THE NEXT SPACE

Co-working 3.0: agile, efficient, automated

THE POST- Dining for the delivery generation
PANDEMIC Why restaurants and bars are going dark
Learning from chair man Konstantin Grcic
PLAYBOOK How to revive the shopping mall

ISSUE 135
JUL — AUG 2020
BP

UK £14.95 JP ¥3,570 KR WON 40,000

BX €19.95 DE €19.95 IT €24.90 CHF 30
CONTENTS
06 REPORTING FROM
Amsterdam and Warea

Yuhao Ding / Elbe

12
Jeroen Verrecht

38 10 IN PRACTICE
Virginia Woods-Jack

12 INTRODUCING
Jessica Wu and Mengjie Liu of
Shanghai-based Sò Studio

22 WHAT I’VE LEARNED

Industrial designer Konstantin Grcic

30 INFLUENCER
Australian artist and director
Anita Fontaine

38 THE CLIENT
Fosbury & Sons’ cofounders Stijn
Geeraets and Maarten Van Gool

44 AXOR
30 Material memories

Frame 135 1
 48 SPACES
Delivery-driven dining, working
showrooms and mall makeovers

100 POST-PANDEMIC LAB

102 Covid-19's impact on retail,
hospitality and work
124 Shaping the 1.5-metre society

Xiao Yun, courtesy of Daylab

Les Garçons, represented by L'Éloi

90
78

102
Kevin Mak, courtesy of OMA

136
132 Market
Alessandro Paderni, courtesy of Moroso

From an augmented reality sofa

to Riso-inspired rugs

144 In Numbers
VanMoof’s S3 and X3 bikes in
facts and figures

2 Contents
 Takumi Ota, courtesy of Nendo

Frame 135
64

3
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4 Colophon
design after
disaster
Wash your hands, keep your distance, sneeze in your
elbow, wear a face mask: it’s remarkable how fast the
world population has adapted to what we have come
to call the New Normal. Other phenomena we’re now
used to: plastic screens at checkout, tape on the ground
that reminds us to stay 1.5 metres away from others,
stickers on shop doors that make it clear that no more
than three people may be inside at the same time, bars
that sell drinks through their windows, top restaurants
that offer only takeaways and deliveries, and couriers
that drive back and forth to drop off parcels and food.
Humans are inventive. Disaster strikes, we
get scared, we rearrange our lives, devise measures,
invent clever things and carry on where we left off.
Because humans are also creatures of habit.
In recent months, there’s been talk of a
necessary ‘reset’. The pandemic has made it clear that
we can no longer go on like we had been. Why did
we always have to be at the office and our children at
school? The lockdown demonstrated that with Zoom,
Slack and a couple of other apps we could easily work
and learn from home. No more daily commute. No
time-wasting chitchat with colleagues at work.
And wasn’t the lockdown also a great
opportunity to really take a closer look at our urge to
consume and travel? Do we really need so much new
stuff? Do we have to undertake time-consuming and
exhausting business trips to the other side of the world
all the time? Are weekend trips to cities two hours
away by plane and holidays abroad three times a year
actually necessary? Why are we always in a hurry? And
under so much stress?
It’s a romantic thought: a historical, radical
reset of society as a result of the worldwide outbreak
of a disease. The goals: a fairer distribution of wealth,
Editorial
greater wellbeing for more people, and living in
solidarity and harmony. The by-product: a cleaner,
healthier planet. As much as I’d like to believe in it,
I don’t think the pandemic will be the breeding ground
for such a New World Order. I once read that the past
is the best predictor of the future. And even if the
pandemic leaves deep scars, it’s doubtful whether it
will bring radical change.
In this issue, we examine the consequences
Covid-19 has on work, hospitality and retail. Of course
we report with today’s knowledge, however we can
nonetheless state with some certainty that paradigms
will not shift, but that existing developments will
accelerate as a result of the pandemic. Further
digitization of work and retail was already in the air.
As was a heightened focus on people’s health and
wellbeing. And if the sharing economy continues to
grow and we travel less – forced or not – it will also
benefit the Earth.
As I said: humans are creatures of habit. We
want to hug our loved ones, see our friends and consult
with our colleagues. We’re physical beings in search
of physical experiences. It’s in our nature to come
together for football games, concerts and, yes, design
festivals. The pandemic is not going to change our
DNA, but it is going to change the way we shape our
habits. This is the moment for designers to give new
meaning to their work.
Robert Thiemann
Editor in chief
5
AMS
TER
DAM
It’s the 26th of March – my boy-
friend’s birthday – when I scribble
my first thoughts for this column.
Under normal circumstances,
we would go for a way-too-fancy
dinner at one of Amsterdam’s
many hospitality venues. But it’s
not a normal day, by any stretch
of the imagination. It’s day
number ‘I-stopped-counting’ of
the ‘intelligent lockdown’ that
the Dutch government put into
place, resulting in many bars
and restaurants being forced
to shut their doors. And so my
reservation at the i29-designed
restaurant in the newly renovated
monumental Felix Meritis build-
ing – forced to close even before
its official opening – was can-
celled a few days earlier. Inevita-
bly and understandably, but also
unfortunately. Having takeaway
delivered to our doorstep instead
just doesn’t feel as celebratory.
Or so I thought. During one of my
shockingly elongated Instagram
scroll sessions (I’m carefully
ignoring my screen time app), I
come across a photo of Michelin-
starred chef Joris Bijdendijk
dressed in Deliveroo teal. ‘Crisis
also makes us creative,’ states
the corresponding post. ‘We
understand that some of our
6 Reporting From
guests prefer staying at home,
therefore Rijks [the restaurant of
Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum] is
starting a delivery service.’ There
it is. The solution! Clearly I’m not
the only one enthusiastic about
this move. At the end of that very
same week – yes, on my phone
again, or still – I can’t say, I read
the restaurant’s next message:
‘Yesterday evening we already
had more than 1,000 meals on
order before six o’clock. Unfor-
tunately the system crashed and
we had to shut it down.’ Luckily
for me – and true to their own
statement about creativity in
times of crisis – a new system is
quickly put in place by the team
at Rijks. So, I pick a time slot and
hop on my bike to pick up the
three-course meal and accompa-
nying wine. Instead of working
my way through a flock of
delivery e-bikes and cube-shaped
backpacks, a common picture at
restaurant entrances these days,
I follow a lantern-lit path into
a space decorated with white
carton food boxes overlooking
the kitchen. It instantly and radi-
cally changes my perception of a
takeaway experience.
The top-tier takeaway
comes with a letter that includes
Floor Kuitert, who saw her
Amsterdam apartment transform
into a Michelin-starred-restaurant
while social distancing, witnesses
a promising (make)shift in the
takeaway and delivery-driven
hospitality market.
tips on how to make your dining
room cosier, and a QR code to
the restaurant’s Spotify playlist
compiled by bartender Rik, to
and takeaway solutions hold
the potential to help restaurants
make up for at least part of the
loss they’re having to deal with
which you can shamelessly dance due to the reduced customer
without spectators. In a series density that comes with the post-
of YouTube videos shot at the lockdown, prevention-focused
restaurant, Bijdendijk person- reality – dubbed the 1.5-m society
ally introduces every dish. He in the Netherlands. And I sure
even sticks around a little longer hope Amsterdam’s city council
during dessert, discussing the will grant entrepreneurs the
challenges of having the kids leeway to flexibly extend their
home from school. I’m pretty terraces into the outdoor public
sure that doesn’t happen at every space come summer, without
physical visit! •
running the risk of being fined.
I’m hooked, so this evening
is followed by a series of exten-
sive at-home dinners – all with
their own unique elements, to
my surprise. Restaurant Breda’s
six-course menu comes in a
colour-coded preparation kit,
while I’m able to cook up my
favourite dish from another
neighbourhood address by
streaming their chef ’s instruc-
tions straight into my kitchen. Of
course I’m aware these initiatives
are enforced by long-term social
distancing measures demanded
by the coronavirus crisis, and that
the revenue they bring in is not
enough to keep the hospitality
sector out of harm’s way. But I Floor Kuitert is Frame’s
do believe that creative delivery head of content.
Having left Amsterdam on a working holiday right before shelter-in-
place orders were issued, Tracey Ingram has had to hunker down in
rural New Zealand – a location that puts the isolation in self-isolation.
I’m reporting from Warea,
population around 100. It’s
somewhere probably 99.9 per
cent of Frame readers have never
heard of. I’d never heard of it
myself until a few years ago,
when my brother bought a prop-
erty out of the city – even though
it’s only 40 minutes’ drive from
New Plymouth, the place where
I grew up and that my parents
still call home. It’s beautiful here
– fewer than 100 metres to the
ocean in one direction and a view
to majestic Mount Taranaki in
the other. Mount Taranaki’s main
claim to fame is its role as Mount
Fuji in the 2003 Tom Cruise film
The Last Samurai. The wider
region of Taranaki served as the
set, earning it the cringeworthy
alias ‘Tom-inaki’ at the time. If
that titbit of trivia didn’t make
it clear: not that much happens
around here.
My partner and I normally
live in Amsterdam, but had
planned a working holiday-slash-
family visit before Covid-19
rapidly escalated in both the
Netherlands and New Zealand.
W
The idea of coming to a com-
munity so quiet it doesn’t even
have its own corner store was
mighty appealing after spending
the last few months dealing with
a very stressful home renovation
AR
in Amsterdam. Everyone warns
you that renovations will likely
run overtime and over budget.
Check and check. But how could
we predict that a global pandemic
would be added to the list of
EA
pressure points?
We were visiting other fam-
ily members in the capital city of
Wellington when Prime Minister
Jacinda Ardern gave a nationwide
8 Reporting From
address. After 48 hours, she said,
the country would move from
Covid-19 Alert Level 3 to Level
4, the highest grade. With no
(finished) home to return to in
Amsterdam for self-isolation, we
had little choice but to continue
our nomadic lifestyle – well, as
nomadic as you can be when
the country you’re visiting goes
into complete lockdown. From
Wellington, the plan had been
to travel towards the mountain
ranges in a camper van, but with
all domestic travel banned and
campsites quickly shutting their
gates, we had to turn back and
hunker down here in Warea. Sud-
denly the camper van – a symbol
of freedom and flexibility on the
road – became synonymous with
restrictions.
That said, we’ve held onto
the camper. It’s parked outside
my brother’s house in Warea, a
back-up room for private meet-
ings and quiet time – a necessity
since we’re all working from
home while my two young neph-
ews roam the house. The experi-
ence has made me ponder what
makes me feel at home. How can
I carve out my own metaphorical
space when I don’t have a physical
one? I’m also reminded at this
time how flexible we as humans
are. How easily we can adjust and
adapt to new levels of personal
space, or lack thereof.
We don’t know how long
this will go on for, nor when we’ll
be back in Amsterdam. Days
have rolled into weeks, and Level
4 became Level 3 and then, 2. If
she wasn’t one already, Jacinda
Ardern has become a household
name for not merely flattening
the curve, but squashing it.
Unlike in cities, the shift here in
Warea has been measured not
by the reopening of shops or
restaurants, but by the reap-
pearance of boats on the water
and groups of people gathering
shellfish. Domestic travel is
opening up again, meaning that
when our renovations are finally
done, we can more easily make
our way home. I’m experiencing
first-hand what many of our
readers must be going through:
trying to make design decisions
remotely. Being a tactile person,
I’m extremely glad we defined all
the materials in real life before
we left. What an interesting time
to try out virtual reality, though,
if that were an option. And if
social distancing is still the state
of affairs when we return to a
completed apartment, perhaps
we’ll just have to hold an online
flat warming. At least then no
one will spill red wine on the
new floor.•
Tracey Ingram is Frame’s
editor at large.
Frame Daily.
Industry news
and trends in
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Head to frameweb.com to sign up

Anita Fontaine shot by Virginia Woods-Jack
in
practice

012 Sò Studio on the art of (its) interiors 022 Konstantin

Grcic, the ‘chair man’, on more than just chairs 030
Anita Fontaine on the realities of virtual and augmented
reality 038 Fosbury & Sons on creating workplaces
worth frequenting
The cofounders of
Shanghai-based S Ò
S T U D I O explain the
connection between
their ‘innovation
architecture’ practice
and contemporary art,
why they’re deciding to
stay small, and how they
fit into China’s shifting
visual vernacular.
Words Amandas Ong
Portrait Olivier Hero

12 In Practice
 After studying in London, Mengjie
Liu (left) and Jessica Wu returned to
China and founded Sò Studio in 2016.

Introducing 13
Jessica Wu and Mengjie Liu are the names behind Shanghai-based Sò Studio.
They’re eager to experiment with the relationship between objects and their
spatial surroundings, and imbue each project with a sense of the unexpected.
The pair met while working together for a brief period on an urban design
project at architecture firm Chapman Taylor after obtaining their respective
Master’s degrees in London: Wu was part of the MA Applied Imagination in
the Creative Industries course at Central Saint Martins, while Liu studied
interior architecture and design at the Chelsea College of Arts. Sò Studio was
ultimately born in 2016 with a shared vision: that spatial design as
a practice can learn much from contemporary art.

Designed to bring the lifestyle of downtown

New York to Shanghai, the Canal St clothing
store introduces multiple new materials to an
eclectic collage of traces from the building’s
past lives.

Yuhao Ding / Elbe

14 In Practice
Introducing 15
 The material palette for men’s clothing
store Samo in Chongqing was chosen to
stand the test of time while ‘giving the
brand a sense of weight’.

16 In Practice
 What’s the meaning behind
your name, Sò Studio?
JESSICA WU: Actually, our full name is
SoooStudio, with each ‘o’ representing one of
three main elements we focus on in our work:
events, interiors and objects. We may add more
‘o’s as we go along. We created an animated
logo to signal that there are other exciting pos-
sibilities on the horizon for us to explore.
MENGJIE LIU: We wanted the
studio’s name to reflect our different profes-
sional backgrounds. The convergence of our
paths led us to imagine our practice as a space
where boundless experiences can happen.
Aside from each ‘o’ suggesting the birth of
potential, we also feel the word ‘so’ has certain
connotations visually. It looks lovable, concise
and full of attitude – the same qualities we felt
when we were coming up with the name.
Your designs are distinct
for their accentuated lines
and prominent colours. Can
you elaborate further on Sò
Studio’s aesthetic vision?
ML: We were both greatly inspired by our
educations in London. I studied interior
architecture and design at the Chelsea College
of Arts, an institution that has traditionally
leant towards the fine arts. Almost all of my
understanding of contemporary art comes
from my time at Chelsea.
Sometimes I’m excited by the idea of creat-
ing monuments, but I’m also happy to turn
that idea on its head if needed. At certain
points we head in a more radical direction,
which might explain the lines and colours
you speak of. But more often our projects are
not consistent with my personal aesthetic;
in fact, they even contradict it. I pay close
attention to scale and tactility, deliberately
experimenting with shrinking or amplifying
the former to create contrast or layers. I also
believe particular moments or memories
have the power to influence design. It’s
liberating to not have to turn to a set of rules
regarding beauty.
JW: I don’t feel we’re particularly
inclined towards bright colours or strong
lines – perhaps those qualities suited one or
two of our projects. But I agree with Mengjie
that contemporary artists and their techniques
have heavily influenced our work.
Which artists in particular?
ML: Rachel Whiteread and Doris Salcedo
for their depiction of anti-war themes and
their push for the conceptualization of art
as a palimpsest – the idea of self-expression
through traces of the past is interesting to me.
Humour plays an important role in transform-
ing the everyday into design, which is why
Marcel Duchamp’s so-called ‘ready-mades’
have inspired us a lot.
Introducing
JW: Recently I’ve turned to collage as a way
to express our chosen narratives. I like Jean
Metzinger’s Cubist drawings, which incorpo-
rate multifarious perspectives in one image.
Other times, I’m aiming for a more random
depiction of objects in space – something akin
to a Joan Miró. I want Ellsworth Kelly’s large
colour blocks and borderless shapes. And
then there are moments when I just want to
be practical, like when we paid homage to
Jeff Koons’s Balloon Dog by creating a perma-
nently ‘inflated’ yoga ball for sports brand
Peu À Peu. My mind leaps between all of
these ideas; I want them all at different stages
in the creative process.
What is the biggest challenge
you face running a spatial
design studio in Shanghai?
JW: Making each project better than the last.
And it’s very difficult to achieve something
we’re entirely satisfied with. At the same time,
we have to meet the business needs of our
clients. It’s vital that what we design translates
to measurable commercial success.
ML: I’ve always thought of myself
as a designer, so it’s a struggle to fulfil that
role and the role of studio partner. There are
conflicting forces at play: the design work
exerts pressure from the inside out, while the
studio’s operation does the opposite. Having
a middle ground is precious. »
17
18 In Practice
 Sò Studio turned heads last year with
its Jeff Koons-inspired retail store
in Hangzhou for Peu À Peu, a sports
brand owned by JNBY Group.

Introducing 19
 Dessert bar Chikalicious Taikoo in
Shanghai features a library, whose
wall sculpture is a nod to the art of
Rachel Whiteread.

