Tabla de contenidos para July - August 2022 en Frame

Four years ago, an adventurous colleague in our design team let us know that she was planning to become a digital nomad. She was in her early thirties, single, and wanted to travel and work from a backpack and laptop. Although that didn’t seem ideal for a graphic designer, she thought it was doable. She put her money where her mouth was and left for Barcelona, where she took up residence in a small flat for a few months, then travelled on to hotels and hostels in Mexico and South America. While on the go, she and a friend in the Netherlands built up a nice clientele in Europe. Her dream came true. Finally, she and her new boyfriend returned to Barcelona, where she still lives – no longer a…

AMALE ANDRAOS: Neither of us wanted to be architects. My father is both a painter and an architect – he worked as an architect for ten years before the civil war in Lebanon. I grew up in Saudi Arabia where he started a company for prefab houses. I was brought up visiting construction sites and going to museums to see works of art. I swore I’d never become an architect – I didn’t want to do the same thing as my father. But at the age of 17 I finally realized it was not about him but about me, so I decided to study architecture. DAN WOOD: My father took me to an architecture studio when I was 13 because I drew well and had a knack for mathematics –…

It’s a striking image: ten Dior models lined up at the brand’s AW22 fashion show in Seoul against a simulated skatepark, their voluminous dresses highly unlikely half-pipe attire. This is by no means the first time a luxury fashion brand – or Dior, at that – has tapped into skate culture. For the Dior Homme FW16 show, models wove their way around a black skatepark rimmed with red neon, and the brand shot a fashion film for the same season in LA’s Venice Skatepark, inspired by the new wave of skate culture. A wave that in 2017 led to Hermès launching a series of skateboards and Louis Vuitton teaming up with Supreme. In 2019, Gucci launched a campaign inspired by 1970s skate culture for its Gucci Grip watch to connect…

In the early morning of 24 February 2022, Russia launched missile strikes on the territory of Ukraine. Military infrastructure facilities and airfields were destroyed, multi-apartment and private dwellings were damaged. Kharkiv and Mariupol were almost flattened from artillery shelling and bombs, bleeding for two months, day after day. On the outskirts of Kyiv in places like Bucha, Irpin and Chernihiv, villages and farms, food depots and small factories were practically wiped out. The cost of the damage from the destruction reportedly already exceeds €463 billion – and sadly this is not nor will be the final figure. Fortunately, Kyiv has survived the siege to date, but it has paid a high price: thousands of civilian lives and destroyed homes. According to a report from Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko, 546 buildings…

For a sector that has long operated under segmented price points and principles of ultra-exclusivity, a model that is welcoming to all could mean a major shift in spatial design. Although the wider focus on accessibility and social coherence has seen venues from museums to offices address issues of inequality surrounding race, gender and sexual orientation, the phrase ‘all-inclusive’ still holds very different connotations in the hospitality sector. A recent report by Be Inclusive Hospitality demonstrated that, while progress is being made, 78 per cent of staff remain concerned about racism in the workplace. On the guest side of things, a slate of closures has seen 60 per cent of London’s dedicated LGBTQ+ spaces shut down in the past decade. Hospitality has become increasingly fragmented into smaller, more niche brands…

Against the background of sanctions on Russia, one question being asked is ‘Will the war in Ukraine hasten the end of fossil fuels?’ Expert analysis goes both ways. The current energy crunch might speed up Europe’s transition to green technologies or, in the intermediate, favour a return to coal or even spur a renewed interest in fracking. The fact is that the crisis is a magnifying glass for what is at stake in the energy sector and, by consequence, in design and construction. The acknowledgment that we must lessen our dependence on fossil fuels has been there before, further promoted by the new European Green Deal aimed at making Europe climate-neutral by 2050 through building regulations and lifecycle assessment schemes. It’s one reason there’s a rising demand for circular building…

You’ve written a manifesto in which you advocate the reconciliation of technological innovation with the creation of art in order to arrive at a more humanized digital reality. Why do you believe that’s important? KRISTA KIM: I started writing my manifesto in 2014 after completing my studies at the Lasalle College of the Arts in Singapore. At the time, smartphones were still relatively new and I became hyperaware of the way I changed as a person by using such a device as my main source of communication. I felt that the social media platforms I was interacting with were affecting my psychology. The quick interactions lacked empathy in many ways and were becoming increasingly narcissistic and egocentric – all about showmanship. I thought that if I was feeling these incredible…

David Wang, a professor of architecture at Washington State University, writes in his 2016 book A Philosophy of Chinese Architecture that calligraphy traditionally influenced the design of town plans across the country. For centuries, Wang notes, the qi or vital energy of built environments in China has flowed through the writing that adorned homes, entrances and gardens. Contemporary Chinese architecture continues to be permeated by the calligraphic spirit through, in Wang’s words, ‘the fusing of nature with material production into one seamless, seemingly organic operation, from conception to empirical expression’. This synergistic interaction between the artificial and the biological is increasingly being brought to the fore in some of the most recent hotel designs to emerge in China, especially since the beginning of the pandemic. In May last year on…

