Mid-century homes in Palm Springs and vintage advertisements from the 1950s are just some of the things that design studio Daytrip drew upon to create the vibrant interiors of this central London office.
The media office takes over three floors of a converted warehouse in Clerkenwell that was originally built back in the 18th century.
Inside there are still hints of the building's industrial past, such as the exposed-brick walls and crittal windows, but Daytrip was asked to design a bold workspace that instead channelled a "strong feminine aesthetic".
During the briefing process, the studio was presented with pictures by Slim Aarons – an American photographer known for capturing socialites and celebrities in glamorous locations – and images of the mid-century properties that populate the Californian city of Palm Springs.
"There was a certain nostalgia and optimism evoked; hazy, relaxed summers away from the inner-city stresses – it felt like an enjoyable place to live and work," the studio's co-founder, Iwan Halstead, told Dezeen.
"We also looked at old vintage adverts of 1950's kitchens, spaces that, at the time, were specifically designed and marketed for women – we wanted to flip this concept for the career-focused women in contemporary society,” he continued.
"We took references from the materials and colours and rooted it in the Clerkenwell building."
The upper floor of the office is a relaxed lounge-style room where staff can sit and work informally as groups.
One half of the space is dominated by a chunky sectional sofa upholstered in yellow-and-beige striped fabric, while the other half has been dressed with a couple of plush navy armchairs and a blush-pink desk for four.
A sideboard that runs around the periphery of the room has been dotted with Verner Panton's signature Flowerpot lamps.
Concertina doors inset with panels of mottled glass can be drawn back to reveal a large boardroom.
The central table is surrounded by merlot-red velvet chairs, and exposed-wire strip lights have been dangled from the ceiling.
The remaining two floors have been given a more cellular arrangement, complete with blocks of workstations and private offices where staff can work independently.
Parquet wooden flooring and MDF storage feature throughout. Sheer curtains have also been hung in front of nearly all the windows, gently bathing rooms in natural light.
"There is an inherent cinematic undertone that runs throughout, a nostalgic nod to the film industry, yet on closer examination there is contemporary design and details," added the studio.
Meeting areas on these levels are equally as opulent as those on the top floor – one is anchored by a huge lipstick-red sofa with tassel fringing. Others have been finished with heavy midnight-blue carpeting, patterned rugs and tables with glossy lacquer surfacetops.
They're closed off from the main floorplan by colourful gridded partitions.
At lunchtime, staff can gather in the break-out areas that feature jet-black joinery and breakfast islands clad with baby-pink tiles.
This office by Daytrip joins a number of striking workspaces in Clerkenwell, which is often considered the design district of London and home to several trendy companies.
The tour, which will be broadcast live on Dezeen, will take place at 4:00pm UK time on Monday 8 June. It will follow a live interview between French architect Mamou-Mani and Dezeen founder and editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs.
"Fractal amphitheatre"
Catharsis is a "fractal amphitheatre" made of timber modules. Its geometry attempts to blur the distinction between spectators and performers.
It was designed for this summer's Burning Man, a festival held each summer at Black Rock City, a temporary city built in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, USA.
Arthur Mamou-Mani will lead a virtual tour of Catharsis as part of VDF
In 2018, Mamou-Mani designed Galaxia, the main temple at the festival, which was burned as the event's finale.
This year, he teamed up with Therme Art to develop a pavilion that would be inaugurated at the festival and then deconstructed and rebuilt elsewhere instead of being burned.
However, this year's festival was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, so Mamou-Mani put out a call via Dezeen for game developers to help him realise the amphitheatre in virtual reality.
Project realised in virtual reality
"Burning Man has challenged the community to come up with ideas for a virtual version of the event this August," he told Dezeen at the time.
"Therefore, similar to Dezeen's Virtual Design Festival, these are opportunities for us architects and artists to re-invent our relationship to space."
Mamou-Mani created a VR version of his pavilion after Burning Man was cancelled
Since then, Arthur has received emails from game designers, artists, companies volunteering to help and collaborate. He also discovered several different, unofficial versions of Burning Man have been created in virtual reality.
