At Nicer Tuesdays June, photographer Stephen Tayo, illustrator Wednesday Holmes, Azeema creative director Jameela Elfaki and artist Hassan Hajjaj shared how their own education and early experiences define their practice today.
Oak and brass display cabinets fill this cannabis dispensary in Los Angeles that local studio Commune designed to look like a jewellery store.
Commune designed the store for Portland brand Serra that sells and produces cannabis products, from caramel treats to pre-rolled joints.
Serra, whose Portland flagship was designed by OMFGCo and JHL Design, tasked Commune to create a Los Angeles store with a similar palette of white, cream and pale wood.
Located in a former car garage on West 3rd Street in the Beverly Grove area, the shop has floor-to-ceiling windows with black frames that usher light inside.
The space was stripped down, revealing wood beams that are now painted white. Commune then designed a series of display cabinets for showing items for sale.
"The interior is meant to say jewellery store rather than a dispensary," the studio said. "The result is light, airy and luxurious, yet casual... like Los Angeles."
A focal point of the interiors is an oval-shaped oak counter with rod-like Tambor detailing, which conceals drawers on the opposite side. Slender brass rods on this flower bar support a wrap-around mesh trellis overhead in the same golden material.
More glass displays are provided by free-standing vitrines with brass details and oak drawers.
"The store is laid out like a mini speciality store with areas for topicals, edibles, vapes, clothing and accessories with a central racetrack-shaped 'flower bar' showcasing the brand’s extensive strain offerings," said Commune.
Carrara marble clads another counter that is placed in front of storage cubes, also in brass, and filled with cannabis products. A refrigerator with beverages is next to it.
Rounding out the design are white walls, accent walls clad in oak, cement tile floors, globe light fixtures and potted plants.
Dispensaries are facilities that sell marijuana for medical or recreational use and are only located in US states that have voted for it to be legal. California became the first state to legalise medical marijuana in 1996. Another cannabis store in Los Angeles is Dosist, which features white slatted walls inside and out.
Commune was founded in 2004 by sister and brother duo Pamela and Ramin Shamshiri with Roman Alonso and Steven Johanknecht. In 2016, the Shamshiri siblings left Commune to launch Studio Shamshiri. Its other projects in Los Angles include Hollywood apartment complex El Centro and Ace Hotel in downtown.
Photography is by Laure Joliet.
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Oslo's long-awaited Deichman Bjørvika central library, which stands alongside the Snøhetta-designed opera house on the city's waterfront, has opened to the public in Norway.
Designed by Atelier Oslo and Lundhagem, the five-storey building contains space for 450,000 books wrapped around a large, top-lit atrium that connects the floors and breaks them into smaller spaces.
"Our aim was to make a library that can offer a variety of different spaces within one large continuous space," explained Atelier Oslo co-founder Nils Ole Brandtzæg.
"We think we have succeeded in making a building that is huge, but at the same time feels intimate so people can feel they belong there."
Named after Carl Deichman, whose book collection started the library in 1785, Deichman Bjørvika is located on Oslo's waterfront alongside the opera house. This building, as well as existing roads, determined the library's footprint, distinctive cantilevered top floor and vertical arrangement.
"The competition had options for the library to be placed on two different sites alongside the Opera," Brandtzæg told Dezeen. "We choose to place the library on the site towards the public plaza in the west."
"This site, however, was limited by roads and a regulated sightline towards the front of the Opera," he continued. "The organisation of the building is really built around the restrictions from this regulation."
The library is arranged vertically, with a cinema and 200-seat auditorium in the basement, and a cafe, restaurant and newspapers and magazines on the ground floor.
The first floor contains fiction and children's books, while the second and third floor contains more books and several enclosed areas that include recording studios, a mini cinema and gaming rooms.
On the top floor, there are social science books and reading rooms, as well as the Future Library art project.
"The program of the library is organised so that it gets more and more quiet and contemplative towards the top," explained Lundhagem co-founder Einar Hagem.
"The underground floor contains auditorium and cinema for large audiences while the two upper floors are connected through the terraced cantilever that creates a perfect hang-out for contemplation where the library opens towards the Oslo fjord and the surrounding landscape," he continued.
Atelier Oslo and Lundhagem punctuated the upper floors with a series of diagonal voids that combine into a central atrium and create variety within the internal spaces.
"Three diagonal voids, or light shafts, connect the different floors with each other as well as the street below," said Hagem.
"The light shafts make each floor unique and create a vertical public space that is an open and inviting continuation of the city outside," Hagem continued.
"The interior opens for exploration like in a forest, where you are constantly invited around the next corner to discover new areas of the library."
The city hopes that the library will attract more than two million visitors a year after the coronavirus pandemic has passed.
To achieve this, the architecture studios aimed to design a modern library that contains books, but is also a place for people to gather and meet.
"The library has moved away from being a place to store books to be a place for people to meet and learn," explained Lundhagem co-founder Svein Lund.
"Old libraries were often designed as large floors with rows and rows of bookshelves. Our library space is more divided and creates a huge degree of variation. This breaks down the scale and lets a lot of different activities take place," he continued.
