THE NEXT SPACE

A NEW Why retail is channelling neoclassicism

How veganism is entering the interiors industry
MODEL FOR Space Popular on building fully virtual journeys
How fashion brands are making e-tail experiential
WELLBEING Jeremy Myerson on inclusive interiors

ISSUE 139
MAR — APR 2021
BP

UK £19.95 JP ¥3,570 KR WON 40,000

BX €22.95 DE €22.95 IT €24.90 CHF 33.00
Create, innovate.
Design.
www.kettal.com
CONTENTS 40

Anna Huix
12 REPORTING FROM
Hong Kong and Dublin

16 BUSINESS OF DESIGN
From immersive e-commerce
environments to the modular
mailboxes reshaping shopping

BoysPlayNice

28 IN PRACTICE
30 INTRODUCING
Architecture practice
Formafatal
30 40 INFLUENCER
Multidisciplinary design
Note Design Studio, courtesy of Klarna

studio Space Popular

50 WHAT I’VE LEARNED

Editor, writer, researcher and
thinker Jeremy Myerson

56 THE CLIENT
OPPO’s spatial design

26 director Xin Lin

Frame 139 5
 SPACES

Charlotte Kidger
65
66 Antiquity is reborn for retail, CBD
stores move away from marijuana,
and veganism enters the interiors
industry

114 SCHRAMM
Sleeping easy

120 WELLBEING LAB

122 New places, products and portals
for mental wellness
138 What’s missing in the world of
wellbeing?

129
Tahmineh Monzavi, courtesy of ZAV Architects

CreatAR Images, courtesy of Wutopia Lab

108
Courtesy of Sancal

148 MARKET
The latest releases from Kvadrat,
Cosentino, Pedrali and more

160 IN NUMBERS
Hannah Segerkrantz’s Hemp-It-
Yourself in facts and figures 159
6 Contents
L AU FE N 18 9 2 | SWI T Z E R L A ND
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8 Colophon
ALL
ACCESS
WELLNESS
Danger. Fear. Violence. Loneliness. Despair. Five terms
that, thanks to the C-word, have dominated the news
on TV and the internet lately. A year of lockdowns,
curfews, travel bans, virus mutations and vaccination
problems is taking its toll. What is the damage among
young adults, deprived of all room to experiment with
life and with each other? How can compulsory home-
schooling parents drag themselves and their home-
schooled children towards the end of the tunnel? And
how are the elderly coping with experiencing their final
years of life in relative solitude?
How great the impact of the pandemic on the
psyche is, is anyone’s guess. That we’re all struggling
with dealing with the virus and the restrictions
imposed on us is certain. It inspired us to dedicate this
issue’s Lab to mental wellness. Spaces for meditation
and contemplation are not new. Churches, mosques,
temples and other places for sacred rituals are as old
as mankind. Now that these religious spaces have lost
their significance for many, yoga studios, quiet spaces
and tools for domestic meditation are filling the gap.
Employers, too, are realizing that the mental state of
their staff is at stake. More and more offices include
places for mental breaks.
The real challenge lies in access to mental
wellness spaces. How can we make them more
inclusive? Just as we’ve often advocated the far-
reaching integration of healing nature into the built
environment, we now argue for a more fine-grained
distribution of wellbeing-inducing artefacts. These
can take many forms. For example, designers can
achieve a great deal with the right light that can be
adapted to circumstances and needs. Better acoustics,
specific scents and textures appeal to other senses.
It’s also known that round shapes, curved lines, and
10 Editorial
soft materials and colours have a calming effect.
Why should we only use these in rooms specifically
intended for meditation and therapy? Why not
implement them more in homes, workplaces, hotels
and restaurants?
Digital solutions can further increase the
access to mental wellness. Like most other industries,
the wellness industry has seen growth in the digital
realm. From Fitbit bracelets to meditation apps,
hundreds of millions rely on technology – hidden in a
product or online – as the key to greater wellness. For
interior designers, the challenge lies in integrating this
technology into spaces and designing more immersive
digital spaces.
The future of mental wellness lies in its
better distribution. Space, product and technology will
often have to work together. The pandemic has made
it clear that we do not need to go to the office to work.
We can do that anywhere, including at home. How
wonderful it would be if, post-pandemic, we no longer
needed to go to the forest, the yoga studio or a quiet
room to have a moment for ourselves and feel better.
Robert Thiemann
Editor in chief
Yoko Choy looks at Hong Kong’s image: how
can the city regain clarity for its future?
HO
NG
KO
NG
Choy is a design writer and
creative consultant, based in
both Amsterdam and her native
Hong Kong, who focuses on
cross-cultural initiatives. She is
the China editor of Wallpaper*
magazine and is currently
working on a publication and
exhibition about Chinese
contemporary design.
12
The label ‘Made in Hong Kong’
will soon be history when US-
bound exports will be classified
‘Made in China’. This follows
the American government’s
cancellation of the city’s special
trading status last August, and
Hong Kong’s self-claimed posi-
tion as Asia’s World City is also
being challenged. Its 7.5 million
inhabitants have had a rough ride
recently, with social unrest plus
the pandemic and its economic
consequences. What troubles
the young creative generation is
not only reservations about the
future, but also the increasing
competition from neighbouring
cities. A rebranding exercise is
much needed – both for the city’s
own self-confidence and to reas-
sure the international community
– and that requires quality, novel
and creative ideas.
The manufacturing sector
was once the major driver of
Hong Kong’s development, but
in recent decades, as factories
relocated to Mainland China
as well as other Southeast
Asian countries, the territory
reinvented itself as a service-led
economy. With his graphic design
background, Joe Kwan under-
stood early in his professional
life that his design thinking and
language would be an obstacle
in a place where rendering a
service takes precedence over
personal creativity. ‘Designers
of my generation are put in a
passive position,’ he says. ‘We
can’t get close to the core of a
business’s strategy, so the only
way for my ideas to thrive was to
start my own brand.’ The result
is independent watch brand
Anicorn, established in 2014,
which capitalizes on contacts
in the city’s once flourishing
watchmaking industry and
produces mechanical timepieces
in a simple, contemporary style.
‘With the lack of light industry,
the high cost of living and the
society’s ambivalence about its
identity, we have somehow lost
Reporting From
the aspiration and mindset of
running an international brand.
That might explain why there
are not many names from Hong
Kong out there yet.’
His, however, could be one
of them. Last autumn, Anicorn’s
second collection of NASA
limited-edition timepieces sold
out to a global audience within
minutes, which, in view of the
uncertainties in the market,
is reassuring. And Kwan has
confirmed collaborations with
graphic design legend Richard
Danne and Japanese video game
designer Kojima Hideo while
releasing a lifestyle range with
M/M Paris.
‘Crisis creates opportuni-
ties’ is a belief embedded in the
Chinese spirit, says Cynthia Mak,
cofounder of independent knit-
wear label Cynthia & Xiao. ‘We
actually got a lot of new oppor-
tunities that didn’t exist before
as companies across different
sectors opened up to collaborate
and share their resources to help
one another.’ An upcycling pro-
ject with The Billie System and
Shangri-La Hotels is the perfect
example. In an effort to promote
circularity in fashion, new yarns
are produced from discarded bed
sheets through a water-free tex-
tile recycling process, then used
to create an exclusive collection
bearing the Hong Kong-Beijing
duo’s popular traditional Tibetan
tiger rug motif. ‘We are proud
that entrepreneurs are invest-
ing in innovation and that the
collaborative spirit arises during
these difficult times.’
Brazilian-French Maxime
Dautresme, cofounder of
multidisciplinary design firm
Substance that materialized in
Hong Kong a decade ago – in the
calm before the storm, one might
say – sees the current challenges
as an essential step in creating
new values. ‘As a traveller who
has lived in many countries, I
understand that every place has
its own struggles. It’s important
to take a step back and see that
on the bigger spectrum of time,
places sometimes need to go
through a transition.’
Hong Kong is still a place
that allows top creatives to
mingle with industry leaders,
regionally and internationally.
Substance’s eclectic narrative
and multicultural approach is
gaining traction with projects
in the pipeline in Vietnam,
Australia, France and Mexico, to
name just a few. Three years ago,
while redesigning The Flem-
ing hotel – one of its landmark
projects – Scents of Dao was
born, an apothecary skincare
line that harnesses the power of
local herbology wisdom. ‘There
are no comparable Chinese
skincare products on the market.
Hong Kong has a rich history
of herbalism, so why not create
a brand around it and tell the
story in a modern manner?’ says
Dautresme. He is now seeking a
more elaborate expression for the
Dao philosophy – the city’s first
wellness retreat on one of Hong
Kong’s many picturesque islands.
This could also be a good bolster
for its crucial tourist industry, a
victim of the pandemic.
Nobody can tell what
the city’s future will hold, but
Studio Florian and Christine’s
Hong Kong Brick project, in
which bricks were created from
the dismantled interiors of
shops abandoned over the past
year, provides a fitting metaphor
for the vibrancy and flexibility of
this much-loved city. A place that
will surely find a smart way to
regain its kudos.•
Escape the
ordinary

SCHRAMM ORIGINS COMPLETE Cleo – Design Hanne Willmann

Handmade in Germany

schramm-werkstaetten.com
DUB
LIN
In November last year, archi-
tecture firm Urban Agency
announced an ambitious plan
to build one of Europe’s tallest
timber structures in the heart of
Dublin’s Docklands. The project,
Dock Mill, aims to transform a
historical industrial mill through
a soaring vertical timber exten-
sion, repurposing the building
to create office and residential
space. It’s yet another ambitious
commercial development in
what has been called ‘the hugely
successful regeneration of Dublin
Docklands’, which began over
three decades ago. But these
luxury developments – which
include cafés, bars, a theatre and
a convention centre, along with
technology and financial business
centres – have radically changed
the fabric of the area, once tradi-
tionally industrial and working
class. So, the question remains –
as with many urban regeneration
projects – regeneration for whom?
To understand the scale of
the transformation requires us
to understand the history of the
area. The Docklands comprises
520 hectares of land spread across
the north and south banks of the
River Liffey, which cuts through
the heart of Dublin. Since the 18th
century, the area was home to
industrial workers, but with many
of these industries modernizing
and moving towards the suburbs,
by the mid-1980s the area was in
severe decline. Although there
was a strong sense of community,
it was underpinned by many
derelict buildings and acute social
and economic problems.
In 1986 the government
introduced the Urban Renewal
14
Orla Hennessy examines the so-described
‘hugely successful regeneration of Dublin
Docklands’ and asks: Regeneration for whom?
Act, followed by the Finance Act
a year later. The main objective
of these acts was to promote
urban redevelopment in areas of
disrepair or experiencing urban
decline. For Dublin Docklands,
two authorities were established
to redevelop the area: the first
from 1987 to 1997 and the second
from 1997 to 2016. Both authori-
ties had full planning jurisdiction
(which would usually be retained
by the council). This mechanism
expedited the process and pro-
gress of the regeneration. Dublin
City Council then took over the
mandate in 2016, but expanded
and designated the Docklands as
a Strategic Development Zone to
continue the pace of construction.
The first phase of the rede-
velopment saw the establishment
of the Irish Financial Services
Centre (IFSC) on the north bank
of the river – a sprawling business
centre that had little to offer
indigenous residents’ needs.
The second phase of develop-
ment, beginning in 1997, vastly
expanded the designated rede-
velopment zone and oversaw the
acceleration of the many medium-
rise commercial and residential
properties there today. This phase
of development is often lauded for
its community involvement and
consultation with local residents,
but the fact remains that many
of the indigenous residents have
been priced out of the area.
The south bank, or Grand
Canal Dock, is home to some of
the world’s largest tech firms,
with Google and Facebook having
campuses on site. As you can
imagine, this area is filled with
thriving barista cafés, sushi and
Reporting From
cocktail bars (or at least these
amenities were thriving pre-
Covid-19, and many will likely
return to full operation post-
pandemic). In fact, just across the
canal from Facebook’s European
HQ is where Urban Agency’s
Dock Mill is proposed.
In theory, there is nothing
wrong with these developments,
and the overall regeneration of the
Docklands has been successful
from the city council’s point of
view: It has boosted amenities,
tourism, transport, business and
retail activity, and employment,
not to mention Dublin’s economy
as a whole.
However, those employed
and frequenting the Docklands
are arguably not its local resi-
dents. Those working in the Dock-
lands are skilled high-income
residents, who can likely afford
the high rates of rent and even
higher-priced luxury houses and
apartments. The area is further
bolstered by the streams of com-
muters who throng to the Dock-
lands daily. Criticism levelled at
the area has noted its nine-to-five
lifestyle with an emptiness and
seeming lack of community after
working hours. A presentation at
Maynooth University went further
still, stating that it was clear that
the major thrust of the regenera-
tion was to ‘transform the social
composition as part of a wider
policy of inner-city gentrification
and revalorisation of the land’.
Often, the stated goals
of regeneration projects are to
reduce disadvantages in the poor-
est areas by focusing on issues
such as unemployment, poor
health, crime and education.
In Dublin’s Docklands, these
issues have been quelled but
it seems to have come at the
expense of local residents – who
have largely been pushed out
of the area.
In an era of widening levels
of inequality, it’s the responsibility
of those who govern – and the
urban planners carrying out these
proposals – to ensure fair and
equitable treatment, to maintain
conversations with local residents
about their wants and needs to
ensure successful redevelopment
for all, and not just the gentrified
few. Ambitious architectural
projects are all well and good,
but it is unlikely that any of the
Docklands indigenous residents
will be working or living in Dock
•
Mill, once it is realized.
Hennessy is the Impact Manager
at What Design Can Do, a design-
based NGO in Amsterdam that
believes in the power of design
and creativity to transform
society. Originally from Dublin,
she has previously written articles
for The Irish Times and academic
publications.
business
of design

18 How fashion houses are making e-commerce

experiential 22 The enduring value of brick-and-
mortar brand spaces 24 What’s holding us back
from smart interiors
Note Design Studio, courtesy of Klarna
Balenciaga’s Afterworld online activation
let viewers explore the brand’s fall 2021
collection within the context of a dystopian
video game environment. Those who
reached the end of the experience were
rewarded with a series of ‘transcendental’
breathing exercises.

18
What gaming
is teaching
1
fashion about
how to exist
online
Without doubt we’re living
through one of the most impor-
tant periods in the history of video
gaming. The need for engaging,
safe and social forms of distrac-
tion have made the medium
central to the daily routines of
millions during lockdown, often
for the first time. According to
the NPD Group, four out of every
five US consumers played a video
game in the six months leading up
to August. Many will have been
surprised to find another group
exploring these digital worlds
alongside them: fashion brands.
As consumers across all demo-
graphics have started spending
more time in game space,
especially as a proxy for in-person
social gatherings, fashion brands
have jumped at the chance to help
them craft their digital image.
Whether it’s Longchamps in
Pokémon Go, Valentino in Animal
Crossing or Louis Vuitton in
Business of Design
League of Legends, the best place
to win best dressed is now often
on screen.
With the year’s roster
of fashion weeks cancelled in
favour of digital alternatives, it
was therefore unsurprising to
see labels start to translate those
lessons into a new type of runway
experience. That cross-pollina-
tion was most artfully captured
by Balenciaga, which launched
its ‘playable’ Afterworld: The Age
of Tomorrow showcase at the start
of December. Visitors wander
through a series of different semi-
apocalyptic environments set in
2031, from cityscapes to wood-
land dance parties and a future
Balenciaga store. During the
course of that journey they will
discover various characters mod-
elling the label’s fall 2021 collec-
tion. As the brand described it: ‘A
theme of Balenciaga fall 2021 is
human destiny. The world may
appear to be decaying at first, but
it is far from a dystopian view,
showing instead the slow return
to a healthier balance of nature
and industry.’
It’s debatable whether the
way you experience Afterworld
should be described as ‘playing’.
What the activation does demon-
strate is the way such free-roam
digital spaces enable a more
nuanced form of storytelling, one
better placed to embody the sort
of abstract sociocultural ques-
tions that inspired the Balenciaga
collection than the linearity of film
or the immediacy of a live runway.
The ability of visitors to set their
own agenda within that experi-
ence makes any affinity they might
find they share with the brand feel
more meaningful. In this sense,
these gamified presentations share
quite a lot with current brick-and-
mortar retail strategies, with their
focus on letting customers »
19
Pangaia’s first foray into
experiential e-commerce helped
the brand prioritize the scientific
and ecological narrative behind
its latest collection, rather than
pushing people straight to the
checkout screen.
20
explore the brand world first, and
worry about establishing a more
transactional relationship later. On
the other hand, it shares very little
with how you usually encounter
fashion products online. Head
to Balenciaga’s main website,
for instance, and you’re tipped
straight into a standard grid of
product thumbnails, devoid of
any intervening mechanism that
presents the brand as the cultural
entity it aspires to be, rather than
just a purveyor of products. Which
begs the question: Couldn’t the
luxury label’s e-commerce site
benefit from being a little more
like Afterworld? Shouldn’t it excite
to the same extent as the experi-
ences such brands are so careful
to craft when meeting customers
in person? (Especially as that
in-person meeting is currently
impossible.)
It’s a point that resonates
with another recent foray into
game design by an apparel brand.
When Pangaia commissioned
London College of Fashion’s
Fashion Innovation Agency (FIA)
and digital retail studio AnamXR
to design an online experience
for its new FLWRDWN range, the
focus was on elevating the merely
Business of Design
transactional into something
more surprising, entertaining and
educational. Visitors to Pangaia’s
microsite find themselves stand-
ing in a dome tent, from which
they step out into the Antarctic
wilderness. In the distance they
can see items of apparel floating
above the landscape. Onscreen
prompts suggest that they ‘collect’
certain items. From there, they’re
largely free to wander. As they
move throughout the space they’re
confronted with various forms of
media, from 3D product models
to educational animations. It’s this
element of unguided discovery
that structures and differentiates
the concept. ‘E-commerce is a very
sanitised experience,’ explains FIA
technology development manager
Moin Roberts-Islam. ‘Experiential
e-commerce should really bring
back that element of serendipity.’
Even though users can end
up at a checkout if they so wish,
the real trick was in incentivizing
them, first and foremost, to learn
about the principles and technolo-
gies that drive the sustainability-
obsessed brand. ‘We’ve certainly
incorporated some of that gaming
psychology, especially with regard
to creating purpose and guiding
someone through a space using
those mechanisms,’ says AnamXR
cofounder Matthew Pril. ‘We
incorporated the concepts of
easter eggs, little hidden moments
that somebody who’s really paying
attention will notice. For a user
who’s gone through and seen all
the products, seen the educational
points, these then add up to that
final victory at the end.’ In this
instance, that victory is sym-
bolized by a piece of exclusive con-
tent. Being narrative first doesn’t
mean that sales are disregarded,
however. The FIA has done its
own research into how consumers
respond to immersive digital retail
experiences such as that which it’s
built for Pangaia: 90 per cent of
respondents said that they helped
them understand the designer
better, 77 per cent said they made
them feel closer to the designer,
and 78 per cent said that knowing
that core narrative behind the
product added positive value to
the garments. ‘Ultimately, they’re
willing to pay more,’ says Roberts-
Islam. For fashion brands, at least,
game worlds seem to represent the
best of all worlds. PM
Graphite black. Pure matt.

