacquer Leafs.

Similar to the Paper Pleats works, these curved paintings are made by soaking crepe paper in rice glue to create the shape, then building alternate layers of Urushi lacquer and colour pigments on top.

One installation features 25 of these paintings, displaying different colours that relate to different times of the year.

They reference the lunisolar calendar used in Asian countries, with one extra season added to the standard 24.

"The gestation time for the work is very long, especially for the Lacquer Leafs, which require weeks or even months for the 25 successive layers of Urushi lacquer and natural pigment to solidify before being spontaneously sanded and left to dry," said Kao.

"Depending on the climate, the result will always be different and unpredictable."

Other recent paper installations include the Takeo packaging exhibition, which aimed to highlight the "unique sensory properties" of Japanese paper.

25 Seasons, Landscapes of Paper and Lacquer is on show at Spazio Nobile Gallery in Brussels from 24 November 2023 to 17 March 2024. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.

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This week on Dezeen, we looked forward to the buildings set to be completed in 2024 and the architecture, design and interiors trends that will impact the upcoming year.

We rounded up 12 key buildings that will be completing over the next year – these include projects by Kéré Architecture, Sou Fujimoto, Zaha Hadid Architects and Foster + Partners.

We also looked at the architecture, design and interiors trends of 2024. Interior design will have a focus on individualism and see a backlash to the rise in AI design, while we will see less experimentation and more "safe spaces" this year in architecture.

Dezeen's editorial director Max Fraser predicted that in design, we will see the rise of material intelligence and a rush for sustainable accreditation.

In architecture news, car brand Mercedes-Benz and developer Binghatti have revealed plans for a supertall skyscraper in central Dubai.

The car company's first branded residential tower will reportedly be 341 meters high and located close to the Burj Khalifa.

"Our aim with our first branded real estate residential tower is to create new, desirable grounds that inherit our brand's DNA and give our customers a place to arrive, unwind and come home to," said Britta Seeger, a member of the management board for Mercedes-Benz Group AG.

In Saudi Arabia, the latest region of the Neom mega-development was revealed.

Named Norlana, the development designed by architecture studio 10 Design will be a town wrapped around a marina on the Gulf of Aqaba.

Following Carlo Ratti's appointment as the curator of the next Venice Architecture Biennale, critic Catherine Slessor wrote an opinion piece that raises questions about how the event will be impacted by Italy's far-right government.

"Viewed as a supposedly safe pair of Italian hands, Ratti's appointment marks a screeching U-turn from [previous curator] Lesley Lokko, whose tenure was structured around narratives of decarbonisation and decolonisation," she wrote.

In the UK, online design magazine Design Week announced that it had ceased publication and that its website will be taken offline later this month.

"Design Week is ceasing publication with immediate effect," said a statement.

"Design Week's parent company, Centaur, has made the decision to close the publication as its strategy shifts towards its 'core audience of marketers, and focuses on training, information, and intelligence'."

Popular projects this week included a monolithic summerhouse on the Danish coast, a pitched-roof house in Massachusetts and a store arranged around a conversation pit.

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You can still be featured in Dezeen Events Guide's digital guide to Stockholm Design Week 2024, which runs from 5 to 11 February.

Dezeen's guide will spotlight the key events taking place during the festival, which has a programme of exhibitions, installations, talks, fairs and open showrooms.

Among the events is the Stockholm Furniture Fair, which presents established and emerging designers, as well as more than 150 brands, from 6 to 10 February 2024.

The festival, which enters in 22nd year, predominantly takes place in central Stockholm, with some fringe events taking place further afield.

Get listed in Dezeen's digital Stockholm guide

Dezeen offers standard and enhanced listings in its Stockholm guide.

Standard listings cost £100 and include the event name, date and location details plus a website link. These listings will also feature up to 50 words of text about the event.

Enhanced listings cost £175 and include all of the above plus an image at the top of the listing's page and an image in the listing preview on the Dezeen Events Guide homepage. These listings will also feature up to 100 words of text about the event.

For more information about partnering with us to help amplify your event, contact the team at eventsguide@dezeen.com.

About Dezeen Events Guide

Dezeen Events Guide is our guide to the best architecture and design events taking place across the world each year.

