Tabla de contenidos para July - August 2019 en Frame

EXTREME EXPERIENCES In the lead-up to each issue, Frame challenges emerging designers to answer a topical question with a future-forward concept. Luxury hospitality experiences are the new collectors’ items. And the less accessible they are, the more aspirational they become. AccorHotels has launched Flying Nest: self-sufficient containers ready to be shipped to any place imaginable. Diners are submerged beneath the sea at Under, Snøhetta’s much-publicized restaurant on the southernmost tip of Norway’s rugged coastline. Where to from here? How extreme can we go? We asked five designers to get creative.…

THE DESIGN BUSINESS is booming in China, a country that’s long been a hotbed of rapid expansion. Buildings were once seemingly thrown together at a whim, without regard for their users. Shanghai-based Daylab belongs to a new wave of young designers eager to confront such stereotypes. More specifically, the studio hopes to break the unwritten rules of commercial architecture in China. ‘Most designers here think commercial projects are about checking boxes,’ says Docee Dong, one of Daylab’s three partners. ‘There are so many “guidelines”, which can be seen as impenetrable restraints. It’s apparently always better to have a brighter shop than a darker one, for instance. We love to question such precedents. On the other hand, some rules cannot be broken. In those cases, we try to present an alternative…

AS PART OF Moooi’s first set of year-round international product releases, Moooi More Moments, Dutch design studio Kranen/Gille launched The Party collection late last year. The series of five wall lamps inspired by masks used to frighten away bad spirits are hyper-minimal and yet shine with character. During Moooi’s ‘A Life Extraordinary’ exhibition at Milan Design Week, The Party made harmony as a singing chandelier. Not much later, as Moooi prepared to introduce the studio’s Plant Chandelier at NYCxDesign, Frame spoke with Design Academy Eindhoven graduates and ’s-Hertogenbosch-based designers Jos Kranen and Johannes Gille about their blossoming relationship with Moooi. You describe your work as ‘industrial poetry’ and ‘neo-Art Deco’. How would you define these styles and how are they reflected in your work? JOS KRANEN: We’re intrigued by floral…

‘In the very posh old headquarters, you never really understood that McDonald’s was such a research-focused, iterative company’ CHICAGO — It’s quite possible that no brand evokes an image as all-encompassing as McDonald’s. Regardless of where in the world you come from, you are almost certainly familiar with its logo, its jingles, its iconic menu items and its graphic packaging … perhaps even the distinctive and remarkably consistent smell of its restaurants. But while this total recognition has long made the company a marketer’s dream, McDonald’s has more recently found itself fighting an uphill battle in the face of new competition and an increasingly health- and image-conscious culture. In a valiant effort to claw its way back to relevancy, the brand has spent the past four years in the midst…

COMMERCE – Logic follows that e-commerce is all about access. Consumers can beat a path to purchase your products whenever and wherever. But when e-commerce evolves into v-commerce, that appears to not necessarily be the case, at least not for Nike. For the recent launch of their Air Max 720 sneaker, the sports apparel brand created a virtual store that was, indeed, open to all. To be eligible to obtain any of the limited-edition merchandise, however, you had to enter an order number from a previous purchase of the 720s. Only then would the range of footballs, utility vests, water bottles and socks become shoppable. The experience demonstrates one way of transferring ‘drop culture’ – in which customers have to prove their fealty to a brand by turning up at…

MATERIALS – Some of the most intriguing material applications we saw during this edition of the Milan Design Week came not from biodesign labs nor manufacturing giants, but from the sheer ingenuity of a group of creators who dared to look at old materials in a new way. From liquid 3D printing to volcano ‘mining’, here are four projects that extended the creative possibilities of terracotta, marble, porcelain and wood. Roman designer Federica Elmo worked with paint specialists to develop a custom process to 3D-print liquid on a hard surface, via ink jet. The hard surface she had in mind was an unexpected one, particularly given the rainbow-like effects she was able to achieve with the new processing: Carrara marble. The resulting collection, named Ondamarmo for Bloc Studios, features six…

Can you tell us about Clouds of Glass in the Desert? EGMONTAS GERAS: We’re proposing an architectural form that touches the earth lightly, made from resources found on site. Visitors stay overnight in cloudlike glass structures cast in situ from the desert’s only resource: sand. SONIA MAGDZIARZ: Why do deserts need clouds at all? Clouds that form during the day escape to cooler areas by night, accounting for the sandy landscape’s drastic temperature fluctuations. Our clouds would conserve heat during the day to create a cocoon of warmth at night. The resulting microclimate would also become a new home for plant life. Why did you decide to focus on deserts? SM: We thought it would be interesting to inhabit an otherwise barren environment. The desert seems to be a frontier…