LS 990

JUNG-GROUP.COM/GRAPHITE-BLACK
How the ‘halo effect’ is quickly becoming
one of retail design’s key parameters
Kilian Bishop
Studio Odeonsplatz acts as a brand
content hub, helping Mercedes
localize digital media and digitize
local events. The space is powered
by its own app, which helps visitors
explore the automaker’s world more
deeply as they pass through on their
way to the now obligatory co-working
and hospitality offers.
2
22
Received wisdom would suggest
that 2021 is not the year to be
reinvesting in your physical retail
presence. The last 12 months set
new records for store closures
(11,157) in the US according to
real estate data analysts CoStar
Group. At the time of writing,
the year-end totals aren’t yet out,
but eMarketer’s last forecast had
US e-commerce sales at $794.5
billion in 2020, up 32.4 per
cent year-over-year. With many
behavioural studies finding
that consumers intend to keep
up their online habits post-
pandemic, now is surely the time
for brands to throw all their eggs
in the digital basket?
That’s not quite true. If
anything, for those who dared,
2020 was a true demonstration of
the power of the ‘halo effect’ – the
idea that brick-and-mortar spaces
contribute often-unaccounted-for
sales and brand-building value
across other channels. With
waves of lockdowns disrupting
in-person business, finding ways
to use otherwise mothballed
physical spaces to support digital
footprints became vital. Busi-
nesses as diverse as department
store Selfridges, luxury label
Gucci, hotel chain Marriott and
countless bar and restaurant
operators all found inventive ways
to turn their locations into stage
sets from which to broadcast
a whole range of media. That
helped to keep them at the top
of consumers’ minds for when
they can finally return, as well
as to push new home-delivery
and concierge services. Alone
such experiments are not reason
enough to support the capital
costs of a physical outpost, but
in a post-pandemic world where
online and delivery will have even
greater presence, they reinforce
the idea that analogue space can
pay a digital dividend.
We’ve already seen brands
start to pre-empt that future,
such as in the AMO-designed
Miami flagship Off-White
launched last summer, which
Business of Design
flexes between fulfilment centre,
store and event space. Even more
anticipatory is Mercedes’ Studio
Odeonsplatz venture in Berlin.
Billed as a ‘programmatic brand
experience space’, the venue
will act as a content hub hosting
projects by creative collaborators,
an in-location app that delivers
bespoke digital media, and the
now obligatory hospitality and
co-working services. Really, it’s
a place for the brand’s digital
content to materialize for a local
audience, while also acting as
a generator of new assets (and
social posts) that can be broad-
cast across other channels.
Understanding the true
value of the attention these
hybrid spaces drive is the next
hurdle. ‘The halo effect has been
proven in isolation, but brands
and retailers need more concrete
evidence around its impact on
customer lifetime value,’ Benja-
min Laker, professor of Leader-
ship at Henley Business School,
argued in a recent Forbes column.
‘This can be empowered by a mix
of customer-facing, experiential
technologies, and behind the
scenes analytical capture.’ Studio
Odeonsplatz appears to be a step
in that direction. The phase shift
to e-commerce might eventually
make the commercial imperative
behind such content hubs pretty
clear; as retail expert Doug Ste-
phens argued when speaking to
Retail Dive: ‘With digital-media
costs bound to rise as retailers
flood the market, and com-
mercial real estate prices falling,
rent will actually become a more
economical form of customer
acquisition.’ PM
Why smart(er)
buildings will
need more
communicative
interiors
Despite the repeated attempts of
evangelists in architecture and
planning departments, and more
recently consumer technology
companies, our buildings don’t
appear to be getting appreci-
ably smarter. Yes, plenty of us
have worked in buildings that
will adjust light and heat levels
based on occupancy. Sure, some
of these systems may even have
learned the usage patterns of their
occupants in order to anticipate
basic needs, but those benefits
have been incremental rather
than transformational.
The past year, with its
focus on analysing exactly how we
inhabit, share and move between
spaces, has now accelerated that
trajectory. Search activity around
24
both smart cities and smart
buildings saw new peaks in 2020
according to Google. Countries
like Singapore, India and the UAE
have all increased investment in
smart-infrastructure projects in
response to the pandemic.
The role that infrastruc-
ture is playing is often quite
new, however. At the start of
the outbreak, HOK’s director of
workplace Kay Sargent told The
Washington Post that she thought
sensor technology was ‘going
to explode’ over the coming
months, particularly as we shift
from worrying whether a space
is fully utilized to ‘whether it is
appropriately utilized’. In other
words, it’s no longer a case of
wringing as much utility-per-
3
square-metre out of a building as
possible; instead, we need tools
that help us think more analyti-
cally about the hierarchy of uses
a space can perform, as well as
who needs to be there to perform
them. Sargent has been proven
right, with smart building start-
ups like VergeSense, OpenSense
and Inforgrid raising significant
funding rounds as investors rec-
ognize their centrality to aiding
worldwide office reoccupation.
Sony has launched its own smart
office product called Nimway,
targeted at managing the efficient
and safe distribution of workers.
The scale of that challenge can’t
be underestimated. VergeSense,
which has 30,000 object-recog-
nition sensors installed in office
Butlr’s sensor works by tracking
occupants’ unique heat signature,
helping it marry personalization
with privacy. The system can
identify user behaviour by analysing
posture, and will soon be able to use
its temperature-taking ability to
measure vital health factors.
buildings worldwide, recently
told Bloomberg that, based on its
2020 data, 60 per cent of interac-
tions between North American
employees violated Covid-19
safety guidance. The number was
even higher in Asia. What was
once a metric for success is now a
recipe for disaster.
The key to capitalizing on
this renewed interest in public
environments that can respond to
each of us intelligently is the right
kind of data. That will require
new data-collecting technologies
that can gather granular details
about users, offering greater
personalization, but also maintain
privacy. That last point can’t be
overlooked. Citizens’ concerns
about data ownership and privacy
Honghao Deng and Ioanna Sotiriou, courtesy of Butlr
were some of the key factors
that contributed to the failure of
Sidewalk Labs’ smart district in
Toronto last year. As Boston Con-
sulting Group managing director
Massimo Russo outlines: ‘As
cities build data platforms, they
will have to manage the tradeoff
between innovative, valuable
solutions and privacy risk.’ Butlr,
a spin-off of the MIT Media Lab,
believes it has a viable solution.
Rather than invasive facial-
recognition-based technologies,
or the more common but limited
infrared sensors, Butlr measures
an individual’s biometric heat
signature. That offers a balance of
accuracy and anonymity, allow-
ing its sensors to track not just
movement but posture, helping it
better understand intentions and
behaviours. In one demonstra-
tion, ceiling lights and blinds drop
as a user moves from reading a
book on the sofa to lying down.
From March 2021, it will also be
able to measure health factors, for
instance by screening tempera-
tures. ‘In the age of coronavirus,
our buildings and human environ-
ments are going to need to be
asked to do more in order to
respond to new health and safety
requirements that prevent future
disease outbreaks,’ says Jiani
Zeng, who cofounded Butlr with
Honghao Deng. ‘We believe
that the future of architecture is
responsive and context-aware.’
Defining the nature of
that response is where spatial
Business of Design
designers will need to step in.
More intelligent sensors will
also require the creation of
more nuanced environmental-
feedback loops, especially
with regard to wayfinding and
safety warnings. Sensor start-up
PointGrab is another that has
re-engineered its occupant
management system – which is
already installed at sites such
as Deloitte’s recently upgraded
London campus – to help monitor
one-way circulation routes and
social distancing. CEO Doron
Shachar told CNN that if two
people stand less than two metres
apart for more than 30 seconds,
PointGrab will now generate
an alert. ‘An organization will
choose what to do with that alert,’
Shachar explains. ‘I don’t think
that they should blow an alarm.’
The challenge will be developing
communication protocols that
have sufficient impact without
causing anxiety. Deloitte itself
has envisioned a future in which
‘carpeting embedded with LED
lighting can provide visual cues
about where and how far apart
people should stand’, while Tim
Fendley, founder of wayfinding
design agency Applied, specu-
lated to Frame about the ability to
plug such networks directly into
visitors’ smartphones: ‘Imagine
there’s a large crowd just around
the corner, and then being able
to adjust your route – or else wait
until it has dissipated.’ PM
25
How parcel lockers could help
us shop more conscientiously
Note Design Studio’s concept for a
modular system of delivery lockers
features an in-built recycling system
and the ability to sell on returned
items to those in the immediate
community.
4
For those in the logistics indus-
try, the holiday season is usually
nothing of the sort – it’s usually
their busiest time of the year.
In 2020, what many dubbed
the ‘shipopocalypse’ meant
it was the busiest ever. ‘The
spread of Covid-19 in the US
has triggered such an increase
in e-commerce since March that
shipping volumes have consist-
ently been at Christmas peak or
Cyber Monday levels every day,’
FedEx Chief marketing officer
Brie Carere told CNN. ‘Now
we’re headed into a peak on top
of a peak. We expect there will
be limits to capacity on certain
days this season.’ Indeed, FedEx
and UPS couldn’t acquire
enough delivery vans to keep
up with demand in the runup to
Christmas.
Lockdown has magnified
a number of frictions that remain
within the e-commerce supply
chain, especially in the last mile.
26
It is that final point of contact
that continues to be the biggest
issue, with many consumers still
finding the pickup and returns
processes a frustration. So much
so, in fact, that a recent Narvar
study found that one-third of
shoppers (31 per cent) would pay
up to $5 for same-day or sched-
uled delivery services, while
almost a quarter (22 per cent) are
willing to pay the same amount
for scheduled pickup of returns
from their homes. A summer sur-
vey by Inmar Intelligence showed
40 per cent have held back on
purchasing online due to compli-
cated returns processes.
One increasingly popular
solution is the use of parcel locker
systems. Quadient recently ana-
lysed UK consumers to see how
their behaviours were changing
in the runup to the holiday
season, with almost two-fifths
(38 per cent) reporting that they
used parcel lockers, largely due to
Business of Design
convenience and the avoidance
of missed deliveries. Meanwhile
parcel locker provider SwipBox
has seen a 53 per cent increase
in deliveries to its locations
worldwide. Finnish postal-brand
Posti – whose most recent pickup
shop designs we’ve already fea-
tured – expect this Black Friday to
see parcel volumes grow by 150
per cent across its network of 850
convenience stores and 2,200
parcel lockers.
Most locker solutions
remain fairly basic in imple-
mentation, offering little more
than digitally secured pickup. If
they’re to become a larger part
of our urban infrastructure, how-
ever, it’s worth considering what
other pain points in the e-com-
merce ecosystem they might
address. That was the challenge
digital bank Klarna recently set
Note Design Studio as part of
its new Future Shopping Lab.
The Swedish team developed a
Note Design Studio, courtesy of Klarna
modular mailbox concept that
handles both deliveries and
returns. Even better, it makes
other people in the neighbour-
hood aware of what is being
returned in case they would like
to purchase it instead, removing
the environmental burden of
an unnecessary trip and creat-
ing new hyperlocal shopping
options. The system also posits
a micro-recycling plant that
can process excess packaging –
highly relevant considering that
2020 has seen the e-commerce
packaging market grow 40 per
cent year-on-year. ‘So much
innovation has been done on
getting things to your home,’ says
strategist and author Ana And-
jelic, one of a panel of experts
guiding the Future Shopping
Lab. ‘The innovation I believe is
missing is getting things out of
our homes.’ PM
 Le Acque di Cielo:
—— Colour is our
attitude!
Hand made in Italy / ceramicacielo.it

Catino Ovale washbasin in Oltremare finish, Round Box 75 mirror: design by Andrea Parisio, Giuseppe Pezzano
Era sanitary ware in Oltremare finish: design by Luca Cimarra
Anna Huix
in practice

30 Formafatal on bridging the Czech Republic and

Costa Rica 40 Space Popular on constructing fully
virtual journeys 50 Jeremy Myerson on developing
design thinking 56 OPPO on advocating people-
centric principles in stores
DAGMAR ŠTĚPÁNOVÁ,
founder of architecture practice
Formafatal, talks about the
climate-related pros and cons
of building in humid Costa Rica,
the importance of architectural
preservation in the Czech
Republic, and the impact of
Covid-19 on the design of private
residences.

Words Floor Kuitert

Portrait Eva Wong

Introducing 31
From a small resort hidden in the Costa Rican jungle that merges with its lush
surroundings, to a Prague bar interior that mirrors the qualities of the natural wines
served: the designs of Czech Republic-born studio Formafatal are carefully tailored
to their surroundings and clients’ characteristics. The now ten-strong team of
architects, designers and scenographers is headed by founder Dagmar Štěpánová,
who developed an enduring passion for the culture and architecture of South and
Central America during her studies at the Czech Technical University in Prague.
Hence the studio’s work, which consists of both commercial and residential projects,
soon crossed the borders of their home country and a branch in Costa Rica was
established.

What have been the big-
gest challenges you faced
in setting up – and run-
ning – your own firm?
DAGMAR ŠTĚPÁNOVÁ: I started my career
working at a successful architecture studio as
I wanted to gain experience and learn more
about the process of projects. Very soon after,
I felt the need for more freedom to realize my
dreams, visions and ideas. I started Forma-
fatal with the aim to create fresh, innovative,
brave and original ideas. But running your
own studio brings along a lot of responsibil-
ity – making important business decisions,
people management, hiring, organization,
etcetera. We don’t learn such things during
our university studies. I must admit that it
was quite hard for me to find the balance
between the creative work I love and the com-
pany management that simply needs to be
done. In the beginning I was doing everything
by myself and it cost me time I would rather
have invested in designing. But over the years
I hired skilled colleagues to help with the
business side and to complement my ideas
on the creative side. Now, with a team of ten,
I no longer plan to further grow the studio, at
least not significantly. Instead, I’m consid-
ering cooperating with other architecture
studios whose work is akin to ours.
With each project and each
obstacle, I gained more experience and self-
confidence. I have learned how to be patient
and solve projects in all their complexity,
from concept to realization.
How would you describe
your design philosophy?
Each project I design is built on a strong con-
ceptual solution, which varies depending on
the location, client and function. I approach
all projects as an architect, even interior
design commissions. I’m always focused on
making space functional and I often modify
or rebuild complete spatial layouts. Almost all
the furnishings in our interiors are custom-
made. We put great emphasis on details,
proportions, the mutual relations between
individual elements and the overall balance
of space. I like to play with colours, textures
and the structures of surfaces. But one of the
most important and essential topics for us is
designing more sustainably.
What’s your approach
to sustainability?
This is a fundamental topic that we want to
further develop and deepen. First of all, we
try to point our clients in the right direction.
Some already include sustainability in their
requirements, but still not all. Secondly,
we try to look at different aspects to suc-
ceed when it comes to sustainability, from
carefully choosing materials to developing
efficient energy-saving systems and imple-
menting rainwater circulation.
Another focus point is the way
we construct. Approximately 90 per cent of
the fittings and furnishings in our interiors
are intentionally tailor-made. This way we
can use local crafts and minimize import. I
also believe that when you live in a sustain-
ably designed house, it automatically forces
you to further deepen a more sustainable
lifestyle and attitude. Everyone should
realize that even the tiniest of acts can
contribute to a better future. I encourage
everyone to watch David Attenborough's
documentary A Life on Our Planet. You won’t
find a better and more engaging overview of
the challenges to be faced.
As for the industry, sustain-
ability in design should be measured and
regulated in some way, even though I’m not
sure if that’s possible on a global level. In any
case, I will support every step that makes
sense and promotes sustainability, even if it
brings along limitations.
What’s the role of preserva-
tion in your work and do you
believe it’s part of the respon-
sibilities of today’s architects?
I grew up in a country with a strong history,
surrounded by beautiful and historically
valuable architecture. Through school and
our upbringing, I have been led to respect
this cultural wealth, and now – as an architect
– I believe it’s my responsibility to protect
these values. So at Formafatal we always try
to preserve or renovate original elements.
Unfortunately, a lot has been destroyed in
communist Czechoslovakia and sometimes
it happens even now, which is painful. It’s
particularly important that all architects take
this responsibility so we can conserve the
historical references of our society.
You’re from the Czech
Republic, but also do an
extensive amount of work
in Costa Rica. How come?
I visited Costa Rica for the first time seven
years ago and I completely fell in love
with its lush nature, wild Pacific coast, the
greenest mountains directly hitting the
coastline, its pura vida vibe, and the smil-
ing people that live in harmony with the
animals all around. From that moment on,
I dreamt about building something there
that would follow that local atmosphere.
And then I met my current client Filip Žák
and it all started. We began with an interior
design and after a great collaboration I was
lucky to have won his confidence and was
commissioned to design his family’s private
residence on his Art Villas Resort nestled
in the Costa Rican jungle. I was travelling
there at least three times a year to oversee
construction. And the more time I spent
there, the more I wanted to live there. A
year ago, I bought a proper piece of land
and I’m planning big things. »

32 In Practice
BoysPlayNice
Part of the Art Villas Resort in Costa
Rica, a set of five egg-shaped shelters
called Coco is constructed from
local tropical wood, tent canvas and
metal. The architectural concept
comes from Archwerk studio, and
Formafatal sensitively connected the
individual buildings by footbridges
and stairs and added a minimalist yet
playful interior.

‘There will be more
requirements for
variability in and of
space – options for
quick adaptations to
new situations’
What are the biggest differ-
ences between working in
Costa Rica as opposed to the
Czech Republic slash Europe?
Each client has its own specific requirements
and demands, so in that respect it doesn’t
matter where a project is located. The design
process is tailored to the client’s individual
needs. Our clients are active, you could say,
co-creators of the design.
That said, the warm climate
of Costa Rica allows us to design interiors
that are much more interconnected with
the exterior. Building structures can also be
more subtle as we don’t deal with insulation,
heating and the like. It’s a freer approach, but
at the same time we must face high humidity
and salt in the air, which makes even stain-
less steel rust. The jungle-oriented façades of
our Atelier Villa for Filip Žák are fitted with
large aluminium perforated sections that do
not heat up in the sun and are rust-resistant.
Pulled up, they double as canopies.
We always aim to collaborate
with local engineers, structural engineers and
other specialists. In Europe we’ve developed a
network of experienced and skilled craftsmen.
I dare to say that their work execution is per-
fect. In Costa Rica we are still in the process of
building such a team and finding skilled peo-
ple. Craft workshops in Costa Rica do not have
the kind of equipment or technology that we
are used to in Europe. In this regard it’s more
complicated abroad. When it comes to interior
design, you’re also more limited in Costa Rica,
so we also search for equipment, furniture
and lighting fixtures abroad, everywhere from
Mexico to Argentina.
And what about local regu-
lations for construction?
It depends on the specific place. National
parks, whether in the Czech Republic or in
Costa Rica, have very strict rules. And of
course there are different rules in urban areas
than in the countryside. In the countryside
of Costa Rica, you can build on up to 10 per
cent of the size of the plot. You can’t just cut
36
down trees, you need a permit for everything,
and great emphasis is placed on protecting
zones of water sources, springs and river-
beds. It’s also necessary to consider that it’s
a seismic-sensitive area. Despite this, there
are no height restrictions for buildings, but
foundations do require a different approach.
How do your projects’ loca-
tions inform their design?
A lot. Before I start a project, I prepare
detailed research, collate Pinterest boards
and study books about culture, architecture,
traditions, customs, colours and everything
else that’s specific to the location. We cur-
rently have an interesting project in Qatar,
an environment quite unknown to us. We are
preparing two kiosks for the National Museum
with a lot of cultural references.
How has the global pan-
demic influenced your
work? Have you noticed a
change in the types of com-
missions you receive?
Paradoxically, we have far more demands
than we had before the pandemic. This is cer-
tainly due to the fact that our studio focuses
on smaller projects – from interior designs
to private villas to smaller resorts. And since
people now have more time, which comes
with the desire to change the environment in
which they live, our commissions have grown.
Only in Panama was one major ecological
community project set back by the pandemic,
and the implementation of one project in
Qatar was extended from a few months to
more than a year.
You’ve done a lot of work
for the hospitality industry,
one of the sectors heav-
ily impacted by the arrival
of Covid-19. What shifts
have you noticed within
the industry since then?
As for new commissions from the hospitality
industry, we now have fewer. But in cases
In Practice
PREVIOUS SPREAD Formafatal
furnished the interior of the majestic
concrete Art Villa, which was
conceived by Refuel Works for the
Art Villas Resort, with furniture
designed and custom-made by local
craftspeople or manufactured in the
Czech Republic and then brought to
the site.
OPPOSITE Designed as the private
residence for the investor of the Art
Villas Resort, the Atelier Villa erases
the boundaries between the interior
and exterior thanks to its perforated
aluminium façades and green roof.
where Covid-19 restrictions have not caused
a complete collapse for business owners,
they still have hope that the situation will
return to ‘normal’ in time and come to us
with requests for interior redesigns. In a
way now is the right time. Restaurants and
bars are closed anyway, so why not take
advantage of that and improve the spatial
atmosphere. So far, we haven’t encountered
new requirements from clients that would
affect the interior design in terms of spatial
organization for social distancing.
Covid-19 has also had a big
impact on our living spaces
and the roles they need to
perform. As a studio experi-
enced in the design of private
apartments, how do you
envision residential design
will advance in the future?
I’m still convinced that there will be no
fundamental changes in the design of private
apartments. I expect that some clients will
place more emphasis on the creation of inde-
pendent units in their apartments – spaces
that can be easily separated. More affluent
clients may come up with additional require-
ments in terms of even greater comfort and
the creation of more private zones in the
apartment or house. Perhaps larger spaces
and better-equipped home offices. In general
I assume there will be more requirements for
variability in and of space – options for quick
adjustments and adaptations to new situa-
tions. But I don’t think there will be a com-
pletely new approach. If that ever happens,
I think it will be by the next generation. •
formafatal.cz
OPPOSITE When the owner of
Argentinian restaurant Gran Fierro in
Prague was forced to move his business,
he commissioned Formafatal – which
was also responsible for the design of
the original site – for the new interior,
hoping to revive the place’s spirit.

ABOVE Pieces of charcoal feature inside

concrete blocks on the walls of the
restaurant, highlighting the bio charcoal
made from food waste that’s used in the
kitchen.

Introducing 39
FREDRIK HELLBERG and
LARA LESMES, cofounders of
Space Popular, discuss how to
create virtual immersion with or
without headsets, the challenges
of navigating the undefined
ethics of digital terrains, and
why mimicry is a tool, not a sin.

Words Tracey Ingram

Portrait Anna Huix

Influencer 41
As events across the globe have scrambled to move online in a meaningful way,
Space Popular has been busy. Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg founded their studio
in Bangkok in 2013 before returning to London in 2016. Known for creating spaces,
objects and events that straddle the physical and digital spheres, they’ve now been
tasked with helping a number of clients construct fully virtual journeys. And since the
past year has completely changed expectations surrounding access, now, they say,
there’s no going back.