The guide is updated weekly and includes virtual events, conferences, trade fairs, major exhibitions and design weeks.

For more details on inclusion in the Dezeen Events Guide, including in our guide to Stockholm Design Week, email eventsguide@dezeen.com.

The illustration is by Rima Sabina Aouf.

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After an unsteady 2023, Dezeen's editorial director Max Fraser considers what 2024 might hold for design.

His predictions for what we will see when it comes to design next year range from the rise of material intelligence to the rush for sustainable accreditation.

Collective material intelligence

The pace of development in material innovation continues, in particular those made from supposedly sustainable resources as well as those salvaged from waste streams, such as fabrics made from bacterial fermentation and handcrafted biotextiles.

The appetite to use such creations in projects will increase in 2024 as designers strive to create products with greater material sensitivity. This goes hand-in-hand with a drive to lower the impact of our consumption on planetary systems as we continue to sharpen our focus on the climate crisis.

Increasingly informed clients and customers, together with (hopefully) heightened regulations, will demand ever-more transparency around the origin of the materials, seeking justification for their implementation, as well as assurances around traceability and a low full-life impact.

An increasing number of designers will respond by shortening supply chains, opting for regionally-appropriate materials, harvested or mined closer to the place of production.

This will likely become more of a prevalent expectation in 2024, buoyed by an already enterprising surge in new biomaterials and fabrication technologies. The challenge is scaling this from narrow experimental work into more mainstream channels.

Greater appreciation of aesthetic imperfection

Product uniformity works well for items such as TVs, phones and washing machines. But when it comes to the use of natural materials in mass-production systems, the mindset of uniformity and perfection also prevails. This means that the inconsistent nuances in colour, texture or grain that are inherent in the likes of wood, wool, leather or stone become a hurdle to overcome.

There is a growing concern that stripping out the quirks of a tree, the striations of a rock or the blemishes on an animal hide just creates unnecessary waste. This was highlighted by Formafantasma's Cambio research project when the design studio investigated the global impact of the extraction, production and distribution of wood.

Working with Finnish furniture brand Artek, one of the outcomes of the study was for the manufacturer to reassess its strict timber selection criteria. Previously only using regularly grained local birchwood without any natural marks, the brand has loosened its criteria to embrace imperfections. In 2023, characteristics such as insect borelines, knots and even bark first appeared on the iconic Stool 60 by Alvar Aalto as part of an evolving Artek collection.

This approach from a reputable brand sends a signal to the rest of the furniture industry that an 'imperfect' aesthetic sensibility needs to be embraced if we're to reduce processing and production waste. This is something that I suspect will become more evident in 2024, helped by the economic case that customers will want to buy into the unique characteristics of these items.

Raw and mono-material products

Designers will further endeavour to reduce the complex interplay between different kinds of materials used in production. The motivation is to create products where the component parts can be dissembled and separated more easily for repair or recyclability.

Such intentions will need to be communicated to users and the inevitable aesthetic change celebrated.

As circularity becomes expected, a 'circular aesthetic' will also emerge whereby products will be lauded for their efficient and singular use of materials, exposed fixings and true-to-material 'raw' finishes.

This was recently exemplified by the aluminium Knuckle light by David Taylor for Hem, an embodiment of raw, folded, uncoated aluminium and the winner of the lighting design of the year in the Dezeen Awards 2023.

Fifty shades of sustainable

For several years now, overuse of the word 'sustainable' across all areas of society has reached the point where its very meaning has become opaque. Take a trip to any trade fair or design week and you'll leave with sustainability fatigue, so much is the word oversaid, overheard and overprinted.

Many smart brands recognise this and are eager to communicate the great lengths they go to to reduce their planetary burden, ensure reputable supply chains, create healthy work environments for all and deliver economic returns that benefit their communities as well as their shareholders. To that end, the B Corp rush is on.

B Corp Certification is one of the most rigorous and reputable certification schemes for any aspiring business, thoroughly assessing all of the aforementioned criteria and more. As one manufacturer joked to me, "It's a tough process. Everything is opened, assessed and scored. It's like letting a stranger look through your underwear."

Manufacturers like Modus in the UK, Fredericia and Astep in Denmark and Andreu World in Spain all crossed the line in 2023 and I predict many more will pass the test in 2024: credibility from accreditation.