"Here you will find spaces for meeting, rehearsal rooms, gaming rooms, exhibition niches, record studio, silent reading rooms etc. Even though the books still have a strong presence this library is designed first and foremost as a place for people."
While designing the building, the architecture studios looked at both modern and historic libraries and aimed to create a flexible space that could be adapted as the purpose of the building changes.
This meant that they paid particular attention to elements that will be longlasting, including the building's structure, internal arrangement, ceilings and facades.
"We won the competition 11 years ago and we have had the time to explore many different library projects," said Atelier Oslo co-founder Marius Mowe.
"This has been important to understand the spirit of modern libraries and to try to foresee where we are heading. We also get a lot of inspiration from looking at classical library spaces," he told Dezeen.
"For instance, we got inspired by how the ceilings and the main structure always are treated very carefully. This is something we have pursued in our own project," he continued.
"For us, the ceilings and the main structure will secure some lasting qualities for the library space while the floor is more like a marketplace where activity and use can change and evolve over the years."
Locally based studios Atelier Oslo and Lundhagem won the competition to design the library in 2009.
Lundhagem was established by Hagem and Lund in 1990. The studio's previous projects include a stilted summer house on a Norwegian island and a Y-shaped cabin on a hilltop overlooking a ski resort.
Atelier Oslo was founded in 2006 by Brandtzæg, Mowe, Thomas Liu and Jonas Norsted. It has previously designed a house wrapped in a gridded timber facade on the island of Skåtøy and a basalt-clad cabin overlooking a lake.
Photography is by Einar Aslaksen.
Project credits:
Client: Oslo municipality
Architects: Lundhagem and Atelier Oslo
Interior architects: Scenario
Project management: AFRY Advansia
Structural engineering: Bollinger Grohman and Multiconsult
Consultants: Multiconsult, COWI, Rambøll, Asplan Viak / Kan Energi
Contractor core and shell: SKANSKA
Contractor facade: Roschmann Group
Contractor interior: AF Byggfornyelse
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Sergey Makhno Architects has envisioned a subterranean concrete home built for enduring the "unpleasant surprises" that may await in the post-pandemic world.
Kyiv-based studio Sergey Makhno Architects told Dezeen that the global coronavirus crisis was the "trigger" for visualising Underground House Plan B, a piece of conceptual architecture.
"We realised that the world has many more unpleasant surprises for us, to which even the most highly developed environmentally, socially and technically savvy countries may not be ready," said the studio.
However, instead of creating a typically austere bunker, the studio envisioned a cosy hideout where someone would like to live "even when there is no apocalypse".
In renderings, the home is pictured in a clearing of trees in the Ukrainian forest. A helipad would allow occupants to land while evacuating to their bunker.
"We were interested in the question of whether it is possible with the help of architectural solutions to recreate a full life for a long time underground," it continued.
"Where, in addition to being able to take cover from any cataclysms and viruses, Underground House Plan B residents can preserve their values and hobbies."
The above-ground portion of Underground House Plan B would comprise two intersecting volumes made from concrete – a material specifically selected for its ability to "speak of reliability, but also be aesthetically attractive".
One of the volumes would be shaped like an upside-down cone, with the flat top serving as a helipad. The other volume would be rectilinear, partially cut away to form a curving entrance.
A spiral staircase would lead down to the subterranean part of the home that the studio imagines as a series of circular layers.
The first layer, which would sit 15 metres below ground, hosts a series of living spaces designed to comfortably accommodate two or three families.
This would include a spacious lounge anchored by a pair of huge curving partition walls.
One wall would be lined with full-height bookshelves to form a library, while the other encloses a huge cushioned sofa – this area would double-up as a home cinema.
At the centre of the lounge would be a cylindrical lightwell, backlit to appear as if the sun is shining down from the outdoors and planted with a faux tree.
A panel of imitation greenery would also serve as the backdrop to the home's communal dining area.
"We were interested in experimenting with the underground space in such a way as to create the illusion of being above the surface as if you could look out the window and see the blue sky," explained the studio.
"Modern people are too accustomed to freedom and lack of restrictions," continued architect at the studio Ihor Havrylenko.
"Life in a bunker, even a very comfortable one, is life within frames – we tried to design the space so that people could feel them minimally."
Illusions of the outdoors would also been created in the home's sleeping quarters. One of the master bedrooms is envisaged as having a floor-to-ceiling digital screen in place of a window that could be adjusted to show different scenes like snow-powdered mountains or a Kyiv street.
Another cavernous bedroom would be fronted by winding trails of faux ivy.
The studio also decided to include a professional-grade kitchen complete with steel cabinetry and prep counters – just in case the imagined inhabitants pick up cooking as a hobby while waiting for the outside world to recover.
A garden room would be dedicated to growing fresh vegetables and fruit, as well as a medical room, a planted room for walking pets and a disinfection pod.
To keep fit, the inhabitants could head to the home gym. It would include an ultra-minimal meditation room and a pool, illuminated with green-hued lights to make users feel like they're in a grotto or the ocean instead of "a soulless sports pool".