You’ve used virtual reality in
physical gallery spaces, many
of which have experienced clo-
sures during lockdowns. What
did you learn from making
entirely virtual exhibitions?
LARA LESMES: Pre-pandemic, ‘virtual’
was incorporated into exhibitions through
galleries using their spaces to offer access to
specialized hardware. Not everyone has a
headset, after all. Our work always had virtual
and physical elements, and galleries gave
us that possibility. We’d never before done
something you could visit from home, but
when everyone started to look for exhibition
solutions during lockdowns, we had to make
things available, to start experimenting. We
discovered that WebXR, Mozilla Hubs are the
healthiest tools to use.
FREDRIK HELLBERG: Yes,
virtual spaces you can enter with a headset
or a desktop, directly through your internet
browser. They’re more accessible.
LL: You can host yourself, and
Mozilla doesn’t collect any data. That’s a
question we’ve been asking ourselves: What
are we betting on when we create social
VR exhibitions? We’re actively supporting
specific frameworks, and we think it’s an
important choice.
So you don’t gather data
to inform designs?
FH: No, but that’s because we’re part of a pio-
neering group of people making a conscious
effort in that direction. The virtual world is
being built faster than ever and it’s built on a
house of cards. Some cards are dangerous. I
presume we’ll see the same kinds of concerns
that are affecting the world of literature. Ama-
zon is starting to track the way people read
novels and feeding that data back to publish-
ers. ‘This is where people stopped reading
your book, so don’t do that in your next novel’
– that kind of thing.
LL: We’d much rather read
reviews and hear feedback during tours. I’m
also not sure how valuable it is to obtain other
data – unless it’s for commercial purposes, if
I think in a dystopian way. As a reader or visi-
tor, my unconscious set of decisions may not
represent my true experience. Some things
might be helpful to know – say, if everyone
kept getting lost in the same corner – but if
someone found an element uninteresting and
we as exhibition designers still consider it
relevant, we’re not going to take it out.
As you say, ownership of VR
headsets is relatively lim-
ited. How else can you offer
immersive VR experiences?
LL: When you watch VR films in a gal-
lery, you have an individual experience.
When we translated them into the website
format for our RIBA project [Freestyle:
Architectural Adventures in Mass Media,
which looked at the relationship between
architectural styles and media over the last
500 years in the UK], we made the films
into 360° spheres. You can watch them
together with other people, which is quite an
interesting advantage. But you’re also still
watching within the frame of your computer
screen unless you own a set of VR glasses,
which most people don’t. The social experi-
ence becomes the immersive factor – that’s
what makes you feel present in the space.
Alone it might feel slightly more engaging
than a website, but the moment someone
else appears – even if they don’t talk to you
– the experience is heightened. It can be
something as small as a cursor – two people
working together on a Google Doc – to a 3D
space where you’re represented as an avatar.
I heard someone even hosted a party on a
Google Doc during lockdown.
Now that we’re building these
spaces, questions about the individual versus
collective experience are arising. If we have
an area with a screen where you can scroll
through images, do the images scroll just
for you or for everyone in the space? We
think the action should affect everybody.
There’s an interesting phenomenon with
WebXR spaces – you can’t include many
users because you’d end up with too much
for your device to process. This means cop-
ies – instances – need to be made on the fly
and you don’t know which ‘space’ you’ll be
thrown into. If you visit a virtual exhibition
with a friend, you might end up in a sort of
parallel universe and not find each other.
Personally, I’d rather wait in a queue to get in
with a friend than not know where they are.
Solutions do exist, such as being able to find
your friends on a list, but this raises other
questions of privacy. These are the kinds of
tech issues we’re currently dealing with.
In the virtual world we’re
often still trying to mimic
elements from the physical
world. Is there an opportunity
to develop a new aesthetic
for virtual exhibitions?
FH: This is a divisive topic and we think
about it a lot. There’s a reason why elements
shouldn’t be completely abstract. Snow White
was the first full-length animated feature to
be released, in 1937. What if they’d decided
to paint abstract figures instead of relat-
able characters? Who wants to sit through
something that long just looking at blobs? We
navigate life by understanding the language
of objects and environments. In the West,
mimicry is often seen as a negative word but
I don’t think it should be. If virtual space is
a tool for learning, for having fun, then it
becomes increasingly limiting if you don’t
refer to things from the physical world.
LL: Sometimes you see digital
spaces where none of the walls are straight,
everything is fluid – they’re hard to navigate.
Unless you have extensive experience in
virtual space, you end up using them on your
own terms, based on your experience of the
physical world. The most powerful virtual
experiences are where the design is referen-
tial, but one thing is shifted or twisted. The
surreal effect.»

42 In Practice
ABOVE With the help of VR coder
Roman Miletitch, Space Popular
created a digital environment for the
2020 Arquia/Próxima architecture
festival, which celebrates and
awards the work of young emergent
practices from Portugal and Spain.

RIGHT Organized on a grid that

recalled Arquia/Próxima 2020’s
originally intended site, Barcelona’s
Ensanche, nine custom-designed
rooms fulfilled different purposes,
from an amphitheatre for hosting
larger communal events to galleries
that highlighted nominated projects.

Influencer 43
 Francis Ware
PREVIOUS SPREAD For the Freestyle:
Architectural Adventures in Mass
Media exhibition for the Royal
Institute of British Architects (RIBA),
Space Popular used virtual reality to
both examine building styles of the
past and consider the technology’s
impact on contemporary spaces.

ABOVE At the physical Freestyle

exhibition, visitors used headsets to
watch a black architectural model
shapeshift from the Renaissance to
postmodernism.

LEFT Forced to close in the midst of

the pandemic, RIBA commissioned
Space Popular to move the exhibition
online, where they turned the films
into 360° spheres.

46 In Practice
FH: Why are there chairs in virtual worlds?
Because they signal that you’re committing
your attention to a social interaction by sitting
down. Physical cues also play a big role in
creating trust and a sense of security. If you’re
in a room and you don’t know how to get out,
that’s unnerving. And if you don’t know how to
reach others – where they are – you can’t build
meaningful connections.
We’re also working on creating
connections within one world and between
worlds, and will use architectural cues to help
people orient themselves. Doors are an obvi-
ous ‘portal’ symbol, but I can also imagine
a street, a public infrastructure that you can
freely navigate and get an overview of your
surroundings.
LL: We also take cues from pre-
existing interfaces – everyone knows what a
menu button on a website looks like, or how
to follow a digital link. To not alienate anyone
and to make an experience fluent, you have to
embrace precedents.
But you can also imag-
ine a future of references
that develop from the
virtual world itself . . .
FH: Yes, and creating non-Euclidean spaces
will be key for future virtual environments.
You might go into a building with four doors
that lead to ten different rooms or worlds,
for example.
LL: But we don’t know how
interrupting the continuity of space will affect
orientation – no one has stress tested it. How
can we establish a breaking point? We’re
really excited about that.
Your avatar designs are
incredibly simple rather
than hyper-realistic. Why?
FH: Making it possible for people to move
around and talk in a space is expensive yet
necessary for certain events. For the Arquia/
Próxima architecture festival, we didn’t want
to close the door to any participants because
of lack of bandwidth or processing power.
And it’s interesting to see how little you actu-
ally need to represent a person. Ours looked
like pieces of paper but you could see their
name and hear their voice – our imagination
auto-completes the rest.
Has gaming influenced
your work considerably?
FH: The software and platforms we use, as
well as how we model and create assets, come
directly from gaming. I compare it to archi-
tects, whose buildings rely on the construc-
tion industry to be realized. Similarly, we’re
relying on another industry to give us the
tools and materials to do what we do.
LL: Combining platforms
is really common right now, too. In the
multiplayer game Among Us, for example,
users often also connect via Discord’s voice
and text channels and broadcast on Twitch.
That’s not just replicating something from
the physical realm but embracing the multi-
ple channels available online, which is very
interesting. But while a lot of really interest-
ing spatial understanding comes from video
games, we take many more cues from social
media platforms.
In what way?
LL: People are used to everything being
recorded, for our chats to be accessible later,
and being able to chat in private channels.
They’re now demanding the same thing from
virtual events, even though in real life you’d
have to physically move away from others to
talk privately. And if you weren’t there to hear
what was said, you couldn’t access it later,
which is how the chat actually works by default
on the Mozilla platform. At Arquia/Próxima,
chats would pop up briefly then disappear. But
now that there are expectations based on prec-
edents, you have to be aware of when you’re
breaking those expectations. Only through
trying to alter things slightly do you discover
what you shouldn’t mess with. Emoji com-
munication is now a must, for example. For
Arquia/Próxima, we had to build in clap and
celebration buttons because that’s how people
express themselves in digital environments.
When it’s possible to com-
bine both physical and
digital again, what les-
sons from this period will
you take into account?
LL: The necessity of travel has been called
into question, but we also need to consider
the environmental impact of lower air travel
versus the server space required for digital
events. Then there’s the issue of accessibil-
ity. Living in London for many years has
given us privileged access to culture. Now
that we’ve opened up the field through
digital means, there’s no way back – we can’t
confine culture to metropolises and exclude
anyone who’s not physically there anymore.
This concerns not only event visitors, but
also speakers and the wider range of content
that can be accessed virtually.
FH: You know those people
who insist on meeting in person when it’s not
necessary? There’s this term for it that I love,
‘holophobic’, from an episode of Rick and
Morty. Well, if you work in the cultural sector,
you can’t be holophobic. Which means the
future of cultural events will look very different.
LL: Another question is: What
really defines the event? How much of a
conference/awards ceremony such as Arquia/
Próxima is about the content and how much
is about the social experience of being there,
and the spontaneous meet-ups? These are the
things you really have to design for – things
that would be accidental and mostly unde-
Influencer
signed at physical events. During lockdown,
this virtual connection creation was even
more valuable because people couldn’t physi-
cally come together. But it will survive the
pandemic and lockdowns, and it’s where a lot
of our design efforts are going right now.
You mention environmental
impact. It’s assumed that
holding an online event
is automatically more
sustainable but that’s not
necessarily the case . . .
LL: There’s a lot of misunderstanding about
the environmental cost, and we do not have
clear calculations yet.
FH: We could compare it to the
meat industry in that there’s a general lack of
awareness of what’s required to sustain ani-
mal farming. Similarly, big companies don’t
want to talk about the massive data centres
required to sustain digital spaces.
What other issues will be
raised as virtual worlds
become more prevalent?
FH: Just like physical spaces, virtual environ-
ments need maintenance. If buildings fall
into disrepair, their bones will still be there,
whereas virtual worlds can disappear if just
one part of the code is no longer readable.
LL: Which is fine for a temporary
event like an exhibition, but when digital
spaces become valuable enough, people will
fight to keep them.
FH: People are starting to build
virtual homes, for example, something
we explored with our Venn Room project.
Eventually these digital spaces will have a
similar level of meaning as real ones. Think
about people’s Instagram and Facebook
accounts – about the memories and connec-
tions they have there. I read an article by
Carl Öhman and Nikita Aggarwal about what
would happen if Facebook would collapse for
some reason [‘What if Facebook Goes Down?
Ethical and Legal Considerations for the
Demise of Big Tech’]. It talked about giving
Facebook’s archive heritage status, protecting
it like a UNESCO site. But even on a smaller
scale, if you build something in a virtual space
that you care about, you have to think about
its longevity. The only platform that has some
sort of rigidity is Second Life, because they’ve
never changed their source code. •
spacepopular.com
47
 BELOW AND OPPOSITE The Venn
Room explores the possibilities of
virtual homes, putting such issues as
integration, interface, storage and
ownership into perspective through
everyday narratives.

‘We don’t know how interrupting

the continuity of space will
affect orientation – no one has
stress tested it’

48 In Practice
Fredrik Hellberg
Myerson lives in the southwest of
London, not far from Kew Gardens.
Editor, writer, researcher and
thinker JEREMY MYERSON
explains why inclusivity and
sustainability are two arrows
heading towards each other,
how to fix the lack of diversity
in the interior design industry
and what the future of work
entails.

As told to Robert Thiemann

Photos Andrew Meredith

What I’ve Learned 51

 JEREMY MYERSON: I was born and brought up in Liver-
pool as the youngest of four brothers. My earliest memo-
ries are from the late 1950s, early ’60s and I really felt
that we were at the centre of the cultural universe. It was
the time of The Beatles, my family knew Brian Epstein’s
family. Liverpool, the football club, was winning all the
time. The world seemed to be looking at us.
My mother was a college lecturer. She also
painted and was a potter. My father was
more scientific. He’d studied medicine, but
actually worked as an accountant. They were
interested in all aspects of culture. So I grew
up in a house with a lot of books, music and
stories. My father’s eldest brother worked on
office interiors in New York and actually laid
the carpets in the Seagram Building, where
he met Mies van der Rohe. My older brothers
all became professionals. One became an
accountant, one a lawyer, the third a doctor.
As the much younger brother, I was the one
who was a little more free.
I kind of fell into journalism. I studied English and drama
at university, which was a classic thing in the 1970s. I didn’t
set out to write specifically about art and design. Originally,
I was very interested in the performing arts and found a job
at The Stage, a theatrical newspaper. I realized there were
lots of really well-established journalists in this field. But
there were very few commentators on design, which was
really beginning to happen in the early 1980s. So in 1981,
I went to Design Magazine, which was published by the
Design Council. I entered an interesting formative period
where I met lots of designers in different disciplines. From
there, I went to edit Creative Review, which had started off
as a magazine for advertisers and art directors, but wanted
to expand into design. But as soon as I arrived at the pub-
lishing company, I had the idea for a design weekly, which
had never existed anywhere. I developed the concept for
Design Week and launched the magazine when I was just 30.
We based it on this idea of design as a vocation. It was quite
heroic looking and ahead of its time with its black-and-
white photography and Bauhaus-style typeface.
In the early 1990s I went freelance. I decided
that if I was going to make a long-term
career of writing and thinking about design,
I needed to study it in a more in-depth way.
I frequented the studios of Pentagram and
IDEO, and spent time with their design teams,
watching as they put things together. I also did
a series of monographs of famous designers
such as Alan Fletcher, the British design pio-
‘Inclusive design
is about offering a
great experience
for everybody’
52 In Practice
neer Gordon Russell and craft-based furniture
designer John Makepeace. I was really a pen
for hire. But doing these monographs gave me
real insight into sensibilities around design
and how designers edit a whole series of influ-
ences and create a vision. The big thing that I
learned is that there is a very definite design
sensibility. The really good designers have a
different way of solving problems.
Alan Fletcher said to me: Artists solve their own prob-
lems, designers solve other people’s. Very simplistic on
one level, but actually quite profound on another. The
other thing he said, was: Design is a mental utensil. He
positioned design as a way of seeing and a way of doing
as opposed to an object, which was how a lot of people
were thinking about design.
I got very interested in workplace design
when I was a journalist. I would look at the
quality of opera houses, high-end residential
schemes and shops – in the 1980s retailing
was a massive thing. At the other end of the
spectrum were people’s offices, with rows
of desks, fluorescent light, shrivelled potted
plants and metal filing cabinets. It was just
grim. I’d always been interested in the history
of offices and decided to do an MA by thesis
at the Royal College of Art in the early ’90s.
The RCA is one of the oldest art and design colleges in
the world and has this very rich heritage. Lots of famous
people have been through its doors. I discovered it
constantly changes. And I think that’s the strength of the
institution. It tries to facilitate a flow of ideas and people.
It changes as the disciplines of art and design change. So
what I learned from when I went back to college is that it
was not this fixed, monolithic institution. It was actually
quite fragile and fluid, trying to make sense of teaching
and researching, disciplines that are not fixed.
My father was 50 when I was born. So my
parents were ageing. There was a new unit
at the RCA called Design Age, set up by
Roger Coleman. I got involved in some of
their early events and was really interested
in issues of exclusion and marginalization.
I began to realize I’d been a kind of cheer-
leader for the design industry as a commer-
cial movement in the 1980s. But by the ’90s,
I was beginning to get interested in environ-
mental questions and issues of inclusion, in
design’s social agenda.
In 1986, an RCA alumna called Helen Hamlyn – who
studied fashion and textiles, but actually was a fantastic
interior designer – curated an exhibition at the Victoria
and Albert Museum’s Boilerhouse gallery called New
Design for Old. She commissioned about 15 product
designers from around the world to redesign items for
the home to make it easier for older people. She was
dealing with the problems of her own mother, whom she
was trying to keep out of institutional care following an
accident. She just couldn’t find the products and services
that would help her in her own home. I remember going
to see this exhibition and thinking: wow, that’s an interest-
ing take. It was the big bang in the city. I’d just launched
Design Week, which was all about conspicuous consump-
tion. The British design industry was very commercially
driven and here was this exhibition saying: there’s a
whole marginalized group in society.
After studying English and Five years later Helen Hamlyn announced
drama at university, Myerson
‘kind of fell into journalism’,
she was going to fund a programme called
eventually launching Design Design Age. Designer Roger Coleman was its
Week magazine at the age of 30. first director and it immediately interested
me. In 1994, Roger was the first to define the
term inclusive design in an academic paper
he wrote for an ergonomics conference in
Toronto. He really was one of the godfathers
of the inclusive design movement. With an
ageing population, with more people being
frail and disabled, he could see that inclu-
sion was going to be a big issue for interior
designers. When the RCA asked me to work
on a project as a freelancer, I turned it down
and instead proposed that I work with Roger
to cofound the Helen Hamlyn Centre for
Design. The two of us became co-directors
and when Roger retired in 2006, I became
sole director until 2015. Basically, more than
20 years of my working career have revolved
around inclusive design, which has become a
powerful driver.
Inclusivity was always acknowledged, but treated with
suspicion by architects and interior designers. It was
almost exclusively seen as access for people in wheel-
chairs. But we said it’s about offering a great experience
for everybody. Step-free access is great for a wheelchair
What I’ve Learned
user, but it’s also great for a businessman with roller lug-
gage and for a young mother with a buggy.
When we started, people had very fixed ideas.
They saw inclusivity as a tick-box exercise.
They didn’t want to get older and disabled
people involved in the design process,
because they thought that it would ruin their
beautiful designs. So we set up a series of
challenges with professional designers to get
them to work directly with groups of disabled
or older people. Designers needed to be a
bit more open about the design process and
allow people to co-create.
One of the first projects that we worked on was Heath-
row’s Terminal 5, which was designed by Richard Rogers
and was going to be the biggest airport terminal in
Europe. We started to work on the project six years before
it opened. The architects worried because all their data
had told them that the travelling public was progressively
getting older. They wanted us to do research on age-
related disabilities like loss of sight and hearing, to find
out what the key issues were and give them a set of prin-
ciples to design around. What we found was that older
people go to the toilet a lot in airports. Do you know why?
Because you can hear the flight announcements very
clearly there. We recruited older people, took them to
Heathrow Airport, gave them tasks like going to check »
53
‘You’ll no longer travel
for an hour to sit at a
desk and send e-mails
to people’
in and finding the departure gate. And of course, they all
got lost. What came out of it was a proposal for micro-
architectural elements. We called them acoustic arches:
little structures in the big concourse with super graphics
on them. Their inside would be ceramic-clad, enabling
high-quality sound. They’re all over the place now.
What’s interesting is that the physical world
began to move quite quickly towards a new
viewpoint. But then we saw the digital world
making exactly the same mistakes in terms
of access and inclusion. My successor at the
Helen Hamlyn Centre, Rama Gheerawo,
is very interested in race as a dimension of
inclusion. He has been very prominent inter-
nationally in developing that. So the game
moves forward all the time.
Now we seem to be going through a diverse and eclectic
period in interior design. I think interior designers have
taken on issues of access and diversity to some extent.
The problem is the lack of diversity and representation in
the interior design industry itself. That’s an issue.
Having more diverse voices in architecture
and interior design schools, and having more
role models will attract different groups of
people to interior design. Like all branches of
design, it has been a middle-class white pro-
fession if compared with the performing arts
or music. Black and ethnic minority groups
are underrepresented. But that is beginning
to change, especially in digital design. Under-
standing that interior design is a dimension of
architecture, instead of mere decoration, will
also help diversity. Seeing the profession in
the context of the decorative arts isn’t helpful,
because issues of class and taste then come
into it, especially here in the UK.
I genuinely think that the profession has become much
more savvy about inclusion and sustainability. I’ve
been reading some interesting papers coming out of
big groups like WSP, Gensler and Perkins+Will. They’re
beginning to think much more around issues like health
inequalities, and how the built environment is a big
determinant in that.
Inclusion and sustainability are two arrows
heading towards each other. If you want
healthy communities in which people can live
and work, you’re talking about the 15-minute
city. With its localized living it’s more inclu-
sive for people, but it’s actually also more
sustainable. So, instead of running on parallel
tracks, but not really touching each other,
54 In Practice
inclusivity and sustainability are moving
towards each other.
Now, in my mid-sixties, I’m running the Worktech Acad-
emy with Philip Ross. We’re looking at the future of work,
which has a major influence on how we organize ourselves
in cities, how we live and how we sustain ourselves.
The 1990s were incredibly important for
workplace design, because it was the first
stage of the era of the PC and the laptop. It
was the beginning of ubiquitous computing
and the intelligent building. Big bureaucra-
cies, the monolithic institutions, began to
realize they needed to reconstitute them-
selves. When I wrote my thesis at the begin-
ning of the 1990s, I argued that the office and
modernism were intricately tied together.
Management efficiency and the modernist
credo, in terms of architecture and design,
were bedfellows. The ethic of work was
meant to be tough, technological, unyielding,
masculine.
My thesis was about breaking down the whole modern-
ist connection with the office. Like everything else, it
could be an expression of postmodernist ideas. Probably
I should have put more emphasis on the fact that people
would work away from the office. The uncoupling of work
from the workplace has been the big story of the last 20
years. And now that we’re forcibly being disconnected
from the workplace, we’re beginning to think about what
an office really is. I suppose it will have its biggest reinven-
tion over the next ten years – for 100 years.
The office is about people coming together.
You’ll no longer travel for an hour to sit at
a desk and send e-mails to people now that
you’re able to do it from home. People are
going to go into the office because they need
to meet up with other people: for the kick-
off of a project, for training, for mentoring
or simply to socialize. Offices are going to
become more like event venues that you visit
for a specific person or purpose, so they’ll
have to encompass more hospitality aspects.
I think we’ll all have a mixed portfolio of
workspaces. Companies are already begin-
ning to think about how their corporate
headquarters are used, investing in them to
make them more of a destination with better
food without needing to pack people in. But
they’ll also give employees a membership
to a co-working space and an allowance to
work from home. So people will have more
autonomy over how and where they work, at
least in knowledge jobs.
Workers will have more flexibility and choice. This
has implications for leadership, for management, for
performance monitoring and so on. The office has
always been about aggregation and intensification,
about reducing transaction costs by putting people in
the same space, however we’re now seeing a reversal of
that. But this is only an acceleration of trends have been
going on for some time. The good news is that in order
to make it more of a destination, a place for interaction,
for innovation, for catalysing human relations, you
need interior designers to do imaginative things. So the
interior design profession can look at the future with
some interest and optimism. •
 Myerson believes offices will
become more about meeting
than working, and companies will
‘give employees a membership
to a co-working space and an
allowance to work from home’.

