Bare Tree Branches Captured in Layers of Eerie Morning Fog by Michael Schlegel

All images © Michael Schlegel, shared with permission

Berlin-based photographer Michael Schlegel is fascinated by trees and their splaying branches. From his series featuring a Spanish olive grove to another capturing snow-covered trees in Germany, Schlegel consistently documents native plants around the world. The black and white photographs in his recent Fanal series spotlight trees with bare and twisting branches as they are enveloped by thick fog. The uncanny images were taken in the Fanal region of Madeira, Portugal.

The photographer tells Colossal that he visited the area in March 2019, hoping to experience the region’s cloudy weather.

It was only dense fog all day long and from the moment I first arrived at the trees. I photographed there for five consequent days and really enjoyed the atmosphere of walking around lonely, only being able to see what the fog allows me to and being alone with maybe one or a few of these old, mysterious trees at a time.

In each one of his works, Schlegel tries to shoot exactly what he sees on location. “With my photos I also don’t actively try to express an artistic message or interpretation—I rather simply try to show my vision of how I experienced the location,” the photographer writes. Find more of Schlegel’s monochromatic landscape shots on Instagram.

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Solar panels form canopy over surgical facility in Uganda

The Mount Sinai Kyabirwa Surgical Facility in Uganda by Kliment Halsband Architects is a self-sustaining facility topped with solar panels.

Local labourers built the health facility using materials sourced from the area, including red bricks that form the perforated screen walls that allow for natural ventilation.

Red clay was dug up from sites near the building and fired to create bricks and cladding for the medical facility, a decision that also helped support the local economy.

Photo by Bob Ditty

"Surgical treatments are essential to building healthy communities worldwide," said Kliment Halsband Architects, which was founded in 1972 in New York.

"This model is built around developing an independent, self-sustaining facility capable of providing surgical treatments in resource-poor areas."

Kliment Halsband Architects took inspiration from the banana plants that grow in the area for the shape of the building, which is shaded by a canopy of solar panels.

"We thought of solar panels as leaves of banana plants gathering sun and providing shade," said the studio. The solar array shelters and powers the simple modular brick facility beneath."

The solar panels stand on a steel framework on the concrete roof, which is supported by another steel frame.

A hybrid battery storage system and onsite generator helps supplement the intermittent power available through the electricity grid. If the mains power fails, Mount Sinai Kyabirwa Surgical Facility can run off energy stored from the solar panels for two days.

Twenty miles of underground fibreoptic cable was installed to ensure the facility has a reliable internet connection.

Surgeons from the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York can help their counterparts in Uganda with live surgical consultations and video conference call in to operations in real time.

Gravity tanks store water from the well and the town supply, with a system that filters and sterilises it on demand. Roof water is collected and stored for using to flush toilets and water the vegetable garden, which provides food for the patients and staff.

Sewage is treated onsite by a septic tank, and an incinerator is used for the medical waste.

Air conditioning is used for the operating rooms, to keep them sealed and sterile. The rest of the Mount Sinai Kyabirwa Surgical Facility is ventilated naturally with air flow channelled by the undulating canopy and the perforated brick walls.

Uganda introduced free universal healthcare in 2001, but still struggles to provide for more rural populations. Architects are helping to try and improve this.

Renzo Piano is currently building a new children's hospital on the banks of Lake Victoria, and HKS Architects and Engineers for Overseas Development have also built a sustainable medical facility in Uganda, a maternity unit that can host new mothers and their families in a remote, underserved area.

Photography is by Will Boase unless otherwise stated.

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Project credits:

Owner: Mount Sinai Health System New York
Architect: Kliment Halsband Architects
Project team: Frances Halsband, George K George, Simone Meeks, Max Marin
Structural engineer: Silman
Mechanical engineer: Keltron Development Services

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Lucy McRae offers an escape from the digital with Future Survival Kit

Los Angeles-based artist Lucy McRae has created a survival kit for a post-apocalyptic future, designed to be carried on the body as if you were a sherpa.