20 In Practice

Because Shanghai is developing so quickly as
a business hub, there’s also a lot of competi-
tion. In addition to managing our operating
costs, we have to adjust our working pace and
rhythm, and be sharp about the direction in
which we’re headed.
Has the Covid-19 crisis
influenced that direc-
tion in any way?
JW: We’ve had more time to think about
our essence. We’re rethinking how creative
industries can support projects, clients and
team members – and how to align our initial
purposes. We’ve decided to remain a small
team for the foreseeable future rather than
trying to expand quickly, and are focusing on
keeping our curiosity and freshness alive while
potentially branching out into new typologies.
Aside from commercial spaces, we want to
design places that cater for basic needs, such
as schools and medical buildings.
In addition to wanting beautiful
spaces, customers will seek more support. Our
task will be to address how spatial design can
help our clients achieve their business targets,
better attract visitors and deliver messages
efficiently to users. During the outbreak, we’re
asking what, why, if and how: What is the
question? Why do you want to upgrade? If you
can make the improvement, will there be any
benefits to the project? How will we solve the
question and support the clients?
The crisis has also given us a new
perspective on recycling and environmentally
friendly materials. Although more in-depth
research and development is needed to make
such materials stable and manufacturable,
we want them to be an important part of our
future design projects.
How do you think the spatial-
design landscape in China has
evolved over the last ten years?
ML: At the beginning of the decade, the sort
of designs we encountered in domestic media
tended to be very limited – this lack of scope
applied to both the projects we observed and
the discipline as a whole. However, we’ve seen
a surge in visionary Chinese spatial design
in the last few years, and these styles have
become part of a visual vernacular in just a
short period of time. Younger firms have also
emerged, producing diverse and interesting
Introducing
The designers played with
surrealism and the proportions
of bold colours at Chikalicious
Réel in Shanghai.
work. I think the attitudes of the Chinese
market and media have played a huge role in
shaping these changes.
JW: With the growth of the city,
the demand for and needs pertaining to space
have also changed. We find ourselves working
with different priorities: How do we make a
space visually arresting? Generate interactive
experiences? Communicate the narrative of
a brand and allow it to speak for itself?
In your opinion, what are
the most interesting trends
in Chinese spatial design?
ML: Projects these days de-emphasize the
intrinsic qualities of the space, focusing
instead on consumer engagement. I find this
very interesting. We’re also seeing friends
from many other disciplines participate in
creating interiors. This blurring of boundaries
gives us the opportunity to look at projects
from a different perspective. Jessica’s
previous work involved performance art
while mine was more static. When we come
together, our conflicting influences produce
many possibilities. •
sooostudio.com
21
 Tim Adler

22 In Practice
K O N S T A N T I N G R C I C talks
about how his early encounters with
the old made him look towards the
future, what he thinks about being
called the ‘chair man’, and why
predicting the post-Covid landscape
is a form of design process.
As told to Tracey Ingram

What I’ve Learned 23

 Robert Rieger

Grcic calls the chair ‘one of

furniture’s most complicated,
challenging and interesting
typologies’. His stackable seat-
cum-table Stool-Tool for Vitra
(left) and 360° Stool for Magis
are pictured.

24 In Practice
 KONSTANTIN GRCIC: I was raised in Wuppertal, a Ger-
man city shaped by its textile industry. My father was an
immigrant from former Yugoslavia and my mother, Ger-
man. She was much younger than he was, so in a way they
represented two different generations. It was special, these
completely different lives coming together. My father’s
passion was collecting 18th-century drawings, while my
mother was a contemporary art dealer. Antique furniture
from my father’s side lived next to 1970s plastic Italian
furniture. Being exposed to a continuous juxtaposition
of old and new heavily influenced my understanding of
design. I see myself as a designer of today, looking towards
the future, but I always draw on my profound experience
of seeing old and new live perfectly alongside each other.
My sister and I had a happy childhood with lots
of freedom to play outside and build things.
I enjoyed making things and quickly realized
that I was good at it. My mother worked with
contemporary artists and would often take
us with her on studio visits. That was how,
at the age of 12, I found a role model in work
and life being one, even though I was yet to
understand its implications.
After high school I didn’t want to go to university. I wanted
to keep making things, to do work that was practical. And
I was seeking the life of those artists I’d visited, with no
separation between life and work. Building boats was my
dream, an idea that stemmed from childhood play. The
problem was that, at the time, it was impossible for me to
find an apprenticeship with a boat builder in Germany. I
ended up working for an antique furniture restorer, which
wasn’t at all what I wanted to do. But as fate would have
it, it was there that I discovered my passion for furniture.
Working with antiques gave me a deep understanding of
construction and taught me the ability to judge quality.
Not all antique furniture was good, but the pieces that
were really stood out.
One year later, I moved to the southwest of
England to start an apprenticeship at the John
Makepeace School for Craftsmen in Wood.
John Makepeace followed the tradition of the
Arts and Crafts movement, which considered
craftsmen to be creators – or as we called it,
‘designer makers’. Learning how to make
things was fundamental to my understanding
of design, and this attitude still informs a lot
of the work I do today. The school had a small
library where I found two design books, one
on Marcel Breuer and the other on Gerrit
‘If you had to tell the
history of furniture,
you’d tell it through
the chair, not the table’
What I’ve Learned
Rietveld. These two books became my supple-
mentary teachers. A third was an exhibition
catalogue about Achille Castiglioni that my
sister sent me for my 21st birthday.
I’ve always had good instincts about my own pace of devel-
opment and my capacity for what I can – and cannot – do.
After finishing my apprenticeship in 1987, I took a year off
and headed for Spain. Having just emerged from Franco’s
regime, the country had recently been awarded the 1992
Olympic Games and World Expo, which created a huge
economic and creative boost. I arrived in Madrid with a
small suitcase, knowing nobody. I learned Spanish, read
Hemingway and followed bullfighting. And I travelled.
When you’re young in a foreign country, your senses are
open to absorb everything. It was an amazing time – free
and light-hearted in an inspiring environment. And it was
the perfect mental preparation before moving to London
to study design at the Royal College of Art (1988-1990).
There’s a great myth about the RCA: some
consider it the Holy Grail. When I arrived
there, I was quite disillusioned and confused.
I came with certain values in place from my
training as a craftsman. Being thrown into
a melting pot of interesting and talented
creatives from different disciplines brought my
self-confidence crashing down like a house of
cards. My years there weren’t very productive;
I was trying to find balance amid all the input.
Jasper Morrison and Vico Magistretti were
both visiting professors in those years, and
they helped me reinstate a form of belief in
my own way of doing things.
Just before graduating from the RCA, Jasper Morrison
introduced me to Sheridan Coakley, the founder of a small
furniture manufacturer called SCP Ltd. SCP produced
Jasper’s early works and presented them at the Milan fur-
niture fair. Memphis had passed its peak and people were
looking for the next big thing. Jasper became one of the
great protagonists of what followed: a return to industry
and simplicity through production-oriented work. SCP
launched my first two products in Milan in 1991.
That year I moved from London to Munich. I
probably should’ve gone to Berlin: they were
the wild years, just after the wall had come
down, but I wasn’t looking for that kind of life.
I wanted to work. Setting up in Munich was
simple – the city was so much smaller than
London and I could live on a very low budget.
From the day I opened my first office, I called
myself an industrial designer. That’s what I
wanted to communicate to the outside world.
I wanted to design for industry rather than for
private commissions, even though I had no
idea how to find producers that would put their
trust in me. But I took it one step at a time and
one thing led to another. Through SCP I met
Cappellini and through them, Driade. The
art director of the German company Clas-
siCon coincidentally lived around the corner
from my home in Munich. He recognized me
in a local grocery store and invited me for
an interview. From there we established a
beautiful collaboration that boosted my first
ten to twelve years of practice and led to such
designs as the Chaos chair, and the Diana and
Palace tables.»
25
Robert Rieger

26 In Practice
 After spending over a decade
commuting between Munich
and Berlin, Grcic moved his
studio to Berlin in 2018.

What I’ve Learned 27

‘If the size of my workforce
means we have to take on
fewer projects, then that’s
the trade-off’
Authentics, another German company, really changed
how I was perceived as a designer. The company was in the
business of household products, not furniture, made from
plastic injection moulding. The owner, Hansjerg Maier-
Aichen, and I struck up an immediate friendship – in this
small industry, a lot of client relationships are friendships.
Until then I’d always worked in small-scale manufacture,
but Authentics was a gateway into another world, one that
relies on a company’s significant investment in a mould
that can spit out products within seconds. I’d been part of
that generation of 20-somethings that crops up every year
doing small-scale projects. But here I was designing plastic
household items you could buy for 20 Deutschmark,
the equivalent of around 10 euros. Authentics made me
become the industrial designer I’d always aspired to be.
People from the industrial end of the furniture
industry then began to take notice of my
work and approached me. Flos, for one, and
Magis, which I still work with. Muji, too. All
of this happened quite quickly – and naturally
– during the first five years of my practice.
The struggle began once there were more
projects and I had to expand my one-man
operation. My smart, efficient little setup got
complicated. Costs increased. It was a turning
point – something that seems to reoccur every
seven or so years. I’m not a strategic person
but I have an instinct about how I operate
best. I had to recollect my coordinates. I
started to employ a few people and became
more selective about assignments. I’d dabbled
in different fields by this stage – furniture,
products, household appliances and so on. But
I realized my true passion is furniture. I can’t
explain why, other than that’s where my heart
is – still to this day. Even though my office is
working in many other fields, I will always
make furniture.
How do I feel about being called the ‘chair man’? I don’t
agree with it, but I know where it comes from. I guess I
have quite a number of chair projects under my belt. The
chair is one of furniture’s most complicated, challenging
and interesting typologies. It’s a mirror for social and
cultural changes. If you had to tell the history of furniture,
you’d tell it through the chair, not the table. And I guess the
same is true about my own work. The chairs I’ve designed
probably say a lot about me – more so than my other
objects. I think I will always keep on designing them.
There’s no white whale of the chair world for
me. My design process starts with collecting
information and asking questions. I never
have a clear idea of the outcome. I restrain
myself from excessive sketching in the early
28 In Practice
phase of a project, otherwise I’d be drawing a
picture of the whale that I don’t want to see. I
don’t want to get trapped with a preconceived
image of something that doesn’t yet exist.
I moved the office to Berlin a few years ago after spending
over a decade commuting between Munich and Berlin,
where I live with my wife and two children. There are just
five of us in the office, a small team that enables me to be
100 per cent involved in every project. I became a designer
because I want to design projects, not run a business. If
the size of my workforce means we have to take on fewer
projects, then that’s the trade-off.
It’s hard to say this without sounding like a
grandfather, but things really have changed
since I was a young designer. When I started
my own career in the early 1990s, I didn’t
have a business plan; I just followed my
instincts and passion. The world is much more
complicated now for anyone wanting to set up
a studio. Those who do should know it’s going
to be hard work and demand full commit-
ment. Stick to what you want to do, what you
can do and what you’re good at – all while
expanding your experience and knowledge.
There are so many people out there working
in design that if you want to make it on your
own, authenticity is a key asset. That said, I
don’t think that setting up a studio should be
the goal anymore. Nowadays designers can get
work in many other ways. For example, you
can have a career trajectory working in open
networks and wearing two or three hats.
What would I be doing right now if Covid-19 hadn’t taken
hold? I’d have just returned from Milan, where I’ve been
every year since my days at the RCA. Most of my products
are released during the Salone. It’s tragic that it couldn’t
happen this year, but I’m not sentimental about it. It was
absolutely necessary to cancel the fair this year and maybe
a break is good. I’m curious to see what comes out next
year, since there was extra time in a way.
The crisis has affected all of my clients, many
of which are based in northern Italy. Right
now they are in reactive mode, keeping their
businesses running rather than thinking about
future projects. In life before the pandemic,
we would have relished any time off to do
things we can never seem to fit in. Now the
standstill is enforced on us. Yes, there’s an
opportunity here, but it also feels uneasy and
eerie. This is our current reality, though, and
designers are always dealing with reality.
Predicting the coming months and years is
a form of design process, collecting as much
information as possible and playing through
various scenarios. At this point nobody really
knows what is going to happen and what types
of products the market will need. We are
about to enter a longer phase of prototyping,
figuring out what works and what doesn’t.
What resources will be available? How will
this situation change the landscape and what
will simply continue functioning? Even though
the world will still be a global economy after
the pandemic, now, more than ever, we need
•
to rethink the supply chain.
konstantin-grcic.com
Robert Rieger

Even though his studio’s work covers

exhibition design and architectural
collaborations, Grcic says that he
‘will always make furniture’.

KONSTANTIN GRCIC
1965 Born in Munich 1985-87 Attends John Makepeace School in the UK 1988-90 Attends Royal College
of Art in London 1990-91 Works as assistant to Jasper Morrison 1991 Founds Konstantin Grcic Industrial
Design in Munich 1999 Wins numerous awards for the Mayday lamp for Flos 2002 Gains international
recognition with Chair_One for Magis 2007 Publishes monograph Konstantin Grcic Industrial Design with
Phaidon 2012 Designs the exhibition in the German pavilion for the Architecture Biennale in Venice 2014
Presents monographic exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum in Germany 2018 Moves Konstantin Grcic
Industrial Design to Berlin

What I’ve Learned 29

Having spent the last 20 years
traversing the globe, Australian artist
and director A N I T A F O N T A I N E
has landed in New Zealand, from
where she discusses her work in
emerging technologies, the link
between wellness and VR, and why
spaces should have sentience.
Words Tracey Ingram
Portrait Virginia Woods-Jack

Influencer 31
After Anita Fontaine studied fine art photography in Australia, her interests
diverged into video games. ‘I was obsessed with what felt like the ultimate
medium for all these textures and assets I was generating,’ she says. She
pictured someone walking around in these virtual environments, exploring
her imagined spaces, surfaces, textiles and photographs. Environments
that offered infinite possibilities. Schooling in the world of video games
ensued, as did tech-related art residencies. Through her art practice she
met Geoffrey Lillemon, who became her long-time creative collaborator.
Until 2014 they operated under the alias Champagne Valentine to create ‘art
for brands’, with an emphasis on using emerging technologies. Now based in
New Zealand, Fontaine has founded future labs in the advertising industry,
worked for start-up incubators in San Francisco, and directed films across
the globe. Her underlying philosophy? ‘Creating things that enhance reality
and experiences that people haven’t seen before.’ And, ultimately, shifting
our collective consciousness.

You have a rich and varied
educational and work
background. How has it
shaped what you do?
ANITA FONTAINE: My work involves spatial
design, so it was like I was preparing for that
moment, a few years ago, when VR emerged
on the scene in a bigger way. That point
coincided with my return to Amsterdam
from the US. Geoff [Lillemon] was feeling
the same thing: the moment is now. While
running Champagne Valentine we inhabited
the edge of what was possible technically, so
it seemed on point to think about a future-lab
concept. We talked to Wieden+Kennedy, and
they were excited about the idea. It didn’t
become The Department of New Realities
[DPTNR] until a few months in. I don’t fit
into traditional advertising at all, but I do
understand it. I’m always trying to push for
the non-conventional. With the Depart-
ment, we were trying to alter advertising
and creative landscapes, and to give people
hyper-sensorial experiences that they’ve
never had before.
The advertising industry’s
take on the experience
economy, you might say?
Advertisers have tried everything and tradi-
tional media methods are getting tired. Peo-
ple are craving experiences because they’re
more valuable than buying something.
There’s a growing desire to make physical
spaces smart and surprising. I’m not talking
about Alexa, but about something deeper and
reactive – maybe even living and breathing.
About layering smart technologies in a cool
way. Integrating theatre and sound. Creating
art installations or tools that are culturally
relevant. Technology can really be utilized to
heighten emotional states or enhance your
reality. It’s such a powerful medium in the
right hands. Instead of headsets being used as
a gimmick, could they add layers of wellness
and actually improve your inner landscape?
You mention wellness
and the senses, key fac-
tors in your work.
People are focusing more and more on
wellness. How can we build spaces that
benefit us? I don’t think the answer would be
anything to do with how many LED screens
can fit in a room. We’re becoming more
sensitive and delicate with technology. And I
don’t think technology is a bad word, by the
way. It can add a lot of sensorial beauty to
any situation. The haptics around technol-
ogy are just as important. The theatre, the
sculpture, the installations: they need to feel
raw and slightly imperfect, something to take
technology out of a cold digital space and into
something warm you want to touch. My mind
is full of weird ideas: pods, for example, that
could change their inhabitants’ conscious-
ness. Shifting people’s perspective so they
have a positive, anxiety-reducing experience:
that’s a goal I want to work towards. Spaces
that affect people deeply, with the kind of
intensity you’d get from a cinematic experi-
ence. Relating the work I’ve done with VR
– the control you have with it – back to the
real space is really interesting to me.
Are you mainly talking about
dedicated wellness spaces,
or incorporating wellness
into all types of spaces?
Particularly in cities, there’s a gravitation
towards less frenetic spaces that give us
peace of mind. But spa culture is blowing up
as well, and plenty is happening in the future
beauty scene. One idea we were working on
at DPTNR was a beauty spa for avatars. The
theory was that in the near future we’ll have a
physical self and a digital self that might need
updates or a day at the spa. Actually, I think
this might already be happening on some
level with Instagram face filters.
My work centres on speculative
fiction. If I don’t try to define the future, then
someone else will. Even though some of it
might feel like science fiction, I have to start
somewhere.
What about a more concrete
project that conveys your ideas
about speculative fiction and
multisensorial experiences?
Paraíso Secreto for Corona is a good
example. We at DPTNR had a problem to
solve: to give the people of Mexico City the
feeling of being outdoors in a built-up urban
environment. We curated every detail of the
theatrical journey, from the set design to the
experience inside VR. You had to find a gold
coin to access a world behind a secret door,
where you were fitted with an untethered VR
headset that allowed you to walk through a
physical construction of paradise. You could
reach out and physically touch whatever »

32 In Practice
 A project for beer brand Corona, Paraíso
Secreto combined a VR experience with
a physical set design to give the people of
Mexico City the feeling of being outdoors
in a built-up urban environment.

Influencer 33
To ensure there was a shared
experience surrounding Bitmap
Banshees, a dystopian VR survival
game installation, Fontaine x The
Department of New Realities
(DPTNR) outfitted a physical bike
as the interface for the game,
‘turning players into performers’.

34 In Practice
Fontaine x DPTNR reimagined a classic
children’s fairy tale in VR, presenting
the result – Senseless Fairytale – at the
Cinekid film and digital media festival.

‘Instead of headsets
being used as a
gimmick, could they
add layers of wellness
and actually improve
your inner landscape?’

Influencer 35
 3D animation Julien Simshauser / Builders Club

TOP For part of MTV’s 2016 worldwide

campaign, Fontaine created an ident that
imagined a doomsday scenario in LA, where
‘inhabitants split their days between VR and
an eco-apocalyptic nightmare’. Adorned
in niqābs equipped with oxygen filtration,
figures fly seamlessly through the multiverse
in consciousness-altering meditation pods.

BOTTOM Fontaine recently directed a film

for environmentally friendly footwear brand
Allbirds, signalling her shift towards ‘creating
conscious content and experiences’.