JEREMY MYERSON
1956 Born in Liverpool, UK 1974-1977 Studies English and Drama at the University of Hull 1981 Joins
the Design Council’s Design Magazine as assistant editor 1985 Becomes editor of Creative Review
1986 Founds Design Week 1990 Publishes the Conran Design Guides 1991-1993 Studies for Master’s at
the Royal College of Art (RCA) 1999 Sets up the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the RCA with Roger
Coleman 2003 Publishes The 21st Century Office with Philip Ross 2006 Becomes sole director of the
Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, until 2015 2012 Named by Wired magazine as one of Britain’s 100 most
influential people in digital technology 2013 Takes on role as design lead in setting up the Helix healthcare
innovation centre at St Mary’s Hospital, London 2015 Cofounds Worktech Academy 2016 Receives
Honorary Doctorate from the RCA

What I’ve Learned 55

 CreatAR Images

The street-facing façade of OPPO’s

flagship store in Guangzhou, which
was designed by UNStudio, features a
curvaceous composition of tubes inspired
by bamboo – an important source of food,
clothing, housing and transportation for
the city’s residents in ancient times.

56 In Practice
XIN LIN, spatial design director
at innovative smart device
company OPPO, explains why it’s
important for retailers to blur the
boundaries between public space
and commerce, how to combine
a global outlook with local
sensitivity, and what advocating
people-centric principles entails
inside stores.

Words Floor Kuitert

The Client 57
Technology as an art form: it’s what Chinese electronics
manufacturer OPPO stands for. Aiming to ‘elevate life
through technological artistry’, the brand serves a now
estimated 400 million people in 40+ markets worldwide
with smart devices. In 2020, the year that saw many
businesses struggle, OPPO grew, just like it has done since
its foundation in 2004. As CEO Tony Chen announced
in his 2021 New Year message, the company saw its sales
continue to rise in India while remaining the market leader
in Southeast Asia and tripling its shipments in Western
Europe and Japan. This growth spurt, as well as OPPO’s
attention to aesthetics, are clearly reflected in the compa-
ny’s retail strategy, which sees design-led stores pop up at
a rapid pace. And despite the pandemic’s profound impact
on retail there is no sign of a slowdown. ‘Our strategic goal
is still to build long-term relationships with our custom-
ers and use our physical retail stores as a vehicle to do so.
That means in the future, we will utilize stores to connect
with – and create unique experiences for – our customers,’
says spatial design director Xin Lin, who’s responsible for
the planning, design and delivery of OPPO’s global super
flagship stores.
Holistic retail design
XIN LIN: When I first joined OPPO my main attraction
to the brand was its boldness. On top of that, one of the
driving forces of the company is the pursuit for beauty,
meaning there were a lot of opportunities for me, as the
spatial design director, to update and innovate the brand
image through its physical retail spaces. My main respon-
sibility is the planning, design and delivery of our global
super flagship stores. Building a store like that is very
complicated. We have to think about including everything
from visual merchandising displays to lighting systems
and other systematic planning elements. That means
our spatial design team needs to have both a very strong
instinct and expertise in retailing. From the beginning of
a spatial design process we work closely with our product,
store development and operational teams, making sure we
can translate their needs into design solutions. Different
product lines have diverse requirements and in every mar-
ket the customer needs can vary, too. That’s why my team
members have to have a very concrete and comprehensive
understanding of the company – not solely of its retail
strategy, but also of its product strategy. When allocating
our spatial resources, we need to make sure our decisions
regarding the functions of the various in-store areas are in
line with the needs of all the different teams in the com-
pany. It’s up to us to find the ideal spatial organization.
Putting people before technology
In 2020, our founder and CEO Tony Chen introduced
the brand value ‘technology for mankind, kindness for
the world’. It highlights that for us the essence of good
design lies not in our love of technical specifications,
but in our respect for people and our devotion to what
they wish to achieve in their lives through our products.
Design is a means to bring the purpose of our technolo-
gies to our customers, so we focus on the interaction
between people and technology and advocate human-
centric principles. Design is the means, while people
are the end. We aim to design spaces that represent that
people-centric design philosophy.
Intriguing rather than overwhelming
Our design language is based on minimalism. It’s concise,
58
but not cold. We try to create a light and vivid feeling
for our customers. We believe that simple lines matter,
and we cautiously polish those. We don’t pursue a sense
of ‘magnificence’ and ‘grandness’ so to say, but rather
want the people entering our spaces to be inspired by the
details. Even the placement of the tiniest button mat-
ters to us. We think technology shouldn’t be invasive,
so we don’t show off our R&D capabilities by explicitly
displaying our frontier technologies in our retail spaces.
In our Beijing super flagship store, for example, phones
are hidden in capsules with headphones. There is no
obvious trace of goods within the sight of the passers-by.
Only when visitors take off a headphone will the product
appear. We want to create a futuristic yet friendly space
that fosters conversation between people and inspires
interactions. We enjoy offering more opportunities for
customers to experience and rest, rather than pushing
them towards seeing and purchasing our products. We
want technology to be subtly supportive as opposed to
commercially aggressive. That’s why, for example, it’s
only when people sit down to charge their devices in
our flagship stores that an image of the charging rate is
projected in real time on a reflective table. To us, retail
shops are not just about selling goods, they are also about
providing comprehensive services and experiences.
Speaking to all senses
We need our stores to be a continuation of our product
lines and product thinking. In a way the retail outlets
are OPPO’s largest physical ‘product’. So we develop our
retail spaces like we develop our products – thinking about
more than just their aesthetics. Yes, the visual aspect is
one, but then there are the audial, tactile and even the
olfactory aspects. To create a complete and identifiable
space we customize all these aspects, down to the in-store
fragrances. The consistency across stores helps customers
recall the sensory in-store experience when they enter our
store again or elsewhere.
Omnichannel over online-only
OPPO was founded in 2004 and around that time the
retail industry was still fairly offline. I think OPPO seized
on the opportunity back then to penetrate the offline
market. We won a lot of customers at that time. Later »
‘We want our buildings
to free people from
their feeling of isolation,
while making them feel
sheltered at the same time’
In Practice
 Aiming to create a store that blurs the
boundaries between public space and
commerce, UNStudio designed OPPO’s
flagship in Guangzhou as ‘a “borderless”
interactive environment, where meandering
routes surround a central resting point’.
CreatAR Images

The Client 59
60 In Practice
 Those passing by OPPO’s Domani-
designed super flagship store in
Beijing are drawn in by the 8-m-high
LED screens visible through the
building’s glass curtain walls.

Vincent Zhang

The Client 61
 Akihiro Yoshida
‘We need our stores to be a continuation
of our product lines,’ says Xin Lin. Nendo
conceptualized two such products for OPPO
to explore future design possibilities, including
a sliding-phone concept that can be folded
down three times to the size of a credit card
and a mobile accessory collection that’s
centred around a pair of earphones.

62 In Practice
we embraced the era of personal computing, followed by
the era of mobile internet and social platforms – of content
consumption.
Since 2017, after witnessing a shift in con-
sumer demands from convenience to experience, we
started to pay extra attention to our offline channels,
highlighting the communication and exchange with our
customers, which I see as one of OPPO’s strengths. We are
trying to build our stores like those corner shops you can
find in European neighbourhoods. They are integrated in
the community and communicate with their customers
like friends. At the same time going online is an inevitable
trend, of course. We don’t think of online and offline as
two separate, conflicting worlds, but rather as comple-
mentary to each other. In our Beijing store, for example,
there’s a display area with touchscreen tabletops that allow
customers to find and scan QR codes, obtain more infor-
mation about a product, or make a direct purchase online.
In the future, we plan on exploring a next-gen retail model
that narrows down the distance between consumers and
us even further by merging online and offline shopping
into a more borderless experience.
Integrating external parties
In choosing external design partners we attach a lot of
significance to the company culture – whether we share
the same values. By the time we started to collaborate
with other design parties on our retail outlets we had
already established a few successful flagship stores across
the globe and had formed – and verified – our own mature
design language and VM principles. The biggest chal-
lenge in working with external parties lies in conveying an
understanding of our brand philosophy and goals. When
it comes to these big retail projects there are a lot of things
to factor in, from business targets and marketing strate-
gies to customer experience, time and budget. It’s all in
our brief, which some of our previous design partners
have said was the most systematic and comprehensive
one ever provided to them.
We know designers have their own princi-
ples they like to stick to and they tend to think within a
certain scope, but we want to realize our projects through
cooperation. Which is why we want our partners to quickly
integrate into our team to get a complete understanding
of what we want to bring to our customers. We treat them
as our team members and during our partnership we
organize all kinds of workshops and brainstorming ses-
sions to fully communicate ideas with each other. It’s not
because we don’t trust our partners – in fact we want them
to inspire us to do new things – but because we aim to be
very productive and efficient. The time allowed for a retail
store to be established is simply much shorter than that of
a regular architecture project.
We worked with UNStudio on a new super
flagship store in Guangzhou, as well as a prominent new
store in Beijing, because we believe the firm is a pioneer-
ing player in the design industry. The architects are also
very demanding of their own work and the details of it,
and specialized in the use of curves and parametric design,
which matched our needs. We were able to have very
candid discussions with them and exchange ideas.
Tapping into local traditions
If we can integrate the local culture into our interior
designs, that is a very good way to relate to our customers
and attract them to our stores. If you have a look at the
The Client
façade of our super flagship store in Guangzhou, which
was designed in collaboration with UNStudio, you will
notice we were inspired by bamboo, an important source
of food, clothing, housing and transportation for people in
Guangzhou in ancient times. The metallic tubes used don’t
only reference bamboo, but are also an interpretation of
the ‘O’ in OPPO, when it is transformed from 2D into 3D.
The lighting creates an effect of dynamism and vibrancy,
resulting in an optical effect of rhythmic motion across
the façade. The store design, and especially its façade, is a
contextual reaction that respects the qualities of the city,
while also representing OPPO’s values and culture.
Blurring the boundaries between commercial
and public space
Our design language is Technology White. White, in the
Chinese culture and context, referring to leaving ‘blanks’
or negative space – room for consumers to interpret by
themselves. By creating a kind of extended façade, a
‘blurred’ area between the completely public and the
completely commercial space, we find that customers
may simply walk in naturally rather than being driven by a
specific desire or purpose. We want our spatial designs to
be gentle and warm, rather than aggressive. In our Guang-
zhou super flagship store we seemingly went against the
commercial logic of fully optimizing retail floor space. At
the indoor entrance, which is inside a shopping mall, we
set up a glass wall a few metres into the store, creating a
‘grey space’ between the interior and the atrium. Materials
used in the interiors and large LED screens extend from
inside the store out into the atrium. That way we minimize
the store’s boundary and also the psychological burden
of walking in. Consumers can then choose what kind of
activities they want to do here: stay, rest or interact with
the extended brand LED screens.
The idea of blurring the boundaries between
public space and commerce is also adopted further
inside the stores. UNStudio introduced an ‘Urban
Park’ concept, for example, which is designed to be an
inclusive environment that meets the behavioural needs
of the various people who visit our store. It’s designed as
a borderless environment. There are meandering routes
surrounding a central resting point, which allow custom-
ers to browse and pause. •
oppo.com
63
Architectural GRANITE

Surfaces
MARBLE
SILESTONE
DEKTON

FAÇADES
FLOORING
CLADDING
WORKTOPS
KITCHENS
BATHROOMS

Amsterdam

Barcelona

Dubai

London

Los Angeles

Madrid

Manhattan

Miami

Montreal

Milano

San Francisco

Singapore

Sydney

Toronto

COSENTINO CITY AMSTERDAM COSENTINO CITY MADRID COSENTINO CITY BARCELONA

Van Baerlestraat 39-43, Paseo de la Castellana, 116, Avenida Diagonal 497,
1071 AP Amsterdam 28046 Madrid 08029 Barcelona
spaces
Katsumasa Tanaka, courtesy of Shiroiya Hotel

66 Why retail is channelling neoclassicism 80 How

CBD stores are steering clear of stoner stereotypes
100 Interiors convert to veganism
RECAST RELICS

Fen-Fang Lu
The Building Crease store by
Waterfrom Design for Anest
Collective in Shanghai, China.

In each issue we identify a key aesthetic trend evident in our archive of

recent projects and challenge semiotics agency Axis Mundi to unpack its
design codes. Here, we look at how neoclassical references in retail spaces
and design connote stability and endurance in a time of uncertainty.

Words Rosamund Picton and Kourosh Newman-Zand

66 Spaces
José Hevia

Acne Studios Norrmalmstorg

store by Arquitectura-G in
Stockholm, Sweden.
YUUUUNSTUDIO
The method of Loci, also known as the memory palace,
is an ancient mnemonic strategy wherein an individual
remembers a list of items or ideas by visualizing them
along a habitual journey, or within well-known places.
Resonances of this technique can be traced in places
and products that preserve peaceful dreams of antiquity,
drawing on the familiarity of neoclassical references to
construct and conjure collective recollections.
The ephemeral nature of contemporary
life is countered in environments occupied
by abstract historical impressions. A taste
for simplicity favours divine proportions
and mellifluous forms that unravel like
musical manuscripts. Celestial Ekeberg
marble and stained travertine mimic the
quiet interior vocabulary of the museum
or archive, absorbing light and compelling
a contemplative state in visitors whose
attention is directed towards iconic
accessories and elegant fashions, artfully
arranged on plinths and pedestals.
Timeless craftsmanship is embedded in understated
motifs that punctuate sober spaces. Heavy-inked
screen partitions, brushed steel and fluorescent
strip lighting create structural coherence, while
sparse fixtures act as minimalist scaffolds for surreal
sculptural arrangements and objets d’art. In one
instance, diminutive classical characters participate in
an epic tableau involving a giant dark horse. Elsewhere,
subtle yet sophisticated paterae, bas-relief collages and
jacquard fabrics demonstrate the enduring quality of
restrained decoration, woven into internal and external
surfaces to ensure longevity.
Intrepid explorers are rewarded with entry
to disguised inner sanctums and privileged
perspectives of strange interior vistas.
Occluded cabinets of curiosity protect and
Maó Space by One Fine Day Studio
& Partners in Guangzhou, China.
Look Book
preserve valuable items behind nondescript
façades, while vibrant living treasures, such
as elaborate floral displays, are hidden within
shrine-like vestibules, injecting neutral
environments with the thrill of discovery.
Exposed archaeological features imply the ghostly calm
of the amphitheatre, abandoned by bygone actors.
Stacked stone steps, raised platforms and suspended
shelves are testament to the prior occupation of people,
performances and precious relics. Though the patina of
age comes through in fractured plaster, wall stains and
ceramic fragments, anonymous pale stone tints, Xuan
paper and mirrored furnishings ultimately protect the
secrets of imagined predecessors, leaving patrons to
project their own fantasies onto the tabula rasa.
The intrigue of the past is further teased by
the romance of decay. Molten wax, sunken objects
and tectonic strata suggest the denouement of
empire, shaken by unknown crises and preserved in
silent posterity. Décortiqué and frosted glass windows
smuggle muted light into rooms, gently illuminating
the faded grandeur of corrugated textures, crumbling
plaster statues and the ruins of miniature resin
coliseums. As a tangible metaphor of the fragility
of time, Doric columns and simple colonnades are
undermined by off-kilter shafts, detached walls and
sculpting dents. Like the ancient ruins of Pompeii, the
effect is of a world suspended in time, waiting for new
audiences to acknowledge their being.
Representing an interregnum between
destruction and creation, the elegant remains
of lost civilization are poignant, but also
playful, inviting guests to recast and rebuild
new meanings on ancestral foundations,
threaded through with the reassuring
redolence of history and tradition.•
axis-mundi.co
69
Sacrifice store by Gentle Monster
in Seoul, South Korea.
 Everyday Ornament
by Adèle Vivet.

72 Spaces
 LEFT Browns Fashion window
display by Charlotte Kidger in
London, UK.

BELOW Pompei by Opere Varie.

Look Book 73
 Acne Studios Norrmalmstorg
store by Arquitectura-G in
Stockholm, Sweden.

74 Spaces
 75
Mikael Olsson

Look Book
BELOW Sacrifice store by Gentle
Monster in Seoul, South Korea.

OPPOSITE Filling Pieces store by

Daniele Misso in Amsterdam, the
Netherlands.

76 Spaces
Ewout Huibers
Maison Margiela Avenue
Montaigne store by Studio
Anne Holtrop in Paris, France.
COLOUR Sober spaces sport
monochromatic palettes that
embrace the natural tonality of
plaster, concrete, clay and marble.
Retained whites and skin-toned
shades are supplemented by
lightly smeared pastels, creat-
ing a soft and hazy atmosphere.
Momentous black accents add
contrast, while occasional dashes
of subdued green, yellow and pink
bring liveliness.

MATERIAL Surfaces in celestial

Ekeberg marble, white onyx and
stained travertine are juxtaposed
with frosted glass windows,
jacquard fabrics and hand-dyed
resin objects. Display racks,
platforms and screen partitions
made of metal and brushed steel,
in turn, signify the industrial age.
Walls and ceilings are plastered
or covered with Xuan paper.
Corrugated textures, fractured
stucco, bas-reliefs and crumbling
ceramics symbolize the passage
and fragility of time.

FORM Scaled-down references

to Greco-Roman architecture
bring a sense of classicism, while
modern-day techniques are
employed to replicate relics of
the past. To reinterpret columns,
they are hand-cast in textile
molds, simplified in shape or
chopped into pieces. Ornaments
are updated and products are
artfully arranged on plinths and
pedestals.

Look Book 79
80 Spaces
 WELLNESS,

David Mitchell, courtesy of Standard Dose

NOT WEED

It’s found its way into everything from

chocolate and cosmetics to pillows and
activewear. The purported wonder panacea for
a multitude of illnesses, including Alzheimer’s,
Parkinson’s, cancer and depression. CBD, short
for cannabidiol, is one of over 100 chemical
compounds found in the cannabis (marijuana
or hemp) plant. And the stores dedicated
to selling it want to steer clear of the stoner
stereotypes associated with its source.