McRae, who calls herself a body architect, imagines that people might one day react against "the age of the algorithm", by rejecting digital devices and social media platforms.

She suggests that a survival kit for this new future could contain tools that help us slowly adjust to this new reality. They include a mask that, like a phone, closes you off from the real world, plus cushions and mats that offer comfort.

"Rarely do we create something significant without being confronted with the brink of disaster," McRae told Dezeen.

"AI, the environment, automation – these themes are destabilising our cosy lives. I'm not suggesting we exit and permanently retreat, I'm just trying to question how we navigate our future."

McRae felt the sherpa offered the perfect model for her narrative. These nomadic people, native to the mountainous regions of Nepal and the Himalayas, are known for helping to shepherd people across treacherous terrain.

The artist imagines that, in a post-apocalyptic hunt for independence, anyone could become a sherpa.

"The sherpa gets everyone up the slope, everyday, with no real credit. The average citizen is doing the same, carrying the world on their back day-in day-out, running against the wind, at a time defined by uncertainty and risk," explained McRae.

"Researchers have found that a sherpa's mitochondria is more efficient at using oxygen to produce energy, thus are better in higher altitudes," she continued.

"This genetic difference is, for me, a clue that the more uphill challenges we confront, the better our psyche becomes at facing them, in the process inventing new techniques for safety and self awareness in times of turbulence."

McRae's work revolves around using the body as a means to speculate on the future, as she explained in a recent interview with Dezeen. She said her aim is to give science fiction "an overdue sex change".

A few of her recent projects have explored what McRae calls the touch crisis – the idea that, with the rise of technology, digital devices might start to vie for human affection, and physical contact with other humans might suffer as a result.

These include her Compression Carpet, an analogue machine that gives someone a hug.

McRae references the same idea in the Future Survival Kit. Images show her body wrapped up in the entire survival kit, but in her hand is a book titled Rise of The Touch Crisis.

"This speculative book would be part illustration, part encyclopaedia, part science manual and part recipe book, written from the point of view of a female scientist turned comfort sherpa," said McRae.

"It would include DIY hacks for emotional survival when isolated in the bush, and how to build trust and captain uncertainty."

Images also show that, when unfolded, McRae's survival kit takes on the form of a giant snail.

Future Survival Kit is debuting in State of Extremes, an exhibition at Design Museum Holon in Tel Aviv, curated by Aric Chen. On show until 9 May 2020, the exhibition explores a world undergoing rapid and extreme change.

According to McRae, uncertainty abut the future is an important tool for social progression.

"Anyone who feels comfortable right now, is limiting their opportunity for growth; because we know that growth happens at the edge of uncertainty," she said.

"In my opinion, our only way forward is to swim upstream everyday, just like the sherpa, ascending mountains, aware of the risk but doing it anyway."

Photography is by Ariel Fisher.

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Oval-shaped meeting room is centrepiece of granite office in Chandigarh

Indian architecture studio Charged Voids has designed Office 543 around an elliptic meeting room with granite walls, which is a private space among the glass-walled offices.

Designed for construction company Khullar Builders, the office is located in the Mohali district of Indian city Chandigarh, which was planned by modernist architect Le Corbusier.

The two-storey building was conceived by the local studio as a series of small spaces that branch off a central double-height atrium. Within this space Charged Voids designed an oval meeting room that contrasts with the otherwise linear  office spaces.

Directly connected to the main office and the central atrium, it is clad with the same Sivakasi gold granite as the building's exterior.

Alongside the meeting room and main office space, the ground floor contains a reception area and two courtyards, which were planted with small trees.

Openings between the rooms are designed to connect the office's narrow spaces with these courtyards and bring daylight into the workspaces.

"The interjection of courtyards and skylights is a strategy that allows us to experience the fragments of nature like the wind, light and greenery," said the studio.

"The courtyards are used as a buffer between the exterior and the interior, and break the powerful geometry of the elements of design."