36 In Practice
‘If I don’t try to define the
future, then someone else will’
you saw in VR – plants and rocks, for instance.
You could smell nature, feel the wind in your
hair. By the end of the journey you arrived to
watch the sunset at a beach, a room we filled
with sand and beautiful light installations. The
set design helped to trick the brain into think-
ing it was in a natural environment, and people
responded really positively. It wasn’t that we
were trying to replace nature with this project;
we wanted people to be reminded of it. In the
lead-up to Paraíso Secreto we encountered
a lot of research, especially in therapeutic
realms, that suggested nature in VR is better
than no nature at all.
If you’re the only one using a
VR device, there’s a strange
interaction between you,
the user, and the others
around you. You’re the
performer, even if you don’t
realize it because you’re
in your own world . . .
Exactly, and that was something we explored
at DPTNR with our VR game installation
Bitmap Banshees. Players could cycle through
the streets of a dystopian, psychedelic future
version of Amsterdam being chased by
banshees, all inside a VR headset. We knew
there was going to be an influx of people
on the evening it launched, and wanted to
give a sense of a shared experience, so we
deliberately outfitted a physical bike as the
interface for the game, turning players into
performers. We also created collectables like
prints, patches and scarves for keepsakes.
It’s important to be thoughtful about making
single-player VR experiences inclusive so that
onlookers don’t feel isolated. But soon we
might all be connected inside the multiverse
multiplayer style.
When would you choose
to use AR over VR?
If your reality sucks – you’re sandwiched
between people on an aeroplane, for
instance – it’s so much better to be in VR! But
if you’re sitting on a beach, then AR is much
better. Then you’re just enhancing what’s
around you. These technologies are a bit
like shamanic tools though – we shouldn’t
be using them lightly. Who knows what they
might be invoking?
Do you have a recent exam-
ple of a project for which
AR was the perfect fit?
I am currently creating an augmented
reality boat tour, which was meant to go live
in Liverpool this May until these unforeseen
circumstances arose. It will hopefully
launch in early 2021. The ferry system there
is 800 years old, and the client offered up
the ferry as a platform to disrupt the tourist
route and commute using art and technol-
ogy. The experience blends theatre, sound
and set design with AR portal sculptures
that point outwards as the ferry travels its
course. It’s kind of wild. The story is a pro-
topian fairy tale set 150 years in the future.
We’ve overcome climate disasters, resur-
rected humanity and we’re back to wor-
shipping esoteric earth elements. I played
with the guided tour format, rewriting the
script for someone of that time. But there’s
also a completely new narrative layer – the
augmentation of the landscape and environ-
ment around you. I’m pulling together a
diverse collective for the project – writers,
animators, musicians, sculptors and crea-
tive technologists. It’s a really international
project in that sense. Quite good practice
for our new reality of collaborating from our
independent bubbles.
You’re still working
internationally from New
Zealand, but has your
new home base sparked
any specific new ideas?
I’m so inspired by the landscapes, yet just as
concerned with the state of the environment
and expanding collective eco-anxiety. I love
the excitement around sustainability and
innovation here and feel like I’m in the right
place at the right time. I’ve just finished
directing a film for Allbirds to launch its
first performance shoe, which could really
disrupt the oil-oriented shoe market. My
new focus is on creating conscious content
and experiences. That means I’m working
more with international clients who have
similar ethics.
I’m also incubating a project
that it’s too soon to say much about: a new
concept called The Enlightenment Club.
Something to do with silence, technology,
meditation – potentially connected to
hot springs. The idea has felt even more
relevant in relation to the coronavirus crisis.
Every day I meditate with people in Califor-
nia. We sit in silence, but it’s so powerful to
know that someone is sharing this moment.
I feel The Enlightenment Club has the
potential to connect people like that through
space and time.
Influencer
How else has the Covid-19
situation impacted your
view of technology?
I’m ready for the New World Order. Not in
the creepy surveillance way, but I’m hoping
that certain things will break down and be
rebuilt more effectively. That the suffering
involved will open people’s hearts to what’s
going on, what people have been ignoring
ecologically and in the realms of healthcare
and our general way of life. People tend to
think technology can solve anything but,
in this instance, I think we need to put our
phones down. Zoom is making people crazy!
I envision a solution to connecting us all that
feels healthy, fun and almost organic – but
we also have to make sure our privacy is pro-
tected, which is a big issue at the moment.
What about the pandemic’s
impact on brick-and-
mortar spaces? And how
does technology fit in there?
I think these spaces could go two ways –
either becoming places of anti-technology
or futuristic living and breathing entities. Or
a blend of the two. Since we’re only really
on the cusp of thinking about this – tapping
into all the senses – more R&D needs to be
done. It might be about connecting with good
brands that offer opportunities to expand
these ideas.
What’s happening around us cur-
rently, I feel, will impact consumer behaviour
and how we want to inhabit the world. As a
human race we’ve been rebriefed to what
advertising, consumer and retail design could
even mean in this new context. I really hope
humans don’t flip back, and simply rush out
to get the latest pair of sneakers. I actually
saw a post about sneakerheads lining up the
day before lockdown and felt quite ill.
I wonder whether retail installa-
tions will become more like gardens – more
calming, more about giving consumers the
tools to heighten their consciousness. Like
my protopian experience for the Liverpool
ferry, what if retail environments recalled
earthly essences? What if architects, Noses
and creative technologists combined forces to
embed spatial design with sensorial, organic
and smart tech? When people feel ready to
shop again, they will have emerged from a
period of consuming less. They’ll be craving
artful – maybe even healing – realities that
draw them in. •
anitafontaine.com
37
 Jeroen Verrecht
Fosbury & Sons’ second location, in
Brussels, respects the heritage of its
monolithic modernist building by post-
war architect Constantin Brodzki.

38 In Practice
Together with Serge Hannecart, Stijn
Geeraets (left) and Maarten Van Gool
started Fosbury & Sons in 2016.

Beeldhouwers

Stijn Geeraets and Maarten Van Gool,

cofounders of Belgian co-working
company F O S B U R Y & S O N S ,
discuss their service-led and people-
centric brand, what a valuable work-
life environment should look like
today, and why it’s more important
than ever for workspaces to support
business flexibility.
As told to Floor Kuitert
The Client 39
It was a combination of frustration with existing office
offerings, and inspiration from the service-led hospitality
industry that urged Stijn Geeraets, Maarten Van Gool and
Serge Hannecart to start Fosbury & Sons in 2016. They
were amazed by the fact that most workspaces, unlike
hotels and restaurants, don’t look anything like a place that
you would actually want to spend time in. And, in terms of
adopting progress, they often lag behind their users. ‘The
majority of offices still look the same as they did 50 years
ago – bland and monotonous – but the needs of today’s
generations are vastly different,’ says Geeraets. ‘What we
are seeing is a hunger for more autonomy, fulfilment and
synergy, coming from everyone – whether that be a team
of lawyers, a web-design firm or a group of employees of a
big corporation. With Fosbury & Sons our goal is to provide
a professional workplace including useful services that
enhance the quality of life – not just work.’
Building habit-ats
MAARTEN VAN GOOL: There’s this phenomenon of
global nomads – people that are constantly on the go and
work wherever they happen to land. I might know one per-
son who actually lives like that. Most people are creatures
of habit and follow a daily routine. Work is part of that. Our
job is to make that routine as pleasant as possible. So, we
aim to make our members feel at home – quite literally.
STIJN GEERAETS: We build habitats. If
you can tune into certain habits, create a space that feels
familiar, people feel much more at ease. Within our
co-working spaces, we make very ‘human’ environments
that feel natural, intrinsic and not overdesigned – with
some imperfections – just like people. We tear down walls
between companies and people, creating a very fertile
platform where collaborations occur every day: in the end,
that is exactly what makes people happy – connection.
Unburdening businesses
SG: We’re seeing a tendency towards products becoming
a service. I don’t want to buy or own a car, what I want is
flexible mobility. I’m not interested in buying a lamp – I
want my building to be illuminated when it needs to be.
So a company like Philips doesn’t sell lamps, it sells light.
We approach the office in a similar way. We see the office
as a total service, where companies don’t have to think
about refilling coffee beans or toilet paper. It may sound
contradictory to what we do, but companies don’t need an
office as such. What they need is a strong workforce and the
ability to focus fully on their core business, rather than on
side issues. So an office is not an end in itself, it is a means.
And focus is the new luxury.
The pros of being porous
SG: Accessibility is important to us. And not just for our
members, but for the direct environment, too. I’ve worked
for companies that are completely sealed off. To enter, you
have to hand over your passport and manoeuvre through
secured revolving doors. At Fosbury & Sons, we want you
to be able to have lunch with your family, or welcome a
40
friend for a drink. External companies can rent a meeting
room and our events programme is open to the public. We
strive to become anchored in the direct environment, in the
local culture. That’s also why we like our teams to consist
of locals. I always say it’s a lot easier to solve a problem –
should it occur – if you know your neighbours.
Work and wellbeing
SG: The impact of an environment on your wellbeing is
huge. And, it is scientifically proven that a pleasant work
environment has a positive impact on employee productiv-
ity and creativity. Feeling good in a space helps you get into
a state of mind that activates an increase in your ability to
solve problems – in the world of mindfulness it’s called the
alpha level. In stressful situations, instinct takes over and
creativity vanishes. Neuroscientists have made a correla-
tion between an increase of alpha brain waves – either
through electrical stimulation or mindfulness and medita-
tion – and the ability to reduce symptoms of depression
and increase creative thinking. A crucial feature is live
greenery, proven to increase cognition by 26 per cent and
decrease absences due to sickness by 30 per cent. Which is
why plants play an important role in our interiors. Employ-
ers – so our members, too – would rather invest in preven-
tion than in healing.
Going East, repeatedly
SG: We have worked with architecture practice Going East
on all five of our current locations. I believe it took them
four A3 sheets with pencil sketches to convince us. The
pages just breathed our brief, which was quite simple: to
create a home for work, not an office. I still remember the
studio’s cofounder Michiel [Mertens] entering our building
in Brussels. He came straight from his atelier – at least he
looked like it, judging by the state of his hands. That’s exactly
what attracted us: that hands-on approach. We were working
with another architecture agency back then as well and there
was a big contrast between their rigidity and the homeliness
evoked by Going East.
MVG: We’re not married to one architecture
practice, however. We’re always looking for new studios that
fit our vision. For our upcoming The Hague venue, we will be
working with Kraaijvanger Architects.
From architecture to interior
SG: Architecture and design are embedded in our DNA and
our co-working spaces reflect that. They are mostly housed
in monumental buildings. For us, selecting new venues is
based on a combination of gut feeling and area informa-
tion. When deciding where to set up shop next, we gather
social-geographic information about cities, but trust our
intuition, too. We also feel there is a certain sustainability
and relevancy that comes with iconic architecture. If we
come across a 40-year-old building that still feels relevant
today, we trust it will still be relevant in another 40 years.
It’s that timeliness that we value. We have the ability to see
the aesthetics of an older building, where other developers
might only see financial burdens. »
In Practice
Francisco Noguiera
When the coronavirus crisis
arrived, Fosbury & Sons came up
with a programme called Relay to
reflect the need for a new balance
between social contact, safety,
flexibility and working from home
and in the office. For example, at its
Amsterdam Prinsengracht location
(pictured), private suites are now
bookable for a workday.

The Client 41
Frederik Vercruysse

In Practice
42
Architecture studio Going East gave a
Brazil-meets-Wall-Street atmosphere
to Fosbury & Sons Albert, a project at
the heart of Brussels’ business district.
MVG: The buildings’ stories really inform our interior
designs. They are the starting point for the design process,
in which we essentially declutter buildings to unveil
their beauty. Take Polish-Belgian architect Constantin
Brodzki’s modernist landmark in Watermael-Boitsfort,
which is the only Benelux building in MoMA’s collection
by the way. It houses one of our locations in Brussels.
At the beginning of the project, we met with Mr Brodzki
at his home, which is nearby. He is 95 years old, but
nevertheless he passionately gave us his vision about
the building. It is a very technical building, everything is
thought through. Every detail is very well designed, with a
keen eye for simplicity. It all looks so logical, but design-
ing something that evokes such simplicity is actually
extremely difficult. The new things that were added are
slightly different interpretations of the same material. For
instance, we were inspired by the rough concrete walls
and used the same concrete, but in a smoother finish.
Ever-evolving environments
SG: I’m a trained product designer myself and our in-
house team collaborates very closely with the architects
behind Going East. Every Friday afternoon we meet to
discuss the details of ongoing projects. And we have a
WhatsApp group in which we share photos of second-
hand finds and auction treasures all the time. Throughout
our locations, these finds are combined with contem-
porary objects and unique design pieces. At Alfons, our
second location in Brussels, we have furniture pieces from
the likes of Atelier Van Lieshout, Valerie Objects, Nor11,
Vitra and Ru, for example. And we are in close contact
with local galleries for works of art.
MVG: Our spaces are in a constant evolu-
tion, so our interiors are too. New needs and new envi-
ronmental factors – a pandemic, for instance, to name
an extreme – require constant change. You shouldn’t
just embrace and anticipate evolution, but pursue it.
If it stops, you have a problem.
Expanding to Amsterdam, and beyond
MVG: Scale is necessary to create an impact. We believe
our approach to work environments is relevant on an inter-
national level, so we’re looking beyond our home country
as well. Making the move to the Netherlands was a logical
one. It’s our neighbouring country and we speak the same
language, which is at least one barrier less to overcome.
And when the option of the property – a canal-side hospital
that dates back to 1845 – came up, we simply couldn’t pass
on the opportunity. We do have a different position in
Holland compared with our home base. In Belgium, we are
a true innovator. On the Dutch market, and specifically in
the leading business hub that’s Amsterdam, the concept of
serviced offices is better known. The city is home to a lot of
international companies that are familiar with the benefits
that co-working providers have to offer. Co-working is still
The Client
often associated with small start-ups and self-employed
individuals, but we essentially offer flexible space – in a
bundle of private offices and shared areas. The realiza-
tion that such venues are a very suitable solution for large
companies and internationals in constant flux is growing,
as reflected in many cities, including Amsterdam.
Post-pandemic prosperity
MVG: The Covid-19 crisis not only affects the way we are
working now, but will affect it beyond that, too. Urged by
local governments, the majority of people have started
working from home. CEOs and decision makers, in turn,
are facing a lot of uncertainty about how to keep their busi-
nesses going. In the meantime, they need to be thinking
about how their future workspace will look – how it will
guarantee safety and productivity for their employees.
This means they must question their office space. Today,
companies are being forced to be flexible, fast and resilient,
and they have the responsibility to make their real estate
strategy answer this new situation. If the world can change
completely within one month, as evidenced by the corona-
virus crisis, signing a long-term agreement is by no means a
comfortable decision. More and more people will question
the added value of the traditional office. It’s an enormous
job to make sure all regulations are followed in an office
space. Guaranteeing social distance in workspaces, for
example, is an added challenge. A plausible revolution will
be that companies will need to put teams back in private
spaces, which will require extra space. Most companies
have consistently reduced the number of square metres
they make available per employee or workstation in recent
years by means of landscape or open-plan office design.
This will not work in the post-corona era, where a physical
distance of 1.5 m will be the norm. Places for co-working
should no longer offer density, either, but rather clustered
work areas and serviced offices.
At the same time, travelling by public
transport will not immediately be seen as safe and
comfortable. This introduces the possibility for compa-
nies to decentralize teams from their HQ and position
them per city, giving their employees the option to work
together in private suites in a serviced office. In addition,
if companies realize teleworking can be part of a weekly
work routine, it will also impact the workspaces they
need. In short: companies need the ability to downsize
and expand. And that’s what we have to offer. The way
people work ostensibly upended overnight and we see
big opportunities there. We believe that, ultimately, this
situation will give co-working and serviced offices a boost
– even elevating them to the new normal. •
fosburyandsons.com
43
 Aerial photography by Tom Hegen adds
a visual layer to the intimate stories
and memories shared by Axor’s design
partners in the brand’s latest campaign.

memory
serves
Though the eyes of its design partners and craftspeople,
Axor shows that luxury today is about experience and
individualization – not products.

Words The Frame Team

44
Andreas Diefenbach dreams up a freezing
cold landscape full of adventure inspired by
his uncle’s stories about Siberia’s Lake Baikal.
Antonio Citterio associates Switzerland’s
magical Engadine Valley with family time.
Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby reminisce
about a small Victorian stone dwelling
overlooking the stormy Irish Sea, where they
retreated while studying at the Royal College
of Art. Jean-Marie Massaud recollects his
marriage proposal near a meditative temple
amid a rainswept rural Japanese forest. And
Philippe Starck commemorates the vitality of
water on earth, a.k.a. the blue planet. These
very personal memories – which offer insights
into the imaginations and experiences of
world-renowned designers – are part of a
new campaign launched by Axor. But why
has the German manufacturer of faucets,
showerheads and accessories for luxurious
bathrooms and kitchens decided to share such
intimate stories? ‘It felt natural to take a step
back together with our design partners and
reflect on what luxury means for us today,’
says Anke Sohn, the brand’s head of market-
ing. ‘We find ourselves in a very aesthetically
driven – and oftentimes superficial – industry.
But we have so many stories to tell, start-
ing with those of our long-standing design
partners. And we strongly feel that luxury is
no longer just about objects, but rather about
travel experiences and personal encounters
– the more intangible things. I’m perfectly
aware that I’m speaking as someone in a
marketing role at a design brand in the luxury
industry, but it’s more important than ever
that we consider such shifts in perception.’
Through its Axor Places
campaign, the brand takes its clients on a
journey to the locations – whether real or
partly imagined – that serve as the material
inspirations for its creative comrades. By
doing so, Axor taps into the growing need for
transparency and individualization – through
Axor x Frame
not only its communication but its product
range, too. ‘We believe that designer bath-
room fixtures and accessories in the luxury
segment shouldn’t come out of a 3D printer,
whereby anonymity hits the print button and
voilà, there’s your digitally designed faucet,’
says Sohn. ‘For us, material origins, design
processes and craftspeople’s stories make
a product. Being able to tell our customers
about the origins of a wooden detail – where
it’s crafted to perfection and by whom – is
what luxury is about today.’
The importance Axor attaches to
customization becomes evident in the Axor
MyEdition faucet collection, which offers
maximum freedom in the choice of material-
ity for the mounting plate. ‘Inspired by the
recollection of a certain encounter, a mood,
an adventure, a “place of memory”, we trans-
port a certain material that is reminiscent of
that place into the here and now. Thus, a piece
of the world materializes in the appearance »
45
of the individual faucet,’ says Sohn. This
bespoke approach, she explains, is becoming
more and more important in the bathroom
space. ‘Personalization goes beyond the
kitchen, the living room or the bedroom. It has
also arrived in the bathroom – the room we
spend a great portion of our time in, a place of
rituals. Why not customize it to make it truly
“our place”?’ Sohn sees a growing demand
among interior architects, too, for customiza-
tion options. ‘Interior architects planning a
bathroom in the luxury segment today want
maximum freedom of choice. This pertains in
particular to materials and colours, but also to
length and height adaptations, logo modifica-
tions and so on. For this, we have always had
our Axor Signature Services department. If
the customer wants a complete bathroom in
black marble, it’s a great feeling to be able to
offer fixtures that integrate black marble to
complete the picture.’
Besides sharing the stories of its
design partners and the origins of materials,
Axor wanted to communicate the journey of
a material’s conversion, too. Which is why
the Axor Places campaign is complemented
with portraits of craftspeople, from a master
upholsterer to a stonemason. The images
evoke the spirit of artisan manufacturing
and portray the value of skilled experts. And,
46
importantly, they add another layer of brand
transparency, which consumers today con-
sider a requirement, not a bonus. ‘It’s similar
to the transformation in the food industry,’
says Sohn. ‘Don’t we all feel better if we know
where the milk we drink in the mornings
comes from? I live in the Black Forest, where
the conversion process is transparent: the
milk we drink comes from the farmer’s cows
next door. We follow the same logic with our
bathroom fixtures. We are fortunate enough
to have our suppliers near our headquarters
in the Black Forest. We documented their
work because we know that selling products
today is very different to selling products 20
to 30 years ago. Today, we as consumers tend
to buy products with a story. It makes us feel
closer to the product.’
A third level of the campaign
revolves around Places to Be: hotels in
which interior designers have realized their
individual spatial interpretations using
Axor products. ‘I think we are all longing
for a time when travel – something we all
took for granted – will become part of our
normal routine again. Our Places to Be are
not only meant as a source of inspiration for
our customers for life after Covid-19, but are
also a symbol for luxury today: experiences,
togetherness, time away.’
Axor x Frame
Axor Spaces, which now lives online, was set
to take physical shape across touchpoints at
the Salone del Mobile in Milan and Clerk-
enwell Design Week, but the coronavirus
pandemic threw a spanner in the works. At
the same time, the crisis may have reinforced
the message. ‘Because of Covid-19 we were
all forced to pause and reflect on what is
really important in life,’ says Sohn. ‘I don’t
think people are currently contemplating
which luxury car to buy next. I think they are
genuinely looking forward to sharing a nice
meal with friends at their neighbourhood
Italian restaurant. And again, I’m fully aware
I’m saying this as someone whose job it is to
sell luxury products. But that’s exactly the
point of this campaign: the goal is not to sell a
product; the goal is to think about the origins
of design, materials and products. We need
to really learn to treasure and value what we
buy. Maybe we will even contribute to divert-
ing consumer behaviour away from mass
consumption towards a more sustainable and
conscious model. That would be ideal.’ •
axor-design.com/places
To communicate the journey of a
material’s conversion, in addition
to its origin, Axor shot portraits
of craftspeople, from a master
upholsterer to a stonemason and
carpenter.
The importance Axor attaches to
customization becomes evident in
the Axor MyEdition faucet collection,
which offers maximum freedom
in the choice of materiality for the
mounting plate.

