The Scooter for Life is a special commission for the New Old exhibition at the Design Museum in London, which opens on 12 January 2017. Presented in the exhibition is a full scale prototype designed to provide users with more independence through greater mobility. The exhibition explores the potential for design to enhance the experience of our later lives and how design can help people lead fuller, healthier and more rewarding lives in an ageing society.
The flax chair was the winner of the Dutch design week. The biodegradable chair combines the natural fibers of wool and flax with strong bio-plastic fibers, resulting in a material that can be heat-pressed into unbelievable shapes.
"this project is clearly about more than just another chair: it is the result of long-term research into the material qualities of flax, a desire to reinstate the value of a largely underrated fibre (the short flax fibre), and seeking to connect with dutch companies to launch a new product on the market,’ comments the jury. ‘working in collaboration with label breed and enkev, these efforts culminated in an astonishingly elegant result. the jury considers the flax chair an excellent example of what contemporary design can achieve."
Brands supporting issues has been going on for a while but now brands are starting to shout louder about social issues.
An interesting take on this is by the Sparkke Change beverage company, an Australian company taking on the big boys of brewing and wine production, creating drinks which give 20% of the sales to the outlined causes.
http://www.sparkke.com/sparkke-homepage#block-388-1040
Young adults are choosing to abstain from alcohol. What is driving this trend?
WHILE baby boomers may be parsing the evidence to see if an evening glass of wine could be good for them, young adults are quietly turning away from alcohol. Sure, a hardcore still binge heavily, but more and more are choosing to be teetotal, and those who do drink are, on average, doing less of it.
That has public health experts toasting their good luck. If this lifestyle takes hold, there could be many health benefits, from fewer accidents and less alcohol-fuelled violence, to reduced incidences of cancer and liver and heart disease in decades to come. So what is spurring young people to shun alcohol, and will it continue?
The move away from booze was first seen in those born between the early 1980s and mid-1990s, the generation known as millennials. The post-millennials (or generation Z) are continuing and even deepening the trend.
This is in spite of the fact that alcohol is broadly less costly than it has been in decades. Indulging in drunkenness from early adulthood – once a rite of passage – is in decline across many developed countries. In the UK in 2002, roughly two-thirds of people aged 16 to 24 drank the week before. By 2014, that was down to less than half.
But two-thirds of people aged 45 to 64 still drink regularly, according to the UK Office for National Statistics. In fact, as of 2014, men aged 65 to 74 were more likely than any other age group to drink more than 21 units of alcohol a week-about 10 pints of beer-the advised upper limit at the time. The limit has since been dropped to 14 units-about 6 pints.
Just saying no
Why are younger people drinking less? It’s impossible to ignore the role of new financial pressures. Millennials in many places are loaded with student debt, having faced recessions, are living in an era of greater job insecurity, widening income inequality and also rising housing costs.
Additionally, for them, socialising no longer requires meeting in a pub or bar. They can group chat from bedrooms via laptops, tablets and smartphones.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23231020-700-generation-clean-why-many-young-adults-choose-to-stay-sober/
Tiger Beer, in collaboration with MIT-spinoff Graviky Labs and agency Marcel Sydney, has launched Air-Ink; an innovative range of pens, markers and spray cans made from air pollution.
To create Air-Ink, unique devices were developed to capture soot from vehicles' exhausts. These were fitted to trucks, ferries, chimneys and even cranes around Hong Kong and India. The captured pollutants were then purified and turned into safe, reliable ink for everyday use.
Can brands learn lessons from Supreme style product drops? Every thursday morning in London and New York, Supreme release products for sale in their stores. The queues demonstrate the success of this strategy to keep the brand fresh.
Supreme, which is vertically integrated and controls the vast majority of its distribution, creates seasonal collections, but drops new product in weekly batches. These drops generate so much interest that entire forums are dedicated to celebrating purchases and guessing which particular pieces will sell out first. What’s more, on the first “drop day” of a new season, traffic to the brand’s website can spike by as much as 16,800 percent, according to Samuel Spitzer, who leads Supreme’s e-commerce operation. E-commerce has become an important part of the business and while Supreme does not disclose sales figures, Spitzer says that on drop days “we get a very, very high rate of orders per second.”
https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/intelligence/high-fashion-lessons-from-streetwear-drops-supreme-palace-gosha?utm_source=Subscribers&utm_campaign=ddc15f7676-&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d2191372b3-ddc15f7676-419050985
Which side are you on? Gerd Leonhard’s provocative new manifesto
Are you ready for the greatest changes in recent human history? Futurism meets humanism in Gerd Leonhard’s ground-breaking new work of critical observation, discussing the multiple Megashifts that will radically alter not just our society and economy but our values and our biology. Wherever you stand on the scale between technomania and nostalgia for a lost world, this is a book to challenge, provoke, warn and inspire.