Trade fairs – a make-or-break year

It's been another bumpy year for trade fairs, which have struggled to rebound to pre-pandemic glory. The considerable cost and enormous effort of exhibiting has brands questioning how often they can commit. The returns that fairs are expected to deliver for these exhibitors – namely via marketing, footfall and ultimately orders – is an increasing pressure when attendees have also become more discerning about which shows they choose to visit.

The excessive waste generated by stand construction continues to be a challenge to overcome. I've become so distracted by the endless use of virgin materials to construct brand-ego-sized displays that I barely notice the product anymore. I call for greater brand humility and am hoping the previously-mentioned circular aesthetic will find its place on stand design as fairs continue to evolve.

It remains a struggle to make rather grim exhibition centres pleasurable, while reducing the environmental burden. Smaller, more nimble shows like Alcova and Material Matters will likely gather pace, able to better attain the sweet spot between quality content and distinct experience. Those that succeed will need to marry timely inspiration with responsible aspiration.

AI – will it deliver on the hype?

While hype, speculation and doom-mongering around the impact of generative artificial intelligence continues across multiple industries and at government-level, I expect the dust will settle somewhat in 2024.

For all of the wonders that AI promises, including analyzing data to inform design decisions, automating repetitive tasks, and simulating and testing designs, maybe there will be more skepticism as to whether or not it will live up to the fanfare we've witnessed this year.

One of the leading voices in AI, Gary Marcus, believes there are "many serious, unsolved problems" with the technology that could limit its usefulness. However, Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky reckons designers should embrace AI otherwise the world "will be designed without them" as he stated in an interview with Dezeen in November. He added, "But, I am also wary of fetishization of technology" and, sharing this sentiment, I would caution the hype.

In off-the-record chats, I encounter plenty of individuals who are nonchalant about AI, so I would question the assumption that we must all want and need to use it. Within design, I wonder if we'll see a revolution from artificial intelligence in 2024 – or perhaps its offerings will just become casually subsumed into the designer's toolbox.

Polarising approaches to production will broaden

When it comes to fully scrutinising every action and proceeding with self-initiated care and integrity, many brands will find their mojo in 2024, particularly more nimble family-owned businesses with a clear eye on their legacy.

But I fear most won't, as the pressures of increasing costs, stubborn inflation, volatile supply chains, debt repayments, shareholder expectations and hesitant citizen consumption trigger an urgent scramble to carve out new market segments. All of these touchpoints are and will continue to be directly or indirectly exacerbated by the desperate human conflicts and environmental disasters that we've witnessed globally in 2023.

Changing business models to circumnavigate these disruptions requires long-term vision and stability, two things seemingly in short supply right now. Those willing to evolve their enterprises deserve to succeed, however, I suspect many businesses will choose not to rock the boat.

Add to this the ongoing lacklustre governmental approaches to the climate crisis and it's hard to envisage a world that can muster much excitement at the release of another new yet non-essential product. The time for the design industry to broaden its collaboration with other industries is now. The opportunities to work on game-changing solutions to some of our existential challenges are ripe for the picking.

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DesignTO, Maison&Objet and Top Drawer Spring/Summer are among the architecture and design events featured in Dezeen Events Guide this month.

Other events taking place in January include design trade shows Ambiente, CES, IDS Toronto and IMM Cologne.

CES
9 to 12 January 2024, USA

CES is an annual technology-led trade show that takes place in Las Vegas and showcases over 4,000 exhibitors, including Google, L'Oréal, Sony, LG and Mercedes-Benz.

The exhibition presents products from various sectors such as robotics, entertainment, education, vehicles and sports.

The four-day event also hosts a series of talks exploring topics of adapting to consumer needs, artificial intelligence (AI) and sustainable and accessible design.

The event takes place across 12 venues, including the ARIA, Wynn and Venetian hotels, as well as the Las Vegas Convention Centre.

Top Drawer S/S
14 to 16 January 2024, UK

Located at Olympia London, the 2024 spring/summer edition of Top Drawer presents a programme of events, including the trade show's exhibition, an awards ceremony, talks, a business hub and networking opportunities.

The event displays products from nine categories: Craft, Fashion, Food Emporium, Gift, Greetings and Stationery, Home, Launchpad, Play and Wellbeing.