‘Being able to tell our

customers about the origins
of a material detail – where
it’s crafted and by whom – is
what luxury is about today’
47
Xia Zhi, courtesy of B.L.U.E. Architecture
spaces

050 Restaurants turn out the lights 084 Shopping

malls metamorphose 090 Reshaping dining for
deliveries
 Shao Feng
Morph restaurant by Various
Associates in Shenzhen, China.

50 Spaces
hospitality noir
Kenta Hasegawa

Sushi Yoshii restaurant by DDAA

in Tokyo, Japan.

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 hospitality spaces are starting to reference the
enigmatic atmosphere of clandestine environments.

Words Rosamund Picton and Kourosh Newman-Zand

Look Book 51
In the era of social media spectacle, interiors have
become theatres for publicity, implicitly optimized for
content capture and screen-based appraisal. However,
accelerated by newly established lockdown etiquette,
Instagram-friendly design appears to be entering
its denouement. Nascent signals of the experience
economy-driven switch to ‘privacy mode’ can be read
in dark hospitality spaces, where daylight exposure is
replaced by the mystery of nocturnal shadow, and deep
intimacy is offered as respite from shallow conspicuity.
A veil of secrecy enshrouds hospitality
enclaves, shielding the activity within. As
a means of hiding in plain sight, building
façades adopt subtle strategies of deflection,
distortion and disguise. The dull glow of
waxed concrete and bronze exteriors, tinted
mirror windows and stained timber cladding
evoke the elemental stillness of nature amid
the chaos of the city. Surface homogeneity
is broken only by modest entrances, whose
concealed doorways adorned with humble
noren curtains seduce visitors with the
promise of forbidden pleasures.
Beyond the threshold, narrow passageways illuminated
by lantern-like spherical lights and brass wall sconces are
reminiscent of underground mining tunnels, dedicated
to ferrying visitors towards the brutalist density and
cavernous proportions of covert dining and dwelling
areas. Within, charcoal slate, mossy-green marble and
pitted plaster deepen the evocation of a darkly sublime
landscape, swathed in mystery.
Reflecting an inward world, subterranean
environments encourage retreat from the
regular rhythm of daily life. Displacing
the need for explicit forms of wayfinding,
majestic metal trusses, linen screens and
boxy mesh columns layer sightlines and
divide expansive cavities into understated
antechambers. Demarcated with low-set
velvet banquettes and high-sided concrete
pews, these discretional zones are tacitly
52 Spaces
intended for clandestine meetings or quiet
personal repose.
Like a Faraday cage, dark hospitality bunkers isolate
guests from signals of outside experience, suspending
their consciousness of time and climate. Steel lamellas,
clerestory windows and glazed skylights punctuate
walls and ceilings with diffuse illumination, dulling
interior contours and effecting an illusion of figures
wandering through mist. The ambient hubbub of
activity and conversation present in public spaces is
absorbed by muted matte, near-black hues and woven
earthenware feature walls. Austerity of light and sound
experienced in the monastic silence of these shadowed
cloisters induces heightened sensations of spiritual
serenity, offering patrons the refreshed dignity of a life
liberated from scrutiny and spectacle.
Away from the perpetual stimulation
of ‘always on’ social media, guests can
direct their attention towards slower,
more assiduous expressions of visual
culture. Decorative details, from ethereal
embroidered screens to ornamental grasses
and dried botanicals, echo the veneration of
nature and creative sincerity associated with
the Arts and Crafts movement. Reference to
early experimentations with photography are
also present. Convex lenses act as peepholes,
offering passers-by a sneak peek inside and
illuminating a repast as though it were a still
life. Elsewhere, pinholes afford occupiers the
experience of being inside a camera obscura
through the projection of outside scenes onto
an opposite wall.
Dark hospitality addresses latent anxiety about the
ephemerality and staged superficiality of contemporary
restaurant and bar design. Primordial motifs signal
rejection of technology in favour of regression into
the warm embrace of our archetypal dwelling place,
the womb. Visitors emerge reborn, nourished by the
opportunity for private retreat and reflection.•
axis-mundi.co
Haochang Cao Chuan’s Kitchen II by Infinity Mind
in Guangzhou, China.

Look Book 53
 César Béjar
Tori Tori Santa Fe restaurant by
Esrawe Studio in Mexico City, Mexico.

54 Spaces
David Zarzoso

Merkato restaurant by Francesc

Rifé Studio in Valencia, Spain.

Look Book 55
Irumando Coffee by Senbunnoichi
in Tokyo, Japan.
Miho Urushido
 Riikka Kantinkoski
Bardem bar by Fyra in
Helsinki, Finland.

Shao Feng

ABOVE AND OPPOSITE Voisin

Organique restaurant by Various
Associates in Shenzhen, China.

58 Spaces
Look Book 59
 Daisuke Shima

Nôl restaurant by Case-Real

in Tokyo, Japan.

60 Spaces
Studio Off / Yongjoon Choi

Obaltan Forest Park restaurant by

INTOEX in Seoul, South Korea.

Look Book 61
 Shao Feng

Morph restaurant by Various

Associates in Shenzhen, China.

62 Spaces
COLOUR The combination of
mossy greens and muted matte,
near-black hues evokes a darkly
sublime landscape, swathed in
mystery. Charcoal and anthracite
tones reference firing processes,
while sand shades amplify serene
atmospheres. The monochromatic
palette is broken up by the
occasional accent inspired by the
colours of the Forbidden City: red,
blue, black, yellow and gold.

MATERIAL Dark-toned slate,

marble, terracotta and metals
meet concrete surfaces and
stained woods – from holm oak
to solid pine. Small components
made of brass, or finished with
gold and bronze foils, add a
majestic touch, while low-set velvet
banquettes enhance the feeling
of intimacy. Black earthenware
and mined soil materials, in turn,
add a natural note.

FORM In- and exteriors adopt

subtle strategies of deflection,
distortion and disguise.
Brutalist density and cavernous
proportions define covert
dining and dwelling areas, while
lamellas, columns, screens and
trusses divide expansive cavities
into understated antechambers.
Walls are swathed in low-reliefs
and tile latticework.

LIGHT Daylight exposure is

replaced by the mystery of
nocturnal shadow. Diffuse
illumination radiated through
glazed skylights blurs interior
contours while lantern-like
spherical lamps and wall sconces
guide visitors through seemingly
misty passageways. Rays
seep from under furniture and
separation walls to zero in on
surfaces, while occasional bright
beacons highlight exit routes.

Look Book 63
c o n n e c t /d i v i d e
As more and more families are sharing the load through shared living,
designers can look to Japan’s nisetai jutaku – or ‘multifamily homes’
– for spatial arrangements that support social and solo time. Nendo’s
Stairway House in Japan highlights how one spatial element can act as
a literal and metaphorical bridge between generations.
TOKYO Multigenerational living is already
popular in Japan, a country with one of the
world’s oldest populations (over a quarter of
its inhabitants are aged 65 or above). And
with home ownership becoming increasingly
unattainable in many parts of the world and
an aging global population at risk of social
isolation, the trend is likely to take off in other
areas. BETA’s Three Generation House in
Amsterdam, for instance – which was nomi-
nated in the Innovation category of this year’s
Frame Awards – restores the grandparents-
children-grandchildren configuration common
to the Netherlands until the Second World
War. Rather than deem vertical circulation
strictly functional by hiding a stairwell away in
the recesses of the building, the architects at
BETA made it a central, sculptural feature.
Having a head start, Japan can
offer some inspiration for those in locations
less familiar with the concept. Like BETA, the
architects at Nendo worked with stairs in a
recent multigenerational living project – albeit
in a very different way. Yes, Nendo may have
also favoured sculpture over function – but so
much so that the latter is almost irrelevant.
The two-family home in one of Tokyo’s quieter
residential zones is built around a flight of
steps that aren’t actually for scaling. The iconic
centrepiece begins in the garden and pierces
the external membrane before continuing
through the interior. Its tread and rise become
ever impossible until it reaches the skylight,
64 Spaces
which serves as a portal to the world beyond.
Despite its seemingly limited utility, the
sculptural stairway masks various practical
elements, including bathrooms and a fully
functional internal staircase for actual use.
Since stairs aren’t the easiest ele-
ments to scale for aging residents, the older
couple’s rooms are located on the ground
floor while the younger couple and their child
live on the two levels above. ‘The house is
designed very carefully for the inhabitants’
future,’ says Akihiro Ito, COO at Nendo. ‘The
ground floor, for example, is entirely flat with
three access points to the outside.’
All this begs the question: if the
staircase is solely sculptural, why bother
making it stair-like at all? The designers
used the motif as a metaphor to represent
connection: ‘Connecting outside and inside,
the floors, generations, house and town,’ says
Ito. The project has inadvertently induced
another kind of connection, too, one that’s
less familiar to Japan. ‘In our culture, we
don’t often invite guests into our homes and
instead usually meet people outside,’ says Ito.
‘But this house has a very inviting atmos-
phere, which is why many of the inhabitants’
friends often come to the house for lunch,
dinner or a drink. The design itself is chang-
ing their lifestyles. This is a very big thing for
them, and a very difficult thing to realize at
this time in Japan.’ TI
nendo.jp
Daici Ano
Nendo’s two-family home in one of
Tokyo’s quieter residential zones
is built around a flight of steps that
aren’t actually for scaling.

Residence 65
Takumi Ota
By positioning the architectural
volume to the north of the site, Nendo
could capitalize on the available
daylight and ventilation. The glass-
fronted façade allows greenery to
flourish in parts of the interior.
Daici Ano
Takumi Ota

The line of the staircase links to the

road that extends southwards on the
ground level, and extends through to
the building’s skylight to serve as a
portal to the world beyond.

MULTIGEN LIVING The concept may be nothing new, but the term ‘co-living’
has shifted from relative anonymity to full-blown fame in the past few years. Despite
calling to mind such large-scale operations as Common and WeLive, the phenomenon
is occurring – or, more accurately, resurging – on a smaller footprint, too. Considering
the limitations surrounding home ownership faced by today’s younger generation as well
as the social isolation experienced by the world’s aging population, the typology can be
mutually beneficial. Projects of this nature should make the most of spatial gestures that
segregate and connect a shared living arrangement.

Residence 69
Onion divided the Boonthavorn
Workspace in Bangkok into different
areas, each with its own system for
displaying materials.

70
 inner workings
Ketsiree Wongwan

In the main zone – which includes co-working

spaces, a café and outdoor terrace – Onion
presents architectural material samples within
modular shelving cubes. Designers can see
and touch the materials – and read the details
concerning their manufacturer.

Remote working is changing the way creatives – particularly the younger

generation – access resources. Taking note, Thai building-material supplier
Boonthavorn saw a gap in the market for designers without a centralized
materials library. Its solution? Combine one with a co-working space. In the
Netherlands, on the other hand, interior-materials brand Baars & Bloemhoff
teamed its HQ with a training centre for knowledge exchange among
architects, makers, designers and students.

Work 71

When it comes to amassing material
resources, younger practices don’t have the
advantage of more established studios with
centralized offices, which have spent decades
assembling samples for their libraries. And
that’s assuming these fledgling firms even
have a home base. Although they’ve been
late to adopt the gig economy, architects and
engineers in the construction industry are
expected to join the freelancing frenzy. Ramzi
Jreidini – the CEO of Handiss, a freelancing
platform for the architecture and engineering
industry – predicts that the gig economy will
open up ‘new talent pools and international
workforces into construction for the first time
. . . serving an industry that desperately needs
new workers on the ground’.
Since freelancers often oper-
ate from co-working spaces, it was only
a matter of time before suppliers in the
design-project chain would find a gap in the
market. Boonthavorn, for example, one of the
best-known multi-brand building material
retailers in Thailand, has created a material
library-cum-co-working space in Bangkok
72
to ‘assist young designers who cannot access
material libraries in an office’.
The goal is clear from the brand-
ing. Going by the name of Workspace, the
project – a lesson in pull marketing – is an open
office from which designers are encouraged
to work. In the three-storey space designed by
local studio Onion, they can set up meetings
with suppliers and clients with Boonthavorn’s
resources close at hand. In addition to this
core goal, the secondary aim was to showcase
practical solutions that reflect the locality:
affordable building materials that can easily
be applied in Thailand rather than innovative
products that are too expensive to import.
Whereas Boonthavorn is home to
many brands, single brands are taking a similar
path to help strengthen customer loyalty,
promote learning, build communities and
highlight their expertise. Take Dutch special-
ists in decorative interior materials, Baars &
Bloemhoff. While it’s not at all surprising their
HQ includes a material library – these folks
are in the business of materials, after all –
they’ve combined their own offices in Utrecht
Spaces
The walls of Workspace’s laminates
display room are covered from floor
to ceiling in A5 samples.
with what they call a broeinest, or ‘breeding
ground’. Conceived as a city square – presum-
ably as a symbol of bringing people together
– the project centres on a training facility for
knowledge exchange among architects, mak-
ers, designers and students. No membership
required. ‘As a company we don’t believe in
the traditional push-marketing strategy,’ says
Johan van der Meer, a member of the Baars &
Bloemhoff in-house team responsible for the
interior design of the project. ‘We cooperate
with a lot of Broeinest partners in our training
centre, so we offer a lot more than only our
products. We sincerely believe that clients will
buy our products anyway if we help them with
the right advice and/or knowledge.’ Within
the shift towards e-commerce and digitiza-
tion, Baars & Bloemhoff sees physical training
centres and material libraries as an important
piece of its omnichannel strategy. ‘We’re mak-
ing big steps in the digital era,’ says Van der
Meer, ‘but a lot of our clients still like to see,
feel and experience materials in real life.’ TI
onion.co.th
baars-bloemhoff.nl
 WORKING SHOWROOMS Moving away from strictly show-and-sell retail
strategies, material suppliers are finding an entry into both the co-working and
education markets with what we’ll call ‘working showrooms’: places from which
designers can work, upskill or connect to industry peers while surrounded by some of
the tools of their trade. Particularly relevant as architects and others in the construction
industry adapt to the gig economy, this form of pull marketing may help to strengthen
customer loyalty, promote learning, build communities and highlight a brand’s expertise.

Work 73
 Xia Zhi
enter through
the basement
Multitasking was once considered the mark of ultimate output, but research
suggests it can actually reduce productivity by as much as 40 per cent.
Many start-ups and efficiency-driven companies are now basing their
working methods on the idea that task-shifting takes the brain time to
refocus, and that it’s better to concentrate on one thing at a time. The idea is
moving beyond office walls to other typologies, too, as illustrated by B.L.U.E.
Architecture Studio’s M Woods Art Community Renovation Project. The
designers cut off external input before rationing it back to visitors – all in the
name of mindfulness.

74 Spaces
Visitors to the Beijing art hub are
welcomed not into a brightly lit
atrium, but a low-ceilinged basement,
where a maze-like arrangement of
rooms slows down visitors.