Retail 81
Within the ever-growing and wide-ranging
wellness economy lie niche areas of rapid
growth, and CBD is a case in point. According
to recent research published by Savills: ‘The
market is currently worth £300 million in
the UK, a figure that is expected to more than
triple in the next five years. That equates to a
£1 billion market in CBD alone by 2025. The
number of CBD oil users also doubled from
125,000 to 250,000 between 2017 and 2018.’
And in the US, leading cannabis researchers
BDS Analytics and Arcview Market Research
project that the collective market for CBD
sales will surpass $20 billion by 2024.
The global complementary and
alternative medicine market is growing in
general. With this comes a focus on natural
remedies, so it’s understandable that a
plant-based product like CBD is taking off. But
this all-natural image has long been associ-
ated with weed, too. In many cases, CBD is
looking to shed the stereotypes surrounding
marijuana, including the plant’s distinctive leaf
shape – its brand, in a way. (It’s worth nothing
that cannabis itself is also undergoing a similar
rebranding exercise in order to be seen as
more medicinal.)
A bit of terminology: cannabis
is the umbrella term for marijuana or hemp,
marijuana is a high-THC variety of cannabis
plant, and hemp is a high-CBD variety of
cannabis plant. Part of the marketing strategy
for CBD is about defining the key differences
between the product and its source. For one,
CBD can be legally obtained more widely than
cannabis. That’s largely down to the second
way in which they differ: CBD won’t get you
high. In Switzerland, for example, THC is
illegal whereas cannabidiol is not – because
it doesn’t produce the psychoactive effects of
THC, the active ingredient in cannabis. Plus,
unlike some prescription medications, CBD
is not addictive.
So how do you convey all of this
in the spaces selling CBD? Maurice Mentjens
confirms that there’s a lot of misinformation
surrounding such products, leading to a fear
of their use. The Dutch designer recently real-
ized the first store for CBD brand Cibdol, in
Amsterdam, and says he didn’t want to include
any marijuana references in the interior
because of any potential negative associations.
Instead, he looked to the brand’s Swiss roots.
‘Switzerland is known for its high quality,
tradition, trust and purity, but also for its big
pharmaceutical companies.’ Mentjens filtered
these qualities into an interior that features
vertical wooden displays – a nod to the archi-
tecture of cosy Swiss chalets – and a drawer-
filled wall inspired by apothecaries, creating a
link between CBD and medicine. Tradition is
overthrown through materiality. Mentjens clad
the drawers with mirrors to produce a ‘clean,
high-tech appearance’ and dynamic reflec-
tions of the interior and products. Not to be
confused with ‘trippy’, mind you.
82
Similarly, Batek Architekten was briefed by
Vaay to create a CBD store in Berlin devoid
of marijuana stereotypes. To appeal to its
target market – young professionals who are
open to trying new things – Vaay asked for
something clean, simple and modern. Despite
following a scientific approach, with a team of
biologists, doctors and researchers developing
products around the themes ‘relax’, ‘recover’
and ‘sleep’, Vaay didn’t want anything too
sterile or laboratory-like, an aesthetic that’s
taken off in physical retail in recent years.
‘The branding of the products is very bold
with strong colours,’ says Patrick Batek of
Batek Architekten. ‘We decided to let the
products be the focus against a muted white
interior, using only powder-coated metal and
stained wooden slats. The interior is the stage
that lets the products shine.’
The packaging of Standard Dose’s
products, another burgeoning CBD brand, is
almost the opposite: subtle and muted, the
amber glass bottles popularized by Aēsop a
common sight. For their interior of the Stand-
ard Dose store in New York City, SR Projects
and Tuna followed suit. Calm and serene,
the shop could be mistaken for a yoga studio.
And it does, in fact, include a meditation
space, as well as a tea bar and beauty counter.
To create what’s intended as a retreat in the
busy NoMad neighbourhood, the team pulled
together tactile materials, soft lighting and
casual furniture to convey calmness. ‘I think
the main misconception around CBD is its
association to marijuana and that you’ll always
find it at your local head shops along with
other cannabis products,’ says Sacha Roubeni,
principal of SR Projects. ‘Standard Dose has
done a great job of not only “rebranding”
CBD as a plant-based wellness product but of
establishing a transparent vetting process in an
otherwise unregulated industry.’ Since CBD
is a relatively new industry, ‘there hasn’t been
much precedent for this kind of a shop,’ he
continues, ‘let alone one that is centred around
the health and wellness sector. We had no
choice but to be innovative.’ As an example of
this innovation he speaks of, Roubeni points to
the artificial CoeLux skylight in the medita-
tion room, which offers ‘natural’ light in an
otherwise dark, windowless space.
With more and more companies
cropping up to cash in on the CBD phenom-
enon, it’s not hard to get your hands on some.
Even household name Martha Stewart has
launched a range of wellness products that
includes gummies and oil drops, with hemp
and CBD company Canopy Growth. Although
many CBD companies offer webstores – and
e-commerce shows no sign of slowing down
– physical CBD stores can help to build trust.
For such a specialized product, experts can
be on hand to offer individualized advice for
treatments and personal-care products.
Not all markets are open for
business, though. CBD may be more avail-
Spaces
able legally than cannabis, but it’s not legally
available everywhere – or sometimes only
with a prescription. But this, too, appears
to be shifting. Inkwood Research reported
that ‘Asia-Pacific is one of the untapped CBD
markets and represents enormous market
opportunities to benefit from the global trend
of legalization of cannabis. For instance, in
2018, Thailand announced it would be the
first country in Asia to legalize the production
and cultivation of marijuana crops.’ What’s
more, ‘the Asia Pacific CBD skin care market
is estimated to grow significantly and record
a CAGR of 28.25% during the estimated
period of 2020-2028. The rising interest by
countries to legalize marijuana is provid-
ing enormous growth opportunities for the
market in the region.’
Batek believes that as the market
expands, CBD-related interiors should natu-
rally look different to reflect their location.
‘Consumers are steering away from wanting
commercial interiors repeatedly realized in
different locations around the world. The
product itself is the CBD; the shop interior
should vary.’ He believes that this, com-
bined with consumers wanting innovative
shopping experiences, gives architects the
opportunity to experiment with cutting-edge
concepts. Mentjens feels that experiences
could play an even bigger role in such inte-
riors: ‘A CBD spa or treatment centre would
be very interesting, too.’
There’s a missed spatial
opportunity so far, though: incorporating
hemp itself as a material. Perhaps future
CBD interiors could capitalize on the mate-
rial’s diversity and sustainability as part of a
holistic hemp story. TI
PREVIOUS SPREAD For their interior
of the Standard Dose store in New
York City, SR Projects and Tuna
followed combined tactile materials,
soft lighting and casual furniture to
convey calmness.
RIGHT The artificial CoeLux skylight
in Standard Dose’s meditation
room provides ‘natural’ light in an
otherwise dark, windowless space.
Retail 83
 Marcus Wend

84
Spaces
 Responding to Vaay’s request for a
clean, simple and modern Berlin store
that would appeal to open-minded
young professionals, Batek Architekten
let the graphic product packaging make
the spatial statement.

Retail 85
Muk van Lil

Spaces
86
In Amsterdam, Maurice Mentjens
referenced Cibdol’s Swiss heritage
in its first physical store. An
apothecary-inspired drawer-filled
wall refers to Switzerland’s wealth
of pharmaceutical companies, while
vertical wooden displays create the
connection to alpine architecture.

REBRANDING Stores selling CBD are currently trying to depart from marijuana
stereotypes by focusing on the substance’s wellness and medicinal qualities. They
also have to educate their audiences on the differences between CBD and THC, the
psychoactive component of cannabis. Sometimes that education is by the design –
spaces with zero getting-high hints. There’s an air of Frame’s 130 Post-Clinical Look
Book at play – the aesthetic softening of clinical interiors in line with the holistic wellness
industry. What’s interesting is the dissociation from cannabis as a natural product. It’s
also understandable, since the plant’s distinctive leaf shape is so iconic, and the current
goal is to disconnect from preconceptions. But perhaps once the distinction has been
well and truly secured, and if natural medicine continues to rise, the pendulum will swing
in the other direction.

Retail 87
 Shinya Kigure
Alongside the renovation of a
1970s building – now known as the
‘heritage tower’ (opposite) – Sou
Fujimoto completed the 25-room
Shiroiya Hotel with the addition of
a new ‘green tower’ that recalls the
hillocks common to the region.
DESTINATION
CREATION

Bolstered by the unprecedented pandemic, tourists and locals are looking

to suburban areas as viable alternatives to densely populated metropolises.
There’s potential for smaller, once desolated cities to become destinations
away from the crowds. We look at the design of a hotel in Maebashi, a city
within two hours’ drive of Tokyo, where internationally renowned creatives –
Sou Fujimoto, Michele de Lucchi and Jasper Morrison, to name a few – joined
forces with locals to usher in a renaissance.

Hospitality 89

MAEBASHI In December 2020, the Shiroiya
Hotel opened to much fanfare in the Japanese
city of Maebashi, 100 km north of Tokyo.
Once the spearhead of modernization in early
20th-century Japan, when the city succeeded
in industrializing the manufacture of silk
textile, Maebashi had lost the vibrancy and
life of its past. Now, the Shiroiya Hotel aspires
to become Maebashi’s symbol of renaissance.
The 25-room hotel itself is also
a renaissance, of a 75-room city hotel that
opened in the 1970s before going under in
2008. Before that, the building was a tradi-
tional ryokan. Dating back to the 18th century,
it served high-ranking officials in its heyday.
Even after the hotel had closed its doors it
remained cherished by locals for its history
and significance. When the site came up for
sale in 2013, the community approached
fellow local Hitoshi Tanaka – an entrepreneur
and CEO/founder of popular eyewear brand
Jins – to buy the property and save it from
demolition. Touched by the locals’ affinity for
their neighbourhood hotel, Tanaka decided
to purchase it not with funds amassed from
his core business, but with his own personal
savings – even though he had absolutely
no experience in the hotel business. ‘I was
simply taken by the passion of the locals,’ he
says, ‘and felt empathy towards their attach-
ment to the hotel. As someone who comes
from Maebashi, it felt organic to contribute
to making my hometown more attractive to
its residents. That was my only impetus in
earmarking my own money for the hotel and
the land on which it sits.’
Tanaka first consulted hotel
developers, only to hear that it doesn’t make
sense to launch a high-end hotel in a city
like Maebashi that doesn’t attract tourists.
‘Everyone I asked said that there should first
be a magnet to the city, which then creates
the demand for a hotel. Not the other way
around. I was told it’s reckless to start a
luxury hotel in a depopulated city and expect
to attract people.’ But years of experience
as an entrepreneur and a good gut instinct
told Tanaka the opposite. Wanting to work
with an architect with whom he could closely
90
discuss things – ‘not just commission,’ he says
– Tanaka approached Sou Fujimoto, a trusted
contact for 20 years. But, just like Tanaka,
Fujimoto had no experience in renovating a
hotel, which is why the project took nearly
six years to realize. The drawn-out process
proved to be an advantage, as the pair could
change their minds along the way, adjusting
the plans to the shifting times. For instance,
they could incorporate the city’s new vision to
become a place of progress, as well as further
confirming the hotel’s aspiration of champi-
oning small local enterprises and producers
– an even more important factor in the wake
of the pandemic.
They held many discussions
with locals to hear their thoughts on what the
new hotel should stand for. ‘Simply donating
money to a project won’t work,’ says Tanaka.
‘Financiers also need to take part in their pro-
jects.’ And more than a hotel, Tanaka says he
wanted to create a neighbourhood. ‘To bring life
to a desolated city, there are several elements
that need to work together. Making beautiful
architecture is incredibly important – it gives
locals a sense of pride as well as attracting
outsiders. But this is not enough. A project
needs to generate economic activities and it
needs an ecosystem to sustain that economy.
It’s no different to starting my own company
with my own money and transforming it into a
sustainable business. When residents, workers
and visitors are all attracted to and enchanted
by a city, that city becomes vibrant. What
do cities need to do to make their locals feel
a sense of belonging? Offer them a place of
engagement. If that place is a hotel, it will also
bring in visitors and tourists.’
To realize the goal of making his
hometown attractive to both residents and
visitors, Tanaka focused on making the hotel
a place of encounter. Somewhere to engage
with inspiring architecture, design, art,
cuisine and people. Fujimoto’s intervention
involved removing a substantial section of the
original four-storey concrete hotel’s second
and third floors and guest rooms, creating an
open central courtyard while revealing the
original structure. These ‘remains’ carry the
Spaces
Fujimoto’s intervention involved
removing a substantial section of
the original four-storey concrete
hotel’s second and third floors and
guest rooms, creating an open
central courtyard while revealing
the original structure.
building’s legacy, allowing locals to connect
with both its past and present. Fujimoto’s
newly added corridors create an intricate
labyrinthine web above the courtyard, a
gesture enhanced by a network of pipelines
that trace the exposed concrete beams. While
they could be mistaken for pre-existing ele-
ments, these pipelines are a new addition by
Argentine artist Leandro Erlich.
Erlich was also approached by
Tanaka to design a special guestroom, as
were Italian architect Michele de Lucchi and
British designer Jasper Morrison. Touched by
Tanaka’s devotion to the project, De Lucchi
and Morrison provided their contributions
pro bono. Works commissioned to artists
Lawrence Weiner (US), Liam Gillick (UK) and
Hiroshi Sugimoto (Japan) are fully integrated
into the construction, making the building
itself a work of art.
While the participation of a roster
of internationally renowned creators can
certainly attract interest from overseas as
well from those well versed in design and art,
Tanaka knows that the hotel needs to become
an integral part of the neighbourhood in
order to succeed. He’s looking to the rich
artistic community working in the Maebashi
region and the Gunma prefecture to which it
belongs, asking many local artists to create
site-specific works for other guest rooms –
some now, some in the future. Furthermore,
all staff are locals. Tanaka even covered the
costs of sending Hiro Katayama – a local chef
with a keen passion to make his mark on
his hometown – to apprentice in a Michelin-
starred restaurant in Tokyo for two years. The
hotel will also provide provisions for those
beyond its doors. ‘To make a hotel part of
the locals’ daily lives, it’s important to have a
bakery and patisserie where people will come
on a daily basis,’ says Tanaka. The stores will
also supply breads and pastries straight to the
hotel lounge for breakfast. KH
sou-fujimoto.net
shiroiya.com
Katsumasa Tanaka
The network of pipelines tracing the
exposed concrete beams is the work
of Argentine artist Leandro Erlich.
Shinya Kigure

Spaces
94
A range of international and local creatives
contributed art works or interior spaces to
Shiroiya Hotel. Pictured are special guest
rooms by Italian architect Michele de
Lucchi (opposite top), the hotel’s architect,
Sou Fujimoto (opposite bottom), and
British designer Jasper Morrison (below).

TOURISM As we published in Frame 134’s Frame Lab essay: ‘The advent

of budget air travel has been predicated on the establishments of a hyper-efficient
infrastructure that funnels travellers towards the most profitable hubs.’ Plus, cities
like Tokyo make travel bucket lists the world over. Can a lesser known counterpart
like Maebashi claim the same? Our essay went on to note that the consumer mood is
shifting: ‘A 2019 survey conducted by agency MMGY Global found that 60 per cent
of US travellers believe that overcrowding will directly impact where they choose to
spend their holidays over the next decade.’ And that was before the pandemic made
less-trampled locations even more favourable, giving overlooked areas a chance in the
spotlight. Instead of waiting for visitors to necessitate an architectural magnet – a hotel,
for instance – design can become the magnet.

Hospitality 95
A COMFORTABLE
INVESTMENT
With the advent of digital banking, there’s been less and less need for
customers to trek down to their local branch. That’s something most will
be glad about, not just to save the trip, but because of what they usually
found when they got there: strip lighting, linoleum and an endless maze of
retractable safety barriers. As most of the boring side of banking moves
in-app, however, smart banks are reassessing how they use physical space.
The results, thankfully, are far more hospitable.

Arne Jennard

96 Spaces
At ING bank in Utrecht, classic counters
were abandoned in favour of a coffee bar
(opposite) and lounge seating.

Retail 97

UTRECHT When was the last time you
walked into a bank? If you’re struggling to
recall, you’re not alone. That’s not just a
factor of the pandemic, when it’s been pretty
much forbidden to walk in anywhere; High
Street banking has been on the wane for
several years. Scroll back to 2019 and you’ll
see consultancy Caci predictions that mobile
banking would overtake branch visits by 2021.
Scroll back to the present again and you’ll
see the news that HSBC is the latest in a long
line of commercial banks to slash its physi-
cal presence, in this case by a further 82 UK
locations. ‘In recent years we have introduced
more digital options to make our customers’
lives easier and we know that customers are
becoming more comfortable primarily using
online and mobile banking to take control of
their finances, turning to other channels for
very particular interactions,’ said Jackie Uhi,
HSBC UK’s head of network.
The last part of Uhi’s comment
is important. Banks may be cutting their
generic brick-and-mortar offer, but they’re
also reinvesting in physical spaces that address
the wider needs that impact why customers
seek out financial products in the first place.
You could look to examples like Clydesdale
and Yorkshire Bank’s B Works space for its
digital-first B brand (now Virgin Money).
Developed in partnership with Deloitte, the
outpost was designed to show people that B
didn’t ‘think, act or talk like a bank’, with freely
available co-working spaces, hot desks, an
events programme, yoga classes and free cof-
fee. Or American giant Chase’s new flagship
branches, which feature open-plan flexible
meeting and workspaces and play host to
98
afterhours community events. ‘Our branches
are about people, from our customers and
employees to the communities they serve,’
says Thasunda Brown Duckett, CEO of Chase
Consumer Banking. ‘This branch is more than
a place for banking. It’s a place to bring the
community together to have money conversa-
tions that are important to our customers.’
To that list you can now add
ING. The Netherlands’ largest bank worked
with Creneau International to research the
potential ways clients could interact in the
‘bank of the future’. The outcome? No more
grey counters, weak coffee or impersonal
welcomes. In their place, more examples of
high hospitality and free workspace. Wanting
to make the experience warmer and more wel-
coming – in terms of both service and aesthet-
ics – ING arrived at a model that looks far more
like a social hotspot than the queue-based
drudgery most banking customers are used
to. At ING La Vie in the Dutch city of Utrecht,
classic counters have been abandoned. After
waiting in the coffee bar, clients can use open
‘workbenches’ for staff-guided self-banking.
The range of consultation spaces runs from
open to semi-closed to private, depending on
the need. Staff offices are barely discernible
from the public spaces in a bid to become more
human and transparent. ING’s brand colour is
bright orange. Rather than slap the corporate
palette here, there and everywhere, Creneau
subtly integrated it into the scheme. The result,
say the designers, is a public space that feels
like a private space. That shift is also aided by
a raft of design pieces from the Netherlands’
rich creative sector. You’ll spot Weltevree’s
Wheel Bench on the mezzanine, for example.
Spaces
Creneau International avoided overt
branding to ensure the bank didn’t
feel too commercial, instead subtly
integrating ING’s corporate colour –
orange – into the scheme.
It’s a discreet yet important reassertion of
ING’s position as a committed patron of the
arts community.
The rolling out of the orange
carpet for customers, and the creation of what
Creneau calls an uncharacteristically ‘cosy’
interior for a commercial bank, could prove a
savvy business investment. ING La Vie Utrecht
– the 18th renovated ING office in a worldwide
rollout – includes a partnership with flexible
workspace provider De Stadstuin. Their
combined goal of having young entrepreneurs
meet and work within the space is a clear
move to not only compete with hospitality
offerings, but with co-working companies,
too. Of course establishing potential relation-
ships, however initially informal, with the
next start-up success stories won’t be bad for
ING’s business either. That’s particularly true
as more and more workers eschew traditional
salaried career paths for the freelance route
(sometimes by choice and sometimes by
circumstance). That situation is likely to only
be intensified by the pandemic – freelance
job postings rose 41 per cent in the US in
the second quarter of last year according to
Freelancer’s ‘Fast 50’ report, while research by
UpWork found 47 per cent of hiring managers
were more likely to hire independent profes-
sionals since the Covid-19 crisis hit. With
entrepreneurship fast becoming the rule rather
than the exception, it will be increasingly
important for banks to figure out how and
where to address these new hybrid personal-
and-business clients. PM, TI
creneau.com
 COMMUNITY As brands across sectors digitize their core offer and day-to-day
customer interactions, it opens questions as to the worth of the spaces in which those
activities once took place. In many cases they won’t be viable in the same number. But
in recognizing the role brand spaces can play in creating and supporting communities,
businesses will be able to generate new and highly valuable relationships that wouldn’t
likely occur via screen alone.

Staff offices are barely

discernible from the
public spaces in a bid
to become more human
and transparent.

Retail 99
VEGAN INTERIORS
In addition to WeWork’s ethos for low-
carbon, minimal-waste workspaces, the
intention for the fit-out of its Amsterdam
Stadhouderskade office was to eradicate
all leather and PVC from the interiors.
Jordi Huisman

100 Spaces
In a time of climate emergency and devastating species loss, many of us are
giving greater consideration to the impact of what we consume – and not just
in terms of what we eat. Whereas veganism might have once felt entrenched
in radical politics and restricted diets, more recently it has made a step into
the mainstream, opening up new opportunities for influence in unexpected
parts of our lives – including our interiors.