By Brett Scott
Banks, governments, credit card companies and fintech evangelists all want us to believe a cashless future is inevitable and good. But this isn't a frictionless utopia says Brett Scott, and it's time to fight back.
Several months ago I stayed in an offbeat Amsterdam hotel that brewed its own beer but refused to accept cash for it. Instead, they forced me to use the Visa payment card network to get my UK bank to transfer €4 to their Dutch bank via the elaborate international correspondent banking system.
I was there with civil liberties campaigner Ben Hayes. We were irritated by the anti-cash policy, something the hotel staff took for annoyance at the international payments charges we'd face. That wasn't it though. Our concern was an intuitive one about a potential future world in which we'd have to report our every economic move to a bank, and the effect this could have on marginalised people.
'Cashless society' is a euphemism for the "ask-your-banks-for-permission-to-pay society". Rather than an exchange occurring directly between the hotel and me, it takes the form of a "have your people talk to my people" affair. Various intermediaries message one another to arrange an exchange between our respective banks. That may be a convenient option, but in a cashless society it would no longer be an option at all. You'd have no choice but to conform to the intermediaries' automated bureaucracy, giving them a lot of power, and a lot of data about the microtexture of your economic life.
Our concerns are unfashionable. Without any explicit declaration, the War on Cash has begun. Proponents of digital payment systems are riding upon technology-friendly times to proclaim the imminent Death of Cash. Sweden leads in the drive to reach this state, but the UK is edging that way too. London buses stopped accepting cash in 2014, but do accept MasterCard and Visa contactless payment cards.
Every cash transaction you make is one that a payments intermediary like Visa takes no fee from, so it has an interest in making cash appear redundant, deviant and criminal. That's why, in 2016, Visa Europe launched its "Cashfree and Proud" campaign, to inform cardholders that "they can make a Visa contactless payment with confidence and feel liberated from the need to carry cash."
The company's press release declared the campaign "the latest step of Visa UK’s long term strategy to make cash 'peculiar' by 2020."
There you have it. An orchestrated strategy to make us feel weird about cash. Propaganda is a key weapon of war, and all sides present themselves as liberators. Visa comes across like a paternalistic commander when assuring us that we – like a baby taking first steps – will feel a sense of achievement at liberating ourselves from the burden of cash dependence. Visa's technology offers freedom without dependence or dangers.
Visa is joined by other propagandists. In 2014 Penny for London arrived, an apparently altruistic group set up by the Mayor's Fund for London and Barclaycard, using charity as a hook to switch people to contactless cards on the London Underground. PayPal plastered cities with billboards claiming that "new money doesn't need a wallet", along with a video proclaiming: "New money isn't paper, it's progress". Astroturfing campaigns like No Cash Day are backed by American Express, highlighting such anti-cash themes as the environmental impact of banknotes. Other tactics include pointing out that criminals use cash, that it fuels the shadow economy, that it's unsafe, and that it facilitates tax evasion.
The Death of Cash means the Rise of Something Else
These arguments have notable shortcomings. Criminals use many things that we keep – like cars – and fighting crime doesn't take priority over maintaining other social goods like civil liberties. The 'shadow economy' is a derogatory term used by elites to describe the economic activities of people they neither understand nor care about. As for safety, having your wallet cash stolen pales in comparison to having your savings obliterated in a digital account hack. And if you care about tax justice, start with the mass corporate tax avoidance facilitated by the formal banking sector.
The peculiar feature about this war, however, is that only one side is fighting. Very few media champions defend cash. It is like a taken-for-granted public utility, whereas digital payments platforms are run by private companies with an incentive to flood the media with their key messages. When they fight this war, their target is our cultural belief in cash, and the belief that its provision should be a public right.