This entire layer of Underground House Plan B would be surrounded by an "evacuation ring" that can be accessed from almost every room, should there ever be the need to escape the property.
Further underground would be an area dedicated to water treatment systems and generators, with a well to supply water further below.
"This project is a reflection on the continuation of human life under any circumstances, and an attempt to find an answer to the question of whether architecture can create the impression of life at the surface while being in its depths," concluded architect at the studio Serhii Makhno.
This isn't the first conceptual project by Sergey Makhno Architects – back in 2017, the studio unveiled visuals of an imaginary weathered-steel home.
It would be nestled at the base of Ukraine's Carpathian Mountains, serving as a quiet getaway for a "contemporary nomad" tired of city life.
Project credits:
Team: Serhii Makhno, Olha Sobchyshyna, Oleksandr Makhno, Ihor Havrylenko, Maryna Hrechko, Oleksandr Bokhan, Serhii Filonchuk
PR: Tatiana Vakula, Maria Fedko, Daria Sushko
PM: Maryna Vasylishyna
Visual design: Ihor Havrylenko
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Rewilding is a better way of fighting climate change and biodiversity loss than planting trees, according to designer Sebastian Cox.
"I'm not an enormous advocate of the planting of trees," said the English designer, who is known for his solid-wood furniture made entirely from English timber.
"I don't think it's necessary," he said. "And actually, generally, you get a much more resilient woodland if you just let it grow through a process of rewilding."
Rewilding is gaining traction as a way of letting landscapes recover with minimal human intervention. In a Dezeen panel discussion at Dutch Design Week in 2018, geologist Sjoerd Kluiving said that rewilding was the single most important way of tackling climate change.
"If we are able to rewild more in Europe, to create national parks, we can combat biodiversity lows," Kluiving said. "We can do something about climate change."
Wood is "solid carbon dioxide"
Cox, who harvests timber from his own managed woodland in Kent, England, has set a target to store 100 tonnes of carbon dioxide in his products each year and to make his business carbon negative.
He is also campaigning to double the amount of woodland and wild land in Britain by 2040.
"The thing that I find so magic about wood is that it's solid carbon dioxide," Cox said in a live interview with Dezeen conducted as part of Virtual Design Festival.
"Wood is the number one material that nature wants to give us which helps us fight biodiversity loss and climate change in one action."
Cox added: "If we were to sit down and design a material for this century – something which would be solving the issues that we face today – we would probably end up with something that looks a lot like wood."
UK imports 87 per cent of its timber
The designer, who is in the process of relocating from London to Margate in Kent, owns 4.5 acres of ancient woodland, which he manages sustainably to encourage biodiversity while harvesting timber for his workshops.
The woodland is managed actively, with mature trees cleared to allow new growth. "We're actually accidentally mimicking with our chainsaws the activity of woolly mammoths and giant herbivores that used to move around our landscape," he explained. "Woodlands respond really well to this kind of disturbance and they throw up lots of new life."
The woodland only provides a fraction of the wood Cox requires, with the rest coming from sustainably managed woodlands around the UK. This makes Cox unusual since 87 per cent of the timber used in the UK is imported.
"It's largely because other countries are better at homogenising their product," he explained. "With UK trees, you have to accept character; you have to accept the imperfections."
"Britain "one of the most nature-depleted countries"
Trees thrive in the temperate British climate, with a bare plot capable of producing harvestable timber within 15 years through rewilding with minimal human intervention.
But the UK has among the lowest tree cover of any comparable country, with 72 per cent of its land dedicated to agriculture. Most of this is intense, industrial farming.
"Britain is one of the most nature-depleted countries on the Earth," said Cox. "And that has a significant negative impact on our biodiversity."
In some parts of the country, built-up areas can be as much of a haven for wildlife as rural areas, he said.
"Already that inversion exists in the sense that we do have depleted nature in our countryside and increased nature in some of our suburban and peri-urban kind environments," he said.
People who criticise the destruction of the Amazon to create farmland need to be aware that the same thing happened in England in the past. "I think that we should really get our own backyard in order before we go criticising the rest of the world," he said.
Design projects by Cox include an "urban rustic" kitchen for DeVol, featuring rough-sawn planks and woven beech panels.
He is also experimenting with mycelium, creating a range of lights from the fungus material, and has produced a range of products called Underwood, made from coppiced wood that is usually regarded as waste.
"We're a nation of gardeners and I think we've overdone it"
Cox's approach to land management is closely aligned with that of author Isabella Tree whose 2018 book, Wilding, documents how a 3,500-acre farm in West Sussex was handed back to nature.
In an opinion column for Dezeen last year, Cox argued against calls for mass adoption of veganism to save the planet, arguing that livestock that is allowed to roam freely in natural landscapes can help rather than damage biodiversity.
He recently published a manifesto called Modern Life from Wilder Land, setting out an alternative view of how the landscape could be managed to benefit nature and fight climate change while providing valuable resources including timber.
"We're a nation of gardeners and I think we've overdone it," he said of the English tendency to make everything neat and tidy.
"One of the main things [the manifesto] advocated is the idea that we need a bit more scrappiness and a little bit more where we just let go."
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