Frame

Does this issue look different than all of our previous editions? Some years ago, an avid reader told me that FRAME showcased a very distinctive style. I’d never given any thought to style before, but was told that the designs we published were expressive, bold and colourful. In short: projects that wow. And they were right. In our search for innovation and creativity in spatial design, we’ve always been attracted to rather radical approaches that involve a lot of CMF: colour, material and form (the F actually stands for finish, but form is more appropriate in this context). Let’s call it maximalist design. If you’ve been following us, you’ve surely noticed that we’ve taken a different direction in the last few years. Instead of being interested in ‘what’ and ‘who’, we started…

Furniture made with surplus stock, offcuts and RECYCLED materials. Modular appliances to break the discard-and-replace cycle. BIOCOMPOSITES based on renewable fibre crops. Seating ‘knitted’ from PLASTIC waste. A first of-its-kind WOODEN toilet. Plugging into PLANTS to power lighting objects. Separable systems for easy recycling. Colours extracted from local FLORA. We share the PRODUCTS defining the market today. The final project created during ANNA RESEI’s Fund for Young Design residency at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (MK&G), WATER CARRIERS furthers the designer’s exploration into nomadic living in the age of the climate crisis. The surfaces of the storage chests – which double as ‘backpacks’ for belongings – feature digital renditions of patterns from pieces in MK&G’s antiquities collection. annaroro.com Artist-designer BIRGITTE DUE MADSEN’s three-part project TONALITY explores colour, materiality and technique in…

Launched this spring, the Transparency collection continues Chemetal’s evolution into thicker metal designs. It began in 2021 with the release of Surface Mode, industrial, black CNC-carved patterns. ‘With Surface Mode, we pushed our metal expertise,’ says Chemetal creative director and president Geoff Schaefer. ‘We loved the idea of using thicker aluminium that, because it has no backing, can be more easily repurposed, reused or recycled.’ The recent addition of a large-bed fibre laser, which can cut designs and shapes out of aluminium panels, enabled Chemetal to go in new directions. The Transparency collection is the result. It features nine designs – from biomorphic to classic, mid-century and futuristic – and eight colour options, including nature-inspired tones like Seafoam and Saffron. Designed by Chemetal’s in-house team of creatives, CAD experts and fabricators, these…

How can waste shift into a cycle of circularity, how can we build more hospitable habitats, and how can increased ownership among end users secure a project’s longevity? We put three studios with enticing answers in the spotlight as this issue’s Ones to Watch. FLÉTTA enables the post-reuse potential of materials, AIXOPLUC conceives empathetic spaces considerate of both people and the biosphere, and CAUKIN Courtesy of Caukin practices community engagement to effect real social change. Elfur Hildisif Hermannsdóttir, courtesy of Flétta…

‘Our task as architects is not to make the Earth inhabitable – it already is without the interference of architects in particular, and humans in general – but more hospitable,’ says David Tapias Monné, founder of Spanish architecture firm Aixopluc, which is Catalan for shelter. Though Monné doesn’t think human societies are hospitable by nature – ‘they tend to fear and dislike strangers and the “other”’ – he is confident in the role of the architect to make truly empathetic and hospitable spaces for people, while being considerate of the biosphere. To get there, Monné thinks we urgently need to build a more symbiotic – instead of parasitic – relationship with nature, which is why Aixopluc works with what’s on hand, both in terms of materials and skills. In line with…

Hailing from a country rich in natural resources, Icelanders Birta Rós Brynjólfsdóttir and Hrefna Sigurðardóttir have founded a product design studio on working with an unnatural resource: waste. ‘We saw that most materials in Iceland are imported and then exported again for recycling,’ says Sigurðardóttir, ‘so we became eager to use the materials here, where they become waste.’ Their collaboration began in 2014 with a project called Haugfé. Named for a word from the Viking age that refers to the practice of burying the deceased with treasured belongings like weapons and jewellery, Haugfé sought to reframe industrial waste in Iceland. They and a friend visited manufacturers and analysed their waste, made the materials available to others, held pop-up material markets and shared their database. ‘Although we had good feedback and people…