The UK government does not plan to maintain that right, and is siding with the payments industry. Their position is summed up by economist Kenneth Rogoff in his new book The Curse of Cash. He argues that, apart from facilitating crime and tax evasion, cash hampers central banks from setting negative interest rates. In the absence of cash, everyone must keep their money in the form of digital bank deposits. During recessions central banks could then use the banking system to deliberately corrode people's deposits via negative charges, 'inspiring' them to spend rather than hoard.
The emergent consensus among economic and political elites is that this is the direction to go in, but to manufacture consent for this requires a drip-drip erosion of public resistance. Hearts and minds must be shown that the change represents inevitable and desirable progress.
Anyone defending cash in this context will be labelled as an anti-progress, reactionary, and nostalgic Luddite. That's why we must not defend cash. Rather, we should focus on pointing out that the Death of Cash means the Rise of Something Else. We are fighting a broader battle to maintain alternatives to the growing digital panopticon that is emerging all around us.
To understand this conflict, we must step back. A monetary transaction involves specific goods or services being exchanged for tokens giving access to general goods and services from others. The pub landlord hands me beer at night if I transfer tokens that allow him to get cigarettes from a shopkeeper in the morning.
There are two ways to implement this though.
The first is to give the tokens a physical form. In this scenario, 'getting rich' means accumulating those physical things and 'making a payment' means handing them over to someone else. They are bearer instruments, which means nobody keeps a record of who owns them. Rather, whoever holds them owns them. This is your wallet with notes in it. This is cash.
Alternatively, you can use a ledger. Someone sets up a database with spaces allotted to different people. This is then used to keep a record of who has tokens. These tokens have no physical form, but are written into existence. They are 'data objects', and they are 'moved around' by editing the record. The keeper of the ledger thus maintains an account of what money is attributable to you, 'keeping score' of it for you. In this system, 'getting rich' means accumulating a high score on your account. 'Making a payment' involves identifying yourself to the keeper of the ledger via a communications system, and requesting that they edit your account, and the account of whoever you are paying.
Does this sounds familiar? It is your bank account.
Old banks used actual books to maintain these account ledgers, but modern banks use digital databases housed in huge datacentres. You then interact with them via your internet banking portal, your phone app, or by going into a branch. This is not a minor part of the monetary system. Over 90 per cent of the UK's money supply exists nowhere but on bank databases.
It is upon this underlying infrastructure that payment card companies like Visa build their operations. They deal with situations in which someone with one bank account finds themselves in a shop owned by someone else with another bank account. Rather than the pub landlord giving me his bank details for a manual transfer, my card sends messages through Visa's network to automatically arrange the editing of our respective accounts.
Many fintech – financial technology – startups specialise in finding ways to augment, gamify or streamline elements of this underlying infrastructure. Thus, I might use a mobile phone fingerprint reader to authorise changes to the bank databases. Much fintech 'disruption' merely involves putting slicker clothes on the same old emperor.
The use of high-speed communications systems to rearrange binary code information about who has what money might be new, but ledger money is as old as any bearer form. The Rai stones of the island of Yap were huge and largely unmovable stones that, while seeming like physical tokens, were a form of ledger money. Rather than being physically moved – like cash would – a record of who owned the stones was kept in people's heads, stored in their communal memory. If the owners wished to 'transfer' a stone to another, they 'edited the ledger' of who possessed the tokens by merely informing the community. Why physically roll the stone if you can just get everyone to remember that it has 'moved' to somebody else? The main reason that we struggle to recognise this as a form of cashlessness is that the ledger is invisible and informal.
Much fintech 'disruption' merely involves putting slicker clothes on the same old emperor
Cashless society, though, is presented as futuristic progress rather than past history, a fashionable motif of futurists, entrepreneurs and innovation gurus. Nevertheless, while there are real trends in behaviour and tastes to be spotted in society, there are also trends in behaviour and taste among trend-spotters. They are paid to fixate upon change and so have an incentive to hype minor shifts into 'end of history' deaths, births and revolutions. Innovation communities are always at risk of losing touch within an echo chamber of buzzwords, amplifying one another's speculations into concrete future certainties. These prediction factories always produce the same two unprovable sentences: "In the future we will… " and "In the future we will no longer… ". Thus, in the future we will all use digital payments. In the future we will no longer use cash.
This is the utopia presented by the growing digital payments industry, which wishes to turn the perpetual mirage of cashless society into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Indeed, a key trick to promoting your interests is to speak of them as obvious inevitabilities that are already under way. It makes others feel silly for not recognising the apparently obvious change.