SOPHIE SOPHIE HICKS had an ace up her sleeve when developing fashion-forward retail concepts for the likes of Acne Studios, Chloé, Yohji Yamamoto and Paul Smith. Before becoming an architect, the Londoner worked for visionary fashion designer Azzedine Alaïa and as a fashion stylist for British Vogue. ‘Fashion people speak a different language,’ says Hicks, ‘but I understand that language.’ Interested in architecture from a very young age, she made the switch ‘before becoming tired of fashion. I left on an up.’ Hicks formed SH Ltd Architects in 1990 while studying at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. With a few staff members on board, she juggled refurbishing residences with the responsibilities of motherhood. ‘It’s quite unusual to start a practice while studying, but as a mature student…

DOHA – Jean Nouvel’s National Museum of Qatar in Doha has justly won headlines for its sculptural bravura: a composition of interlocking discs inspired by the desert rose mineral. The museum has the plan of a necklace enclosing a large open events space and is joined at the top by the historical fort that formerly housed the royal family. The discs play off the orthogonal walls of the old structure and dip to preserve a view of this beloved landmark from the coast road. Almost as exciting are the interior spaces created by Koichi Takada, a Japanese architect who works out of Sydney. The museum is a powerful expression of Qatari identity at a time when this arid peninsula has been blockaded by its neighbours. A stylized portrait of the…

MANY OF US are familiar with the acronyms ‘SS’ and ‘AW’ in the fashion world: four seasons consolidated into two collections per year. But in the age of fast fashion, some brands are cranking out almost one per month while others release a mind-boggling 52 micro seasons annually. Without disregarding the obvious environmental issues associated with extreme cases of wardrobe rotation, even the ‘standard’ biannual cycle has long presented issues for spatial designers, too. How can retail environments best cope with radical fluctuations? For some, a neutral base is the solution; the changing season’s merchandise becomes the interior’s evolving palette. But if you’re facilitating multiple brands, too, why not throw caution to the wind? Forty Five Ten and One-Off’s new additions do just that: they are multifaceted environments that reflect…

CHONGQING – ‘There is an enormous and growing amount of multi-brand stores in China, but not many survive for long,’ says Will Zhang, founder of SND. An exception to the rule, his brand has only grown bigger since it launched under the wings of Zhang’s fashion agency Chongqing Xing Jun Trading Co. Ltd in 2014. And it has the retail environments to match. But what’s the secret of their success? Zhang believes it lies in what they offer, which he describes as ‘nonconformist, avant-garde designs’. He explains that the rapid growth of social media is affecting the way Chinese people perceive fashion and trends. ‘They are more willing to research what suits their personal identity best. This has a positive influence on our business as customers have developed more interests…

BARCELONA — Most design-led hotels claim to take inspiration from location and local culture. Sir Hotels, which is present in six destinations across Europe, creates a unique visual narrative for each of its hotels, and makes an effort to buck location-specific visual cues and established local styles. Barcelona’s Sir Victor is the latest to join the brethren. It’s named after Victor Català, a renowned female writer of Catalonia’s late 18th-century modernista movement (She used a male nom de plume, as was common at the time). With this as a starting point, the concept for the hotel is duality and layering, and a more profound reading of what the city stands for. In a hyper-branded city like Barcelona, this is no easy task. And the project presented another challenge: up until…

As the proverb goes, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. So why do many hotels still adhere to business-like, pragmatic lobbies? The public space is a visitor’s first entry and impression of a stay, so all the more reason to make the area enticing. Incorporating unexpected colours and textures in the lobby and allocating cosy areas for socialization and relaxation are just two prime ways to help guests find the right balance between work and play during their hotel stay.…

420 to 700kg is the range of weight for each of the smaller units. The largest unit weighs over 1,770 kg 15 minutes is the amount of time it takes to go from scattered units to full assembly, with 2 people 8 units are pictured, but there are now 10 in total, and the research continues… 1 person is needed to move a single unit by hand 1.75 m x 0.5 m x 3 m are the dimensions of the largest unit 1.5 years have been spent working on Walking Assembly matterdesignstudio.com cemex.com…

American by accent, Chilean by birth and British by persuasion’, journalist and content strategist DANIELA WALKER splits her time between London and Westcliff-on-Sea. Although she reports on innovation and trends across a wide range of sectors, her area of expertise is in all things food and drink. Walker spent five years at the Future Laboratory, where she was the editor of trend-forecasting platform LS:N Global. Her work has appeared in publications including Wired UK, Monocle, Vice and Riposte. On page 136, she investigates why out-of-category brands are now entering the hospitality market. Australian-Spanish freelance writer, editor and consultant SUZANNE WALES specializes in design, architecture and creativity. Based in Barcelona for over 20 years – a city she says ‘never ceases to astound her’ – Wales has written and consulted for…