More than 600 brands are taking part in the three-day exhibition, which is expected to see more than 10,000 retailers attend.

IMM Cologne
14 to 18 January 2024, Germany

Trade show IMM Cologne runs across five days in January with an exhibition, talks and presentation programme, networking events and competitions.

The fair arranges its products in three themes: Pure, Home and Sleep. While Home and Sleep present interiors for the house and bedroom, Pure explores premium design.

The event takes place at Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany.

IDS Toronto
18 to 21 January, Canada

The Interior Design Show (IDS) Toronto returns in 2024, hosting an opening party, exhibition and keynotes on topics such as artistic approaches to design, climate change and cultural design.

The event includes six feature exhibitions: LIV Design Studio, Future Neighbourhood, The District, Prototype, Studio North, and Modern Prefab.

As part of the programme, IDS presents the Dezeen Trade Day on the opening day, with two talks moderated by Dezeen US editor Ben Dreith.

The event takes place in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre North Building.

Maison&Objet
18 to 22 January 2024, France

Maison&Objet celebrates its 30th anniversary by hosting its 2024 winter edition at the Paris Nord Villepinte convention centre in Paris.

The event displays designs from over 2,000 exhibitors – 600 of which are new to the showcase – and features products from the craft, furniture, accessories, fragrance, textiles, wellbeing, office interiors and fashion sectors.

The following edition of Maison&Objet takes place between 5 and 9 September, during Paris Design Week 2024.

DesignTO

19 to 28 January 2024, Canada

Comprising of talks, workshops, exhibitions, installations, dinners, parties and tours, Toronto festival DesignTO's online and in-person events address themes of biodiversity, creativity and the dynamic between nature and the human-made.

2024 marks the 14th edition of the festival, which explores a variety of disciplines, such as craft, fashion, graphic design, architecture, art, interiors, urban planning, and industrial design.

Ambiente
26 to 30 January 2024, Germany

Five-day trade show Ambiente takes place at at Messe Frankfurt and focuses on four key categories: Dining, Living, Giving and Working.

This year the event spotlights trends in art, interiors and design for the upcoming year. Ambiente also hosts Future of Work for workplace designs, Ethical Style Spots to highlight sustainable practices and Solutions to showcase innovations created with consumers in mind.

About Dezeen Events Guide

Dezeen Events Guide is our guide to the best architecture and design events taking place across the world each year. The guide is updated weekly and includes virtual events, conferences, trade fairs, major exhibitions and design weeks.

Inclusion in the guide is free for basic listings, with events selected at Dezeen's discretion. Organisers can get standard, enhanced or featured listings for their events, including images, additional text and links, by paying a modest fee.

In addition, events can ensure inclusion by partnering with Dezeen. For more details on inclusion in Dezeen Events Guide and media partnerships with Dezeen, email eventsguide@dezeen.com.

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Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Yoojin Chung pokes fun at the western approach to feng shui with a trio of digital devices that offer a quick-fix approach to positive qi.

Chung's graduation project, Capturing Qi, turns three of the most well-known feng-shui objects into smart-home devices that can be controlled via an app.

The crystal ball, the wind chime and the water fountain were all reimagined as dynamic devices that users can actively monitor and control.

Chung intended the designs to be satirical, highlighting how this ancient practice has been packaged up into consumer products with the promise of good health and fortune.

"The project is a criticism of the commodification of Feng Shui, of how people just buy objects because it's the easiest way to practice," said the designer, who grew up in South Korea.

Feng shui is an ancient Chinese practice that has existed for millennia. It centres around promoting the flow of positive energy, known as qi, believed to increase wellbeing and prosperity.

The practice became popular in western countries in the late 20th century, which fuelled a huge global market for feng shui objects for the home.

"People just buy these objects, place them in their homes and forget about them," Chung told Dezeen.

Chung's project suggests how this trend could evolve in response to the growing market for smart-home devices.

Her electronic devices use motion to create a visual illusion of energy flow, in the form of a spinning crystal, flowing water and chimes that look like they are swaying the breeze.

All three are fitted with Arduino circuit boards, allowing this motion to be fully controlled by Bluetooth.

Users activate the devices using an accompanying smartphone app, with the understanding that they are releasing qi in the process.