Institution 75
BEIJING ‘With the increasingly rapid pace of
contemporary society and the endless stream
of calls and messages, modern cities today are
providing less space for us to see and enjoy
a work of art in peace,’ says Shuhei Aoyama,
director and architect at B.L.U.E. Architecture
Studio. It’s an issue the Beijing practice
founded by Aoyama and fellow Japanese
architect Yoko Fujii addresses in its M Woods
Art Community Renovation Project, part of
the revitalization plan for Beijing’s Longfu
Temple area. So far, the surrounding site has
welcomed new restaurants, bars, cafés and
co-working spaces, drawcards for locals and
visitors alike. Aoyama says that the renovation
– which includes an exhibition space, coffee
shop and rooftop terrace for relaxation and
events – not only explores new possibilities for
displaying art but is also gradually transform-
ing the lifestyles of locals. ‘It’s making the old
city inside the Second Ring in Beijing more
youthful and vibrant’ while also ‘awakening
the cultural vitality of the region’.
76
The art hub’s circulation is designed to
counteract the flood of external input of which
Aoyama speaks. Visitors are welcomed not
into a brightly lit atrium, but a low-ceilinged
basement. ‘Because the underground area
was originally a civil defence space, the floors
and walls are very thick to prevent radiation.
In summer when it’s hot outside, it’s sud-
denly cooler underground – and vice versa.
In addition to variations of light, we wanted
this change of temperature to offer a sense
of entering another world.’ Here, a series
of interconnected rooms offer a maze-like
experience, helping to slow down visitors
and further reduce their field of view. What’s
more, the thickness of the walls and floor
blocks phone signals, removing still more
unnecessary distraction.
Eventually, visitors encounter
the stairs that lead to the first-floor exhibi-
tion space. ‘The two continuous but distinct
environmental experiences create an illu-
sion,’ says Aoyama. ‘In addition, the loss of
spatial positioning makes people temporarily
forget the impetuousness of the outside
world and regain the calmness of mind to
enjoy the exhibition.’
Ascending the building cor-
responds with gradual increases of space
and ceiling height. The range of the lat-
ter – between 2.2 and 7 m – is beneficial for
meeting the different specifications of works
of art while, according to Aoyama, offering
a ‘unique visitor experience’. Natural light
begins to intensify, and outside scenes are
revealed. While the east façade is windowless,
its apertures shielded by crumpled galvanized
steel sheeting, the west side features a number
of windows and balconies that look out over
one of Beijing’s hutong areas, making the ‘old
city’ part of the visitor experience. TI
b-l-u-e.net
Whereas the exhibition spaces
(opposite) in B.L.U.E.’s renovation
make art the main focus, other areas
– such as a coffee shop (right) and
rooftop terrace – encourage visitors
to stick around for longer.

NAVIGATION We’ve already reported on retailers realizing the potential of

warren-like worlds to encourage shoppers to linger (see the Rustickona store by
Studio Renesa in Frame 133, p. 104 for just one example). As this was before the
coronavirus pandemic enforced social isolating practices, it’s too soon to tell how
such solutions will fare in the future – a discussion we continue in this issue’s Frame
Lab (p. 100). Cultural institutions and other spaces for contemplation have another
reason to apply similar tactics, though. By obscuring orientation – and in some cases,
even restricting input from the outside world – they can more easily square their
visitors’ focus solely on one thing.

Institution 77
all access

When consulting brand Horwarth HTL released its ‘Bali Hotel & Branded
Residences’ market report in May last year, pre-pandemic, the island was
expected to see at least 43 new three-star and above hotels within the
next five years, an 11 per cent increase from its current inventory. In the
competitive higher end of the scale, the OMA-designed Potato Head Studios
stands out as a luxury resort that challenges ideas surrounding exclusivity.

Kevin Mak

78 Spaces
 While many luxury resorts block
beach access for non-guests, OMA
lifted Potato Head Studios’ mass to
create a pathway to the waterfront.

Hospitality 79
BALI To understand why OMA calls luxury
resort Potato Head Studios a project in which
the ‘notion of exclusivity is abandoned’, it’s
necessary to note the firm’s definition of
‘exclusivity’ in this particular case. We’re not
talking about the cost of a room at the Balinese
hotel nor the price of a meal in its restau-
rant, both of which can hardly be deemed
inexpensive and are thereby inaccessible to
a large proportion of the population. Here,
‘non-exclusive design’ is about challenging the
typically siloed, self-contained style of resort
common to Bali.
‘I think no matter the price of a
room or meal, there are people who will decide
they do not want to spend the money – for vari-
ous reasons,’ says David Gianotten, managing
partner at OMA and one of the project leads
for Potato Head Studios. The resort is the lat-
est addition to the Desa Potato Head ‘creative
village’, which includes various F&B spots and
two hotels in the upscale Balinese beach resort
area of Seminyak. ‘That means that in a hotel
serving only hotel guests,’ Gianotten contin-
ues, ‘those who do not want to spend money
will not even get access to the premises. They
could not easily reach the beach, either, whose
access is blocked by the hotel.’
To open things up, OMA
designed a space for both hotel guests and
the general public. Lodgers can make use of
both private facilities and shared amenities
80
and areas, while the public is welcomed into
the rooftop sculpture park and what’s known
as the ‘open platform’, an expansive ground
plane for hosting cultural activities. Through
its programming in communal areas, which
is targeted towards locals and tourists,
Potato Head Studios is positioning itself
as a community hub. As Gianotten puts it,
the local community isn’t merely allowed to
enter but encouraged to. The architects also
lifted the hotel’s mass to enable direct access
to the beachfront. ‘This mixed programme
ensures that the hotel is always vibrant, so
that hotel guests do not just want to retreat
to their hotel rooms – although they are nice
– but also to go out and engage with others,
and to take part in events happening in the
public spaces.’
The importance of public spaces
at Potato Head Studios is why OMA was
tapped for the task, its first hotel in Bali.
‘OMA is known for building public spaces,
like museums and institutions,’ says Potato
Head founder Ronald Akili. ‘That was our
idea for the Desa, to create a type of cultural
institution that mixes public with private,
guests with locals, and future thinking with
time-honoured craftsmanship.’
More and more travellers –
particularly millennials – are searching for
authenticity, a factor that’s under harsher
scrutiny when the locals are an equally
Spaces
important target group, and the designers
behind a project are foreigners. ‘I sometimes
find “authenticity” a misnomer,’ says Gianot-
ten. ‘What do we mean when we say that
a cultural experience is authentic? Culture
changes all the time, and it is impossible to
create one singular authentic experience.
Rather than trying to make something
authentic, I’m more interested in designs that
people can relate to.’ The architect believes
that while a certain level of understanding
about a culture is required – the design was
done in consultation with Akili and architect
Andra Matin, both of whom are from Indone-
sia – intuition is a key driver. ‘Contemporary
Balinese culture is constantly changing and
cannot be simply represented by cultural
symbols inherited from the island’s history,’
says Gianotten. ‘To us, Indonesia is a place
that thrives on interaction among different
cultures – and between the local community
and foreign visitors. The open platform best
captures our understanding of this aspect.
Here, traditional Balinese cultural activities
take place alongside contemporary events.
These include music, arts, fashion, film and
literary events in addition to traditional and
religious festivals such as mass dancing and
parades. This space makes Potato Head
Studios a place where Balinese culture is
experienced and created, simultaneously’. TI
oma.eu
OPPOSITE The hotel’s private
guest rooms, F&B spots, pools and
exhibition space are connected by a
public route – for use by both hotel
guests and the wider community –
that winds up the complex and leads
to a rooftop sculpture park.

RIGHT Designed with its Indonesian

context in mind, Potato Head Studios
features textured concrete walls
created by local craftsmen.

BELOW The façade of the guest

room corridors was inspired by the
Balinese tika, or divination calendar.

Hospitality 81
Located on the ground floor of the
resort, Tanaman restaurant features
a blue palette and reflective materials
that recall the ocean outside.
 LUXURY When one of the panel discussions at this year’s Frame Awards
touched on the meaning of luxury in the hospitality sector, the participants agreed
that experience was essential. Design Hotels CEO Peter Cole took it one step further,
commenting that the meaning of the experience will become most important. Hoteliers
need to ‘have a purpose in their concept – and be rather overt about it’. Meaning.Global
founder and CEO Dr Martina Olbertova said that ‘brands are looking to people and their
authentic values and needs, and mirroring them in order to identify with them’. True to
their words are new hospitality ventures that encourage human connection instead of
elitist segregation, a widespread trait in the luxury market.

An expansive ground plane known

as the ‘open platform’ hosts cultural
activities – for locals and tourists.

Hospitality 83
 Kris Provoost

Superimpose transformed the third

and fourth floors of Chengdu’s centrally
located WIFC shopping mall into a
creative platform for China’s leading
co-working office space developer.
mall no more
The struggle against low – or no – occupancy has prompted several shopping
malls to metamorphose into either an entirely new typology or a coexistence
model. In Taiwan, MVRDV reclassifies the defunct China-Town Mall into a
vibrant urban lagoon, while two floors of a Chengdu shopping centre are
turned over to co-working developer Soho 3Q.
Earlier this year, photographer Seph Lawless
released Abandoned Malls of America: Crum-
bling Commerce Left Behind. The book – which
joins the growing list of media dedicated to
what’s been dubbed ‘ruin porn’ – memorializes
the downfall of the shopping mall, which some
consider to be the architectural embodiment
of American consumerism.
And it’s not only on US soil that
shopping malls are struggling. Take China, for
instance, a country found by CBRE research
to have built half of the brand new mall space
in the world in 2013, only to see 30 per cent
vacancy in malls in 2014. Or the UK, where
a significant number of shopping malls have
been teetering on the edge of administration
for several years. With new pressures brought
on by the coronavirus crisis, even thriving
retail hubs are having to rethink their tactics
(see more on the landscape of post-pandemic
retail on page 104).
Those who don’t survive leave
behind sizable vacant lots to go to seed. Devel-
opers and municipalities face the challenge of
turning haphazard interiors and concrete car
parks – many of which are centrally located
– into something more future-proof. We’ve
already witnessed the emergence of compa-
nies such as Vivahouse, a co-living enterprise
whose prefabricated housing units can pop-up
inside disused commercial spaces, including
shopping malls. Now, still more typologies are
entering the fold.
In Taiwan, for example, the
Urban Development Bureau of the Tainan
City Government asked MVRDV to reclassify
the defunct China-Town Mall. No longer
serving its commercial purpose, the building
was considered to be a drain on the vitality of
central Tainan. Using circular economy prin-
ciples, MVRDV transformed the former shop-
ping mall into an urban lagoon surrounded
by young plants that will, over the next two to
three years, develop into rich vegetation. What
was once underground parking for mall-goers
is now a sunken public plaza surrounded by a
covered arcade. In deconstructing the build-
ing’s concrete framework, the architects left
a series of follies that can later be converted
into shops, kiosks and other public ameni-
ties. ‘Tainan is a very grey city,’ says Winy
Maas, founding partner of MVRDV. ‘With the
reintroduction of the jungle to every place that
was possible, the city is reintegrating into the
surrounding landscape.’
In addition to serving as new
public spaces, these crumbling consumerist
constructs have found another convenient ten-
ant: the working population. In a 2019 article
for The New York Times, Tom Acitelli found an
example in Google’s renovation of Westside
Pavilion, a failing mall in Los Angeles, into a
new complex for the tech behemoth, slated for
completion in 2022.
Not all shopping malls are shut-
ting up shop(s), of course, and some are look-
ing to coexistence as a strategy going forward.
One such case is in Chengdu, where Superim-
pose transformed the third and fourth floors
of the low-occupancy yet centrally located
WIFC shopping mall into a creative platform
for Soho 3Q, China’s leading co-working
Retail
office space developer. Having to deal
with the space’s retail remnants informed
Superimpose’s design. Since the floors’ two
distinct and discrete atmospheres made any
kind of uniformity challenging, they decided
to work with the disparateness. The zones
are themed as separate worlds according to
Chengdu’s two contrasting appellations: ‘land
of abundance’ and ‘man-made city’. The
former is expressed as a lush green space with
natural materials including wood and stone,
while the latter relies on orthogonal geom-
etries and industrial materials such as cement
board, aluminium and concrete.
According to Acitelli’s research,
co-working enterprises are actually the biggest
beneficiaries of the US trend of converting
malls into office space. He quotes a study by
global property company Jones Lang LaSalle
that predicts co-working space in retail in
general will grow at an annual rate of 25 per
cent through 2023. ‘Offices are less risky than
retailers,’ wrote Acitelli, ‘and in some cases
they can generate foot traffic for the mall’s
remaining stores and restaurants.’ TI
mvrdv.nl
superimposearchitecture.com
85
86 Spaces
 CreatAR

Into the interior’s retail remnants,

Superimpose inserted large
movable meeting pods that ensure
maximum flexibility of use.

Retail 87
In deconstructing a former
Taiwanese shopping mall’s concrete
framework to create a public plaza
called Tainan Spring, MVRDV left
a series of follies that can later be
converted into shops, kiosks and
other public amenities.
Daria Scagliola

REAPPROPRIATION Shopping malls the world over are suffering from

the negative impact of online shopping on physical stores. Once stripped of their
tenants’ branding, these interiors are often anything but inspiring. They are, however,
expansive. Rather than tearing down the decommissioned structures, developers and
municipalities are seeing the potential for shopping malls turned X. To date, that X has
stood for co-working spaces, public plazas and even living environments. A prototype
is also in the works to transform a sprawling former Oklahoma City mall into a senior
housing project.

Retail 89
delivery-driven
dining
The swift adoption of home food delivery has prompted the set-up of
establishments largely – and even solely – for the cause. What does this
mean for their design?

Words Tracey Ingram

Daniel Murray Studio

DELIVEROO, HONG KONG On a high street in Hong Kong’s Wan

Chai district, multiple restaurants operate from one Deliveroo loca-
tion designed by London-based agency 3stories. The interior features
a simple material palette of galvanized steel, perforated aluminium
and concrete. To a backdrop of iconic Deliveroo teal, individual
restaurants can add their own branding for customer recognition.
3stories.co.uk

90 Spaces
Long before Covid-19 was a concern, it had become
commonplace for actual customers at takeaway spots
to be outnumbered by jacketed delivery drivers – their
rainbow of colours signalling the competing brands
of Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Foodora and others. These
new platform-to-consumer players have transformed
the home-dining market, opening up the floor to
higher-end restaurants that typically wined and dined
their customers onsite. In short, we’ve moved far
beyond the dial-in pizza order.
The sudden boom has spurred many
businesses to rush to join the party in fear
of losing out, leaving little chance to assess
what a delivery-driven hospitality model
might actually look like – spatially, not
merely procedurally. For starters, if the
consumers aren’t the ones actually visiting
the physical space – and are instead dealing
with a hospitality brand via an intermediary,
the delivery brand – what does that mean
for brand interaction? Do restaurants
need to rethink their entranceways, which
have become veritable sardine tins of
deliverers, and were never meant to operate
as continually revolving doors? Does the
constant flow of shorter-term traffic disturb
the ambience for gourmands who wish to
linger for the entire evening? And all this
while considering the potential implications
of social distancing demanded by the
coronavirus crisis (read more on post-
pandemic hospitality on page 110).
Deliveroo has invested heavily in the emerging
delivery-only kitchen space, making it the global
leader in the field. The brand faced criticism for
initially setting up so-called ‘dark kitchens’ under
the name Deliveroo Editions to cater for restaurants
seeking to expand without the price tag attached to
high-street properties. Shipping container-like sheds
fitted out with industrial kitchen equipment equalled
unfavourable working conditions for chefs. ‘The boxes
have no windows and many of the chefs work with the
doors open, through which they can be seen stirring
huge pans or flipping burgers,’ wrote Sarah Butler for
The Guardian in 2017. Consumers, though, were none
the wiser. All they were doing was clicking a button for
their favourite hamburger to turn up at their door
while picturing the spaces they frequented before they
could order from the comfort of their couch.
Deliveroo’s latest breed of delivery-driven
concepts rises from the underbelly to the
high street, signalling that the brand wants
more bricks-and-mortar presence in the
field – a presence that’s subject to less
scrutiny than the dark kitchens mentioned
New Typology
in The Guardian, many of which are
doubtless still in operation. Interestingly,
pick-up seems to be a strong consideration,
too, suggesting a bid to connect with its
clientele through such spaces. In Hong
Kong’s Wan Chai, for instance, multiple
restaurants operate from one high street
location designed by London-based agency
3stories. After ordering food through the
Deliveroo app, customers unlock their own
heated cabinet to collect their food upon
arrival. They can also place an order via the
in-house iPads and watch their food being
prepared through VR headsets while they
wait. Will this gimmick encourage visitors
to participate in a service that typically
disconnects diners from meal preparation?
Will it instil a sense of security to meet the
growing hygiene concerns brought on by
Covid-19? Jordan Littler, founder of 3stories,
says the team’s approach was ‘to strip back
the core components of the traditional
takeaway store in order to maximize on the
visual impact, making it easy for new or
existing customers to understand the offer.
This design also allows for a scalable concept
that can be easily rolled out throughout
multiple sites around the world, either staffed
or unstaffed.’ Signage is kept simple so that
each restaurant can use its own branding
for customer recognition. Deliveroo is
also expanding its Editions sites, having
received three times more Editions-related
enquiries and expressions of interest from its
restaurant partners since the start of 2020
compared with the six months prior.
As delivery becomes the definition of convenience,
food retailers that once epitomized convenience are
expanding their offer. Starbucks, for example, has
developed a new store format called Starbucks Now
that integrates its trademarked Starbucks Delivers
concept. Initially launched as a pilot in partnership with
Uber Eats in late 2018, the delivery programme is set
to go nationwide in the US this year. The first Starbucks
Now store, in Beijing, was developed as a ‘streamlined
experience for customers and delivery riders’. Seating
is scarce, keeping much of the floor area free for those
dropping in for pick-ups or deliveries. A Starbucks
barista greets visitors at an elevated concierge counter
to assist with ordering, while deliverers proceed to a
dedicated area with pick-up portals.
Thankfully, the market isn’t being addressed
by only global corporations, creating more
room for experimentation and design-driven
solutions. In Milan, for instance, two »
91
ITAFE UP, YIWU Referencing the influence of online shopping on consump-
tion habits, Daylab’s design for iTafe Up – the delivery- and takeaway-oriented
offshoot of iTafe, sellers of tea, coffee and bread – is essentially an assemblage
of components ordered from e-commerce website Taobao.com. At the outpost
in Yiwu’s Wuyue Plaza, a radiator accessory for large electronic components
forms the aluminium-grille façade, for example, while other industrial mechanical
parts were reassembled to create sections of the display stand, public seating
and a QR code installation. The latter is a mobile ordering unit that can be placed
not only anywhere in the store but also anywhere in the surrounding shopping
mall – or even out in the community.
daylab.cn

