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Wednesday 2 September 2020

African design studio BellTower wins Lexus Design Award 2020

Dezeen promotion: BellTower wins Lexus Design Award 2020

Dezeen promotion: BellTower has been revealed as the winner of the 2020 Lexus Design Award for its design project that could help emerging nations provide their citizens with clean water.

Kenyan studio BellTower's win marks the first time an African designer has ever won the coveted Lexus Design Award in its eight-year history.

Its winning project, named Open Source Communities, is an affordable structure developed for collecting and storing rainwater for safe drinking. It has been designed specifically for use in developing countries with the aim of helping these nations establish more sustainable communities.

BellTower was founded in Kenya in 2014 by designers John Brian Kamau, Joyce Wairimu Gachiri, Ian Githegi Kamau, Esther Wanjiku Kamau and Arvin Booker Kamau.

The team was selected ahead of five other finalists shortlisted for the prize, including US studio Sutherlin Santo, UK-based duo Théophile Peju and Salvatore Cicero, Chinese designer Yaokun Wu, Russian creative Irina Samoilova and Pakistani industrial designer Aqsa Ajmal.

BellTower's project was one of six finalists

The decision was made after all six finalists presented their work to this year's panel of judges, which included Paola Antonelli, Jeanne Gang, John Maeda, and Simon Humphries.

This process took place in a virtual venue due to the cancellation of Milan Design Week.

The judging criteria was based on the finalists' efforts to "anticipate, innovate and captivate in the quest for a better tomorrow".

Reflecting on the winning project, Gang said: "The Grand Prix winner expands our definition of design to include systems of finance for community projects and engages the critical role clean drinking water plays in citizens' ability to thrive."

"By addressing the way that the project will come into being and be sustained economically, the designers broaden our thinking about what design is and could be," she added.

"While the project is an apparatus to collect and store rainwater for safe drinking, it is also a financial game plan for empowering a community."

BellTower's Arvin Booker Kamau holds the Lexus design award

The Lexus Design Award's Grand Prix is a leading international design award that was initiated by luxury vehicles company Lexus in 2013. Its aim is to help nurture the next generation of designers by funding and showcasing their work, and equipping them with the skills to address the challenges of today.

This year the award received over 2000 submissions from 79 different countries. The finalists were announced in January 2020.

Prior to the judging, the six shortlisted designers were flown to New York to participate in a two-day workshop with Lexus at its creative culture space, INTERSECT BY LEXUS - NYC.

Here, they developed their designs through hands-on sessions with well-known designers including Joe Doucet, Bethan Gray, Philippe Malouin, and Shohei Shigematsu, who acted as mentors to help create prototypes of their designs.

After the mentoring session, each finalist received ongoing access to a mentor via one-on-one online sessions as they continued to develop their
prototypes.

"During the workshops at INTERSECT BY LEXUS - NYC, the mentors helped us think about how to break down our problem and provide a prototype solution, all while building design and leadership principles throughout the process," said BellTower's John Kamau.

"Our Lexus Design Award experience has taught us invaluable lifelong lessons. All our future designs will be aligned with the key principles as part of the Lexus family."

For mentor and New York designer Doucet, the decision to award BellTower the 2020 prize was no surprise.

He said that it was "telling that the winner the judges chose had the largest transformation in terms of clarifying and solidifying their idea throughout the course of the mentorship program."

"The Open Source team took to heart the comments, questions and concerns of the group of mentors and reacted decisively in turn. The judges, of course, were unaware of this but the result was reflected in the final proposal," he concluded.

Find out more about the Lexus Design Award on the company's website. The Lexus Design Award 2021 is now open for entries until October 11.

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Meet 훗한나 or Hanna Something, the illustrator constantly reinventing herself

Though the Seoul-based illustrator failed to get into art school, it didn’t stop her from pursuing a career in the arts.

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Welcome to the “camp, comical, stinky” world of Genie Kausto

Created by hair artist Evanie Frausto and photographer George Kan, Genie Kausto puts detailed character development first.

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Richard Rogers' top 10 architecture projects

Following Pritzker Prize-winning architect and high-tech architecture pioneer Richard Rogers' retirement, we round up 10 of his most influential projects.