To create a trend you should also present it as something that other people demand. A sentence like "All over the world, people are switching to digital payments" is not there to describe what other people want. It's there to tell you what you should want by making you feel out of sync with them. Here's fintech investor Rich Ricci invoking the spectre of millennials, with their strange moral power to define the future. They are repulsed by the revolting physicality of cash, and feel all warm towards fintech gadgets. But these are not, on the whole, real people. They are a weapon in the arsenal of marketing departments used to make older people feel prehistoric. We're not pushing this. We're just responding to what the new generation demands.
And so we get Visa's Cashfree and Proud campaign. If people really were ashamed of cash, they wouldn't need ads to tell them. Visa must engineer that shame to teach you that what you want is the same as what they want. And if you don't want it, just remember that cashless society is inevitable. Don't get left behind.
But this system will leave many behind. It is hardwired to include only those with access to a bank account; and bank accounts are hosted by profit-seeking corporations that operate at scale. They have no time for your individual idiosyncrasies. They cannot make profit off anyone who cannot easily be categorised and modelled on a spreadsheet.
So, good luck to you if you find yourself with only sporadic appearances in the official books of state, if you are a rural migrant without a recorded birthdate, identifiable parents, or an ID number. Sorry if you lack markers of stability, if you are a rogue traveller without permanent address, phone number or email. Apologies if you have no symbols of status, if you're an informal economy hustler with no assets and low, inconsistent income. Condolences if you have no official stamps of approval from gatekeeper bodies, like university certificates or records of employment at a formal company. Goodbye if you have a poor record of engagements with recognised institutions, like a criminal record or a record of missed payments.
This is no small problem. The World Bank estimates that there are two billion adults without bank accounts, and even those who do have them still often rely upon the informal flexibility of cash for everyday transactions. These are people bearing indelible markers of being incompatible with formal institutional space. They are often too unprofitable for banks to justify the expense of setting them up with accounts. This is the shadow economy, invisible to our systems.
The shadow economy is not just 'poor' people. It’s potentially anybody who hasn't internalised the correct state-corporate narrative of normality, and anyone seeking a lifestyle outside of the mainstream. The future presented by self-styled innovation gurus has no scope for flexible, unpredictable or invisible people. They represent analogue backwardness. The future is a world of endless consumer choice built upon an inescapable digital uniformity of automated rules, a matrix outside which you can neither exist nor think.
Back in Amsterdam I hang out with Ancilla van de Leest of the Netherlands Pirate Party. She only visits establishments that accept cash, true to her political belief in individual privacy from prying eyes.
It would be wrong to assume, however, that Ancilla's primary concern involves surveillance by a Big Brother-style bogeyman. It's true that your spending patterns reveal much about how you actually live, and the privacy implications of having these recorded in searchable database format are only starting to be uncovered. We know that targeted individual surveillance of payments occurs by the likes of the FBI and NSA, but routinised mass surveillance could become a norm. Imagine automatic flagging systems triggered by anyone engaging in a combination of transactions deemed subversive. Tax authorities are bound to be building systems to flag discrepancies between your spending patterns and your declared profits.
It's also true that at London fintech gatherings the excited visions of cashless society now occasionally come with a disclaimer that we should think about the power granted to those who control the system. Not only can payments intermediaries see every time you buy access to a porn site, but they have the ability to censor your transactions, like Visa, PayPal and MasterCard attempting to choke WikiLeaks by refusing to process people's donations. We could imagine some harsh sci-fi scenario in which a theocratic regime issues decrees to payments processors to block anyone buying books deemed sexually deviant. Such decrees could be automatically enforced via code, with subroutines remotely triggering smart locks to place the offending miscreant under house arrest while automatically deducting a fine from their account.
The proclaimed Death of Cash is thus an episode in the broader drama that is the Death of Privacy, and the death of informal, unaccounted-for behaviour
Such automated dystopias should ideally be avoided, so a dose of paranoia about digital payments systems is a healthy impulse, even if it might be unwarranted.