92 Spaces
 Xiao Yun

New Typology 93
Enrico Dallaiti

Spaces
94
KTCHN LAB, MILAN Two young food entrepreneurs opened
delivery-only restaurant Ktchn Lab as both a business and design
venture. Designed by Studio Arme as a clinic-meets-theatre,
Italy’s first ghost kitchen features materials that either meet or
exceed hygiene standards, while a translucent polycarbonate
partition creates a shadow play of concealed kitchen staff. The
oversized front door is designed to counteract the human traffic
jams that occur at many pick-up locations.
studioarme.com
young food entrepreneurs have opened
delivery-only restaurant Ktchn Lab as both
a business and design venture. Studio Arme
designed Italy’s first ghost kitchen as a
sort of clinic-meets-theatre. The chosen
materials either meet or exceed hygiene
standards, while a translucent polycarbonate
partition creates an intriguing shadow play
of concealed kitchen staff. A smaller yet
significant detail is the oversized front door,
designed to counteract the human traffic
jams occurring at many pick-up locations.
A newer example comes from iTafe in China. After a
successful dine-in concept designed by Daylab (Frame
129, p. 54), the sellers of tea, coffee and bread asked
the studio to give shape to two iTafe Up locations
that service takeaways and deliveries. In the Wuyue
Plaza store, an interactive QR code is incorporated
into a mobile installation that can be placed not
only anywhere in the store, but also anywhere in
the surrounding shopping mall – or even out in the
community. Referencing the influence of online
shopping on consumption habits, Daylab’s design is
essentially an assemblage of components ordered from
Taobao.com, the world’s biggest e-commerce website.
A radiator accessory for large electronic components
forms the aluminium-grille façade, for example, while
other industrial mechanical parts were reconstructed to
create sections of the QR code installation, displays and
public seating.
One knock-on effect from the phenomenon is
virtual food concepts, brands that exist solely
for delivery. It’s no surprise that the founder
of Taster, a collection of native delivery
food brands, is a former Deliveroo staffer.
In an article featured on TechCrunch last
year, Romain Dillet explains that ‘in order to
scale more rapidly, [Taster] doesn’t handle
real estate itself ’. Instead, it ‘relies on third-
New Typology
party companies, such as Travis Kalanick’s
CloudKitchens’. Deliveroo itself is behind
a number of virtual brands, too, which the
company believes ‘offer consumers hyper-
personalized and convenient food options
while F&B businesses save on real estate and
staffing, and focus on creating innovative and
delicious dishes’.
Before the Covid-19 crisis, Morgan Stanley predicted
a bright future for food delivery. A report by the
investment bank and financial services company
suggested that by 2022, digital food delivery may
comprise 11 per cent of the total market versus just
6 per cent in 2017. And that this might just be the
beginning. ‘Combine the restaurant-food digital
delivery universe with the network of Whole Foods
that Amazon is acquiring, and it could soon epitomize
a world where people work from home, have their
weekly groceries and daily dinners delivered to their
doors, and eat in front of a big-screen TV (ordered
online) that’s streaming popular movies or TV
shows – all from the same provider.’ For now, though,
reports on today’s reality are contradictory. A Reuters
article stated that some of the world’s largest players,
including Just Eat and Uber Eats, had been hard hit
in France, Spain and the UK, with drops in average
daily users ranging from 2 per cent to as much as 23
per cent in March compared with the preceding two
months. The Guardian, on the other hand, publicized
a rise of 8.7 per cent for takeaways and fast food sales.
Regardless, with many people in the world having just
experienced the homebound lifestyle of lockdown,
perhaps we’ll instead crave the chance to venture out
to physical spaces again. And when we do, we’ll want
to wait for our food without feeling like we’re in a
sardine tin.•
95
STARBUCKS NOW, BEIJING The first Starbucks Now store, in
Beijing, was developed as a ‘streamlined experience for customers and
delivery riders’. Seating is scarce, keeping much of the floor area free
for those dropping in for pick-ups or deliveries. A Starbucks barista
greets visitors at an elevated concierge counter to assist with ordering,
while deliverers proceed to a dedicated area with pick-up portals.
starbucks.com

DELIVERY-DRIVEN DINING
market overview
01 Before the Covid-19 crisis, Morgan Stanley
predicted a bright future for food delivery. A
report by the investment bank and financial
services company suggested that by 2022,
digital food delivery may comprise 11% of the
total market versus just 6% in 2017.
03 Leading the field in delivery-only kitchen
space, Deliveroo has opened a series of
Editions stores to meet growing demand.
Deliveroo Editions sales tripled from Q4
2019 to Q1 2020, with total orders growing
100% in March compared with January.

02 It’s too soon to tell how the coronavirus

outbreak has affected the market.
Contradictory reports are circulating: a
Reuters article stated that some of the
world’s largest players, including Just
Eat and Uber Eats, had been hard hit in
France, Spain and the UK, with drops in
average daily users ranging from 2% to as
much in 23% in March compared with the
preceding two months. The Guardian, on
the other hand, publicized a rise of 8.7%
for takeaways and fast food sales.
04 As published on Statista, platform-to-
consumer delivery is the market’s largest
segment with a market volume of €57,910
million in 2020 at the time of publishing.
Comparatively, revenue in the restaurant-
to-consumer delivery segment amounted
to €55,271 in 2020.
05 According to Statista, in global comparison,
most revenue is generated in China
(€42,332 million in 2020 at the time of
publishing).

96 Spaces
all aboard
Dubbed ‘a learning
space for the internet
age’, a new campus
at Osaka’s Otemon
Gakuin University
is architecture firm
Mitsubishi Jisho
Sekkei’s answer to
the changing face of
education.
A point the Covid-19 crisis has drilled home
is that students no longer need to attend a
physical campus. They can get their study
materials online and participate in lectures
via video conferencing. So once students are
able to return to schools – in the architectural
sense of the term – what will inspire them to
actually do so?
To answer this question for a
new campus at Osaka’s Otemon Gakuin
University, the architects at Mitsubishi Jisho
Sekkei looked to Japan’s history. ‘Since
ancient times, Japan’s shrines and temples
have held a mystery and attraction that has
drawn pilgrims from all corners of the coun-
try, turning these sites into lively gathering
places,’ says Yasuhiro Sube of Mitsubishi
Jisho Sekkei. ‘This concept informed our
image of the learning spaces of the future.’
The 40,000-m2 facility will
serve around 3,600 pupils – or half of
Otemon Gakuin University’s student body.
Nicknamed the ‘Academic Ark’ by its design-
ers, the building is based on a triangular
footprint that concentrates learning activi-
ties in one area. At each vertex, the façade
opens up to reveal an inviting entrance.
Once inside, visitors are greeted by a monu-
mental floating silver volume in the main
hall. A symbol of the importance of tangible
learning spaces, this volume contains a
library lined with physical books. Beneath is
Hisao Suzuki
Noomi Kurozumi
a triangular seating area, a natural gather-
ing point, while classrooms of various
sizes comprise the peripheral spaces. Wide
walkways surrounding the central spaces
afford views across the interior’s five levels,
visually connecting those within the building
and, according to the designers, highlight-
ing ‘the energy created by a learning site
where individuals both see and are seen’. In
essence, the architects wanted to create a
complex that welcomes diverse individuals,
stimulates interest and invites exploration. A
space you might not necessarily need to visit,
but one you will want to visit. FE
mj-sekkei.com
97
 Frame Books

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Tokyo-based design firm MOMENT’s book of the same name This handbook prescribes hybridization – a fusion of
highlights a versatile and skillful visual approach, focusing on gastronomy, co-working, hospitality and performative
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This book proposes six humanistic principles that will inform a Straight from the test kitchen of IKEA’s research
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Fred Erik
frame
lab

POST-PANDEMIC SPACE Checkouts have been silent,

desks empty and stools upturned on the bar. The current
pandemic has pressed pause on the businesses whose
activity usually fills these pages. But now is not the time to
be inactive. If we are to share space with one other again
then the nature of those spaces will have to be rethought,
incrementally at first and then more fundamentally as we
start to build our capacity to better weather such crises in
the future. Many of the clues as to what this could look like
already exist – what’s required now is to identify, invest
and implement them more fully.
how covid-19 is
reshaping retail,
hospitality and work

Although the post-pandemic landscape is still uncertain, the work, retail

and hospitality industries are already having to respond to the disruption of
business as we knew it. Some solutions are Band-Aids to help ride out the
storm, while others offer a glimpse of the years ahead. Over the following pages
we’ve set out what we believe are some signposts from the present that show
how the design of spaces in these sectors can help them not only survive, but
thrive. Now, and in the future.
Words Peter Maxwell

102 Frame Lab

Les Garçons, represented by L'Éloi

A photography series by Canadian

creatives Les Garçons, Distant
Dinner portrays the new forms of
conviviality – like virtual gatherings
– that arose from the period of
self-isolation.

103
Courtesy of CRA

Frame Lab
104
R E TA I L Physical retailers are having
to accept that their customer base is
taking a crash course in how to meet
all their consumption needs via digital
channels. Retailers that already had a
strong omnichannel retail play will have
to ask whether these customers will
continue to see sense in visiting their
stores. Those who didn’t will have to ask
whether they’ll ever see these customers
again. If they do, it will only be through
establishing their premises not solely
as experiential playgrounds – the last
decade’s tactic for drawing people offline
– but also as trusted and transparent
safe havens.

Designed by Carlo Ratti Associati

for tech startup Scribit, Pura-Case
is a portable, battery-powered
wardrobe purifier that removes
most microorganisms, bacteria and
viruses from clothing. A prototype at
the time of writing, the design holds
the potential to improve hygiene in
fashion retail.

Retail 105
SHORT-TERM
NO SAFETY IN NUMBERS

Broadly speaking, retail optimization centres on ‘Despite the havoc that is being caused by the outbreak
maximizing foot traffic and dwell time. The ideal metric of the coronavirus, I believe that the crisis is bringing
for each will vary based on product and sector, with into focus a number of pre-existing problems with
some prioritizing throughput while others aim to make the way in which we shop, such as complicated and
customers linger longer in the hope of generating a constantly changing store layouts and confusion about
higher basket total. Either way, apart from those at the where products are,’ argues Will Broome, CEO of retail
premium end of the market, a critical mass of technologist Ubamarket.
bodies is key. How that plays across different retail
The pandemic has now taught consumers modalities remains to be seen. For single-
to desire the exact opposite. What this has brand stores, restricting the flow of people
meant on a practical level is the adoption of onto the shop floor is a feasible strategy, while
customer quotas in most major supermarkets, malls will perhaps see their excess of space
with long (socially distanced) queues a regular shift from a burden to a boon. For the midsize,
site across urban centres. Some have already multi-brand locations that carry a sizeable
been addressing this new pain point, with weight of merchandising, such as off-price
innovators like cannabis brand Curaleaf retailers and the continually embattled
adopting Waitlist Me, an app traditionally department stores, the picture is less pretty.
used by restaurants to let diners know when
their table is ready while they wait offsite.
The question will be how quickly, if at all, retailers
will be able to return their focus to engineering
proximity. Consumers are learning a whole suite of new
behaviours, and low-density shopping – or what the
Dutch call the ‘1.5-m economy’ – might stick as the
only trusted form of commerce. Consumer psychologist
Paul Marsden believes we’ll emerge from the crisis
with what he describes as a Me, Myself & I mentality.
‘A major likely outcome of this situation is that we’ll
compromise less, having a shared space will be difficult
for a lot of people, for example,’ he explains in an
interview with Forbes.
This will matter little if retailers don’t also
rationalize the way they manage space,
however. Some, such as discount grocer
Lidl, are using floor markings to demarcate
distance, with merchandising infrastructure
shifting to fit this new grid. Others, like
supermarket brand Tesco, have enforced one-
way systems, a particular novelty for a retail
typology known for intentionally confusing
shoppers’ sense of direction.
To enable low-density shopping,
retailers need to handle space
differently. Making it possible for
consumers to book fitting rooms for
private shopping sessions and small
events, as at the Daylab-designed
Heyshop in Shanghai, can help
manage occupancy.

106 Frame Lab

Xiao Yun

Retail 107
LONG-TERM
CLEAN LINES, CLEAN SPACES
History has already shown us quite how drastic an
effect disease can have on spatial design. Many of the
tropes of modernist interior architecture were inflected
with a desire to develop more hygienic spaces, spurred
by outbreaks of diseases like tuberculosis. The
sanatoria designed to treat them, with their emphasis
on light, air, simplicity of form and material, still
inform what we think of as aspirational today.
Regardless of whether Covid-19 will
continue to play such an outsized role in
future design, it will undoubtably impact
how we create space. This will be true across
sectors, but is perhaps most influential
in retail, where we’re witnessing an era
of maximalist store design. That means
exploratory (read winding) circulation routes,
esoteric material palettes and an excess
of surfaces, all of which send up red flags
to contact-wary shoppers.
Surface treatments have come under particular
scrutiny during the pandemic. Studies have shown that
the virus can live for up to 72 hours on commonly used
materials such as plastic and steel. Researchers such
as Bill Keevil, professor of environmental healthcare at
the University of Southampton, have been advocating
a return to the mass use of copper, on which the virus
can last for only four hours. ‘We’ve seen viruses just
blow apart,’ he tells Fast Company. ‘They land on
copper and it just degrades them.’ Manufacturers
such as Iris Ceramica, which has invested R&D
spend in creating new surface products like its Active
photocatalytic ceramics, which are self-cleaning, anti-
odour, anti-pollution and antibacterial, will likely see
increased interest from all public-facing sectors.
While low-touch retail will remain a priority,
brands will still want to ensure their fit-out
isn’t acting as a carrier. How to do this
without descending into sterility, and while
continuing to assert key narratives, will be
the real design challenge.
108 Frame Lab
Air quality will also be a key factor, with health
professionals offering advice on the virus-mitigating
benefits of simply opening windows. This will
accelerate the uptake of already prominent design
tactics orientated on biophilia and porous spaces
as consumers come to expect access to fresh air at
all times. Where appropriate, this might also take
the form of advanced filtration systems, like those
currently employed by brands such as Stella McCartney
and Dr. Jart+, to protect shoppers against airborne
pollutants. In the latter example, customers enter
the skincare company’s Seoul store via an industrial
air-shower booth that blows off dust and germs
accumulated in the outside world.
In such instances, the expressive integration
of HVAC infrastructure into public spaces
will be a gesture of reassurance. Indeed,
developing a new toolkit of spatial semiotics
that signal when a shopper is entering a
‘controlled environment’ will be key to
helping brands communicate that they’re
putting customer safety first. For Betwin
Space Design, the architects behind
Dr. Jart+’s flagship, the primary goal was:
‘To show customers that the space provides
them with the cleanest air and water and
protects them against pollution,’ explains
cofounder Hye-jin Yang.
There’s a growing desire among
retailers to develop more hygienic
spaces that communicate to
customers their safety comes
first. At the Seoul store of skincare
company Dr. Jart+, shoppers enter
via an industrial air-shower booth
that blows off dust and germs
accumulated in the outside world.
 Yong-joon Choi

Retail
109
 Willem Velthoven

Giving a new shape to distanced

dining, restaurant Mediamatic Eten
installed a series of greenhouses
– aptly titled Serres Séparées, or
Separate Greenhouses – along the
waterfront of its Amsterdam location.

110 Frame Lab

H O S P I TA L I T Y While all industries
have suffered during the lockdown, few
have experienced a crisis as existential
as travel and hospitality. Both rely on
the ability of people to visit new places
and meet new people. But there are
already clues as to how hospitality might
adapt to a future in which interaction
between brands, people and places
is, if not diminished, certainly evolved.
Restaurants and hotels are learning
that they can easily augment their
physical offer with digital and distributed
touchpoints. And many will look to
signals that travellers were already eager
for ways to experience travel on their
own terms, without being filtered through
the concierge.

Hospitality 111
SHORT-TERM
HOSPITALITY AT HOME
The hospitality industry and social media are far from
strangers (more like co-dependents), but social media
have quickly become the key conduit to maintaining
any sort of relationship with absent patrons across all
verticals, not least as brands quickly develop delivery
services for the first time and need to differentiate.
‘As we shelter in place, seeking solace,
normalcy and comfort food, media-savvy
chefs are hellbent on serving it to us via
podcasts, social media and streaming
channels,’ explains Forbes columnist Jennifer
Leigh Parker. ‘Their common cause:
Order take-out! Try one of my recipes! Or,
better yet, just watch me cook something
so sensational that you relate to me on a
deep human level and choose to patron my
restaurants as soon as we reopen.’
Reopening won’t be an end, however. This combination
of media – be it social or more advanced forms – and
delivery is reengineering the idea of the hospitality
business as something that can exist in both a
distributed and a consolidated form. If you can’t be on
premise, then there’s a palette of takeaway products,
in-home experiences, video and conferencing
formats that can bring something of a brand’s ethos
to your door.
One early responder was fast-casual
Mexican chain Chipotle, which has started
to organize Chipotle Together sessions on
videoconferencing site Zoom and social
channels like Instagram. Featuring a roster
of celebrities and musicians, these streams
aren’t just about providing entertainment to
distanced customers, but are also meant to
drive sales, with time-limited codes for free
entrées being revealed during the broadcast.
At the opposite end of the spectrum,
experience-design studio Kitchen Theory
has created a ‘Multisensory Dining at Home’
service consisting of a four- to six-course
menu, tableware, table dressing, playlist,
as well as sensory elements such as texture
112 Frame Lab
cubes, projectors, wireless headphones and
levitating plates. The meal is presided over
by a virtual chef who hosts the evening.
Some brands are therefore going further by engaging
consumers on unexpected entertainment channels.
Diner chain Denny’s is taking advantage of a surge in
interest in gaming, creating a brand account on online
services for all the major console platforms and giving
discount codes to players it meets during each session.
It hit the maximum number of friends for a single
Nintendo Switch account in one day.
This shift will see several pre-pandemic
trends gain wider adoption. Outlets such
as London’s Dyce Dessert Parlour and
Shenzhen’s Doko Bar, both of which offer
environments attuned to photographing food
(see Frame 130, p. 78), are well placed for a
future in which premises are as much stage
set as service space. Similarly, Starbucks’
experimental pick-up-only store, which
opened in New York at the end of last year,
will likely now see a much faster and broader
rollout. Restaurants, which have been
struggling with the increasing through-flow
of delivery drivers on the restaurant floor
for several years, will start to reshape to
accommodate both them and pick-up-only
customers more effectively. Together, these
forces mean that the idea of a hospitality
brand as something tied to a specific place
and time will switch to something more
diffuse.
TOP RIGHT Food lifestyle brand Bon
Appétit launched a delivery-only
restaurant with a virtual storefront.
Dishes can be ordered exclusively in
Chicago through Grubhub, a leading
online and mobile food-ordering and
delivery marketplace.
BOTTOM RIGHT Experience-design
studio Kitchen Theory has created a
‘Multisensory Dining at Home’ service
consisting of a four- to six-course
menu, tableware, table dressing,
playlist, as well as sensory elements
such as texture cubes, projectors,
wireless headphones and levitating
plates. The meal is presided over by
a virtual chef who hosts the evening.
 Courtesy of Kitchen Theory Alex Lau

Hospitality
113
DTZW designed Beijing’s 23-Seat
Restaurant as an inclusive dining
environment for the ‘solitary eater’.
Partitions separate diners – a spatial
setup expected to be adopted as a
social-distancing measure.