The architect will explain how the virtual project was realised on the 8 June tour, which will also visit a VR version of Galaxia.
AltspaceVR is a "social VR" platform owned by Microsoft. The free version allows users to meet and collaborate in virtual environments.
Mamou-Mani's Galaxia temple has been resurrected in VR
Ahead of the tour, add Mamou-Mani's user name "mamoumani" as a friend in the app. From 4:00pm UK time on 8 June, you can join the group by pressing "Go to user" next to Mamou-Mani's name in your online friends.
Readers without access to the app or headset, and Mac users, will be able to watch the tour via live video. If you have any problems joining or viewing the tour, please use the comments section below.
"Incredible things are happening," in VR due to the pandemic, said Lara Lesmes of architect Space Popular, an architecture studio that has pioneered the use of virtual reality in its projects.
"We spend a lot of time in VR," said the London studio's Fredrik Hellberg. "I think we probably both met more new people during the lockdown than we normally would."
The interiors of future houses will be designed to mitigate coronavirus, says Michelle Ogundehin who has outlined 11 ways the pandemic will impact the home.
The home played a pivotal role in the recent global crisis. Forced to double as office, school, gym, even restaurant, whether it felt safe or suffocating, it came under forensic examination, and for many was found wanting. And I do not mean in the decorative sense. Rather, Covid-19 clarified that the contemporary paradigm of the home, and crucially, how we live within it, must change if we are to survive the next inter-pandemic phase — learning to live with a virus in our midst.
After all, if we look to history, we can see that pandemics are not the exception in human history, they are the rule, so domestic adaptation is long overdue. For many, lockdown unleashed profound mental stress, and yet responses ranged from unduly romantic visions of a "great correction" to reactive catastrophising with homes as isolationist bunkers and the need for off-grid independence.
A more pragmatic way forward is required. Something achievable regardless of wealth, size of home, or whether they're rented or owned. Not least because further waves of this virus are highly likely. Less a 'new normal' on the horizon then, than a new 'counter-normal'.
Thankfully, I believe our homes can be a powerful weapon in the fight against contagion. And right now, as we lack a vaccine and immunity after infection is not proven, they might just be the most potent defence available. In the future home, form will follow infection. Herewith then 11 proposals for change:
Immunity boosting homes. Indoor air can be up to 10 times more contaminated than that outdoors due to the build-up of pollutants therein. Think paints off-gassing, toxins from common cleaning products, fumes from petroleum-wax based candles or adhesives in new carpets even before you factor in cigarette smoke, mould spores, bacteria and viruses.
It's a lethal cocktail that's responsible for some 99,000 annual deaths in Europe alone, according to the Royal College of Physicians. So, VOC-free paints and formaldehyde-free building materials must become standard and MDF should be banned.
Air and water filtration systems can be high-tech solutions but the minimum of a drinking water filter jug and plenty of leafy houseplants can also be highly effective. Plants are air-cleaning ninjas so effective even NASA commissioned research to prove it.
Layout determined by need, not history. Apparently 80 per cent of the homes we'll be living in by 2050 have already been built. If this is the case, then existing layouts must be seen as suggestions, not absolutes. But it's not about just moving or removing walls. For example, in a standard house, why are all bedrooms habitually placed upstairs? A smaller darker downstairs room might be better fit for purpose and a larger well-lit upstairs suite then released for living, rather than sleep.
Survival of the most adaptable. Indeed, in Japan, floor plans for new homes are seldom drawn with furniture in situ because rooms are intended to be multi-functional. Ample storage enables a single room to segue effortlessly from dining space to relaxation area or sleeping quarters, as required.
There is much to learn from this. In contrast, in the West, open-plan became the layout of choice in pursuit of flexibility. While it undoubtedly improves inter-household communication, quiet corners and privacy were lost. A complete reversion to cellular rooms is not necessary, but the recognition that mental health will always suffer without some means of retreat from the maelstrom of life, even within the home itself, is vital. A situation that's exacerbated if entire families are at home together 24/7.