But that isn't really the point. What's more important to Ancilla and me is the looming sense of an external watcher that 'assists', 'guides' or 'helps' you in your life, tracking and logging your moves in order to influence you. The watcher is not a single entity. It's a collective array being incrementally built in stages by startups and companies around the world as we speak. We feel it seeping deeper into our lives, a mesh of connected devices, cookies and sensors. Whether we visualise it as the benevolent eyes of a parent, or the menacing eyes of a tyrant doesn't matter. The point is that the eyes have the potential to monitor you, all the time.
The proclaimed Death of Cash is thus an episode in the broader drama that is the Death of Privacy, the death of breathing room, and the death of informal, non-measured, unaccounted-for behaviour. Every action you take must forever be attached to your digital persona, dragging with it a data trail extending back to the day you were born. We face creating an entire generation of people who do not know what it feels like to not be monitored.
For many economists, the War on Cash will be resolved by their favourite mystical demigod, the market. This guiding force prevails when utility-maximising producers and consumers go around making rational choices with perfect information about their options, and with total freedom to choose whether or not to exercise those options. If digital payment transaction costs are lower, then cash will rightly die.
The pristine realm of market theory is unfit to assess the dynamics of this situation. Our sense of what constitutes a legitimate choice does not form in a vacuum. We are born into social power structures that tell us what normality is, and that shame us for not choosing 'correctly'. You might be a rebel who challenges prevailing cultural norms, but those norms are conditioned by those with the greatest financial and media clout. At this moment the blaring of propaganda extolling the short-term conveniences of digital payment is dulling our critical impulses to rearrange our cultural DNA. Who is thinking about the longer-term implications of building our lives around these systems, and thereby locking ourselves into dependence upon them?
Unlike a battle fought using violence, hegemony is the assertion of power by getting people to believe in it, to see it as inevitable, unassailable and normal. Visa's four-year plan is one such exercise, and once we've internalised it, we'll choose to build their power. We'll feel strangely comforted by the MasterCard billboard endorsed by the Mayor of London. We'll find ourselves downloading ApplePay like a dazed child accepting a gift.
So, let's prepare for the War on Cash. Remember, this is not about romanticising the £10 notes with the Queen on them. This is about maintaining alternatives to the stifling hygiene of the digital panopticon being constructed to serve the needs of profit-maximising, cost-minimising, customer-monitoring, control-seeking, behaviour-predicting commercial bureaucrats. And fear not, the Germans are onside, along with the criminals, the homeless, the street-side buskers and an army of people whose lives will never get a five-star rating on a mainstream reputation scoring system. We will forge alliances with purveyors of non-bank alternative currency systems; and yes, we will maintain the option to use our payment cards. Because what we fight for is precisely that. The option.
http://thelongandshort.org/society/war-on-cash
One of the most inspirational designers working today is Kenya Hara. Although the Haptics exhibition he planned and produced was quite a few years ago, there is still some wonderful thoughts and ideas brands can consider in products and packaging which elevate the user experience.
The Haptics exhibition in 2004 was an exhibition of design capturing how we perceive things with our senses. While dealing with shape, colour, and texture is one of the most important aspects of design, there is one more: it's not the question of how to create, but how to make someone sense something. We might call this creative awakening of the human sensors 'the design of the senses.'
For the exhibition Kenya Hara asked various creators to design an object not based on form or colour, but motivated primarily by "haptic" considerations.
Here are a few examples from the exhibition:
Panasonic Gel Remote Control.
For the exhibition, the electrical applicance manufacturer Panasonic Design company proposed a remote control that when switched off drops as if it were asleep.
But when it's switched on, it becomes animated. First it begin to breathe, as if if asleep it's belly rising and falling. When a hand reaches for it a sensor feels the hand's approach and the whole object begins to glow.
Fog point vodka embraces biomimicry to produce environmentally responsible production of vodka by harvesting moisture from fog.
"To create Fog Point, we installed our very own fog catchers to turn fog into fresh water.
'This water is then blended with vodka distilled from premium wine sourced from a sustainable vineyard on the Central Coast.'
It says that Fog Point is a 'an extraordinarily crisp, pure, and gluten free sipping vodka with elegant hints of pear, citrus, and honeysuckle.'
http://hangarone.com/vodkas/
Oksana Anilionyte, who was previously involved in MIT's BioLogic textile project, presented a collection based on the relationship between the body and materials.
Titled Fluid Sense, the collection was developed through Anilionyte's extensive research into liquid-based materials.
A one-shouldered lilac- and orange-coloured top that looked as if it had been poured over the model was made from polymer-based fluid prints.