MANUFACTURING – Philippe Starck doesn’t own a computer. Still, that didn’t stop him from being the visionary behind (purportedly) the world’s first commercial design object conceived by artificial intelligence. Working with generative software from CAD software giant Autodesk, the French designer produced a ground-breaking chair for Italian furniture company Kartell. According to Starck, he, Kartell and Autodesk tasked the algorithm with working out how best to accommodate the human form while using the least amount of material. They fed certain information – like the intended shape and technical parameters chair of the injection moulding process – to the program. Then, the collaborators stood by as the feedback renders eventually morphed into the final piece, the A.I. chair. It’s worth noting that many of the program’s early prototypes looked far beyond…

TECHNOLOGY – By now, you’ve probably heard all about Google’s A Space for Being immersive installation, one of the standouts of this year’s Milan Design Week. Participants stayed for five minutes in each of the three distinct rooms devised by architect Suchi Reddy; their biometrics would later reveal which space made them feel most at ease, and therefore was deemed better for their overall health. But the fact that this installation worked so smoothly was due to the nearly invisible work of three objects explicitly designed to blend in: an armband, a pebble and a printer. Featuring the company’s signature plastextile hardware surface – a halfway state between a polycarbonate and a piece of poplin – the band in no way revealed its function, which was to measure vital signs.…

Your concept combines two motivations for travel: culture and nature … ALEXANDRE PICCIOTTO: I propose erecting a nomadic, ephemeral museum that can be set in the middle of improbable landscapes. Art pieces and installations would be 3D-printed on site, using natural materials that return to the earth at the event’s conclusion, like the biomaterials developed by researchers at Brown University that can decompose on demand. In the infinitely adaptable glass pavilion, an exhibition of sculptures sits alongside a café, where printed furniture is the ‘art’. What inspired your idea? I’ve always been fascinated by the work of Henri Rousseau, particularly his depictions of jungles. I can imagine the artist sitting in the middle of the vegetation, painting a fantastic landscape. I’m interested in the link between art and nature because…

GUILLERMO GUILLERMO SANTOMÀ LIKES to work with everyday materials and push them to the limit. Or so it seems. ‘I don’t differentiate between the material and its limit, the material is its own limit and the limit has its own materiality.’ Naivety about approaches and materials is the real constant and this is exactly why the Catalan expanded his team with ex-prisoners at the outset of his career. Trained architect and designer Santomà considers ‘not knowing what’s expected’ to be an added value. Neither the behaviour of a material nor the way one is supposed to work with it really matter. ‘I’ve learned more about materiality by reading and writing than by using materials for construction.’ He quickly adds: ‘My primary material is thinking.’ The designer’s portfolio – Is he…

PARIS – Family-owned department store Galeries Lafayette traces its history back 125 years, and has dreamed of opening a store on the Champs-Élysées for almost as long. In 1927, founder Théophile Bader bought the Hôtel de Massa on the leafy avenue, but the 1929 crisis forced him to rethink his retail plans. Now, 90 years on, the fourth and fifth generations of the family have finally followed through. Fulfilling a family ambition was not the only thing to bring Galeries Lafayette to the Champs-Élysées, however. A huge consideration is the famous avenue’s enormous volume of passing trade: some 300,000 pedestrians traverse it every day, half of them international tourists. The new store hopes to attract 10,000 to 15,000 visitors a day – an ambitious total, since the flagship store on…

NEW YORK CITY — On the top floor of Barneys New York’s imposing edifice of fashion, just past the men’s tailored suits, sits The High End, the luxury retailer’s new store-in-store venture that gives cannabis culture a posh touch. Handcrafted glass water pipes from Caleb Siemon stand atop polished metal shelves as an exalted design object. Hermès and Bauhaus ashtrays comingle with 24-karat gold rolling papers from Shine. And a dedicated salesperson can set customers up with an at-home cannabis delivery from upmarket retailer Beboe, whose own silver vape pens punctuate the lavish display. ‘Many of our customers are incorporating cannabis into their lifestyle,’ Barneys CEO and president Daniella Vitale said when The High End opened in March at its Beverly Hills flagship. It’s a business bet that a few…

While branded hospitality is not quite a new concept, it certainly is attracting renewed attention. This cross-sector play has an unparalleled ability to immerse consumers in a brand world and keep them there for an extended period of time. In an era that sees retailers competing, above all else, to hold their customers’ attention, hospitality is proving a very powerful tool. But how do you successfully translate your offer, and your visual language, to this unexpected context? Here we chart the trajectory of this phenomenon, from its beginnings in the luxury and homeware sectors to the growing list of out-of-category brands adopting the model.…

THE FOOD AND DRINK industry is one whose products have always been inherently ‘experiential’, long before that became the watchword of every overeager retail strategist. But as the grocery market also starts to succumb to the all-encompassing effects of e-commerce – online grocery sales are predicted to capture 20 per cent of total grocery retail by 2025 according to study by the Food Marketing Institute conducted by Nielsen – how can these brands make sure they’re still able to cash in on their experiential premiums? With eating and drinking already integral to the hotel offer – whether that be ordering some late night room service or having a nightcap at the hotel bar – smart F&D brands are looking beyond merely being part of the menu to becoming hoteliers themselves.…