Back to Basics. Another Japanese concept that may soon become a Western norm is the concept of the Genkan. A kind of small indoor porch where outdoor shoes are removed before entry into the home proper, it is a practical gateway to good indoor hygiene.
Indicated by a different flooring finish to the rest of the home, it sometimes also has a step to further delineate its boundary. Combine this with naturally antibacterial surfaces like cork and copper, a small shelf for some hand sanitiser, and the pre-hallway lobby as decontamination chamber might just be possible without the need to introduce hospital-standard UV-filter systems.
Smart not sterile. We must be wary of reverting to sterility in reaction to the threat of disease. The importance of being surrounded by objects, furnishings, finishes and materials that have personal meaning brings its own boosts to wellbeing.
Decoration can still be full-on and fun; it is the infrastructure behind it that must change. Likewise, much has been made of the possibilities for touchless tech, handle-less doors and knee-operated sinks; these have no place in the home. More so than ever before we will crave profoundly tactile home environments as deliberate respite from the socially distanced world beyond our doors. Common sense must prevail. Regular wipe-downs, good basic cleanliness and soap dispensers by every tap will suffice.
Living rooms for active rest and play. In the accelerating pace of life, many homes had become little more than places to get ready to leave in the morning and collapse back into at night with living rooms in particular reduced to boxset-binge crash pads.
And yet, during lockdown, searches for online adult learning courses, as well as baking, board games and reading, surged in popularity, indicating that the desire is there, if not usually the time. All of these things constitute active rest — an engaged use of downtime that naturally counteracts stress and supports resilience and good immune function.
Within the reassessment of floorplans must come a re-focus on this home zone to help the continuation of such healthy habits. After all, exercise can happen here too, no fancy gyms or expensive kit required, just a Smart TV to tap into the wealth of online classes and enough space in front of the sofa to stretch your arms or lay a yoga mat.
Hopefully, another benefit of the increased acceptability for WFH will be the provision of more time to enjoy such activity. And if lack of space is still perceived to be an issue, bear in mind that the average household contains 300,000 items, two-thirds of which are never used. Far from lacking space, most of us simply have too much stuff. Time to get rid of it.
The anti-trophy kitchen. Hand in hand with the above, the trend for multi-functional kitchens flowing unbounded into our living areas will be reversed. It's time for a move towards kitchens as the engine of the home, not heart.
Finely tuned but in the background. Not a return to back-of-house status, just an acknowledgement that their intended purpose is the storage of real food (i.e. the sort that goes off if not refrigerated), and the creation of healthy meals, one of the greatest preventative medicines available, with no side effects. Besides, schoolbags, toys, admin and other such household ephemera have absolutely no place in a hygienic food prep area.
Home as wealth hub. In the same way, more freed-up space will contribute to the provision of a den/study with a door, preferably sound-proofed, to better enable working from home, as well as the aforementioned need for retreat.
Nevertheless, dining tables are a poor substitute for a desk, being higher than is optimum, and neither laptops nor regular chairs are osteopathically advisable for continuous usage. A priority for the design industry then must be home-worthy standing desks (to encourage movement) and more attractive lumbar supportive chairs.
The revival of forgotten rooms. Libraries, larders, utility and morning rooms. The priority given to such separate rooms will be re-visited. Clearly some — libraries and morning rooms — only if space allows for such a luxurious mode of escape.
Whereas larders will be squeezed into even the smallest of homes for the sense of security engendered by a well-stocked food cupboard. Utility areas will be re-configured to accommodate additional freezer capacity with deep pantry-style shelving alongside the washer/dryer.
Human-centric homes. The design ethos of biophilia, meaning a love of nature, has already entered the mainstream, as referenced in my 2020 Trend Report. The abundant use of natural materials or its simulation via colour, texture and form, make up the core of the approach with proven benefits for wellbeing.