Words Ruth Lang

New Typology 101

The fashion industry has led the way in the
development, promotion and use of innovative
vegan products, with brands such as Hugo Boss,
Stella McCartney, Adidas and Gucci investing in the
production of non-animal-based materials. Now,
with a demonstrable popularity in the consumer
market, such strategies are also being adopted by
major workplace, hospitality and automotive brands.
Recognizing an increasingly ecological
imperative for automotive customers –
even in an industry inherently built on
consumption – the Volvo-owned electric
performance car, Polestar, was initially
created to ‘support the change towards
sustainability’. Launched in 2020, the
design for Polestar 2 eradicates traditionally
familiar leather upholstery from the interior,
substituting it with a fabric called WeaveTech.
Rather than emulating the leather it replaces,
WeaveTech embraces a character of its own,
akin to the scuba diving wetsuit material
that inspired it. It forms part of a palette
that includes surfaces made from recycled
PET bottles, seats created with recycled
cork vinyl and carpet made from reclaimed
fishing nets. These material choices not only
increase the ecocredentials of the brand
but, importantly for a car interior, they’re
also lightweight, collectively reducing the
load by 12 kg. Polestar is not alone in making
this shift towards veganism. Mercedes has
been selling vehicles that are entirely free of
leather since 2016, while Jaguar Land Rover
developed a hybrid polyurethane material
called Eucalyptus Melange for its Range
Rover Evoque series in 2018, made of 30 per
cent eucalyptus bark fibres.
The use of vegan materials in the car industry
highlights an inherent tension between veganism’s
moral and ecological intentions. Demanding cruelty-
free materials while simultaneously considering
durability, ethical sourcing, embodied energy and the
carbon footprint of a product is a complex task. It’s
necessary to look into the entire production chain in
the sourcing of materials, since the industry currently
suffers from a lack of transparency. Default non-
animal-based material alternatives such as polyester
and rayon rely on fossil fuels, and harmful phthalates
are used to make PVC – a compromise that is especially
pertinent to our current plastic crisis. Although the
material specified may be vegan, many finishing
options often contain animal-derived products, such
as casein glue from milk proteins, purple colouring
from sea snails, or mammal urine used as part of the
dying process. Paints can contain bone derivatives
102 Spaces
or shellac resin from the female lac beetle, and even
sandpaper and mechanical components have been
found to incorporate animal products, a convention
that has mostly gone unchallenged due to its lack of
direct visibility. The impact of these more concealed
products will take longer to address, but such change is
more likely if demanded by end users, facilitated and
implemented by design professionals.
Such imperatives are confronted in the
design of WeWork’s fourth Amsterdam
office on Stadhouderskade. In addition
to WeWork’s ethos for low-carbon,
minimal-waste workspaces, which includes
an aspiration to consume 100 per cent
renewable energy by 2025, the intention for
this fit-out was to eradicate all leather and
PVC from the interiors, and to rely more
on the creative reuse of existing resources.
This starts from the building itself, whereby
the underlying structure of the landmark
former REO Motor Car Company showroom
was carefully revealed in the refit process
and is now furnished with reclaimed design
classics revitalized with custom-made,
vegetarian upholstery. Events hosted at
WeWork spaces for the past two years have
eradicated single-use plastics and featured
vegetarian catering – which may seem like a
small change, but multiplied by the number
of members and their guests for each event
across 859 locations globally, has a huge
impact. The company’s scale also enabled it
to have greater purchasing power to choose
previously underrepresented materials that
might otherwise have proven prohibitively
expensive, and to have more input and
control in the development process. This
strategy prompted the development of
SynSisal rugs, made from recovered nylon
waste processed in Amsterdam, including
fishing nets and nylon carpeting materials.
In response to the heavy durability demands
of co-working spaces – particularly when
these spaces also need to accommodate
leisure activities, as at WeWork – the rugs
were manufactured in a tiling format
to facilitate smaller-scale repairs while
reducing long-term waste. The project has
convinced WeWork’s creative director Scott
Rominger that the industry doesn’t need
to rely on conventional procurement and
manufacturing in the design of interior
spaces, and proves that a more ethically
radical approach to design is feasible, both
economically and aesthetically. »
 Vegan aesthetics may have
come a long way from the hippie
aesthetic it once adopted, but it
has yet to define its own path

WEWORK, AMSTERDAM
Co-working company WeWork’s fourth Amsterdam office
is free of leather- and PVC-based interior materials. The
renovated building is furnished with reclaimed design clas-
sics revitalized with custom-made, vegetarian upholstery.
Events hosted by WeWork over the past two years have
also featured vegetarian catering – a small change, it might
seem, but one that has a huge impact when you consider
WeWork’s 859 locations globally. The redesign also
prompted the development of SynSisal rugs, made from
recovered nylon waste processed in Amsterdam, including
fishing nets and nylon carpeting materials.
wework.com

New Typology 103

POLESTAR 2
The 2020 Polestar 2 eliminates leather upholstery from
the car interior in favour of WeaveTech, a water-based
modern PVC material inspired by divers’ wetsuits. It forms
part of a palette that includes surfaces made from recycled
PET bottles, seats created with recycled cork vinyl, and
carpet made from reclaimed fishing nets. These material
choices not only increase the ecocredentials of the brand
but, importantly for a car interior, they’re also lightweight,
collectively reducing the load by 12 kg.
polestar.com

104 Spaces
Jellymongers Bompas & Parr might seem unlikely
innovators in the vegan design market, given their
roots in spectacular pop-up events often orientated
on gelatine-based food experiences (which on one
occasion even involved the ingestion of ambergris,
a substance produced by sperm whales). Yet
their consistent challenge to culinary norms and
expectations has positioned them perfectly to
overhaul the hospitality industry’s approach to
interior materials through the creation of the world’s
first fully vegan hotel suite for Hilton Bankside in
London. Director Sam Bompas credits the Hilton’s
ability to innovate with its scale – with around 90
to 98 per cent occupancy before the coronavirus
pandemic struck, the hotel chain can afford to be
experimental and take risks to help it stand out
from its competitors. But the expectations for the
hospitality industry are notoriously high, and the
primary concern is that such interiors must be as
hardwearing as they are aesthetically impactful – the
hotel has an average seven-year fit-out lifespan,
throughout which it must not only remain viable for
use, but immaculate. This imperative for durability
has set the previously accepted norms for interior
specification, privileging wool carpets over cotton
alternatives, for instance, due to their longevity. As
Bompas says: ‘Design is about making decisions.’
And making better choices, rather than those
merely accepted by convention, opens up a new
materials spectrum. He draws parallels between the
textures evident in vegan foods and the language
and palatability lacking in the Western palette,
in comparison to the rich vocabulary and usage
in Eastern – and particularly Japanese – cuisine.
Through reconsidering base principles of material
choices more radically, and in learning from other
cultures and disciplines, we can explore a far greater
variety of possibilities for how we might live, as well
as for what we might eat. The result of this radical
rethinking is an all-pervading vegan experience, from
check in to minibar – including snacks, toiletries,
stationery (which excludes animal traces in the
paper and ink that might ordinarily be used), and the
products used to clean the suite. Rather than being
stuffed with down feathers, pillows are provided
with a choice of organic buckwheat or millet hulls,
cotton-like kapok or bamboo fibres. Pineapple motifs
dominate the interior, a reference to their social and
architectural importance to the history of the local
area – they feature in the design of St Paul’s Cathedral
and Lambeth Bridge nearby. These also form the
basis for a leather-like material, Piñatex, used in the
upholstery and keycard. Invented by Carmen Hijosa
in the 1990s, the material is made from the fibres
of pineapple leaves that would ordinarily either be
New Typology
burned or left to rot as part of the harvesting process.
These fibres are mixed with a corn-derived bioplastic
to create a mesh that can be coated and finished to
different effects. A similar product has also been
developed by Dutch designer Tjeerd Veenhoven,
from areca palm leaves.
The industry currently faces manufacturing
challenges in scaling up the production of
materials such as these to meet demand, but
doing so may help overcome the additional
production costs these entail – both in
terms of time and money – which so often
prohibit their use. As Bompas notes, the
greater acceptance and awareness that
these big brands have facilitated can enable
vegan imperatives to become standard,
best practice, rather than merely a dining
trend. More prevalent use of these strategies
will also lessen the necessity to convince
clients, specifiers, quantity surveyors and
contractors of the feasibility of such an
approach. As noted by Melissa Eagleton, a
vegan architecture graduate from Central
Saint Martins, vegan aesthetics may have
come a long way from the handmade, hippie
aesthetic it once adopted in seminal spaces
such as the Wild Food Café in London’s Neals
Yard, but it has yet to define its own path. She
likens this to the potential for inventiveness
in vegan cuisine, in comparison with the
food industry’s current efforts to prove that
vegan foods can be just like their carnivorous
alternatives. At present there is a hesitance to
determine a new aesthetic that celebrates the
potential that vegan design affords, instead
stealthily adopting its ecological and moral
credentials while appropriating mainstream
aesthetics we feel more comfortable and
familiar with. Yet as can be seen from these
examples, vegan approaches to interior
design have created new provocations for
innovation rather than proving a negative
constraint, necessitating new forms of
creativity. By valuing the process of material
development within such parameters, we
might also open ourselves up to the discovery
of potential new applications, and reveal ways
that vegan design strategies can be celebrated
in their own right, as we continue to question
what is normal now, and what is right to do
for the future.•
105
HILTON BANKSIDE SUITE, LONDON
Bompas & Parr have created the world’s first fully vegan
hotel suite for Hilton Bankside in London. The all-pervading
vegan experience continues from check in to minibar –
including snacks, toiletries, stationery and cleaning products.
Pillows are provided with a choice of organic buckwheat or
millet hulls, cotton-like kapok or bamboo fibres, while the
upholstery and keycard are made of pineapple-leaf ‘leather’,
also known as Piñatex.
bompasandparr.com

Courtesy of Hilton Bankside

106 Spaces

VEGAN INTERIORS
market overview
01 If the global population was to adopt a
vegan lifestyle, the Vegan Society estimates 04
that greenhouse gas emissions would be
reduced by two-thirds by 2050, and there
would be $1.5 trillion savings in climate
damages and healthcare costs. Adopting
a vegan diet alone could cut food-related
emissions by 70%.
02 2019 was dubbed the ‘Year of the Vegan’ by
The Economist, with Ipsos MORI estimating
that the world population is 3% vegan, 5%
vegetarian, and 17% pescatarian or flexi-
tarian. Veganism and vegetarianism have
both increased globally since the advent of 05
the coronavirus pandemic.
03 According to VeganDesign.org, it takes 360
silkworms to make one silk lamp shade, 12
geese to make one down pillow, and nine
cows to make the leather interior for a Rolls
Royce Phantom.
New Typology
Showcasing veganism as more than
just a dining trend, the Bompas &
Parr-designed vegan hotel suite at
London’s Hilton Bankside contains
only plant-based materials – no
leather, feathers or wool.
The Higg Materials Sustainability Index –
a tool that assesses the environmental
impact of materials used in global manufac-
turing – rates wool as twice as harmful as
polyester. Leather from cows is almost three
times as harmful to the environment as vegan
leather, due to the embodied requirements
of the water and food the cows consume,
the land required for their rearing, the waste
and methane they produce, and the harmful
chemicals often employed by the
tannery industry.
The vegan leather market is set to take over
the animal leather market, estimated to be
worth $89.6 billion by 2025.
107
RAW EARTH
RETURNS Presence in Hormuz 02 utilizes the
Superadobe earthbag construction
developed by late Iranian-born
architect Nader Khalili.
Sustainable buildings have to account for the carbon footprint of their
materials, including the toll of the transportation. How can architecture tap
resources much closer to home? Answering that question has ushered in
a renaissance of raw-earth building techniques. ZAV Architects highlights
how such methods can not only benefit the environment but also empower
struggling communities.

Tahmineh Monzavi

HORMUZ ISLAND It’s not often that you
can erect a bright rainbow of human-made
buildings on a natural shoreline in the name of
biomimicry, but then again, Hormuz Island’s
is no ordinary landscape. Tourists come to see
the kaleidoscopic colours of Rainbow Valley,
named for its 70-plus shades of minerals, and
the otherworldly red-tinged waves that lap the
island’s shore, produced by the sand’s high
concentration of iron oxide.
When counted in 2016, the
population of the 42-km2 island was approxi-
mately 5,900. Despite its tourist appeal and
politically strategic position – the Strait of
Hormuz in the Persian Gulf is known as the
world’s most important oil chokepoint, with
the 2018 daily oil flow accounting for 21 per
cent of global petroleum liquids consumption
– local inhabitants are struggling economically,
says Mohammadreza Ghodousi, founder
and senior architect of Tehran-based ZAV
Architects. Consequently, many are taking
their boats to the waters to earn money from
illegal trafficking. ZAV Architects was hired to
empower the local community with a series of
urban developments. The first stage, Presence
in Hormuz 02, a colourful cluster of raw-earth
homes, will be followed by a multipurpose
artistic residence called Majara (‘adventure’)
that’s designed to connect locals with visitors –
culturally and economically.
The focus of Presence in Hormuz
02 is on ‘building trust rather than architec-
tural objects’, says Ghodousi. Locals become
active participants in the ongoing project,
which utilizes the Superadobe earthbag con-
struction developed by late Iranian-born archi-
tect Nader Khalili. The technique’s simplicity
and the small scale of the residences mean
that the construction of the domed buildings
110
– a familiar architectural shape in the region –
isn’t limited to qualified craftspeople. Novices
prepared for the project in advance, starting
on smaller structures and working their way
up. ‘Today they are trained master Supera-
dobe masons,’ says Ghodousi, ‘as though
Nader Khalili had multiplied exponentially.’
The resulting colourscape is inspired by the
polychromatic spectrum of the island, whose
own earth fills the bags with which it’s built. As
Ghodousi explains: ‘The sandbags that create
the domes are filled with the dredging sand of
the Hormuz dock, as if the earth has swollen to
produce space for accommodation.’
ZAV believes that architecture can
act as a mediator, a sort of middle ground that
takes into account the interests and diversity
of a project’s many different parties, from the
state and investors to the contractors and end
users. The team points to the aforementioned
second phase, Majara, which will do so by unit-
ing various groups as project partners: the land
owners from the neighbouring port of Bandar
Abbas who organize an annual Land Art event
in Hormuz, investors from the Iranian capital
of Tehran, and Hormuz locals.
The two-stage project is designed
to increase Hormuz Island’s gross domestic
product (GDP) in a time of economic distress
brought on by sanctions, thus generating
social change. Ghodousi describes four
ways in which ZAV delivers the goods. One,
the economic building method benefits the
client. Two, assigning a bigger portion of the
budget to labour costs and avoiding expensive
imported materials benefits the local popula-
tion. Three, the architecture can evolve and
grow according to necessity, making it a
future-proof solution that is good for both
the client and the island. And finally, the use
Spaces
The colourscape of the raw-
earth homes is inspired by the
polychromatic spectrum of Hormuz
Island, whose own earth fills the bags
with which the project is built.
of Iranian materials and human resources
reduces construction and transportation costs
while increasing the GDP, benefitting the
whole country.
Superadobe is one of a number
of raw-earth building techniques gaining
newfound attention for their sustainable pro-
cesses. Although it’s not known exactly how
long some of these methods have been in use,
Khalili’s foray into raw-earth building began
in 1974. The architect was looking for poten-
tial solutions for those with limited resources,
such as refugees and the homeless. He would
eventually found the California Institute of
Earth Architecture, better known as CalEarth,
to explore the possibilities of Superadobe
and to educate others in its building process.
In 1984, proverbial lightyears away from
such homegrown social issues, Khalili was
at a NASA symposium presenting a concept
(which would eventually become the Supera-
dobe we know today) as a feasible method of
building on the moon and on Mars. With some
proclaiming Mars as the next frontier and the
likes of Elon Musk transforming space travel
on one side, and others championing local
building materials and methods in response to
the climate crisis on the other, it’s unsurpris-
ing that a method fit for both scenarios is back
in the spotlight. ‘It’s all about using what’s
available to you in that situation,’ Khalili’s son
Dastan, president of CalEarth, told Vogue.
‘When you’re building with natural materials,
you’re addressing what may occur in those
environments – a storm, a meteorite, whatever
it may be – you’re thinking sustainably and
using what’s already there.’ TI
zavarchitects.com
 Payman Barkhordari

Residence
 The simplicity of the Superadobe
technique and the small scale
of the residences mean that the
construction of the domed buildings
– a familiar architectural shape
on Hormuz Island – isn’t limited to
qualified craftspeople.

Tahmineh Monzavi

SUSTAINABILITY Building from the ground up – literally – was once the most
favoured method, with rammed earth, cobe and adobe buildings arising in everywhere
from Europe to Africa and the Middle East. That is, until ‘better’ materials came along. As
Louis Wustemann reports in the Financial Times, Belgian architect Jean Dethier ‘thinks
the soil’s very ubiquity worked against it, since that denied anyone an interest in exploiting
it commercially’. But now, with evermore awareness of the construction industry’s impact
on the planet, such techniques are getting a reprise. And big-name architects including
Herzog & de Meuron are helping to push the expectations of the aesthetic.

112 Spaces
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REST ASSURED
114
We’re spending more time at home than ever and becoming increasingly
aware of the importance of sleep – two reasons why two new releases from
Schramm are arriving right on time.

Words Lauren Teague

Schramm x Frame 115

116

Napping between nine
and five is becoming
more common since the
widespread adoption of
working from home
Sleep is fundamental for cognitive and
physical rehabilitation. At the end of a long
day, achieving a quality night’s sleep allows
the mind and body to recharge. However,
the stress endured globally since the onset
of the coronavirus pandemic has negatively
impacted our sleeping patterns: emotional
and psychological exhaustion is making
us more tired, but the changes to our daily
routines – combined with additional exposure
to blue light from increased screen time – are,
conversely, making it more difficult to sleep.
A snooze is also a construc-
tive method of escapism, breaking up the
monotony of lockdown. At a time in which
we’ve become increasingly aware of the
importance – and joy – of sleep, family-run
German brand Schramm, designer and
manufacturer of handcrafted bed and mat-
tress systems, has released two additions to
its customizable Origins range. Founded in
1923, Schramm creates ‘pure luxury sleeping
comfort for design fans’. The sophisticated
Origins range uses a patented dual-mattress
system that ‘blends design with function
and comfort’.
Choosing the right bed is not
only about comfort and function – how it
looks is just as important. Schramm’s Claire
Headboard is designed to complete any
Origins bed, enhancing the sleeping experi-
ence and rounding off any bedroom. The
floating headboard balances a modern style
with traditional tufted upholstery. Claire is
available in a range of fabrics and colours,
making it truly customizable and encouraging
customers to become involved in the creation
process. At a time when travelling is off limits,
the velvet version re-creates the boutique
hotel experience at home.
More important than getting
more sleep is the quality of sleep. Whether or
not we admit it, napping between nine and
five is becoming more common since the
widespread adoption of working from home
brought on by the pandemic. A survey by
Zippia indicates that one in three Americans
is taking an on-the-clock powernap. What’s
more, research by Harvard Medical School
shows that a daytime snooze may not inter-
fere with night-time sleep, and actually has
health benefits of its own, including improved
memory and learning and creative thinking
capabilities, making people more effective
problem solvers.
Schramm’s second new product,
the Remy Daybed, is a versatile, standalone
chaise longue. Bringing a contemporary
aesthetic to a classic item of furniture, the
daybed is easy to set up in a study or guest
Schramm x Frame
PREVIOUS SPREAD Schramm’s Remy
Daybed is easy to set up in a study or
guest room, or a flexible addition to a
hotel room.
OPPOSITE The customizable Claire
Headboard is designed to complete
any Origins bed. Its wide range of
fabric and colour options encourages
customers to become involved in the
creation process.
room, or a flexible addition to a hotel room.
Available in a vibrant collection of colours
and fabrics, the product’s handmade detail-
ing feels personal and bespoke. Not only does
Remy prioritize comfort, but it’s ideal for
those who take ‘working from home’ to mean
‘working from bed’, with two rear cushions
forming a comfortable and supportive
backrest. Meanwhile, a quilted cover can be
removed for the full sleeping experience –
perfect for a power nap.
Schramm’s approach to timeless,
contemporary design – anchored in tradi-
tional, handcrafted production – adds luxury
and comfort to the basic need for sleep.
Traditionally, we spend a third of our lives in
bed. By improving the quality of our much-
needed rest, that time can be spent more
constructively and help us to really recover
and reset.•
schramm-werkstaetten.com
117
 OUT NOW

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WDi, courtesy of Mur Mur Lab
frame lab

WELLBEING The mental wellness industry was

already on the rise before Covid-19 struck. Good
timing, since even those untouched by the physical
effects of the virus have no doubt felt its psychological
toll. Here we examine how a three-pronged approach
– places, products and portals – is making support
more frequent and more accessible, to more people.
how mental wellness
is shaping new places,
products and portals

122 Frame Lab

Over the past five years, the number of
Google searches for ‘mental wellbeing’
has steadily climbed. Unsurprisingly,
there are two distinct peaks in the
upward trend: one in May 2020, following
the first period of strict lockdowns in
much of the world, and the second, in
September, as the start of the second
wave hit. Forced isolation gave some
individuals the space and time to
reflect on self-improvement, on how to
make positive changes for the future.
For others, it was precisely the lack of
those things – space and time – that
necessitated urgent emotional support.
And let’s not forget those dealing with
the stress of losing a job, or the grief
of unexpectedly losing a loved one.
Thankfully, the topic of mental
wellbeing has become less taboo, and
various outlets are opening up to fill
the need. Apps like Headspace are
bringing meditation into the mainstream
– so mainstream, in fact, that Netflix
has just released the animated series
Headspace Guide to Meditation. This
and other mental-wellness-oriented
apps make up just a small part of a
$120.8 billion industry, found the Global
Wellness Institute (GWI) in its major
report for 2020 – ‘the first study to
define mental wellness as opposed
to mental health’. Ophelia Yeung, GWI
senior research fellow, writes: ‘Stress,
loneliness and burnout were exploding
pre-pandemic, and a stronger focus
on mental wellness has been a cultural
mega-shift these last few years:
People awakening to the importance
Wellbeing
of integrative solutions including
meditation, sleep and brain health,
with businesses rushing in to offer
all kinds of solutions. But mental
wellness as a concept, and what
constitutes it as an industry, has
remained incredibly fuzzy. Clarifying
what it is, and delineating its business
segments, is overdue. And while most
mental wellness strategies are free –
spending time in nature or with friends
– people increasingly seek non-clinical
help in coping with everyday mental
challenges, and that’s where the mental
wellness industry comes in.’
And now, these solutions
and strategies are becoming more
important than ever. Newspapers
wrote of Covid-19 as the ‘greatest
threat to mental health since second
world war’ (The Guardian) and of its
negative psychological impacts as ‘the
hidden “fourth wave” of the pandemic’
(The New York Times). In summary,
the effects could linger well after we’ve
moved beyond lockdowns.
Rather than taking a long retreat
– for which not many have the means
or time – wellness seekers now have a
wider range of options at their disposal,
for any given moment of the day. And,
as is expected in other industries such
as events, the future model will likely be
a hybrid of physical and digital, offering
the best of both worlds.TI
123
PLACES
Just as many mental wellbeing practices are
about momentarily breaking away from the
demands of daily life, spaces dedicated to
such practices are breaking up the established
patterns of the buildings we frequent.
One of the advantages of physical spaces for
wellbeing is the therapeutic element of the
environment itself – undoubtedly why psycho-
logical consultation platform KnowYourself
has opened its first brick-and-mortar centre,
in Shanghai. Designed by Mur Mur Lab as a
‘city cave’, Practice in the City’s calming inte-
rior includes spaces for yoga and meetings.
The designers sought to create a shelter that
protects visitors and compels them to explore,
relying largely on soft curvature and shapes
abstracted from nature as well as a combina-
tion of natural and artificial light.
In addition to dedicated wellness
centres, we’re witnessing the emergence
of peripheral spaces – often spaces within
spaces – that simultaneously foster and
embody mindfulness, a practice of punctuat-
ing the demands of daily life by reconnecting
to the present moment. The workplace is an
obvious spot for such interventions, and an
environment we’ve already covered at length
in relation to the topic of mental health (see
Frame 132). New examples are further evi-
dence of their relevance and necessity, per-
haps even more so today. ‘The pandemic
has made it clear that long working hours
without respite are unsustainable,’ says Lane
124 Frame Lab
Rick of Office of Things (OO-T). ‘If anything,
working from home has shown us that a
sustainable working life includes the space
for physical and mental health through-
out the day.’ Rick was the leading principal
architect on the Immersive Spaces project,
an exploration of these ideas. Since 2017,
OO-T has researched the role of restorative
environments in the workplace, eventually
realizing five meditation chambers in tech
offices throughout Silicon Valley. ‘With each
iteration, user feedback guides incremen-
tal changes aimed at providing a flexible yet
immersive space for users to momentarily
escape the workplace.’
The headquarters of Chinese
e-commerce site Vipshop, on the other
hand, include a Wutopia Lab-designed
library named for Master Zhuangzi’s
description of satori (or zhaoche) – a state
of transcendental being in the practice
of Taoism – as ‘the morning light shin-
ing across the entire earth’. Wutopia Lab’s
founder and chief architect Yu Ting sees
Satori Harbor Library as an abstract har-
bour city, where readers can wander among
books to experience moments of enlighten-
ment. It includes a mediative grotto-like »
 Office of Things has researched the
role of restorative environments in
the workplace, eventually realizing
five meditation chambers in tech
offices throughout Silicon Valley.
Johnna Arnold

Wellbeing 125
 Designed by Mur Mur Lab, the first
physical space for online psychological
consultation platform KnowYourself
is conceived as a calming cave-like
shelter in Shanghai.

