I went with knowledge company Designboost to Milan and made a MiniBoost to explore the personal viewpoint on what Design for life is for some of the worlds most acknowledged designers. The MiniBoost resulted in ten unique interviews with personalities like; Tokujin Yoshioka, Marcel Wanders, Hella Jongerius, Maarten Baas, Christophe Pillet, Nika Zupanc, Edward Barber, Jay Osgerby, Stephen Burks, Jean-Marie Massaud and Arihiro Miyake. All interviews are available at the MiniBoost section of the Designboost web.
The questions asked looked what Design for Life is all about and how we can create better lives for the many. How we plan, produce, deliver and consume everything from cities, transportation and infrastructure to food, entertainment, products and brands. And that we together have a joint responsibility. And that we all can make a difference.
The questions are written by different Boosters at the DesignBoost 2009 key event “Design for life” in Malmö, Sweden.
Completing its trilogy of housing projects in Oerestad with the same client, BIG + green roof contractor Veg Tech receives the award for 8 House’s 1.700 m2 sloping green roof. The Scandinavian Green Roof Association based in Malmo, Sweden today honored the Best Green Roof in the Scandinavia, at an award ceremony at the 8 House in Oerestad, Copenhagen. Since 2000, the association has promoted an increased use of green roofs in Scandinavia and created numerous working examples at its Malmo address. In addition the association and its members educate the positive impact of green roofs on urban ecology, and provide inspiration for legislation and building standards.
“BIG has demonstrated a very clear and conscious use of the green roof successfully integrating it into the visual identity of the building ‐ something which was seen in BIG’s green roof award application last year with the M2 houses, but on a much grander scale”, Louise Lundberg, Scandinavian Green Roof Association’s Superintendent.
The moss‐sedum roof covers an extraordinarily long, steep and sloping roof surface descending 11 floors downward to the edge of a canal in Oerestad South opening up the interior courtyard to a view of the protected open spaces of Kalvebod Faelled. The 60.000m2 mixed‐use development is designed in the form of a figure 8 by manipulating the housing typology most often found in Copenhagen. The massing steps up and down depending on access to daylight and views and is broken into four programmatic bars of retail and housing. Green spaces upon the roof and within the courtyard are strategically placed to reduce the urban heat island effect as well as providing a visual relief to the inhabitants. The first residents have already moved in while the building will be finally completed by 1st of October.
“The parts of the green roof that remain were seen by the client as integral to the building as they are visible from the ground. These not only provide the environmental benefits that we all know come from green roofs, but also add to the visual drama and appeal of the sloping roofs and rooftop terrace in between”, Bjarke Ingels, BIG
It is that time of the year when you want to hold on to the last summer days and to the summer light. Now it is possible!
This lamp, designed by Swedish designer Jesper Jonsson, is charged during the day through solar power to provide energy to light up the lamp when it gets dark. To light the lamp, you unfold the shade through a twisting motion. This allows it to be small and portable when you want to carry it with you, but still have a bigger surface to emit light on when needed. A strap with magnets allows you to hang the lamp in many different ways, whether its opened or closed.
It is designed to provide mood lighting in an outdoors environment, to let us continue social activities outside when it gets dark. For example on the balcony, on a boat, or hang it on your bikes handlebar when having the fall picnic!
September 6–7 Designboost presents DesignBoost - Made in [Arnhem] in Arnhem, Holland through a variety of integrated BoostChat (workshops) and BoostTalk (lectures). Designboost will invite Boosters from Holland and all over the world which represent the true frontline within design in its broadest context. All are authorities in their field of expertise and our selection reflects the principle that design is multidisciplinary reaching way beyond the obvious. Our carefully selected Boosters will interact on the theme ”Design for Life” over two days with companies, organisations and institutions.
BoostChat is for invited only while the BoostTalk is open for public as well.
When it comes to sustainable life there are probably many things that needs to be questioned, left could very well be right. The objective of DesignBoost - Made in [Arnhem] is to make everybody question, reach awareness and think in new paths when it comes to creating better lives for lots of people. This is after all the ultimate goal for all design.
San Francisco-based fuseproject, led by industrial designer Yves Béhar, is today announcing the worldwide unveiling of the GE WattStation. The GE WattStation is an easy-to-use electric vehicle (EV) charger with a consumer-friendly form. Designed to help accelerate the adoption of plug-in electric vehicles, GE WattStation significantly decreases time needed for vehicle charging and, with the use of smart grid technology, allows utility companies to manage the impact of electric vehicles on the local and regional grids.
Fresh from their work with PUMA on a reduced-impact global packaging and distribution system, fuseproject has now designed an essential component of the delivery system for electric vehicle users. Combining functionality with user-friendly form, the GE WattStation offers faster battery charging and smart grid technology within a modular design that allows for easy upgrades, allowing customers to stay current with the latest advances.
“Good design is when a new technology enters our life and makes it more simple, beautiful and healthy,” said Yves Béhar, founder of fuseproject. “The GE WattStation achieves this with a welcoming design that will seamlessly integrate into the urban landscape and become a natural part of our daily driving routine.”