But a degree of communal green space per new home built should now be mandated, and standards regarding the balance of indoor vs outdoor square footage revised. After all, we're absolutely not all in it together if you compare being locked down with a private garden versus holed up in an urban tenement block. Even a balcony would make a huge difference.
Spaces for living, not speculation. Overall, far from advocating ways of living that further isolate us as individuals, if we have the opportunity to build new, we must move towards the development of mixed-model home units that tap into shared ownership of resources from utilities and sports facilities to outside space and childcare.
Now is a time to solidify community and come together, not fracture apart. Nonetheless, flexibility is key. Therefore, following the successful membership models currently enjoyed for music and movies, why not homeownership by subscription too? Make it easy to upgrade, downsize, add/remove services or swap cities as requirements change, and growing families don't get stuck in cramped conditions and empty nesters with a zen for travel don't leave over-sized properties empty.
And this is not the same as collective-housing, or co-living, which so far largely comprises single buildings divided into rentable individual rooms more akin to student-style dorms with hotel-grade services. The subscription model would deliberately encompass couples and families as well as footloose singletons, and work to alleviate the social isolation and loneliness that's become so common among new mums, teenagers, single parents to retirees. It also goes hand in hand with a long-overdue review of our lamentable habit of sequestering old people in late-life ghettos. Something painfully highlighted by the impact of Covid-19 on UK care homes.
In this way, if we can evolve our domestic landscape towards small-scale collectives of ethically powered, well-insulated individual homes focused around healthy-living, community, sustainability and inter-generational support, we might yet thrive in, and beyond, the Corona era.
The black-and-white ad quotes Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s speech “How Long, Not Long” and is signed by the families of racial brutality victims and civil rights organisations.
The Berliner Ensemble theatre group has removed around 500 of its 700 seats to prepare for reopening in alignment with Germany's social-distancing policies.
The Berlin-based theatre group, which operates from the 19th century Theater am Schiffbauerdamm building, shared an image of its auditorium on Twitter to give theatre-goers an idea of the experience they will have when it reopens following the Covid-19 pandemic.
Around 70 per cent of the auditorium's seats have been removed, with every second row cleared and seats arranged either individually or in pairs on the remaining rows.
Berliner Ensemble removed the seats as part of its investigation into how social distancing can be achieved when the theatre reopens in September. The removed seats will be renovated while they are not needed.
"This allows us to follow the rules of physical distancing"
"The seats were removed in the last 10 days for two reasons: On the one hand, we try to come up with creative solutions for the current corona regulations," said Oliver Reese, artistic director of Berliner Ensemble.
"The auditorium now looks like an installation, it is not just empty rows," he told Dezeen. "By removing the seats, the remaining ones are easier to access."
"This allows us to follow the rules of social, or the way we like to put it, the rules of physical distancing. On the other hand, we will use the removal for a renovation of the historic seats."
Along with the reduced number of seats, when the theatre reopens the Berliner Ensemble will instigate a range of measures to ensure that the official regulations, which stipulate a minimum distance of 1.5 meters, will be maintained.
"Tickets will be checked contactless, spectators must wear a mask until they reach their seat and there will be a crowd management system during the entry," said Reese.
"The order of admission will be strictly regulated. The guests will be brought to their seats in small units – approximately six people – so that there are no traffic jams and the distances between the individual visitors, couples, or groups can be observed."
This is an "extraordinary seating plan"
Although the majority of seats have been removed from the theatre, the Berliner Ensemble wants to make the experience of a performance as enjoyable as possible for its socially distancing audience.
"We really want to play! It is not only our primary mission and obligation as a public theatre but also our heartfelt wish to get back on stage," explained Reese.
"We had to change the plans for our next season several times in the past weeks, but I am happy that we have finally discovered creative and playful ways with our actors and artistic teams to deal with the regulations in the coming season with an indeed extraordinary seating plan," he continued.
"We should definitely keep in mind that the seats are removed temporarily. We are all longing for normality. But I am absolutely sure that our ensemble will perform with at least the same energy for 200 than for 700 people."