"The more you activate it, the more success you have," suggested Chung.

"The reason why feng shui is gaining popularity is because we're all striving for success," she added. "Feng shui offers you a little bit of hope that is beyond your control, but it is also human nature to want control."

All three devices were intended to resemble scientific equipment. Chung drew on the vacuum chambers used by 18th-century scientists to prove the existence of invisible gases.

The wind chime is a hanging device while the other two are mounted on castors, allowing them to all be easily moved into different positions around the home.

"This interaction makes you think about what type of success you want," said Chung, pointing out how different types of object placement have different meanings in feng shui.

The designer graduated from the MA Contextual Design programme at Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE).

Other DAE graduates from 2023 include Ziyi Lian, who created a mobile street-food stall for offal, and Eric Treillard, who designed a mobile kit for turning unused plots into playgrounds.

The photography is by Marie Kang unless otherwise indicated.

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Online design magazine Design Week is to cease publication with the website due to be taken offline in mid-January.

The publication, which is focused on the business of design, announced the decision with a statement on its website on 22 December stating that its publisher had decided to close the publication.

"Design Week is ceasing publication with immediate effect," said the statement.

"Design Week's parent company, Centaur, has made the decision to close the publication as its strategy shifts towards its 'core audience of marketers, and focuses on training, information, and intelligence'."

According to the statement, Design Week will continue to be online until 19 January, with a series of articles looking "back at Design Week's achievements" set to be published early this January.

Closure "not entirely unexpected"

Launched in 1986 by writer Jeremy Myerson, who is now professor emeritus at the Royal College of Art, the publication was the first weekly magazine in the UK aimed at designers and their clients.

Responding to the news that the magazine was closing, Myerson said it "was disappointing news to hear on a personal level", but "not entirely unexpected".

Design Week published its last physical edition in 2011, becoming a digital-only publication after that.

"Design Week really belonged to a world of black and white print, manual typewriters and paste-up galleys, an era when a weekly newspaper full of stories and jobs for professional designers was a ground-breaking idea," Myerson told Dezeen.

"In 1986, architects had two weekly papers – AJ and Building Design – and ad agencies had one – Campaign. Designers had none and Design Week changed that."

"Intensification of the London design scene was partly due to Design Week"

Over its 38 years, Design Week had a huge impact on the UK design industry.

"Design Week really helped to build the professional status of graphic, industrial and interior designers in the UK, especially when Lynda Relph Knight, a brilliant contributing editor who worked on the launch and who became my long-term successor, was at the helm," explained Myerson.

"Design firms flexed their muscles as businesses through the pages of the magazine," he continued. "Many became public companies and went on to acquire design groups internationally."

"There's no doubt that, in the late 1980s, the scaling and intensification of the London design scene was partly due to Design Week – the ability to hire talent at speed plus the visibility that editorial coverage gave to those doing the hiring. I've lost count of the number of people who have sidled up to me at parties and said 'I got my first job through Design Week'."

"UK-centric journal made sense in the 1980s"

However, Myerson also accepted that a publication like Design Week may not make sense in 2024.

"I think it [the closing] shows how print-based magazines can struggle to adapt to the demands of digital 24/7 publishing," he said,

"It also shows just how global design has become. A UK-centric journal made sense in the 1980s at a time when Centaur, the publisher of Design Week, was an innovator and a risk-taker. Not today, it seems."

Design Week is the latest UK design magazine to close, with Blueprint magazine, which was launched in 1983 by Peter Murray and Deyan Sudjic, ending its print edition in 2020 after 37 years.

The photography is by Jeremy Myerson.

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Happy new year from Dezeen! We'll be back tomorrow, but in the meantime, you can read about the biggest design and architecture stories of 2023 and our full review of the year.

The review looks at the most interesting architecture, design and interior stories from 2022. It includes roundups of the the year's rebrands, innovative materials, restaurant and bar interiors, controversies, US architecture, cabins and more.

Read the review of 2023 ›

The photo of the Las Vegas Sphere is by Sphere Entertainment.

The post Happy new year from Dezeen! appeared first on Dezeen.

Berlin-based designer Kimia Amir-Moazami hopes to tackle the issue of food waste with a container system that reveals if something is safe to eat or not.