114 Frame Lab

Hospitality 115
LONG-TERM
STAYING APART
For the hotel industry, the question is not only what can
be done to convince consumers to start booking again
− even if only for next year – but also what can better
prepare brands for more such events in the future.
‘When the global lockdown starts to be lifted and we
begin to find what many are calling “The New Normal”,
for the hospitality and travel industries there won’t be a
“business as usual” bounce back, but instead a rethink
and collective adaption of what hospitality means,’ says
Philippa Wagner, head of Ennismore’s insight division.
One clue might lie in the rise of aparthotels
like London’s Locke Living or Toruń’s Monka
Apartments, which show that an increasing
number of guests were already keen to be
able to pick and choose when to engage
with the wider hotel offer and when to be
self-sufficient. These properties succeed
precisely because they combine the privacy
and uniqueness you get from a short-term
rental with the levels of design and service
you get from a traditional hotel. This last
point is important: where true sharing
economy platforms like Airbnb stumble –
consistency of standards – could result in trust
issues for guests post-lockdown, particularly
concerning cleanliness. Note that Hilton
has just updated its procedures to include
a paper seal being placed on room doors
after changeover to prove that no staff have
entered since disinfection. Travel industry
analysts Skift note in their 2020 megatrends
report that they ‘expect more convergence
between hotels and short-term rentals as we
move into the next decade’.
For more traditional hotels, the pandemic has forced
the development of new protocols and packages that
bring most of their on-site amenities to guests’ rooms.
Many are offering long-stay discounts, free-upgrades
and full-board room service packages. Swiss hotel
Le Bijou is even offering in-room spa treatments and
nurse visits, while Zoku will rent you a room just to
work in. Moving forward, hotel operators will know
that interaction-adverse guests are likely to look
more closely at what they get in-room, rather than
property-wide. With wellness facilities likely to be an
even more fundamental part of what guests look for
when booking, this will probably profit stand brands
116 Frame Lab
such as Even Hotels, which has already invested in
stocking rooms with workout-friendly flooring, exercise
equipment and virtual classes, or Westin, which has
recently created a range of WestinWorkout rooms at 50
US locations, each of which features Peloton bikes.
Brands have also been exploring what the
hotel experience might look like when it’s
not concentrated in one building that forces
patrons into proximity, but is allowed to
expand over several properties across its
host community. Opening last August,
Japan’s Hotel Nipponia describes itself as
a ‘decentralized’ riff on the hotel theme.
Properties are spread within the 700-person
Kominato Genroku village, with the central
building hosting only four rooms plus a
restaurant. Seventy further homes in the area
will be renovated over the coming seasons
to slowly expand capacity. Amsterdam’s
Sweets Hotel, a Frame-Awards-2020 winner,
operates on a similar model, described by
jury member Howard Sullivan, founder of
YourStudio, as ‘taking a hotel to pieces and
scattering them around [the city]’. Such
‘scattering’ may not only attract the growing
ranks of experience-driven tourists who want
hotels to be more embedded within their host
community, but also a generation of travellers
for whom passing through a packed hotel
lobby may now generate anxiety.
Nicholas Worley

The rise of aparthotels, like London’s

Locke Living (pictured), shows that
an increasing number of hotel guests
want to pick and choose when to
engage with the wider hotel offer and
when to be self-sufficient.

Hospitality 117
Jeremy Bittermann

Frame Lab
118
W O R K For many members of the
world’s working-age population, the
last few weeks have represented a
moderately successful experiment in
remote working. With offices slowly
starting to reopen, the question
becomes, why go back? Safety will
continue to be a concern, not to mention
the inconvenience of the commute. But
we remain social animals, and creative
work often requires a crowd. That means
things won’t be black-and-white, home
or office, but a compromise. Workplaces
will need to learn how to manage that
increased movement of people within
and between locations, and make sure
their heath is protected – and even
improved – when they get there.
With people expected to continue
working from home more regularly,
offices need to come up with smart
solutions to keep their teams connected.
At the Microsoft Envisioning Center
in Redmond, Washington, Studio
O+A installed a ‘future meeting room’
equipped with 360-degree cameras
and intelligent whiteboards that enable
collaboration onsite and at distance.

Work 119
SHORT-TERM
SPATIAL CHOREOGRAPHY
Research by Global Workplace Analytics predicts
that up to 30 per cent of people will continue to work
from home several days a week post-pandemic. Many
first-stage reoccupation proposals already include
provisions for companies to work in an A- and B-team
structure, and it looks like a behaviour that might stick.
As employers come to terms with conducting
departments that are constantly shifting
between spaces, they are going to have to
develop systems that help them manage
where people are at what time, when they
have to be together and when they can be
apart. They will need to work across contexts,
from home to car to office, and from room to
room. This idea of choreography – directing
movement – will inflect every aspect of the
relationship between user and an office space
that is, perhaps for the first time, truly ‘agile’.
More space is a given. ‘I think we’ll see wider corridors
and doorways, more partitions between departments,
and a lot more staircases,’ Arjun Kaicke, head of
analytics at Zaha Hadid Architects, tells The Guardian.
‘Everything has been about breaking down barriers
between teams, but I don’t think spaces will flow into
each other so much anymore.’ Space might not flow,
but people will. To understand what that might mean,
look at the Six Feet Office concept implemented at
Cushman & Wakefield’s Amsterdam headquarters.
Here the creation of more space was insufficient on its
own – just as fundamental is the implementation of new
graphic languages around wayfinding and distancing
that mediate how people move through this extra
space. Giving people simple signals as to where they
should walk, stand and sit will help users both feel safe
themselves, and also reduce anxiety that they might be
endangering others.
Cushman & Wakefield is also going beyond
the analogue to include greater use of
beacon technology that tracks where staff
are congregating. This could be used to
alert people when proximity levels of crowd
numbers get too high. Though it has seen
greater adoption in recent years to track
underutilization of space, HOK’s director of
workplace Kay Sargent believes such sensor
technology ‘is going to explode’. ‘Now it’s
going to be used for the opposite – whether
[space is] appropriately utilized,’ she said in
a recent interview with The Washington Post.
Understanding what audio or visual feedback
120 Frame Lab
can be embedded into the environment to
indicate these infractions without causing
stress will be an important design challenge.
Indeed, distancing will likely hasten the adoption of
several ‘smart office’ technologies that streamline
interactions between employees and their workplace.
This might be as simple as automating frequent
touchpoints, such as doors, elevators and sanitary
systems. This low-touch but high-interaction
architecture should also encourage companies to
embrace the sort of voice-based interfaces that are
already common in consumers’ homes (consequently,
currently also now their offices). Technology research
group Gartner’s pre-pandemic predictions that a
quarter of worker interactions with software will be
voice-mediated by 2023, up from less than 3 per cent in
2019, are probably now too conservative.
One development that is likely to be able to
adjust more quickly than most is Cube Berlin,
designed by Danish architecture firm 3XN,
which was due to open in March, just as the
pandemic hit. Its AI ‘digital brain’ connects
the majority of internal systems to users
via a mobile app. Operations such as access
control, lift operations and HVAC are linked
in such a way that they can work in tandem,
learning from occupants’ preferences as well
as their general behaviour. It will even let you
know where to find a currently quiet spot in
the building for concentrated work, or where
colleagues you need to collaborate with have
set up. Propositions such as this have existed
before, but Cube Berlin’s adaptability – it can
not only learn, but also integrate new forms of
technology over time – makes it more resilient
to changes in work culture.
Those technologies might include something like
Gensler’s ReRun, a social distancing tool that uses
generative algorithms to indicate where staff should
sit within a given seating arrangement to remain
within safety guidelines. What if such tools could
also start to take into account all the potential layouts
enabled by the flexible furniture systems companies
have long invested in, but underutilized? A building
that could tell users how best to orchestrate its
interior would be safer in the short term, but perhaps
also more comfortable, convivial and creative for
when the world does get back to work.
Ronald Smits

The post-Covid workspace needs

new signals surrounding distancing
that help mediate how people move
through spaces. Dutch Invertuals
and Edhv’s interior concept for the
office of High Tech Software Cluster
in Eindhoven incorporates custom-
designed room dividers that flexibly
demarcate space.

Work 121
LONG-TERM
THE OPEN-AIR OFFICE
‘We know that buildings have a tremendous impact on
our health and wellbeing, and the role of indoor spaces
has now become more important than ever,’ says Paul
Scialla, founder of Delos and operator, alongside the
Mayo Clinic, of the Well Living Lab. The lab has just
launched a new study into air filtration in the office
space as a response to the pandemic, something they
believe is now a cornerstone of any sound strategy to
bring staff back to the office.
In truth, the health implications of poor air
have been a focal point for several years.
Scientific and media focus on air pollution
over the last decade has meant urban
populations are hyperaware of the impacts
of what they’re breathing in, both in terms of
health and performance. But while outdoor
air pollution grabs the headlines, according
to the US Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), air pollution indoors is often between
two and five times greater. Remark Group’s
‘Air Quality and Wellbeing at Work’ 2019
survey of over 1,000 UK office workers found
that 80 per cent believe poor indoor air
quality could be having a negative impact on
their health, with the same amount reporting
it could be having a similar effect on their
productivity at work.
This renewed focus on air quality won’t only extend
to taking particles out of the air, but also to not putting
them there in the first place. Upholstery, carpet and
curtains have long been known to contribute to a higher
level of dust and allergens, while furniture is subject to
the ‘off-gassing’ of harmful chemicals such as benzene,
ethylene glycol or formaldehyde. An abundance of soft
furnishings and synthetic materials might therefore
start to play less of a role in office landscapes, while
naturally derived products become more evident.
A case in point is Benchmark’s 2019 Sage Collection, a
new line of office furniture designed by David Rockwell
that is WELL certified and features materials such as
cork, felt and wool.
Taking such steps will be more crucial to
attracting and retaining talent than ever. As
Joseph Allen and John Macomber, authors
of Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Drive
Performance and Productivity, write in a recent
Harvard Business Review article: ‘As much
as buildings can spread disease, if operated
smartly, they can also help us fight against it
. . . A healthy building will go from a “nice to
122 Frame Lab
have” to a competitive, “must have”.’ There
is an alternative to air filtration, however,
especially in cities where lockdown has
eradicated traffic fumes (something many
mayors are keen to maintain). One low-tech
solution suggested for the future office by
Darren Comber, chief executive of Scott
Brownrigg, is ‘more openable windows’
that allow buildings to refresh, rather
than simply recycle, air. A recent string of
offices has already taken this idea of a more
outward opening workplace to its logical
conclusion, softening the barrier between
interior and exterior.
Nendo’s Yokohama Ekimae Building does this
through a series of integrated terraces that function as
ventilation hubs and outdoor workspaces. ‘The external
elements were taken into account to allow for a more
physical experience of the outdoors, like witnessing the
changing weather and yearly seasons,’ states Nendo
founder Oki Sato. Nicolas Laisné Architectes and
Dimitri Rousse’s ‘bio-climatic’ Anis office in Nice
plays a similar trick, but this time goes further by
placing all circulation space on the façade, along with
open-air meeting and working spaces studded with
plants. Second Home’s Hollywood location uses the
same model, but on a horizontal plane. Made up of a
series of 60 ‘garden offices’, it positions all circulation
space effectively outdoors, enhanced with 6,500 native
plants, including 400 trees, that make each transparent
pod feel like it’s lost in its own wilderness. Indeed the
project is apparently the densest piece of urban forestry
in LA. In an era where most city dwellers have limited
access to outdoor space, the best trick to getting staff
to still visit the office might just be to also create such
avenues for escape.
OPPOSITE TOP A number of recent workplaces
are softening the barrier between interior and
exterior. Nicolas Laisné Architectes and Dimitri
Rousse’s ‘bio-climatic’ Anis office in Nice, for
example, positions all circulation around the
façade, along with open-air, plant-studded
meeting and working spaces.
OPPOSITE BOTTOM The interstitial spaces
between Second Home Hollywood’s 60 ‘garden
offices’ form its open-air circulation route,
which is enhanced by 6,500 native plants that
make each pod feel like it’s isolated in its own
wilderness. The workspace was designed by
SelgasCano.
 Iwan Baan Cyrille Weiner

Work
123
shaping the 1.5-metre
society

In the lead-up to each issue, we challenge designers to respond to the Frame Lab
theme with a forward-looking concept. Following long lockdowns caused by the
Covid-19 crisis, governments across the globe are looking for ways to restart their
economies while preventing the risk for another outbreak. In search of a safe
solution, many called for a 1.5-metre society that secures social distancing. But
how will this impact our shared spaces? How can they adapt to the new normal?
Three creative studios share their ideas.
Words Floor Kuitert

124 Frame Lab

Inspired by the pufferfish, Fred
Erik’s Sufficient Space Suit warns
the wearer’s bystanders with an
acoustic signal when they come too
close. If ignored, the suit inflates for
protection.
Fr e d E r i k ’s
inflatable attire
suits up our
society for social
distancing
Your project started with
an observation . . .
FREDERIK DESCHUYTTER: Indeed. While
keeping a 1.5-m distance is quickly becom-
ing the new normal, many of us are roaming
public spaces in an imaginary bubble. Walking
from A to B has evolved into a precisely
planned act. People plot their routes to dodge
all potentially dangerous encounters. Super-
markets fuel this behaviour by obligating the
use of shopping carts. Thus they materialize
the aforementioned mental bubbles with carts
as bodily extensions, consequently solidifying
the 1.5-m economy. In more extreme cases,
individuals only enter public space wearing
DIY suits, forcing bystanders to keep a suf-
ficient distance. I want to build on these new
phenomena.
In what way?
Given that pandemics and the accompanying
1.5-m society might become the new normal,
I want to literally give shape to the mental
bubbles by creating a wearable body exten-
sion. My Sufficient Space Suit would be a
normal looking garment that releases a trigger
warning if someone gets too close. If ignored,
the suit protects its wearer by inflating itself.
Much like that of a pufferfish, this transforma-
tion is both a visual sign to its surroundings
and a physical form of protection for the user.
The pufferfish? That’s a sur-
prising source of inspiration.
Yes, but a conscious one. The analogy
between the Sufficient Space Suit and nature
has a hypocritical connotation. It is our treat-
ment of nature, and wild species in particular,
that has caused this pandemic in the first
place. Pufferfish – a family of primarily wild
fish – are a notorious delicacy in Japan.
References to nature can be
found in the past as well. Garments and
wearable accessories to keep a safe distance
during a pandemic are nothing new. In the
17th century, plague doctors would wear masks
with long beaks to keep their patients and
others at a safe distance.
Why did you choose
to work on a wearable
instead of, for example,
a spatial intervention?
The Sufficient Space Suit affects the presence
The Challenge
of people in public space and their influence
on it, not the public space itself. It’s a non-
permanent solution that reinforces the feeling
of self-determination instead of obligation in
a climate where pandemics might become the
new normal. Besides being a practical solution
to a recurring problem, the idea of the Suf-
ficient Space Suit strongly taps into the rise of
‘blown up aesthetics’ in fashion recently. The
work of Fredrik Tjærandsen being a prime
example. •
fred-erik.com
Following an internship with experimental
fashion designer Iris van Herpen, DAE
graduate Frederik Deschuytter worked at
Stockholm-based Non:agency, ‘a creative
space for speculation and envisioning near
to far futures’. Under his pseudonym Fred
Erik, the Belgian designer-cum researcher,
and member of Dutch design collective
Envisions, conceptualizes future living
environments.
125
126 Frame Lab

