Monday, 2 November 2020

Object Studio creates portable social-distancing bench for Amsterdam

Corona Crisis Kruk is a bench with a handle designed for social distancing by Dutch design firm Object Studio to let users sit together while staying apart.

The piece of lightweight street furniture has been shortlisted for Dezeen Awards 2020 in the seating design category.

The designer carrying Corona Crisis Kruk, a social distancing bench by Object Studio
Corona Crisis Kruk is two stools connected by a beam

Object Studio created Corona Crisis Kruk to help people adapt to life following government guidelines for the coronavirus pandemic.

Corona Crisis Kruk is formed of two kruk – stools in Dutch – joined together by a beam with a handle in the middle. The furniture is made from CNC-milled birch plywood pieces that slot and screw together.

Corona Crisis Kruk, a social distancing bench by Object Studio, in a park in Amsterdam
A handle in the middle means it can be picked up and moved

It can be picked up and moved, then placed anywhere for two people to sit while remaining 1.5 metres apart.

"When the coronavirus hit the Netherlands in March this year, the Dutch government responded by setting new guidelines for its people to strictly refrain from touching others, and remain distant from each other," said Object Studio founder Björn van den Broek.

"We all had to behave differently from what we were used to," he added.

People sitting on Corona Crisis Kruk, a social distancing bench by Object Studio
Sitters on the bench must keep 1.5 metres apart

People in the Netherlands were instructed to stay 1.5 metres apart from others in public.

"I live right next to the Noorderpark in Amsterdam, and from my house, I can easily see the park visitors passing by. I saw the struggle happening and recognised my own uncertainty in the behaviour of others," van den Broek said.

Corona Crisis Kruk is designed to help people remember and visualise the safe distance to keep, thanks to ruler-style measuring lines that are etched into the sides

Corona Crisis Kruk, a social distancing bench by Object Studio
The design is intended to ease anxiety during the pandemic

Van den Broek designed the benches in March and had six manufactured by a local maker round the corner from his house.

"As soon as I had put them in the park, the response was amazing," he said.

"People understood them right away, and just loved using them. Even in a circle around them people kept the right distance from each other, without having to check or correct others on their behaviour."

Corona Crisis Kruk, a social distancing bench by Object Studio, displayed outside a museum
Ruler-style markings remind people to social distance

The first benches have the names of the Noorderpark on their sides, and the Amsterdam Museum has bought one for its courtyard.

"One of the benches recently got vandalised, but I am repairing it, with a nice add-on with a positive 'hold on people' text," Van den Broek told Dezeen.

"People are fed up with the virus and the social distancing rules, but we have to stay strong and hold on for some extra time."

Object Studio is now offering custom versions for any organisations that want their own Corona Crisis Kruk, with all profits donated to Doctors Without Borders.

More design for social distancing includes a restaurant serving tray by Austrian studio March Gut that is 1.2 metres long, and mobile screens for separating students in school by furniture brand UNIT Fabrications.

Photography is by Cees Hin.

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"No evidence" that urban density helps spread of coronavirus says Richard Florida

Richard Florida

Cities will bounce back as young creatives take advantage of lower rents and dense urban areas prove better at mitigating the coronavirus pandemic, according to urban theorist Richard Florida.

The pandemic "may make cities more affordable to artists and creatives" he said, adding that dense neighbourhoods "have been better at mitigating and combating the crisis" when compared to suburbs or the countryside.

Florida said that the collapse in demand for offices and retail premises in urban centres could help creative people, who are needed to create vibrant cities in the first place.

While some families and older people may leave city centres for the suburbs or the countryside in the wake of the pandemic, their departure will create opportunities for younger people, he said.

"The gloom and doom prognostications are overblown," said the American author and academic in a remote lecture delivered to the Utopian Hours conference in Turin, Italy, last month.

"Cities will survive," he said.

"Young people have to go" to cities

Florida said that while some families and older people may leave city centres for the suburbs or the countryside in the wake of the pandemic, their departure will create opportunities for younger people.

"What we see throughout history, and what we're seeing now, is that cities are the kind of place that young people have to go," he said.

"And I think that's what we're going to find: that young people, artistic creatives, have a mass migration back to cities."

He added: "If you're a young person, and you want to establish your career, you want to meet other young people, you don't want to sit in your parents' basement forever."

The pandemic has disproportionately impacted the creative industries, with Florida estimating that "over half of all artists, performers and musicians are unemployed".

"But artists and creatives have been critical to revitalizing cities, especially in the past century," he said. "And they will be so in the current crisis."

Florida delivered the remote lecture from his home in Toronto to the annual Utopian Hours conference, which explores cities and urbanism.

The urbanist said that previous pandemics have "not dented the long arc of urbanization," describing the long-term trend towards increased city living as "a far greater force in our world than infectious disease".

His words echoed those of architect Norman Foster, who last month argued in a speech that previous pandemics have led to improvements in urban life.