126 Frame Lab

 WDi

Wellbeing 127

‘Working from home has
shown us that a sustainable
working life includes the
space for physical and
mental health throughout
the day’
room where curvature and the fall of light
intentionally collapse a concrete sense of
space and time. There are distinct echoes
here of the Monastic Modern theme we
unpacked in Frame 136, which highlighted
how retail spaces, too, are offering clarity
and sanctuary from the heated distortions
of the world outside.
Cultural institutions are also carving
out dedicated zones for respite, with a recent
announcement by the Rubin Museum of Art
a case in point. The New York City facility is
handing over its third-floor gallery to the cre-
ation of the Mandala Lab, described as bring-
ing ‘cognitive science, contemplative practice
and visitor-contributed art experiences to the
heart of the Rubin’. It’s a response to unstable
times: ‘We are navigating a pandemic, grap-
pling with a climate crisis, and confronting
longstanding inequities and deep divisions
in our society,’ says the Rubin’s executive
director, Jorrit Britschgi. Set to open later
this year, the Peterson Rich Office-designed
space draws on the symbolism of a Tibetan
Buddhist mandala and will ‘offer pathways
to develop calmness, resilience, emotional
intelligence and connection’. Psychology,
128 Frame Lab
OPPOSITE TOP The headquarters of
Chinese e-commerce site Vipshop
includes the Wutopia Lab-designed
Satori Harbor Library, where readers are
encouraged to wander among books to
experience moments of enlightenment.
OPPOSITE BOTTOM Satori Harbor
Library includes a mediative grotto-like
room where curvature and the fall of
light intentionally collapse a concrete
sense of space and time.
neurobiology and contemplative humanities
professors are consulting on the project.
What many of these projects share is
a focus on light. ‘It is well documented that
daylight, artificial light and sunlight can all
provide significant health benefits for the
general population, as well as [for] mental-
health patients in particular,’ shared KADK
student Cameron Clarke in his research for
Close to Home, a speculative project that
calls for an overhaul of mental health centres
in China. Discovering that exposure to morn-
ing light is more effective than exposure to
evening light in reducing depression, he ori-
ented patient rooms towards the east. While
Clarke’s concept is aimed at clinical mental
health, it also offers inspiration for spaces
that support general mental wellbeing and
illness prevention.
Often the biggest barrier to mental
wellbeing practices is turning them into a reg-
ular routine, which most experts will agree is
key to their success. If spatial interludes for
mindfulness, restoration and self-reflection
become more prevalent and better integrated
into our daily lives, that task will become a
whole lot easier. TI
 CreatAR Images

Wellbeing
129
PRODUCTS
Driven by a growing knowledge about the
relationship between body and mind, personal
health devices are adopting a more holistic
approach to wellbeing, employing biofeedback
and haptic stimuli to both support and enhance
mental wellbeing practices.
At the start of this year, Google completed its
acquisition of Fitbit, which – with a commu-
nity of over 29 million active users – is quite
possibly the most well-known wellness wear-
ables company out there. With the purchase,
Google, which seems to be constantly play-
ing catch-up with its own WearOS software,
now might finally be able to join the ranks of
wearable tech with the likes of Apple, Xiaomi,
Huawei and Samsung. But to stay relevant
in the growing and competitive market of
portable personal wellness devices, a more
holistic approach towards health is prov-
ing essential. And luckily for Google, Fitbit
realized this before closing the $2.1 billion
deal. Originally focused largely on physical
fitness, more recently the company started
to address the increased interest in mental
and emotional wellbeing among consumers.
Introduced in August 2020, one of its latest
health smartwatches, called Fitbit Sense,
features innovations in stress management.
When the watch is covered by a palm, it
detects the body’s response to stress, meas-
ured by small electrical changes in the sweat
level of the skin. And when paired with in-
app mindfulness sessions, users can monitor
their physiological reaction to meditation
130 Frame Lab
and relaxation. Fitbit’s move into the realm
of mental wellness isn’t a standalone event.
Employing biofeedback strategies to address
the impact of stress, the latest health tech
devices no longer solely encourage users
to be active, but also to occasionally rest.
Amazon’s health tracker Halo, for example,
analyses sleep patterns, offers guided medi-
tations and even performs emotional analy-
sis using voice recognition technology, while
Upmood’s Upmood Watch uses biometric
technology to detect emotional states and
identify emotional triggers.
Similar approaches to health tech are
being adopted by manufacturers of smart
devices for the (smart) home space. Case in
point is Baracoda, a company that augments
everyday objects to empower people to take
preventive healthcare into their own hands.
At this year’s digital edition of CES, the com-
pany presented its CoreOS Thermis smart
mirror. Designed as a personal health assis-
tant, the mirror goes beyond skin analysis to
support mental wellness, introducing breath-
ing exercises into evening routines to promote
better sleep and proposing different lighting
atmospheres to match the user’s mood. ‘It will
also include some face yoga exercises to »
 For the project Meditation Robotics,
EPFL+ECAL Lab joined forces with the
Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience
at EPFL to enhance the practice of
meditation with a multisensorial
experience. A haptic device is placed
under the user’s feet and generates a
sensation ‘similar to the feeling of waves
underfoot on a beach’.

Courtesy of Peterson Rich Office

The Rubin Museum of Art in New

York City is handing over its third-
floor gallery to the creation of a
contemplative space that draws on
the symbolism of a Tibetan Buddhist
mandala.
Calypso Mahieu, courtesy of EPFL+ECAL Lab

Wellbeing 131
 ABOVE The Themis Smart Mirror
by health tech company CareOS
can analyse a wide range of health
parameters. To safeguard mental
wellness it remind users to relax, get
a good night’s sleep and offers facial
yoga or breathing sessions.

LEFT The Fitbit Sense smartwatch’s

electrodermal activity sensor
helps users understand their
body’s response to stressors, while
accompanying in-app experiences
help to manage them.

132 Frame Lab

relax skin and mind at the same time. Further-
more we are working to integrate some short
mind wellness coaching programs adapted
to the bathroom journey and standing posi-
tion,’ says CareOS cofounder and chief busi-
ness officer Violaine Monmarché, who also
believes smart technologies will play an even
larger contribution to mental wellness in the
future. ‘We get to know users better day after
day. AI-powered algorithms will enable us to
adapt dedicated programs to the very precise
needs of every user and provide seamless “feel
good” stimuli like adapted lighting, music,
aromatherapy as well as ultra-personalized
coaching,’ she says.
The importance of integrating per-
sonalization tactics and stimulation tools in
the design of health-enhancing devices is
brought to the fore by research project Medi-
tation Robotics, too. Led by design research
assistant Yoann Douillet and art director
Romain Collaud, the EPFL+ECAL Lab joined
forces with the Laboratory of Cognitive Neu-
roscience at EPFL to explore how interfaces
and interactions can enhance the practice of
meditation. The project makes use of STill,
a product conceived by Metaphysiks that
combines experiential technologies based on
the sense of touch with the neuroscience of
body perception and consciousness to cre-
ate and support unique physical and mental
experiences. To tackle stress, anxiety and
lack of sleep, users can place their feet on
a device that mixes different haptic sensa-
tions such as heat, pressure and vibration.
Through headphones, an expert then guides
them through the deep sensations they feel to
reconnect their mind and body. ‘To be most
effective systems like these must invite the
user to adapt the haptic feedback according
to their physiological sensitivity, emotional
Wellbeing
state and background in relaxation or medi-
tation,’ explains EPFL+ECAL lab director
Nicolas Henchoz. ‘But how does the user
perceive his state? How can he regulate the
system without being disturbed in his relaxa-
tion objective? It raises many questions about
interaction and interfaces.’ In developing
Mediation Robotics, that’s exactly what the
team focused on. Whereas research showed
that mixing different haptic sensations can
be very effective to guide relaxation and
meditation – it helps overcome physiologi-
cal differences between users and increases
immersion – it is essential to not overwhelm
the brain in the adaptation of those sensa-
tions by the user during the practice of medi-
tation. That finding calls for a considerate
design of the controlling interface. ‘Results
show a preference for screen control rather
than a physical interface. In many other
cases, physical interfaces bring an added
value through sensation of touch, material-
ity, movements. But here, it generates an
excess of inputs and confusion. The haptic
dimension must be focused on relaxation
and concentration guidance and not be dis-
turbed by the interface,’ explains Henchoz.
As STill’s website states, the prod-
uct will initially be available for businesses
that offer wellbeing services including spas,
hotels and resorts, as well as for medical
institutions and workplaces. But at a later
date, the company expects to sell to consum-
ers directly, which – like the places and por-
tals also described – reflects the increased
focus on accessibility when it comes to sup-
porting mental wellness. FK
133
PORTALS
With lockdown after lockdown restricting access
to the sort of experiences, environments and
practitioners many wellness seekers would usually
turn to in times of psychological distress, there’s
been a renewed need to test digital alternatives.
What they lack in terms of experience, they make
up for in accessibility.
Megan Jones Bell, chief science officer of
one of the most popular mental health
apps, Headspace, said there’d been a
19-fold increase in people downloading
stress-relieving meditations when the first
shelter-in-place rules were brought in, with
a 14-fold jump in those intended to relieve
anxiety. In fact, research by Sensor Tower
found that downloads of the 15 most popu-
lar mental health apps in the UK jumped by
a third between February and March last
year, with continued uptake as the pandemic
wore on. For many consumers, this shift has
been facilitated by their employers. Brands
such as Twitter have started offering mental
health days and subscriptions to mindfulness
apps like Happify, while PR and advertis-
ing agency Havas started hosting Wellness
Wednesdays, which include guided medita-
tion, reiki and the opportunity to have a live-
stream session with a psychotherapist.
Whether for prevention or remedy,
such services should be taken seriously. Over
the last couple of years both the FDA in the
US and the NHS in the UK have approved
several mental health apps for prescription.
‘People want support now,’ Ross O’Brien,
programme lead for the NHS’s Improv-
134 Frame Lab
ing Access to Psychological Therapies pro-
gramme, told The Independent. ‘A digital app
gives direct and rapid help and is instantly
available.’ The form that help takes varies
from service to service. Headspace offers
meditation courses on everything from self-
esteem to creativity to coping with preg-
nancy, while Calm boasts a range of celeb-
rity-voiced sleep stories. Sanvello is based
on tried-and-tested cognitive-behavioural-
therapy methods, while Happify quite liter-
ally turns your wellness journey into a game.
‘Apps have a range of uses,’ says O’Brien,
‘both as a tool while someone is on a waiting
list to see someone, or if someone’s condition
isn’t serious enough for them to be referred
for talking therapy.’
Here O’Brien hints at the limitations
of many of the most popular digital thera-
pies. Even at a time when artificial intel-
ligence allows apps like Wysa and Woebot
to talk back to you, they can’t replicate the
benefits of a traditional consultation. Nota-
bly, that’s not just because of the lack of a
human factor, but an environmental one too.
Last year MIT Technology Review interviewed
a user who had been forced to switch to tele-
therapy during the pandemic. One of her »
 Enhanced by bespoke musical
compositions, online venue
AORA looks to re-create the
psychological benefits of
viewing art in a digital setting.

Wellbeing 135
 ABOVE Piggybacking on Minecraft
and designed to deinstitutionalize
healthcare, Bianca Carague’s Bump
Galaxy includes a hypnotic snowfield
and a mediation-focused forest.
Visitors can also meet mental health
professionals from around the world.

LEFT Designed by The Liminal Space,

Life Support offers grief assistance
via a smartphone portal. ‘This year
has made conversations about death
and dying even more challenging with
people more likely to be distanced
from their loved ones,’ says Professor
Sir Robert Lechler, president of
the Academy of Medical Sciences,
which supported the project. ‘Life
Support shows that we can use digital
space to enable and support those
conversations to take place.’

136 Frame Lab

 The historical lack of attention
to the therapeutic potential of
virtual space feels like a missed
opportunity
key complaints was her inability to block
out her home life, as well as having trouble
feeling engaged in the session. ‘I didn’t feel
the safety I typically feel in their office,’ she
said. ‘It wasn’t a bad [Wi-Fi] connection, it
was just difficult to get the connection you
get in person.’
For those championing digital forms
of therapy, this historical lack of attention
to the therapeutic potential of virtual space
feels like a missed opportunity. But it’s one
that some innovators are quickly seeking to
address. In some instances this is simply a
case of building on real-world precedents.
Launched last June, AORA is an online plat-
form that looks to re-create the psychological
benefits of viewing art in a digital setting. As
the website outlines: ‘Art, architecture and
music have proven health benefits from alle-
viating pain, increasing relaxation, and short-
ening recovery periods.’ The venue is divided
into three halls collating work by artists that
address ‘the healing notions of meditation,
landscape and environment’. Each room
is further enhanced by a bespoke musical
composition, while subscribers benefit from
a virtual live programme tied to each exhibi-
tion that includes movement classes, panel
discussions and concerts.
Piggybacking on the wildly popular
– and, importantly, highly accessible – world-
building sim Minecraft, Design Academy
Wellbeing
Eindhoven graduate Bianca Carague’s Bump
Galaxy shows the power of being able to
manifest a care-giving community in three
dimensions. The landscape is designed to
give each activity its own biome or ‘Care
Commons’, such as a meditation-focused for-
est, sand dunes where visitors reflect on their
dreams, and an underwater temple that helps
you uncover trauma through ‘deep hypnotic
visualizations’. Bump Galaxy also acts as a
meeting point where the public can engage
with mental health professionals in a more
interactive setting. According to Carague:
‘Bump Galaxy deinstitutionalizes healthcare
by bringing people together across national
borders, care practices and knowledge
worlds, blurring the lines between care giver
and care receiver.’
The gaming context has been fur-
ther legitimized by initiatives like mental
health organization Rise Above the Dis-
order’s (RAD) recent collaboration with
e-sports company Skillshot, which encour-
aged players to partake in therapist-guided
sessions in-game. ‘Gaming has always been
a home to me,’ RAD’s CEO Jason Docton
said in a statement. ‘It’s where I met the
greatest friends I’ve ever known, where I
turned when I felt my anxiety and depres-
sion were becoming too much to endure.
I’ve always believed in the ability of gaming
to change and even save lives.’ PM
137
what’s missing
in the world of
wellbeing?

In the lead up to each issue, we challenge emerging designers to respond to the

Frame Lab theme with a forward-looking concept. The arrival of Covid-19 has
contributed to loneliness, stress, grief, anxiety and depression, highlighting the
importance of fostering mental wellbeing. How can design help us cope with these
particularly tumultuous times? What spaces and experiences do we need, and
how should they look? We asked four creative practices to share their ideas.
Words Floor Kuitert

138 Frame Lab


Winner of a LionHeart Prize for
Emotional Depth and Wellbeing,
Arts University Bournemouth
graduate JACK COOPER is now
gaining professional experience
at HollandGreen Architecture,
Interiors and Landscapes in
Buckinghamshire, England.
Translating the human psyche into
physical form, JACK COOPER
explores how architecture could
provide a relief from depression.
You wrote a thesis focused on
normalizing depression. Why?
JC: Because it is normal to feel depressed.
According to my research, one in three people
will have a mental health issue at some point,
young adults and students included. Depres-
sion is a real issue we face as a society and
yet there are still many stigmas attached to
it. Therefore I think it’s important that every
industry makes improvements to better help
those with mental health conditions.
The architecture industry
being one of them.
Indeed. Architects arguably impact society
more than any other profession. The buildings
we design have a lasting impact on the way
people live and experience life. Our respon-
sibility therefore extends beyond the walls of
buildings. We have a duty to carefully design
spaces across all scales that will have a posi-
tive impact on individuals’ mental health.
Built using locally sourced wood, Jack
Cooper’s architectural proposal is designed to
help occupants better understand their inner
feelings and channel them creatively.
And you have a sugges-
tion that does just that.
Yes. Rather than focusing on curing depres-
sion, I envisioned a space that allows mental
health sufferers to better understand their
condition. Depression often leaves people
searching for a reason why, but in reality
there may not be a clear-cut answer to that
question. What we can do is find better ways
to cope with depression. But to do so, being
away from external pressures is important.
Therefore my architectural proposal is situ-
ated in the heart of a dense forest away from
the rest of society. The location helps visitors
– who are mainly young adults – to enter the
building and to focus. The idea is to offer short
stays, from two to four weeks. Students would
learn more about themselves and their condi-
tion and ultimately be helped to develop new
techniques to cope with it, techniques they
can take back with them when they return to
regular society.
The Challenge
How does the architecture
support these steps?
The building would be split into ‘depressive
spaces’ and ‘relief spaces’. The former are a
physical representation of the subconscious
and symptomatic nebulous areas of the user’s
psyche – tight, maze-like and dark. It’s a
physical metaphor for the visitors’ psychologi-
cal feelings that allows them to identify with
the building and rationalize their depression.
The architecture reflects their inner feelings in
order to offer a better understanding of those
feelings. Juxtaposing these ‘depressive spaces’
are the relief spaces, which open up from darker
corridors and offer a moment of clarity. They
accommodate communal activities such as
woodworking and cooking. The idea of these
spaces is to shift energy away from intrinsically
trying to understand one’s feelings towards
channelling them creatively. They connect to
•
the surrounding forest and let natural light in.
jackjocooper.wixsite.com/jackcooper
139
The Redwood room at Bree Smart’s
retreat centre features an undulating
structure on which residents can hang
out with invited family members.

BREE SMART’s
You’ve chosen women as
your target group. Why?
BS: Although the fact that mental health is
integral to living a healthy and balanced life

public-private retreat applies to everyone, research by the Mental

Health Foundation shows that women are
more likely than men to have a common

centre helps women mental health problem and are almost

twice as likely to be diagnosed with anxiety
disorders.

dealing with mental So you decided to conceptual-

ize a space for women who suf-

health challenges grow. fer from mental health issues.

Yes. My housing project Connected gives
women suffering from mental health issues
the opportunity to live an independent life,
but also provides them with the facilities and
care they need to gain confidence and grow.