"[Fluid sense is] the feeling of wearing liquid clothes," "Body temperature and natural perspiration stimulate polymer-based fluid prints that adapt to human body shapes and become a second skin."
"Liquid material shifts into a new form of textile that has a strong relation to the body."
While most air purifiers use a HEPA filter to collect and store pollutants, Molekule applies a new technology called photoelectrochemical oxidation, which features a filter coated in nanoparticles. As air passes through the purifier, light activates the filter and creates a surface reaction that destroys allergens, bacteria, viruses and mould. Molekule claims the technology can get rid of pollutants 1,000 times smaller than comparable products. The device is said to clean a 55-square-metre room in an hour.
The first product from Project Jacquard comes in the form of a Levi’s Commuter denim jacket – aimed predominantly at cyclists – that will allow wearers to control their music, answer calls and even respond to messages. The jacket will be compatible with Google Apps such as Google Maps and Google Messaging, as well as Spotify and athletic activity tracking app Strava.
By weaving sensor grids, miniaturised electronics and imperceptible circuit boards into the jacquard fibers, the jacket is completely indistinguishable from other Levi’s clothing.
Even oceans need trash cans. The Seabin is a dock-based automated rubbish bin that catches floating plastic, oil and fuels. Australian surfers Andrew Turton, 40, and Peter Ceglinski, 37, developed the bin after witnessing growing pollution in marinas.
"I used to be a product designer," says Ceglinski. "When I realised we didn't need the plastic products I was making, I quit my job." Ceglinski found an old factory in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, and transformed it into a Seabin workshop, where he also lives.
Seabin
Ceglinski's invention offers a 24/7 alternative to the expensive "trash boats" traditionally used by harbours and marinas, which clean by scooping up rubbish in nets. The Seabin is most efficient in the marina's problem spots, where predominant currents amass heavy pollution. It's estimated to catch up to 1.5kg of rubbish per day - removing around half a tonne per year from the 250,000 tonnes the oceans are believed to hold.
How to make the Great Pacific Garbage Patch history
The Seabin is fixed to a floating dock, above the water surface. A pump creates a flow that sucks rubbish inside a recycled polyethylene bin and into a natural-fibre bag. The water is then pumped back into the marina. And don't worry about fish getting trapped: in four years, the Seabins haven't caught a single one. "Fish simply stay away from the surface and the current that the Seabin produces," says Ceglinski. If any did get caught, they would be freed by marina staff while emptying the bin.
An Indiegogo campaign collected over $267,000 (£189,000) in January, prompting Malta to express interest in installing Seabins around its island. "An eco-label programme advised 250 marinas on its mailing list to get a Seabin to increase their rating," says Ceglinski.
Eight backers paid the $3,825 campaign price for their exclusive prototype, but the eventual market price shouldn't exceed €3,000 (£2,300). French manufacturer Poralu Marine is making and distributing the first Seabins, which are scheduled to be ready to ship in late 2016.
The line that divides clothing and technology isn’t blurring, it’s disappearing – as proven by London-based fashion house CuteCircuit
A shirt that sends your friends virtual hugs. A handbag that displays tweets and messages. A dress that sparkles like the night sky. Today, the term “wearable” covers more than smartwatches and VR goggles. “We try to make experiences that make you feel empowered, and help people connect with one another in a way that is intimate or fun,” says Francesca Rosella, creative director of CuteCircuit – a design house that’s been producing fashion embedded with technology since 2004. “But gadget is a dirty word.”
Co-founded by Rosella and Ryan Gentz, the outfit’s first design was the Hug Shirt, which senses touch and can send – or receive – a squeeze and targeted warmth to someone also wearing the shirt. Originally producing concepts and catwalk pieces, Gentz and Rosella are now creating a line of ready-to-wear fashion. “We’re trying to change the way people consume ‘disposable’ fashion,” says Rosella. “We want our designs to last a really long time, so we use really nice luxury materials such as silk, and then we embed the micro-LEDs that we call magic fabric.”
Exploring the properties of resin
Fabien Barrero-Carsenat’s ‘Pinus Pinaster’ (aka the Maritime Pine) collection is an exploration of resin. It all started when Barrero-Carsenat was wandering through a pine forest in the south of France and brown droplets of resin shining in the sunlight.