Vorkoster is a smart lid that uses PH-sensitive film to detect if a food product has expired. The film gradually changes colour as the food product begins to spoil, making it easy to see whether it's still edible.

This can provide an accurate indication of food freshness so that people don't have to rely on generic expiry dates, which can lead to food being thrown out unnecessarily.

Amir-Moazami presented the project at Dutch Design Week as part of the Secrid Talent Podium, a showcase of projects championing design as a force for good.

"Over 60 per cent of food waste happens in households. That is not just food, but also money wasted," said Amir-Moazami, speaking to the exhibition organisers.

"I wanted to create something that can help people to save food, either for sustainability or financial reasons."

The lid was designed for use with any food containing protein, such as meat or fish. As these items expire, they release ammonia gas.

The film, which is made from algae coated in a specially developed indicator dye, reacts to this gas by changing colour from pale green to bright purple.

The lid was designed to fit over any type of tub or bowl, to make it as easy to use as possible.

"By designing a lid, the use of my product stays flexible and is not limited to one type of container," said Amir-Moazami.

The designer produced her first working prototype of Vorkoster in 2021, as her graduation project from the design degree programme at UdK Berlin.

This was developed with the help of Sany Chea, a chemistry scientist she met during a residency at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research.

Since then, the pair have been developing the concept with a view to launching Vorkoster as a commercial product.

They believe the product could hit the shelves in the next two years.

"The challenge with Vorkoster is that it is a product that deals with food quality and expiry dates," said Amir-Moazami.

"This is a sensitive topic, so the technology needs to be developed to a point that it's truly consumer-friendly, safe and clear. Before we can go to market, it needs to function flawlessly."

In the past two years, Amir-Moazami and Chea have participated in a series of entrepreneur and scholarship programmes to help them fund the project's development.

As part of the Secrid Talent Podium, which was supported by the Dutch Design Foundation and What Design Can Do, they received a cash prize of €7,777.

There were seven participants in total, with others including brick innovator Emy Bensdorp and Luc van Hoeckel of Super Local, with his affordable hospital equipment.

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Architect Patty Hopkins and lighting designer Michael Anastassiades have been awarded OBEs in King Charles III's New Year Honours list.

Also recognised in the list were designers Samuel Ross and Frances Mary Sorrell, along with architect Audley English and Create Streets founder Nicholas Boys Smith.

Architect Patty Hopkins, who founded Hopkins Architects with her husband Michael Hopkins, was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), the second-highest Order of the British Empire honour.

Patty Hopkins is one of the UK's best-known architects and was jointly awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal with Michael Hopkins in 1994.

She was one of the early pioneers of high-tech architecture with her studio responsible for numerous significant buildings including Hopkins House, Schlumberger Research Centre, Westminster Underground Station, Portcullis House and the Olympic Velodrome.

London-based lighting designer Anastassiades was also honoured with an OBE. He is the founder of his eponymous brand and studio Michael Anastassiades and was a Dezeen Awards judge in 2020.

His studio has designed lighting for numerous brands including Flos, Herman Miller, Bang & Olufsen and Cassina.

Also recognised in the New Year Honours list was Frances Sorrell, who was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), the highest Order of the British Empire award.

Sorrell co-founded design consultancy Newell and Sorrell with her husband John Sorrell along with the educational charity Sorrell Foundation.

Designer Ross, Society of Black Architects co-founder English and Create Streets founder Boys Smith were all made Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the honours list.

The King's New Year Honours are awarded each year in December. Together with the Birthday Honours given out on the King's official birthday in June, they make up part of the British honours system.

In last year's list, Scottish-Ghanaian architect Lesley Lokko was awarded an OBE, while British artist Grayson Perry was awarded a CBE.

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As part of our review of 2023, Dezeen readers have voted the reissue of the Racine collection designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for Steelcase as the best furniture design of 2023.

Originally designed for the SC Johnson Administration building in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1939, the collection received by far the most votes with almost 32 per cent of people picking it from the poll that ran throughout December.

Created in collaboration with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation – the primary custodians of the American architect's archive – the reissued desks and office chairs were sized up to fit modern body proportions.

American company Steelcase based the designs closely on the original, only increasing the size and making minor tweaks to modernise their functionality.

With 18 percent of the vote, the Shift sofa hammock by Form Us With Love for Samsung was the readers' clear second choice.