Reliance Controls, Swindon, UK (1967)

Designed in partnership with Norman Foster, Su Brumwell and Wendy Cheesman while Rogers was part of Team 4, the Reliance Controls factory in Swindon was the first high-tech industrial building.

The building, which contained both the factory and offices for precision electronic instruments company Reliance Controls, has its structure clearly visible – something that would become a hallmark of high-tech architecture.

Wimbledon house, London, UK (1969)

Following Team 4, Rogers and Brumwell established an architecture studio and one of its first projects was a home for Rogers' parents at 22 Parkside in Wimbledon.

According to Rogers, the home was designed to demonstrate how pre-fabrication would enable homes to be built quickly and affordably.

"This was going to be a standardised system to solve the whole of the British housing problem," he told Dezeen in an interview. "It didn't! But it did certainly lead to most of the work which I still do some 50 years later and more."

Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (1977)

Perhaps Rogers' most famous building and a clear expression of his inside-out architecture, Centre Pompidou in Paris drew global attention to both its architects and the high-tech movement.

Designed with Italian architect Renzo Piano, the art gallery has its structure and mechanical services visible on the exterior of the building, creating open, flexible interior spaces.

Inmos Microprocessor Factory, Newport, UK (1982)

At the Inmos Microprocessor Factory in south Wales, Rogers continued the idea of inside-out architecture.

To create the large, column spaces required by the microchip factory, the building's roof is supported by nine blue-painted towers made from tubular steel that are positioned along the centre of its roof.

Rogers designed the highly-flexible single-storey steel structure as a prefabricated kit of parts so that similar structures could be built anywhere.

Lloyd's building, London, UK (1986)

One of the most recognisable pieces of architecture built in the 1980s, the Lloyd's building in London is another of Rogers inside-out buildings that has its structure and services clearly visible on its exterior.

Built as the headquarters of Lloyd's of London – one of the world's largest insurance firms – the 14-storey office block is wrapped around a central atrium. Placing the services on the outside creating open, flexible offices inside.

"[We] kept the floors clear because Lloyd's said they wanted two things," Rogers told Dezeen in an exclusive interview in 2013.

"They wanted a building that would last into the next century – we met that one – and they wanted a building that could meet their changing needs."

Richard Rogers top 10 architecture projects: Dome

Millennium Dome, London, UK (1999)

Built to house an exhibition celebrating the beginning of a new millennium called the Millennium Experience, the dome-shaped structure was designed as a giant tent. The 50-metre high dome in Greenwich, London, is supported from 12 bright yellow towers.

More than six million people visited the attraction in the year 2000, and it was subsequently converted into a concert and entertainment venue.

Barajas Airport, Madrid, Spain (2005)

Rogers' terminal 4 building at the Barajas Airport in Madrid, won his architecture studio the Stirling Prize for the first time.

Designed in collaboration with Spanish practice Estudio Lamela, the airport building has a bamboo-clad linear roof that is supported on central columns that are brightly coloured to mark the airport's different sections.

Heathrow Terminal 5, London, UK (2008)

Driven by the desire to have flexible internal space, like many of his earlier projects, Terminal 5 at London's Heathrow airport is a 396-metres-long and 176-metres-wide, column-free space topped with a curved roof.

Internal freestanding structures to house departure and arrivals areas, check-in, shops and offices were all designed so that they can be dismantled and reconfigured if the building's requirements change.

Hammersmith Maggie's Centre, London, UK (2008)

The Hammersmith Maggie's Centre won Rogers' studio it's second Stirling Prize. Designed for cancer-care charity Maggie's, the orange-coloured centre is intended to be a welcoming and uplifting space for cancer patients.

Situated within the Charing Cross Hospital site in Hammersmith, the building was designed to have a domestic scale and feel to contrast the institutional buildings within the hospital.

The Leadenhall Building, London, UK (2014)

Built directly opposite the Lloyd's building, the Leadenhall Building is a wedge-shaped skyscraper in central London. Widely known as the Cheesegrater, due to its shape, the 224-metre office tower has a sloped facade so that it doesn't interfere with protected sight lines to St Paul's Cathedral.