Curious, Barrero-Carsenat researched the history and composition of resin and then created a series of sustainable and eco-friendly applications for the material; cheese covers and trays, a carafe, a fruit bay, a lamp and an electric socket. “Every one is a result based on my resin exploration, each using a singular property.” says Barrero-Carsenat.
Cheese Cover and Tray make use of the anti-bacterial and fungicidal properties of resin. “What place is there in contemporary life for old fashioned cheese preservation? Nowadays we are used to think fridge only. This application uses the anti-bacterial substance contained inside resin. Using this method traditional cheese can stay longer in the maturity stage you like, without definitely stopping the cheese aging process. The covers can be used with three different wood trays, each with unique characteristics; Cedar, strong perfumed recommended for persons who want their cheese flavored and preserved longer, Cherry, an aesthetic tray for smooth and delicate taste and Hornbeam, a neutral tray with no smells.” Imperfections in the production of these items gave the pieces a unique material identity and aesthetic dimension.The Standard Carafe for drinking water uses the waterproofing qualities of resin and is made with unglazed white ceramic outside and a resin layer inside. “Every ‘bistro’ or popular restaurant [in France] re-uses empty wine bottles to serve the free drinking water on tables. This carafe design is a popular french restaurant standard. Waterproofing with resin means x12 the energy saved. You do not need to bake the ceramic at 1200°C a second time, resin is liquid enough at 85°C.”
The Electric Wall Socket is made “recycling all of my experiment’s waste. Installed inside our homes, this standard requires no change, it has to be static. Using a complex composite of resin waste, we are not only producing a simple standard, but also recycling all the unconsumed material in a cradle to cradle cycle. Moreover, the resin changes color with passing time, offering a ‘static evolution’ of our sockets, behaving like the Wabi-Sabi Japanese philosophy whose exposed object gets nicer and better day after day.” Photos: Paula Cermeno.
With the realisation that the ageing baby boomers are one of the largest demographic group and are living longer and more active lives we are beginning to see a rash of designs tailored to this new and growing market. One such product is Dirk Biotto's called ChopChop is a kitchen that aims to make cooking a meal safer and more accessible.
As aging baby boomers proliferate, the design community has become increasingly attuned to their needs. Take Dirk Biotto. The Berlin-based industrial designer has created a kitchen prototype that aims to make cooking a meal easier, safer, and more accessible for the elderly.
Called ChopChop, his design features a counter that is height adjustable and a backboard that hangs easily accessible kitchen utensils. An extendable hose allows pots to be filled from greater distances, so people don’t have to lug heavy pots of water across the kitchen. And if you want to fill a pot directly from the tap, a sloped sink makes it easy to slide heavy pots onto the working surface. The kitchen also takes inspiration from woodworking, and features a vise, which secures bottles and cans in place for easy opening.
Recent graduate from the Royal College of Art Johanna Schmeer considers the future of food based on her knowledge of the possibilities afforded by nanotechnology. Creating a series of synthetic foods for a future whereby the worlds growing population needs to tap into new resources she conceives how products made from enzyme enhanced bio plastics would in theory harvest essential nutrients as alternatives to traditional food sources.
Built on fact, her project is based on a recent scientific breakthrough by scientist Russell Johnson, who has identified a way to synthesise functioning biological cells made from plastics.
Adding a smattering of fantasy based on this fact, Johanna has created 7 food products that fulfil the essential food groups. For instance they produce water, sugar, fat, minerals and proteins. These speculative objects secrete powders and liquids that could be ingested in our distant future.
http://vimeo.com/98281097
Envisioning a future whereby digital technology has superseded analogue cooking, Marjorie Artieres visualises the domestic kitchen in 2024 where 3D printers are commonplace. 3D printing food has provided perfect nutrition, no waste and issues surrounding food shortages, but with it has come uniformly shaped, processed & diagnostically perfect pods of food that has removed the pleasure and rituals of cooking.
Her Note by Note project offers a laboratory style tool kit for creating and recapturing the heritage of analogue cooking that has been lost with the rise of the digital kitchen.
Unlike cooking today, her future kitchen proposal has no recipes, instead Note by Note uses experimental and innovative cooking to create a new repertoire of flavours, textures and colours.
Artieres's project is as a provocation to technologists to re think the future of cooking with passion and taste rather than just necessity.
http://vimeo.com/98531837