Unveiled at this year's Stockholm Design Week by local studio Form Us With Love, the soft, which is a prototype, was designed so that it can be easily packed away and moved between rooms.

The third most popular furniture piece with designers was High Bar by Alter Interiors, which received nine per cent of the vote.

The purpose-built cannabis cabinet was designed with a dedicated bong shelf and a pull-out rolling tray.

2023 review

This article is part of Dezeen's roundup of the biggest and best news and projects in architecture, design, interior design and technology from 2023.

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Merry Christmas! We'll be back tomorrow – in the meantime read our review of 2023 and enjoy this Christmas tree designed by British-Nigerian designer Yinka Ilori.

The review of 2023 rounds up the most interesting and popular architecture, design and interior stories from the past year. It includes roundups of the the year's rebrands, innovative materials, restaurant and bar interiors, controversies, US architecture, cabins and more.

Read the review of 2023 ›

The post Merry Christmas from Dezeen! appeared first on Dezeen.

New York-based designer Kickie Chudikova worked with cannabis brand Gossamer to develop The Nesting Set, a glass ashtray, pipe and one-hitter that can be integrated stylishly into a user's home.

The company, founded in 2017 by David Weiner and Verena von Pfetten, asked Chudikova to help it create a set of accessories that could offer a more refined and premium experience than other smoking products currently on the market.

The Nesting Set comprises a lidded ashtray, standing pipe and matching one-hitter (a slender pipe designed for a single inhalation of smoke). The items are all made from soda lime glass and borosilicate glass in a minty green hue that aligns with the brand's visual identity.

The set was designed to be functional, sculptural and timeless so that it can sit comfortably in a wide range of interiors without obviously signalling its purpose.

"We wanted to create a modern, beautiful and functional home object that would appeal to a wide audience even beyond people who like to smoke weed," Gossamer's creative director Verena Michelitsch told Dezeen.

Michelitsch added that the design process focused on three key objectives: multi-functionality; desirability for an audience that appreciates design and craft; and timeless aesthetics to ensure the products feel elevated rather than trendy.

Multi-functionality was achieved by designing the base as an ashtray that can be used to store items including keys, jewellery or small objects, as well as smoking paraphernalia.

The tray includes compartments sized to neatly hold the pipe and one-hitter, along with ground cannabis flower and joints. It can also double as an incense holder and nests neatly on top of the lid, which can be used as a pedestal.

Chudikova explained that the shapes of the various items were designed with ergonomics in mind. The two pipes feature proportions that are comfortable to grip and have flat bottoms, so they won't roll or topple when placed on a surface.

The designer chose materials that aimed to enhance the set's more premium look and feel.

The designer told Dezeen she wanted to create an object that "didn't scream 'this is for weed,' but rather one that blends seamlessly into your home."

"Gossamer's customers have an eye for sophisticated aesthetics, so The Nesting Set can seamlessly fit into the laid-back yet stylish vibe of their interiors," said Chudikova.

"The lid can discreetly keep smoking essentials neatly tucked away or proudly on display when placed underneath," she added. "Its minimal aesthetic is sculptural yet unobtrusive and that is why it's a perfect accessory for your home."

Borosilicate glass was used for the smoking set due to its durability and resistance to high temperatures, which makes it less prone to cracking or breaking.

The heavy-lidded ashtray is made from six-millimetre-thick opaque soda lime glass that lends it a reassuring heft. The glass is moulded into fluid, sculptural shapes that are easy to clean.

"Soda lime glass is also more cost-effective compared to some other types of glass, making the final product more accessible to a broader audience," Chudikova added.

"By choosing these materials, we were aiming for a balance between accessibility, aesthetics and functionality."

The Nesting Set is the latest in a series of products produced by Gossamer to complement its biannual print magazine focused on weed-adjacent stories about travel, design, art, culture and food.

The gradual legalisation of marijuana in parts of the US and Canada has led to a recent explosion of design-led cannabis-related products aimed at the more experimental consumer.

Previous examples include a range of stacking accessories including a grinder and a cone-shaped pipe made from pink glass, and a trio of boldly coloured ceramic bongs intended to exist in the space "between performing products and home decor objects".

The photography is by Sean Davidson.