In 2016 Rogers' 200-strong studio moved into a brightly coloured office within the building.

All images courtesy of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.

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Elon Musk unveils updated Neuralink brain implant design and surgical robot

Elon Musk unveils new Neuralink brain implant design and robot that inserts it

Elon Musk's neuroscience startup Neuralink has revealed the "dramatically simplified" design for an implant that aims to create brain-to-machine interfaces, alongside the robot that inserts it and several pigs that have the device installed.

Musk shared updates of the implant, which Neuralink is developing to connect human brains with computer interfaces via artificial intelligence, in an online presentation last week.

In the presentation, the entrepreneur and Tesla founder unveiled the new design of the chip, as well as the full-scale surgical robot and a group of pig test subjects.

Musk explained that over the past year the company has "dramatically simplified" the wearable device. The previous design consisted of a bean-shaped device that would sit behind the ear.

"It was complex, and you still wouldn't look totally normal; you would have a thing behind your ear," he said about the old design. "So we've simplified this to something that is about the size of a large coin, and it goes in your skull."

The in-brain device could enable humans with neurological conditions to control technology, such as phones or computers, with their thoughts.

Musk also claims to be able to solve neurological disorders from memory, hearing loss and blindness to paralysis, depression and brain damage.

The current prototype – referred to as version 0.9 – measures at 23 millimetres by eight millimetres, and has 1024 electrode "threads" attached to it that are implanted into the brain.

It is designed to replace a coin-sized portion of skull and sit flush so it would be physically unnoticeable. It would be inductively charged, the same way you would wirelessly charge a smartwatch or a phone.

"It's kind of like a FitBit in your skull, with tiny wires," said Musk.

Designed by US tech company Woke Studios, the surgical robot is programmed to insert the neural threads safely into the brain.

The robot would be able to insert the link in under an hour without general anaesthesia, with the patient able to leave hospital on the same day.

"We ultimately want this robot to do essentially the entire surgery – so everything from incision, removing the skull, inserting electrodes, placing the device and then closing things up," said Musk during the live event. "We want to have a fully automated system."

The robot has been used to insert the implant into a number of pigs that are being used to test the device.

As Woke Studios explained, the team wanted to design the machine to suit its clinical setting, while still comforting patients and expressing "the futuristic nature" of the technology.

Comprised of three main elements – the head, the body and the base – the eight-foot-tall robot features a rounded form with soft edges, similar to other, less invasive, medical machines in a bid to give as much of a "friendly-feeling" as possible.

While the majority of the robot is coloured in white, for sterility purposes, the inner surface of the head has been given a light, mint green colour to provide "visual comfort".

Designed "with zero room for error", the head of the machine holds and guides the needle that performs the operation, and contains a large amount of cameras and sensors to capture the whole brain.

The asymmetric body features a "car-like curvature", and provides the mechanics for controlled movement. This part of the robot, which moves in five axes, was designed to make the motion appear "clean and effortless".

The body is attached to the base, which provides weighted support for the whole structure and holds the processing power to operate the entire machine.

Musk also showed viewers the group of pigs that he and his team have been testing the Neuralink implant on during the live presentation.

The implant sends real-time signals from the animal's brain whenever it touches something with its snout.

Described as "healthy and happy", one of the pigs was given an implant two months ago, while another pig has dual Neuralink implants, demonstrating that it is possible to have multiple chips in your head at one time.

A third pig has no implant. According to Musk, each of the animals are "indistinguishable" from each other.

Musk also showed a pig that previously had a chip inserted into its brain, but had since been removed, to show that the procedure is reversible without any serious side-effects.

Neuralink received a Breakthrough Device designation from the FDA in July. The startup is now preparing for its first human implantation, pending required approvals and further safety testing.

Woke Studios' design for the Neuralink N1 brain implant was recently longlisted in the wearable design project category for this year's Dezeen Awards.

Other longlisted projects in this category include a carbon-negative raincoat made of algae, a mask that makes the wearer's face undetectable to public facial recognition technology and water-filled headphones that offer immersive sound even for people who are hard of hearing.

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