How will the architec-

ture of Connected sup-
port that mission?
The space will be divided into private areas,
for personal reflection, and public areas, for
connection. And there will be spaces solely
accessible for invited guests. The private
space will include a living retreat for the

140 Frame Lab

To benefit from the boosting qualities
of being outdoors, the women at
Connected can take a relaxing swim
in the pool area.
women, while the remaining space, featur-
ing among other things a café, will be open
to the public. That way the residents of Con-
nected can not only help and support each
other, but also feel a connection with the
community. The café will also provide work
experience opportunities to help residents
gain more confidence. On top of that, there
will be communal spaces offering different
types of support.
Can you highlight a few of
those communal spaces?
The main lounge area called Birch is
designed to facilitate casual interactions
between residents, enabling them to open
up to each other and become family. The
Willow room will be dedicated to educating
life skills, from handling finances to compil-
ing a CV. The walls of Cedar, in turn, will be
clad in yoga-mat material, encouraging the
women to meditate or do Pilates or other
exercises, while the Redwood room features
an undulating structure on which to hang out
with invited family members.
And what about the outdoors?
Being outdoors boosts your energy and can
help decrease mental health issues, so the
courtyard garden – named the Forest – plays
an important role in the concept. There’s
also a pool area – the River – to enjoy a relax-
ing swim. It’s a space where the women can
keep their heart rate up, while releasing their
body of stress. Swimming can be effective
for lowering incidences of depression and
anxiety, and it can improve sleep patterns.
Where would the
space be located?
I envision collaborating with the National An interior architecture design
Trust and reusing one of their current student at England’s Falmouth
properties at Trelissick Gardens. There’s an University, BREE SMART is
interested in the adaptive reuse
amazing courtyard at the heart of the site, of buildings, as well as the creation
which offers a perfect opportunity to insert of human-centred and highly
an additional new building to house part engaging spatial designs.
of Connected. While planning the spaces
and defining their functions, I constantly
considered sightlines, making sure the
public could have a full experience without
compromising the privacy of the women at
Connected. •
instagram: smart_design__
The Challenge 141
ULYSSE MARTEL and CANDICE
JOYCE BLANC serve up a survival-
inspired hospitality concept that offers
a break from the stress and excess
of daily life.

142 Frame Lab

Through a booking system, participants
of Inner Amble will get the location of,
and access to, a cabinet set in a natural
environment. Filled with camping and
survival equipment, it’s the starting
point of an authentic experience that’s
designed to clear the mind.
Based in Lausanne, French product
designer and Écal graduate ULYSSE
MARTEL forms a creative collective
with architect and EPFL alumna
CANDICE JOYCE BLANC. Aiming to
realize a hybrid, greener and more
creative future, they work on projects
that range from product designs to
spatial installations and innovative
experiences.
What problem are you
addressing with your
concept Inner Amble?
UM: We have been locked indoors for about a
year now because of the pandemic, so it’s time
for some fresh air. It’s healthy for both the
body and mind. Plants stimulate the imagina-
tion and help us concentrate, reduce stress
and fight disease.Nature thrives in healthy
ecosystems, and so do we. But, especially in
urban areas, there can be a lack of outdoor
amenities and access to personal outside
space is rare is some cities.
CB: Besides that our current way
of living revolves largely around an excess of
objects. Even if we try to escape from it all and
go camping.
What did you come
up with in response to
these observations?
UM: A survival-inspired hospitality concept
called Inner Amble, which is based on the idea
that mental health is linked to experiences in
the natural environment.
How does it work?
CB: The concept consists of a storage unit that
will be placed in a natural environment and
can be accessed through a booking system.
It contains camping and survival equipment.
Once a reservation is made, the precise
destination and an access code to open the
unit will be shared with the guest – or rather
participant. That’s when his or her quest for
a break from daily life and return to nature
starts. Even if only for a weekend. There is no
need to bring anything. All vital necessities for
shelter and nutrition would be available in the
The Challenge
storage element. And if a participant wants an
even more tailored experience, even clothes
and additional equipment could be stored.
Users can leave their phones behind, but it is
not mandatory as emergency calls may always
be needed. But, while users become more
confident in a natural environment, they will
likely lose their need to share their life and will
start to truly experience it.
How are the locations of
your storage units selected?
UM: The locations, which are kept secret prior
to the booking confirmation, aren’t selected
but rather curated. A nice view of the sea,
a breath-taking mountain spot from which
to watch the sunset, a historical area, a cosy
forest. Even being surrounded by industrial
wasteland can be mentally healing. The point
is to experience nature, feel its beauty in
detail, live at its tempo and become aware of
the impact of our personal footprint.
CB: The environmental setting
should encourage sustainable behaviour
as participants quite literally distance
themselves from the consumer society. The
simplicity of being in nature will quickly
distract from the ‘artificiality’ and routines
of daily life. Feeling slightly helpless in your
tent when it rains can become a meditative
moment. Being confronted with a natural
environment will help people reprioritize
their needs and those of others.
UM: The ‘escape based’ concept
behind Inner Amble is an affordable way to
re-anchor ourselves via a minimalistic and
authentic experience. •
ulyssemartel.com
143
 Site Practice’s proposal
Woontuinen has been developed
in collaboration with designers
from Studio Makkink & Bey and
the landscape architects of Le
Far West with the support of the
Creative Industries Fund NL.

144 Frame Lab

SITE PRACTICE fights
loneliness among young
adults with a community-
centred living and housing
concept.
Your project targets
young adults. Why?
ANNE GEENEN: Today’s adolescents belong
to one of the loneliest generations in history,
having to rely more and more on themselves.
We believe that the best cure for such feelings
of social isolation is creating communities
that foster connections and help people build
relationships. Which is why we’re trying to
answer the growing needs for social cohesion
and emotional wellbeing among young adults.
That’s where Woon-
tuinen comes in?
DAVID SCHMIDT: Yes. Woontuinen, which
directly translates into Gardens for Living,
is a proposal for a new, affordable and more
socially sustainable form of youth housing.
It offers an alternative to the anonymous and
commercially driven ‘container villages’ that
are often located in soulless city outskirts
and have a design language that has more in
common with the world of infrastructure and
transport than with that of a home.
And what about the
housing solutions?
AG: Dwellings for young adults would be
built with the help of the local workshops
and the local community network. They will
be constructed with the available plant and
fibre crops from the gardens, such as hemp,
flax, straw and timber. Unlike standardized,
fossil-fuel-based matter, these biobased
materials have a positive and healthy effect on
our physical and mental wellbeing. The young
residents can benefit from the surrounding
social cohesion provided by the gardens and
their (social) structures.
DS: Woontuinen thus provides
an alternative way of cohabitation by bringing
back a sense of agency and empowerment to
its users and inhabitants. •
sitepractice.com

What kind of alternative?

AG: Woontuinen takes the garden and the
community as its starting point. More than
just four walls and a roof, the proposal empha-
sizes the communal qualities of living and the
empowering effect of self-made and well-
crafted surroundings on emotional wellbeing.
DS: The Woontuinen would be
organically created by tapping into existing
places and their communities. Think of sports
clubs and other (amateur) societies that own
Emily Bates

– or have access to – open space close to or

within existing neighbourhoods. These spaces
could gradually be transformed into neigh-
bourhood centres of activity, enriched with Founded in 2018 by Anne Geenen,
workshops and enhanced with community gar- former partner at Case Design
dens. Built by and with the local community, and cofounder of furniture brand
these new areas can become self-sustaining by Casegoods, and David Schmidt,
former associate at 6a Architects
using the natural produce from the gardens as in London, SITE PRACTICE is an
resources and materials for the workshops to architecture and design studio
create products and building materials. based in Mumbai and Amsterdam.

The Challenge 145

mental wellness
toolkit
Illustrations Simon Flöter

01
LIGHT THE WAY The benefits of
natural light are well-known, and its
subtleties can inform spatial design –
morning light, for instance, is apparently
more effective than evening light
in helping to reduce depression, so
buildings could be oriented accordingly.
But even artificial light, when used in
the right way, can provide significant
psychological benefits.

02
CARVE OUT MINDFUL
MOMENTS Rather than
having only dedicated
wellness centres, moments
for respite and restoration
can be integrated into other
buildings – particularly those
in which we need them the
most, like offices. Ensure
that the atmosphere offers
a calming escape from the
surrounding environment.

146 Frame Lab

03
THINK ABOUT ACCESSIBILITY The past
year has become an extreme example of how
digital can stand in for physical, with many
in-person counselling sessions switched to
teletherapy during lockdowns. Digital wellness
options are often more accessible for many, with
the added benefit of potentially attracting a more
diverse community than in a physical location.
But whether physical or digital, wellness solutions
should be easily and readily available, wherever
and by whomever they’re needed.

04
CHOOSE THE RIGHT MEDIUM
FOR THE MESSAGE Physical and
digital wellness offerings both have
their advantages and disadvantages, so
consider which medium(s) are the best
fit. The answer might be both, which is
where a hybrid model could come in. And
even in the digital realm, think about which
sub-medium can offer the best solution.
Immersive video-game-like portals, for
instance, make it possible to tailor spatial
experiences to a specific context.

05
CONSIDER THE SENSES Both
physical products and spaces can
explore the connection between
wellness and the senses. Think of using
acoustics to dampen peripheral noise,
for example, and prioritizing warm, tactile
materials over cold, hard ones. Products
can also play with such elements as
sound, lighting and aroma.

Toolkit 147
Julia Tatarchenko, courtesy of Crosby Studios
market

150 Ergonomic furniture for small spaces, upcycled

acoustic solutions, 3D-printed room dividers and more
160 How to work with hempcrete
 Elena Iv-skaya
QEEBOO KONG
Italian brand Qeeboo has released a collection of 20 colourful images that tell the story of its quest to stimu-
late curiosity and envision a world ‘between fantasy and art’. One of the products captured by fashion photog-
rapher Elena Iv-skaya is the Kong floor lamp, designed by Qeeboo founder Stefano Giovannoni. The playful,
namesake gorilla-shaped luminaire can be placed indoors and out.
qeeboo.com

ETHIMO SWING FOOTREST

Swing, a lounge and dining collection by Ethimo and
Patrick Norguet, now includes circular footrests for
outdoor living spaces in three diameters and two
heights. Pairable with matching sofas and lounge
chairs, the architectural poufs have frames of teak
and aluminium and soft, weather-durable cushions
in four colour options.
ethimo.com

150 Frame 139

 TOOY NASTRO
Lighting brand TOOY and Studiopepe have joined
forces to debut Nastro, a group of dynamic, geomet-
ric lamps. ‘We have always been fascinated by the
juxtaposition of very different elements whose union
creates a new meaning,’ explain the designers. Nastro
– which means ‘ribbon’ in Italian – comprises table
and floor lamps.
tooy.it

COSENTINO SCONDIDO
Interior designer Remy Meijers’s Scondido bathroom
furniture line for Cosentino is clad in the brand’s
trademark, high-performance Dekton surfacing.
Driven by the visual of a ‘solid, monolithic block of
stone’, Meijer developed the storage pieces – which
can be arranged as solitary units, as a duo or part
of a larger composition. ‘I wanted to design a piece
of furniture that could be included in a room like a
piece of art, and still have practical features,’
says Meijers.
cosentino.com

KRISKADECOR APARTHOTEL PLAYASOL

JABEQUE SOUL
During the recent renovation of Ibiza’s Aparthotel
Playasol Jabeque Soul, general director Antonio
Domenech Lago sought a skylight with a sculptural
lighting element feature that would not only boost
guest privacy but reduce ground floor noise. Aixut
Interiorisme utilized 170 m2 of Kriskadecor alumin-
ium chains in a brilliant gold hue to create this mul-
Sander Baks

tipurpose sculpture, evoking the sense of sunrays

descending into the space.
kriskadecor.com

Market 151
 BENCHMARK NOA DESK
The Noa desk, born from Benchmark furniture maker
Tom Parfitt’s desire for an ergonomic sit-stand desk
made of natural materials and suited for a small
space, is influenced by biophilic design principles.
Built from sinuous European oak, the compact work-
table is both flexible and adaptable, providing an area
of 120 x 66 cm with room to accommodate a nested
chair. A bonus? The design of the desk ensures that
electrical elements are easily concealed.
benchmarkfurniture.com

PEDRALI YPSILON CONNECT

Created by Jorge Pensi for Pedrali, sound-absor-
bent space divider Ypsilon Connect is a free-stand-
ing element that brings acoustic comfort to a variety
of settings. Entire rooms can be created using the
customizable partitions, and accessories such as
whiteboards, shelves and coat hangers – or, even a
TV holder – can be affixed to them.
pedrali.it
Andrea Garuti, art direction by Studio FM

CHRISTOPHER JOSHUA BENTON HOW TO

BE AT REST
Artist Christopher Joshua Benton sourced used
chairs from industrial neighbourhoods in Dubai,
Abu Dhabi and Sharjah for his Dubai Design Week
2020 exhibition How to Be at Rest. Benton’s aim
was to celebrate vernacular design by highlighting
craftsmanship and the use of simple materials,
encouraging the audience to think about what the
chairs say about the makers and their surroundings
while asking what can be learnt from the objects and
what they can teach us about sustainability.
christopherbenton.net

152 Frame 139

BOLON EMERGE
With its new Emerge flooring collection, Bolon asserts that yes, ‘there is such a thing as the perfect shade of
beige and grey’. Consisting of one textured design in six hues – shades of blue, green, grey, brown and beige –
the surfacing was envisioned to complement the materials most used by architects. Its numerous application
potentials can be explored with a VR solution from Bolon that takes a user through hotel, museum and
office settings.
bolon.com

FLEXFORM TESSA
Simplicity lies at the heart of Antonio Citterio’s vision
for Flexform armchair Tessa. Its frame – in solid ash
or turned Canaletto walnut – is married with a hand-
crafted woven paper rush cord seat and backrest
that come with optional soft cushions. The Tessa
family also comprises an ottoman, a bench and a
marble-top coffee table.
flexform.it

Market 153
 FAST RIA DINING CHAIR

Andrew Lee
Lightweight, stackable and produced in 14 colours,
Fast’s Ria chair, part of a full seating collection, is a
match for both residential and contract settings.
Designer Alberto Lievore took inspiration from the
Galician coast and Norwegian fjords while drafting
the silhouette of the die-cast aluminium body, which
is complemented by the use of woven rope for the
backrest.
fastspa.com

CHRISTOPH HEFTI THE LITTLE HOUSE

EXHIBITION
Last October, Dries Van Noten’s first US flagship
store opened in Los Angeles. In addition to display-
ing the fashion designer’s collections, the two homes
which make up the store – The Big House and The
Little House – exhibit works by artists, designers and
craftspeople. Swiss creative Christoph Hefti had
hand-knotted relief carpets woven from Nepalese
wool and silk and a curtain and poufs on show at the
last Little House presentation of 2020.
driesvannoten-la.com

154 Frame 139

ROCA SMART SHOWER
Ease of use is synonymous with Roca’s high-tech
Smart Shower. With a simple, intuitive interface, ther-
mostatic technology that keeps water temperature
at a constant, a comprehensive cleaning programme,
water- and energy-saving mechanisms and a child
protection lock, the shower promises safety, sustain-
ability and utmost hygiene for all users.
roca.com

Ángel Segura
GAN ROUND MIRAGE
Patricia Urquiola’s vibrant Round Mirage rugs for
Gan are inspired by the 1960s Op Art movement.
A play on colour, geometry and superimpositions of
curved and straight lines, the carpets are woven with
tonal gradients to achieve an arresting visual effect.
Each hand-knotted rug – eye-catching on the floor
or wall – is woven from natural New Zealand wool.
gan-rugs.com

VANTOT COLOURED LIMPID LIGHT

Originally made available in 2014, the Limpid Light
collection by VanTot has a new coloured option.
Working with architects, interior architects, designers
and stylists around the world, the Eindhoven studio
developed a nano technique to tint the handcrafted
Czech-glass lamps in custom hues.
vantot.com

Market 155
 HAWORTH CABANA LOUNGE
According to Patricia Urquiola: ‘The centre of work
is not just the desk, it is wherever you sit.’ Cabana
Lounge, a modular sofa system she devised for
Haworth, sets up unique destination spaces within
office environments that empower users to switch
between individual and collaborative work effec-
tively. Offering embedded power options, visual
privacy and flexible installations, the wool-felt or
leather upholstered seating speaks to the needs of
the evolving workplace.
haworth.com

Leigh Ann Cobb

KVADRAT ACOUSTIC TEXTILE FELT FR
Looking for new acoustic solutions? Upcycled from
post-consumer polyester, Kvadrat’s Acoustic Textile
Felt FR panels by Really can seamlessly upgrade a
room in need by being affixed to the ceiling or joined
as a wall installation. The product, made in a light
and dark colour, features a cutting-edge bi-compo-
nent fibre and offers the flame-retardant properties
of Trevira CS.
kvadrat.dk

MARSET CHISPA
Portable, rechargeable, cordless, waterproof and
hangable, Chispa brings design savvy and functional-
ity to the outdoor lighting realm. The three-setting
design by Joan Gaspar gives off a warm glow and
upgrades the look of the conventional garage lamp.
Its body finish comes in orange, blue, green and a
black version with copper details.
marset.com

156 Frame 139

Gerhardt Kellerman

LAUFEN SPACE BERLIN

With a new space in Berlin, Laufen has eschewed the conventional showroom typology for a cultural platform
able to host events, talks and video installations. Konstantin Grcic brought the interior to life – it’s targeted at
giving visitors an experience centred on bathroom ceramics, allowing them to discover the ways in which the
products interact with other creative mediums. ‘We were interested in dialogue, not prestige,’ says Grcic. ‘That
was the idea for this setting.’
laufen.com

PODE OVA AND UNDA

Pode’s harmonious table-and-pouf combination Ova
and Unda is the work of German designer-carpenter
Meike Harde. Harde’s design gives the user the
chance to coordinate the setup to their own needs.
The oak, lacquer or ceramic Ova tables slide seam-
lessly over the sturdy square Unda poufs, which come
in two sizes and five upholstery options.
pode.eu

Market 157
CROSBY STUDIOS HOME PILLOWS
Design practice Crosby Studios has extended its
reach with Crosby Studios Home, a lifestyle brand
for loungewear and home goods such as the pillows
shown here. ‘Crosby Studios Home is about thought-
fully curating objects into the home, and discovering
new parts of ourselves in the process,’ explains
founder Harry Nuriev. ‘The collection also seeks to
add new energy to the home with expressive objects
infused with fashion and art.’ It is accessible for
browsing via an immersive virtual apartment-cum-
showroom powered by gaming software.
home.crosbystudios.com

AECTUAL STUDIOS ROOM DIVIDERS AND

SAFETY SCREENS
Julia Tatarchenko, courtesy of Crosby Studios

A welcome alternative to disposable plastic

screens in the office and at home, Aectual Studios’
3D-printed room dividers and safety screens are
entirely circular. The patterned matte partitions
are made of plant-based plastic and can be intro-
duced as a self-standing element, hanging curtain
or mounted wall panelling. Once use is complete,
they can be shredded and reprinted into different
structures.
aectual.com

158 Frame 139

 SANCAL REMNANT
Note Design Studio got to work creating two indi-
vidual, yet complementary, ranges of armchairs and
sofas for Sancal. Pictured is the quilted Remnant
armchair – it’s imagined to represent the possibilities
of leftover material after sculpting a form, in this case
the matching Core sofa. Mixing and matching the
pieces is encouraged: a range of fabrics helps bring
texture and colour to a space.
sancal.com

PULPO KOKESHI
A nod to traditional Japanese kokeshi dolls, Kai
Linke’s Kokeshi lamps for Pulpo have a similarly
shaped body. The bases are sculpted from white,
grey or terracotta ceramics while the lamp head is
formed from hand-blown acetate glass in white or
grey. Linke and Pulpo embraced variations during
the production process – bubbles, streaks and dif-
ferences in size and tone express the uniqueness of
each piece.
pulpoproducts.com
Ronald Smits

CÉLESTINE PEUCHOT INERT DOMESTIC

SYSTEM
Conceptual designer Célestine Peuchot’s Inert
Domestic System project is a series of six furniture
pieces marking an investigation of manufacturing
processes and a mix of materials and techniques.
The objects, forged from blue ceramic gear, glass
neon tubes, acrylic elements and an aluminium
structure, ‘demonstrate that artisanal and industrial
manufacturing are less at odds with each other than
is commonly perceived’.
celestinepeuchot.fr

Market 159
HARNESSING HEMP(CRETE) Inspired by
democratic design principles and driven to explore the smaller-scale
potential of working with hempcrete, Hannah Segerkrantz established
Hemp-It-Yourself, a semi-modular furniture development system that
helps makers construct tables with the biocomposite material. The
instruction manual encourages on-demand, local production and the use
of sustainable practices and resources.
Words Lauren Grace Morris

110 0.8 to 3.2

kg of carbon is absorbed by a single
cubic metre of hempcrete – the same
amount of concrete expels 410 kg.
A popular option in sustainable building,
it is as strong as concrete yet 8 times
lighter, and flexible
kg is the range in amounts of hemp
shiv – workable hemp hurd – that
goes into a finished piece. To get
hempcrete, the hurd is combined
with a lime binder

1
acre of hemp, which
takes about 4 months
to reach maturation,
is able to produce 2.5
tonnes of hemp shiv

2,123
litres of water is needed for 1 kg of
hemp fibre, whereas 1 kg of cotton
begs 9,958 litres

6
different shapes are
used for the fabric
mould patterns required
for casting the material.
With the manual, 15
form variations can be
created to suit specific
functions

3 to 5
weeks is the time it takes to dry
the individual elements, a timeline
that varies depending on the
surrounding climate
hannahsegerkrantz.com

160 In Numbers
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