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From the incisive to the intemperate, here are Dezeen's top 10 quotes of 2023, taken from the interviews and opinion pieces we have published this year.

Dezeen has published more than 100 interviews and over 50 opinion pieces this year, featuring some of the best-known voices in architecture and design.

Our interviewees and writers have come out with an extensive catalogue of memorable lines, including candid admissions, eloquent attacks on architecture and eyebrow-raising proclamations.

For a monthly pick of the best interviews, opinions and features on Dezeen, subscribe to our Dezeen In Depth newsletter.

Read on for Dezeen's top 10 quotes of 2023:

"I have a confession to make: I have no idea what placemaking is" – Reinier de Graaf

OMA partner and frequent Dezeen contributor Reinier de Graaf took aim at the concept of placemaking in a memorable opinion piece in September.

"The more I hear the word, the less I understand it," he wrote, in a continuation of his ongoing attempt to deconstruct architectural jargon.

Read the full opinion piece ›

"When I hear, 'we've got a volunteer architecture firm and they're doing this pro bono' – chills at the back of the neck" – Lucy Easthope

Dezeen interviewed emergency planner Lucy Easthope as part of our Designing for Disasters series.

"Almost all of the deaths that I see are a failure of design," she told us.

Read the full interview ›

"All content is fed through the same sausage machine" – Neville Brody

British designer Neville Brody has been a leading light in the world of graphic design and typography for decades.

In this interview with Dezeen, he discussed the profound ways in which the shift from print media to digital has affected the discipline.

Read the full interview ›

"The Vessel symbolizes everything wrong with America's wealth gap" – Matt Shaw

Thomas Heatherwick's Vessel in New York City has been one of the biggest and most controversial architecture stories of the past few years.

As two years passed since the structure was closed following a spate of suicides, author Matt Shaw wrote about what can be learned from the ill-fated project.

Read the full opinion piece ›

"We cannot design just to please our clients anymore" – Yasmeen Lari

Dezeen sat down with Yasmeen Lari for an exclusive interview in April as she accepted the prestigious RIBA Royal Gold Medal award.

Famous for her humanitarian, climate-conscious design, she took the opportunity to issue provocative call-to-action for the architecture profession.

Read the full interview ›

"Architecture is a hollowed-out profession with architects seemingly less vital than ever" – Eleanor Jolliffe

Architect and writer Eleanor Jollifee sparked a lively discussion in the comments section underneath this opinion piece reflecting on the current nature of the architecture profession.

She argued that architects have become divorced from the construction and engineering knowledge that was once central to their work.

Read the full opinion piece ›

"Deconstructivism: bullshit. Postmodernism: bullshit" – Michael Green

Canadian architect Michael Green, known for his work with mass timber, did not hold back when speaking with Dezeen as part of our Timber Revolution series.

He robustly challenged the prevailing perceptions of construction materials, memorably taking aim at major architecture movements of the 20th-century that championed concrete, steel and glass.

Read the full interview ›

"Chipperfield's work on the whole is bland, unimaginative and overly grandiose" – Aaron Betsky

British architect David Chipperfield was named the winner of this year's Pritzker Architecture Prize, the most coveted accolade in the profession.

But academic and Dezeen columnist Aaron Betsky – a man who rarely pulls punches – was not happy with the decision, as he explained in this cutting piece.

Read the full opinion piece ›

"I have fought all my life against macho products" – Philippe Starck

Philippe Starck is one of the world's most famous designers with a string of iconic furniture and homeware pieces to his name.

In this interview with Dezeen, conducted at the launch of his collection for Spanish brand Andreu World, he had plenty to say about gender and sexuality, claiming that "asexuality will be the biggest revolution".

Read the full interview ›

"It's like we're all stuck in our granddads' idea of the future" – Freyja Sewell

With artificial intelligence dominating the news this summer, Dezeen ran an extensive editorial series exploring the impact of the technology on design, architecture and humanity.

As part of the series, named AItopia, designer Freyja Sewell wrote about the need to challenge the dystopian, cyberpunk-style visions of the future that dominate science fiction as we shape our changing world.

Read the full opinion piece ›

2023 review

This article is part of Dezeen's roundup of the biggest and best news and projects in architecture, design, interior design and technology from 2023.

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