S t u d i o M o d i j e f s k y advocates
for art to enter the urban outdoors –
and fill the 1.5-m gap
You are worried about
Covid-19’s impact on the
cultural landscape . . .
ESTHER STAM: Yes. Right at the start of the
coronavirus pandemic, cultural institutions
were the first places deemed ‘unessential’ and
governments across the world ordered them
to close their doors. Meanwhile, the funda-
mental need for art persevered, which became
evident by people watching films, listening to
music and visiting museums online from the
safety of their homes.
Following a long period of finan-
cial loss, cultural institutions are now slowly
preparing to reopen their doors. But this raises
questions. How will the 1.5-m ‘gap’ caused by
social distancing impact and alter the design
and capacity of public cultural spaces? How
many people will be able to enjoy a concert, an
opera or an exhibition at the same time? How
will the decrease in visitor numbers affect the
ticket prices and will culture remain afford-
able for everybody, rather than only available
for the affluent?
Following the shutdown of
museums and the like, you
called on the creativity of your
social media community.
That’s right. We started an Instagram chal-
lenge using the hashtag #fillingthegap. We
asked our followers to fill the 1.5-m gap with
everyday objects sourced from their home. It
resulted in all kinds of creative mini exhibi-
tions that highlighted the required distance
between people.
What could such installa-
tions mean beyond your
followers’ front doors?
We believe installations of such measure-
ments can help create clear visual pathways
in the urban tissue. We envision a variety of
interventions. The safest distance between
people can be marked on the ground with
the use of colour, light, water or a change of
texture. In addition, intermediate areas can
be filled with extruded and sunken shapes, or
filled with interactive objects equipped with
The Challenge
With #fillingthegap, Studio
Modijefsky aims to occupy the
intermediate areas that arose from
the 1.5-m distancing rules. The team
suggests allowing the cultural sector,
hit hard by forced closures, to curate
the areas with temporary exhibitions
accessible for all.
speakers, screens, prints, projectors or nozzles
spraying mist.
How will your concept
help the cultural sector?
All these ‘intermediate elements’ will be used
to host micro-exhibitions, concerts and the
like, which will be curated by large cultural
institutions, small galleries and individual
performers. We bring art into urban environ-
ments and offer a space where everyone can
enjoy a complete art experience without the
need to purchase a ticket or enter a crowded
building, which we believe is relevant
post-pandemic, too. We aim to make culture
accessible for everyone – at a safe distance.
We are filling the gap.•
studiomodijefsky.nl
Founded by Esther Stam in 2009, Studio
Modijefsky is a women-run interior archi-
tecture studio based in Amsterdam and
mainly working within the hospitality and
retail industries.
127
With a modular flooring system,
Bubble Architecture Studio
addresses occupancy obstacles
Because of health hazards
surrounding Covid-19,
social gatherings have
become almost impossible.
What’s your solution?
PAULINO POVEDA: We dreamt up a
temporary emergency system that takes
into account the possibility of more crises
in the (near) future. The system’s main aim
is to reconnect people in a safe way. We
used the 1.5-m rule as a guiding principle to
develop hexagon-shaped flooring modules
that can each house one person. Or, in the
case of children, elderly or disabled people,
a companion as well. They can be ‘puzzled’
128 Frame Lab
on top of almost any surface – imagine the
halls of the Louvre, for example – and form
a kind of pavement.
Apart from demarcat-
ing ‘private’ space, what
do the modules do?
They are equipped with technology that
helps them connect – via Wi-Fi – with thermal
bracelets that the population will be urged to
use. The bracelets measure vital signs such as
body temperature and will warn the wearer of
any alterations as soon as they step on one of
the pavement modules. If vital signs change
abruptly, the floor will turn red and the

wearer will be guided to an isolation module
where he or she is joined by a health worker.
But if everybody needs
a personal hexagon, you
need a lot of floor space
for a limited crowd.
Yes. And that will be a problem in the 1.5-m
society in general. Imagine a small concert
hall, for example. With our pavement system,
the occupancy rate would easily drop from
50 people to only 15, with unprecedented
economic implications. This goes for many
public and entertainment spaces. So we sug-
gest a system that, like scaffolding, creates
different levels, thus extending floor space
vertically.
Like little balconies?
Indeed. The Covid-19 outbreak has caused
the balcony to become essential in urban
life. A space that previously seemed quite
insignificant is now a symbol of solidarity and
innovation. Alone together, people applauded
health workers and hosted open-air concerts
for example. So in our concept, the reference
to balconies is both symbolic and practical.
Our Future Balconies – built up from the
hexagon- shaped and tech-enabled platforms
– can be installed quickly and temporarily, and
The Challenge
Each module can connect with its
user’s ‘thermal bracelet’, which in
turn detects changes in the vital signs
of the wearer.
enable event spaces and outdoor festivals to
distribute people more safely across space. •
bubblearchitecture.com
A graduate of Spain’s University of Vallado-
lid and student of the Sustainability Design
Master’s at the KU Leuven University in
Ghent, Paulino Poveda is currently follow-
ing a scholarship programme in Berlin initi-
ated by Fundación Arquia. His thesis about
inflatable architecture and design inspired
him to set up his own practice under the
name Bubble Architecture Studio.
129
toolkit for
post-covid-19
design
Illustrations Simon Flöter

01
DISTRIBUTE YOUR BRAND Brands across
sectors have discovered that they can use
a combination of media and delivery to
distribute their offer at distance. Chefs are
out in full force on social media, for instance,
and have even beamed themselves into
homes via videos that introduce their
delivered dishes. Designing spaces that make
it easier for you to document and disseminate
the core of your on-site experience will mean
these new channels complement, rather than
compete with, existing trade.

02
CREATE SAFETY-FIRST
SEMIOTICS Companies that
communicate the cleanliness of
their premises will be the ones who
win back consumer trust. The trick
is how to do this without reverting to
an aesthetic equation in which safe
equals sterile. Our Post-Clinical Look
Book from Frame 130 is a good place
to start thinking about what that might
look like. Clean doesn’t have to mean
uncomfortable.

130 Frame Lab

03
BECOME A MOVEMENT
MANAGER Reducing density will
be mandatory if people are to be
convinced to share space again,
but creating distance alone will not
be enough. Wayfinding strategies
that clearly instruct how visitors
should circulate within a building will
be needed to make sure they don’t
feel they’re placing themselves, or
others, at risk.

04
GO BEYOND BIOPHILIA Buildings
that cannot only promise to protect
health, but actually promote it, will
become even more of a draw in
an increasingly wellness-focused
world. To stand out, designers and
architects will have to go beyond
merely integrating plants and non-
synthetic materials, and create urban
spaces that offer more authentic
access to nature.

05
CREATE SPACES THAT SENSE
The movement towards integrating more
sensor technologies within buildings was
already gathering pace, but spaces that
understand where people are and what
they’re doing will now be more important
than ever. Creating new systems that
let an environment nudge inhabitants
towards safer behaviours, while also
being transparent about how data is being
gathered and used, is the next challenge.

Toolkit 131
Anne van Opdorp, courtesy of Moooi
market

134 Upending conventional ideas of comfort

140 Kettal productizes Richard Neutra’s penthouse
144 How VanMoof aims to get the next billion on bikes
 Andrea Ferrari
CESAR INTARSIO
Italian architecture practice García Cumini developed Cesar’s Intarsio, a system that treats the kitchen
as an area that should ultimately integrate and communicate with the whole residential environment.
Inspired by the deconstruction of a two-dimensional wooden door, the polished kitchen model seamlessly
combines with various design elements by Cesar, effectively overcoming the conventional division of
spaces within the home.
cesar.it

KVADRAT HELIA AND SILAS

Designer Raf Simons first began collaborating with
Kvadrat in 2014. Upholstery fabrics Helia and Silas,
one bouclé and the other matte, are the latest crea-
tions to arise from the pairing. ‘For this year’s col-
lection, I was very interested in experimenting with
woven versions of some of the traditional materials
and techniques used in haute couture such as furs
and knits,’ says Simons. ‘The result is two sensuous
textiles with heavily textured yet extremely
soft surfaces.’
kvadratrafsimons.com

134 Frame 135

 KARIMOKU NEW STANDARD SPECTRUM ST
Japanese design brand Karimoku New Standard
has launched Spectrum ST, a flexible meeting table
designed by Geckeler Michels that takes its graphical
lines from the ideals of Japanese minimalism. Crafted
from sustainably sourced oak, the table boasts a
cable system that enables users to easily install
electronic devices. Karimoku’s overarching Spectrum
system includes desks and dining, meeting and high
tables in customizable sizes.
karimoku-newstandard.jp

CROSBY STUDIOS AIR MAX DAY SOFA

Marc Eggimann
Every year on 26 March, Nike celebrates the 1987
birth of its iconic Air Max sneaker. For the 33rd anni-
versary of the silhouette, Crosby Studios founder
Harry Nuriev created an augmented reality sofa
installation that pays homage. Built using digitally
‘upcycled’ lime-green Nike puffer jackets, the fur-
nishing is meant to encourage community building
and widespread access to design during a time of
social distancing.
crosby-studios.com

VITRA CITIZEN
What if you could find a whole new way of sitting?
This is the intention of Citizen, a lounge chair imag-
ined in two versions by Konstantin Grcic and Vitra.
Suspended on three cables affixed to a tubular steel
frame, Citizen’s upholstered seat upends conven-
tional ideas of comfort with a backrest that envelops
and supports instead of allowing the sitter to slouch.
‘Citizen combines familiar elements with an entirely
new type of construction,’ explains Grcic.
vitra.com

Market 135
ONDARRETA OLA
Making it possible to section out spaces efficiently,
Ondarreta’s Ola room divider can be used sepa-
rately or with multiple fittings linked together. Its
upholstered structure provides acoustic comfort
while an accompanying accessories collection
makes the dividers adaptable to any area. Ola was
developed by Spanish designer Silvia Ceñal.
ondarreta.com

ACTIU PRISMA
Alessandro Paderni

Evoking Scandinavian style, Actiu’s Prisma desks –

ranging from individual to meeting tables – give way
to warm, minimally refined workspaces. Creators
Sylvain Carlet and Isern Serra joined Prisma’s legs
in a pyramidal shape, supplying the finished pieces
with a compact, uniform look. What’s more, the sleek
MFC boards that comprise the furniture have a
0 per cent formaldehyde certification.
actiu.com

MOROSO TABA
A continuation of the design harmony between
Alfredo Häberli and Italian brand Moroso, the Taba
collection is an eight-piece product family that
endorses multifunctionality in private and public
spaces alike. It consists of a sofa, two armchairs, a
bench and four ottomans. ‘When you design sofas
and seats, interaction with people must take pride of
Angel Segura

place,’ says Häberli. ‘This is why I play with the preci-

sion of lines and the poetics of the organic language.’
moroso.it

136 Frame 135

 GEBRÜDER THONET VIENNA NYNY
A multifaceted design, NYNY utilizes Gebrüder
Thonet Vienna’s classic materials – wood and
Vienna straw – to comprise a voluminous collection
of storage units. Storagemilano came up with the
collection, which aesthetically references Nolita’s
New Museum of Contemporary Art building and
builds on Gebrüder Thonet’s desire to offer more
complete furnishing proposals for residential and
hospitality projects.
gebruederthonetvienna.com
György Palkó

KRISKADECOR K120 BUSINESS CENTRE

Housed in a three-storey Neo-Renaissance build-
ing, Budapest’s K120 Business Centre has recently
been renovated. To bring new life and atmosphere to
the office building’s interior courtyard, MádiLáncos
Studio relied on Kriskadecor’s aluminium cladding,
covering the space’s utilities with a bespoke sculp-
ture in the satin sand colourway. The ‘grand water-
fall’ stands 6.85 m wide and 15.40 m high.
kriskadecor.com

MOOOI CARPETS BLENDED

Studio Rens’s Blended line for Moooi Carpets is the
result of printing layers of the same colour in varying
saturations and intensities. The vibrant collection,
which is offered in two different designs, five colour-
ways and three materials, is made via a process that
Anne van Opdorp

takes cues from Riso techniques. The rugs show the

endless possibilities in mixing and matching hues.
moooicarpets.com

Market 137
 COVID-19 THREE SWIFT PRODUCT SOLUTIONS

TOMAS BATA UNIVERSITY NAMADLO

Innovators from the Czech Republic’s Faculty of
Media Communications at Tomas Bata University
in Zlín have come up with a simple fixture that
decreases the risk of transmitting Covid-19. Namadlo,
a 3D-printed plastic extension for door handles,
makes it easier for people to open doors with their
forearms versus fingers or palms. It can be attached
with electric cable ties. Vladimír Kovařík, head of the
Product Design Studio, and his team recognized the
need for a utility that could be immediately produced
Martin Daněk

and distributed wherever needed.

fmk.utb.cz

CAIMI BREVETTI SEPA ROLLS

Ultra sound absorbent, Caimi Brevetti’s Sepa
Rolls dividers are made with Snowsound Fiber
fabrics – the antimicrobial Trevira CS Bioactive
textile with silver ions to be precise – and tubular
chromed-steel structures. Designed by Sezgin
Aksu, the flexible Sepa Rolls partitions are part of
Caimi Brevetti’s new Safe Design line, created to
meet the needs for security and social distancing
in offices and public spaces.
caimi.com

DVO DV300-SCREEN
Employers are having to completely rethink how
they keep their workers safe. To aid in that, DVO
developed protective barriers targeted to those
who need be in direct contact with customers, or
whose workstations are side by side with others. The
DV300-Screens, part of a self-supporting system,
Victor Zastol'skiy

are made of transparent plexiglass and are easily

integrated into existing working areas. Furthermore
they are easy to clean and 100 per cent recyclable.
dvo.it

138 Frame 135

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KETTAL VDL PENTHOUSE AND PAVILION
After discovering that Richard Neutra’s theories
about the relationship between architecture and
nature align with their own, the team at Kettal decided
to productize his penthouse.
According to the 2019 American Institute of
Architects Home Design Trends Survey, ‘emphasis
on outdoor improvements and outdoor living environ-
ments continues to increase’. And this report came
before the coronavirus forced many around the globe
to stay home almost 24/7. Reflecting on the situation,
vice president of Kettal, Alex Alorda – son of the late
Manuel Alorda, who founded the outdoor furniture
brand in 1966 – says that due to Covid-19, ‘many of us
have understood how important our home and family
are – and that we need to make the best of them’.
Although Kettal is best known for its furniture
collections with the likes of Patricia Urquiola, Jasper
Morrison, the Bouroullec brothers and Doshi Levien,
its influence over the outdoors goes beyond objects
to encompass architecture, too. Two recent addi-
tions to the Kettal Structures series replicate the
Penthouse from architect Richard Neutra’s 1963 VDL
140 Frame 135
Research House in Los Angeles: the VDL Penthouse
is almost identical to the original whereas the VDL
Pavilion (pictured) is an open, glass-free version.
The products resulted from a visit to the VDL
House (the name refers to the building’s patron,
Dutch industrialist Cees H. Van der Leeuw). ‘We felt
that Richard Neutra’s theories about how nature
should relate to architecture were ideal for an outdoor
company,’ says Alex Alorda. ‘We’ve been inspired by
his work for many years, and this project made sense
for us.’ Dealing closely with Dion Neutra, Richard’s
son, Kettal updated the construction methods and
materials for today while respecting the house’s
original details.
The idea is that customers can purchase a
readymade Pavilion or Penthouse to be assembled
on-site by Kettal factory staff. ‘It’s like collecting art,’
says Alex Alorda, ‘but instead of having a piece of art
in your garden it’s a Richard Neutra pavilion. And at
the same time, it’s something you can actually use
and enjoy together with family and friends.’
kettal.com
 ETHIMO MILK LAMP
Open-air settings meet the world of pop art with
Ethimo’s Milk lamp: Emmanuel Gallina fashioned
the milk-bottle-shaped lantern – put together from
sandblasted glass, teak and leather – while thinking
about the decontextualized creations paradigmatic
of the genre. Powered by wireless hybrid solar
energy, the Milk lamp is a suitable choice for lighting
up summer nights spent in the safety of one’s own
garden, terrace or backyard.
ethimo.com

GABER DOGE AND PODIO

Bring on the sun: Gaber’s Doge and Podio sun-
lounger collections are an upgrade to any exterior.
Forsix created the pieces with total relaxation in
mind, equipping the seat-beds with backrests
adjustable into five positions. Lightweight and stack-
able, the steel-and-aluminium loungers have high-
strength techno-polymer surfaces that are resistant
to tearing, salt, UV rays, atmospheric agents and
swimming pool chlorine.
gaber.it

BOLIA ORLANDO SOFA

Orlando, a sleek outdoor seating option from Danish
company Bolia, consists of modular units. Uphol-
stered in either light or dark grey fabric, Orlando’s
seat stands on black aluminium legs. The design,
conceived by duo Glismand and Rüdiger, works
seamlessly with Bolia’s accompanying products for
outdoor environments and its clean lines make it suit-
able for a wide range of spaces.
bolia.com

Market 141
FARAM BAHLARA
Answering to the need for office spaces that can easily be adapted, added to and reconfigured, Faram’s
Bahlara furniture collection by Egidio Panzera allows users to integrate functions and personalize all elements.
Bahlara’s heat-sealed, soundproof textile partitions can be subdivided every 20 cm, guaranteeing visual and
acoustic privacy between employees. The collection’s worktops are quickly modifiable and encourage ergo-
nomic positioning.
faram.com

CASSINA SENGU SOFA

Simple lines, maximum comfort and natural materials and hues define the Sengu Sofa, Patricia Urquiola’s
latest creation for Cassina. Two wooden beams – in Canaletto walnut or stained black oak – and soft, eco-
friendly padding come together with meticulous quilting and sharp graphic features. Sengu’s base recalls
Japanese forms, a reoccurring trope in the Cassina Collection.
cassina.com

142 Frame 135

 FIANDRE ACTIVE
Self-cleaning, antibacterial, anti-pollution and
anti-odour, Fiandre Architectural Surfaces’ Active
photocatalytic ceramics line is ideal surfacing in the
time of coronavirus. The Iris Ceramica Group brand
came up with the eco-active product, committed to
improving people’s living spaces. Integrated design
company Progetto CMR utilized 16,088 m2 of the
porcelain stoneware tiles – capable of counteract-
ing 59 kg of nitrogen oxide emissions per year – for
its project De Castillia 23, a ‘smog-eating’ building
complex.
granitifiandre.com

MULLER VAN SEVEREN ALLTUBES

Belgian design team Muller Van Severen created
its most recent furniture collection using undulating
aluminium tubing. Alltubes, which comprises a chair,
bench and freestanding and wall-mounted cabinets,
lines up and repeats individual tubes to form the
structural bases of each piece. The metal objects
Alberto Strada

have no visible hinges, handles or door openings,

thanks to the optical illusion created by the material.
mullervanseveren.be

FLOS INFRA-STRUCTURE EPISODE 2

Antwerp-based designer Vincent Van Duysen has
created a sequel to his successful lighting line with
Flos – Infra-Structure Episode 2. Inspired by the
Bauhaus movement, the architectural, modular
system makes it possible to install playful, twisted
compositions at a variety of heights, coming together
as something of a 3D grid. The framework of tubular
steel rods – in black or white – supports atmospheric
lighting elements and is totally mobile.
flos.com

Market 143
RADICAL RIDING The future of mobility is called into
question with public transport and rideshares being potential hotbeds for
the transmission of Covid-19. Biking is one solution that not only lowers
the risk, but helps retain the improvement in global pollution levels. Dutch
electric bike brand VanMoof makes the switch an easy decision with S3
and X3, two state-of-the-art models that aid in flattening the curve – for
both our health and the planet’s.
Words Lauren Grace Morris

100%
€20 120,000
ownership of the
supply chain enabled
the Dutch start-up people ride VanMoof bikes
to sell the S3 and worldwide, with sales for the
X3 for 40% less than S3 and X3 topping 6,200
previous models million is the amount France in the first week of launch
is investing in a scheme to get

70% of stolen VanMoofs

are recovered within
14 days by the brand’s
people to keep biking post-
pandemic. In early March,
New York City bike-sharing
60-150
bike hunters using programme NYC Citi Bike kilometres is the range
location tracking saw a demand surge of 67% of a charged bike

40
minutes are spent assembling
each bike in the factory,
and 15 minutes for the final
touches at home

€12.5
million was invested in
VanMoof by London VC
Balderton Capital and Sinbon
Electronic, to be used for
international expansion, as
announced in May

1
kilometre
spent cycling
instead of
driving lowers
CO2 emissions
vanmoof.com by 250 grams

144 In Numbers
Photo Andrea Ferrari | Styling Studiopepe | Ad García Cumini

Portraits of me.
Kitchen: Intarsio
Design: Garcia Cumini

Milano • New York • Paris

cesar.it