Swedish glass designers Carina Seth Andersson and Ann Wåhlström is involved in a new interesting glass project for Stockholms Glasbruk Skansen 2010. A project celebrating the good Stockholm tap water! Two new lines for the table or the garden called Floda and Bäcka. Mouth blown and hand finished in the hot shop at Skansen, where the glass products are available in the shop.
The Boatanic (boat + botanic) is a novel concept that combines existing know-how to create an unprecedented solution for growing food within the inner city. Its aim is to reduce the environmental impact of our food which, today, still has to travel large distances before it hits our plates.
The concept is to simply convert discarded tourist boats into floating greenhouses as these are ideally suited due to their large glass windows. The idea dawned on Damian O’Sullivan as he was walking around Amsterdam and realised that the typical tourist boat actually resembled a greenhouse. ‘What if you replaced tourists with thyme or tomatoes?’ he asked himself…the Boatanic was born!
The name is also a tongue-in-cheek allusion to the Titanic and can as such be seen as a veiled reference to the environmental danger we are faced with.
The Boatanic will offer fresh year-round seasonal herbs, fruit and vegetables. These will be sold directly from the quay and also delivered by bike to restaurants (wholesale) as well as in the form of monthly subscription baskets (retail).
The Boatanic also intends to engender a return to the commercial exploitation of the inner-city waterways which have all but been lost in the last century as we turned away from them in favour of road transportation.
The Boatanic is ideally suited for cities with inner-city waterways, a rich gourmet culture and a climate that is neither too hot nor too cold. We aim to have a pilot up and running in Amsterdam by 2011 and would then look toward expanding to other cities in Europe and North America.
In short, the Boatanic will reduce the food-miles to food-at-your-feet!
The Boatanic will feature as part of a group exhibition at Fort Asperen (NL) until September 2010. Other designers include Arnout Visser and Christien Meindersma.
Kjellgren Kaminsky has produced Swedens first series of passive houses sold as type houses in collaboration with Emrahus. Their goal is to make this environmentally friendly building technique available for all. Villa Nyberg is the first one to get built. The villa has been customized for the Nyberg family and is situated in Borlänge, central Sweden.
Passive houses are extremely well-insulated buildings that are largely heated by the energy already present in the building - people and the household equipment generate a lot of energy. The energy simulations show that this villa will have an energy consumption for heating of only 25 kWh/m²year.
The villa is situated by a lake in a fur forest in central Sweden. The living room and kitchen open up towards the views of the lake, the more private areas such as the bedrooms and bathrooms are situated on the other side of the house with smaller windows overlooking the forest. The round shape of the villa eliminates coldbridges and reduces the enclosing wallarea of the house. It also effects the way you live in the house, during the day one will move from room to room around the building experiencing different views and daylight conditions.
This summer marks the 125th birthday of designer Josef Frank. Recently he was honored with a public place at Gärdet in Stockholm. Now Svenskt Tenn opens its Josef Frank exhibition just in time for anniversary.
Svenskt Tenn’s decorators have produced modern reflections of three expressive Josef Frank interiors taken from the exhibitions at Liljevalchs in 1934, and in New York and San Fransisco in 1939. These are displayed in different parts of the store.
”We have chosen a piece of furniture with a particularly strong character from each picture and designers have built the interiors around it with products that are available in the shop right now,” says Thommy Bindefeld, Marketing Manager at Svenskt Tenn.
For example, the same drinks cabinet that was shown in the Liljevalchs exhibition in 1934 occurs here, while the couch and armchair are upholstered in Aramal, which were printed for the first time last fall. Here, the new blue version of Aramal which has just been launched is used.
At the other end of the shop, in what is called the Aquarium, Estrid Ericson’s alcove from 1930 has been built up. In the Svenskt Tenn archives, the designers managed to find the right wallpaper pattern in some botanical posters and decorated the wall with it.
In the third environment, in the part of the store facing Väpnargatan, is a study which originates from the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Here the kidney-shaped desk has been replaced with one similar in glass, again a finding from the archives.
The exhibition at Svenskt Tenn at Strandvägen 5 in Stockholm is open June 10–August 15.
The demand for organic cotton has grown rapidly around the world, but still the supply of baby textiles has been weak. Babygreen now offers the first complete organic cotton collection for the baby bed.
The company behind Babygreen is a pioneer in the organic cotton farming. Since 1986, the Swedish family-owned business The Ecocotton Co. has refined the organic cotton farming in southern Peru, that now belongs to one of the world’s largest organic cotton projects.
Consumers have recognized the benefits of organic production for both the environment and health. The recent studies of the toxins in textiles shows the health risks associated with regular cotton, the hunt for cheap production can have serious consequences. “WHO’s statistics reveal that more than 20,000 people a year die on the world’s cotton fields, as a result of damage from chemical pesticides. Organic farming saves lives. We believe you will agree, that it is worth the few extra bucks”. Says Marcus Bergman, CEO of The Ecocotton Co.
Babygreen’s new collection includes bedding for cribs, carriages and cradles with blankets and crib protection in bright, beautiful colors and patterns. Today’s eco-friendly dyeing and printing techniques ensure a non-toxic product in fresh colors and cheerful patterns. The Peruvian eco-cotton offers a soft and lasting quality - the best choice for your children and our planet. Babygreen is sold in selected stores and on Babygreen’s website.
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