A floating metal staircase within the atrium gives access to the first-floor, which contains a terrace above the rear courtyard, additional workspaces and an office. A small sitting area is located on top of the oval meeting room.

Further offices are located on the third floor. Designed for another department within the company, these workspaces are accessed via a separate staircase on the right hand side of the facade.

The studio's design aimed to address the limited space available on 140-square-metre site.

"The idea was to utilise the small site by building the bare essential number of elements with each element achieving its maximum efficacy," explained Charged Voids.

The studio used a restrictive material palette of white marble and Sivakasi gold granite which gives the office its warm-coloured facade. The majority of the interior walls in the office areas are painted white.

Chandigarh was one of India's first planned cities and was masterplanned by Le Corbusier, who designed landmarks including the Neelam Theatre and Capitol Complex.

Photography is by Javier Callejas.

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Project credits:

Architect: Charged Voids
Builder: Khullar Builders
Structure consultant: Pankaj Chopra

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Le Petit Royal Frankfurt is a modern take on the traditional brasserie

A restaurant has opened in Frankfurt that combines the classic styling of a French brasserie with contemporary artworks and rich textiles.

Le Petit Royal Frankfurt is located on the ground floor of the Ameron Frankfurt Neckarvillen Boutique hotel in Bahnhofsviertel.

It is the first venue outside Berlin from the team behind the popular Grill Royal and, like its sister restaurants, its interiors are designed by company co-founder Boris Radczun.

For Radczun, it is more important to create spaces that will become timeless, rather than to follow trends. He likes to focus on tactile materials and comfortable furniture, rather than focus too much on throwaway aesthetics.

"For an all-day dining restaurant, it is most important to offer a sort of neutral, but very comfy hospitality," he told Dezeen.

"The restaurant will be open all day, for a long period and will be visited by a lot of different people, so the question is how to create a space that is interesting but not overwhelming," he continued.

"What kind of restaurant will people still enjoy in 10 years? It's also about not being too 'now'."

Artworks were chosen that fit with the pop-art style of the Grill Royal restaurants, but without drowning out the subtle but monumental architecture of the hotel buildings, constructed in Germany's Wilhelmine Period at the turn of the 20th century.

Among the standout pieces is a stained glass window by artist Paul Hance, in shades of red, orange and yellow, and a neon sign by art collective Claire Fontaine, which reads "I Am Your Voice".

"Their work 'Capitalism Kills Love' in Berlin is iconic for the Grill Royal, but for Frankfurt we went for something more subtle," said Radczun. "With all the banking skyscrapers around, you don't have to emphasise the topic."

Custom-made upholstered banquettes provide the majority of seating for the restaurant.

Radczun chose a tweed in shades of red and grey for the upholstery, to soften the brightness of bright white tablecloths. Along with the grassy textured wallpaper, they help to mute the acoustic quality of the space.

"As I like classical tablecloths in classical restaurants, a pure white, the overall haptic experience had to be toned softer," he explained. "I like to mix different colours of the same fabric, it looks more 'at home'."

Oiled-oak wall panelling and furniture adds a feel of quality that is echoed by the retro wall-lights and glass Ikora lamps.

Lighting was key in creating the right mood for the space throughout the day, according to Radczun.

"The Donghia wallpaper and the stained glass break and diffuse the light very nicely," he added. "Sometimes it looks sunny even on a clouded day."

"This quality is very important for the breakfast situation and gives a candlelit feeling to the evening service," he continued.

Le Petit Royal Frankfurt is a serving a menu of steak cuts, fish and seafood, and other modern French classics, accompanied by homemade sauces and seasonal vegetables.

It seats 80 people and also has a terrace that will open in the summer.

Frankfurt has recently been experiencing a building boom, as the city bids to woo banks from London as a result of Brexit. New high-rise towers by BIG, UNStudio and Ole Scheeren are all underway.

Dezeen is currently holding a competition giveaway for a stay at the Ameron Frankfurt Neckarvillen Boutique.

Photography is by Robert Rieger.

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