In their 1997 book Digital Nomad, Tsugio Makimoto and David Manners predicted a future in which technology would facilitate a return to nomadic lifestyles. The rise of the internet and portable communication devices, coupled with the human race’s inherent urge to travel, they said, would free us from settled states to once again wander as our ancestors did. And they were right. A 50 per cent rise in US-based digital nomads alone since 2020 has seen this demographic reach 32 million strong worldwide – a number expected to rise to 1 billion by 2035. As Gen Z turns to freelance roles at a higher rate than any previous generation, and the movement makes inroads even among the salaried workforce, this prediction may prove equally prescient. During the course of this…

100 years is the total lifespan of the parts used in the Minus Chair 1.5 is the estimated average carbon footprint (kgCO2 e) of the Minus Chair today, based on calculations via EPD Norway. Comparatively, the Furniture Industry Research Association estimates the average dining chair’s kgCO2 e value to be 27 90% is the approximate amount of material from the Minus Chair that can be reused in a new product – the remaining 10% is lost during the likes of sanding or minor dimensional changes 7.77 kg is the amount of biogenic carbon already stored in the wood of the chair, based on the Norwegian and European Standards 68% represents the drop in biodiversity worldwide since 1970, according to WWF -10 kg is the estimated net carbon balance from the…

It was evident from the invite that this was not your average press trip. Instead of automatically flying everyone in from across Europe for an April preview of its Milan Design Week exhibition Norwegian Presence, Design and Architecture Norway (DOGA) offered the eco route to Oslo: train travel. From my adopted home base in Amsterdam, this meant a two-day journey instead of a flight of under two hours. DOGA connected me with slow-travel service Byway to sort out the logistics – involving multiple train changes and a one-night stopover in Copenhagen, the trip was much more complicated than a direct flight. It’s also a lot more climate-friendly: Byway’s growth lead Marijke Cortenbach tells me this particular train journey expends 17.9 kg of CO2 compared with 192.6 kg for the plane…

Two things stand out on entering the Milan studio of designer, art director and social design lecturer Sara Ricciardi: the presence of extensive collections of bizarre objects and the absence of permanent walls. Replacing the latter are a set of curtains and openings that turn her team’s workspace into an adaptable stage for dynamic creativity. ‘Every space should respond to its occupant’s needs,’ says Ricciardi. ‘In my studio that means considering the moods of the manifold personalities at work.’ What’s your definition of the home? SARA RICCIARDI: The home is my stage, the place where I can showcase my personality all around. It’s the place where I collect parts of my life, the place where I feel most comfortable but also the place that occasionally confronts me with uncomfortable scenarios,…

‘Dare to use colour in interiors,’ was designer India Mahdavi’s advice to the audience of a May Copenhagen event on colour by Danish brand Montana Furniture. ‘One colour is never enough. It needs to be offset with others to even be noticed – the more colours, the merrier. Look at them as friends who enter into a conversation.’ Her one regret? Not having applied more vibrancy throughout her career. Mahdavi joined textile and colour designer Margrethe Odgaard and colour psychologist Karen Haller in sharing their insights on making full use of the spectrum in product and spatial design, with Frame founder Robert Thiemann as moderator. Arguably best known for the pink Gallery restaurant at London’s Sketch, Mahdavi is now a colour connoisseur. She came up with the millennial pink hue…

As one of the earliest spaces dedicated to travelling professionals and working beyond an office remit, the hotel business centre was ahead of its time. Much has been written of its demise, though to claim this facility is a thing of the past is to ignore both its lingering influence and the evolution of its form. Indeed, the reorientation of the business centre as a co-working space was a key factor in the rise of the digital nomad lifestyle, and its proliferation now drives change in hotel design at large – no longer a corner of tucked-away desks, but in some cases the core touchstone for entire brands. With the defining characteristic of digital nomads being an ability to work from anywhere, their design influence in the hotel can largely…

JUSTIN WOHL’s cultural hub encourages interaction among digital nomads, and with their temporary locale You’ve envisioned a location for working travellers to come together. Tell me more. JW: Yes. It’s an inclusive building based in Australia that brings inbound nomads from different cultural backgrounds together in a central creative hub that facilitates work, social gatherings and temporary stays. This hub, which I call Pluralism, acts as a kind of marketplace and celebrates diversity by intertwining people of various histories, backgrounds, traditions and cultures, as well as the local population. How do you design a space for a transient target group that’s known to be in a constant state of flux? By integrating that same sense of movement. The building I conceptualized is adaptable, growing more living and studio workspaces over…

ICD HYGROSHAPE The Institute for Computational Design (ICD) at the University of Stuttgart has used the natural properties of wood to construct a series of self-shaping furniture. By working with the inherent hygroscopic shrinkage properties of wood, ICD manipulated such conditions as the material’s moisture content, allowing each piece to naturally transform into its intended shape when unwrapped from its flatpack packaging. icd.uni-stuttgart.de CHEMETAL SURFACE MODE Chemetal’s Surface Mode series reintroduces and expands its popular Alu metal collection of aluminium wall panels at an increased thickness. The improved version requires no supportive laminate backer, mechanical fasteners or wall panel system, making installation less expensive and faster. Made from 100 per cent aluminium, the panels are durable and can be completely recycled. chemetal.com ANNA MARIA ØFSTEDAL ENG VRIDE The newest addition…