"Is Covid-19 going to change our cities?" asked the founder of London-studio Foster + Partners. "I suggest that it might seem so now, but in the wider arc of history, the answer is no."

Reduced demand for office space will "driving down rents"

However, Florida said that Covid-19 will lead to changes in the way cities are configured, with fewer people travelling to offices and retail hubs in urban centres.

"The biggest impact on cities is going to be reduced demand for office work in the central city," he said. "That's going to create a real opportunity for driving down rents and converting commercial areas to residential, and there'll be less demand for retail."

"And our cities will need artists and creatives to help rebuild, especially as there's less demand for offices via remote work and less demand for retail spaces because of online shopping."

The rise of remote working will make cities more, not less, important, he argued, since people working from home will become more reliant on their immediate neighbourhoods for everything from childcare to getting a haircut to socialising.

These are all "easier to organize in a city or in a community in which there's some density," he argued.

"Where you live becomes more important than ever before, not less, because you can't get on a plane, you don't go to the office, you're kind of stuck in your neighbourhood."

"No evidence" density is to blame

Early on in the pandemic, large cities such as London and New York were hit hard, leading to fears that urban density helped the spread of the virus. This in turn led to predictions that dense cities would suffer as economically mobile people fled to lower- density areas.

But Florida said that these cities were hit first due to being globally connected via tourism and business travel, rather than because of their density. "There is no evidence, none, that density is to blame for the Covid crisis," he said.

"Denser places if anything, these studies show, have been better at mitigating and combating the crisis through social distancing and providing effective health care."

However, responding to an audience question at after his talk, Florida clarified this point, saying that while population density does not cause greater infection, overcrowding in slums and disadvantaged areas can greatly increase risk of transmission.

"We find a much closer relationship between Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths, even in the advanced world, in overcrowded, less advantaged communities," he said. "It's not people per square mile, or per square kilometre, but people per square foot."

"We are going through a great urban reset"

Florida is best known for his 2002 book, The Rise of the Creative Class, which argued that the most economically productive cities are those that attract creative people, who seek out tolerance, diversity and a wide range of cultural activities.

However, his 2017 book, The New Urban Crisis, argued that the runaway success of some cities has created unprecedented inequality and helped cause the rise of populism and nationalism in areas that have been left behind.

Now, Covid-19 has combined with the new urban crisis and the recent protests against racial inequality to "provide a once in a lifetime opportunity to address the long history of economic injustice and racial division to reset and rebuild our communities, not just our big cities, our big cities and small cities, our suburbs and rural areas in ways that are better."

"We are going through a great urban reset," he declared. "I would argue this is the greatest urban reset in a century. It is our opportunity. No, it's our obligation together to do this."

Utopian Hours 2020 was held in Turin, Italy from 23-25 October, with Dezeen as media partner. For details of more architecture and design conferences, visit Dezeen Events Guide.

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Ten architecture and design events this November and December from Dezeen Events Guide

Walking by Drawing Architecture Studio for M+ museum

Design Shanghai, Design Miami and Dubai Design Week are among the architecture and design events listed in Dezeen Events Guide taking place this winter, alongside a host of virtual programmes including an Archigram symposium and the Dezeen Awards ceremonies.

Other events taking place in November and December include an Enzo Mari exhibition in Milan curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Quito Pan-American Architecture Biennial in Ecuador, Barcelona Design Week and Contemporary Istanbul.

Coronavirus illustration by CDC
Above: the iconic illustration of the coronavirus virion is one of the designs on show at the Beazley Designs of the Year exhibition. Top: Walking illustration by Drawing Architecture Studio for the M+ museum's Archigram Cities symposium

Beazley Designs of the Year exhibition
21 October 2020 to 28 March 2021

The nominees for the 2020 Designs of the Year awards are currently on show at the London Design Museum until March of next year, allowing visitors to reflect on the state of the world in the months leading up to the coronavirus pandemic.

Exhibits are arranged in chronological order, starting with Jack and Huei's proposal for naming Bleached Coral as colour of the year at the start of 2019 and leading all the way up until January of this year, when the CDC released its 3D rendering of the novel coronavirus.

About Time: Fashion and Duration exhibition
29 October 2020 to 7 February 2021

In celebration of the 150th anniversary of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the annual exhibition put on by its Costume Institute is this year sharing a retrospective of seminal fashion pieces from 1870 until the present day.

The show, which is usually launched with the Met Gala in May, highlights the cyclical nature of fashion by mixing up styles from throughout the decades in two clock-like gallery spaces created by set designer Es Devlin.

M+ Matters: Archigram Cities Online Symposium
4 to 21 November

In a virtual event organised by Hong Kong's M+ museum, scholars and architects will come together to reconsider the work of British architecture collective Archigram and its enduring influence on modern architectural discourse.

Over a series of three Zoom presentations, speakers will include architects Liam Young and Mark Wigley as well as Atelier Bow-Wow's Tsukamoto Yoshiharu.

Dubai Design Week
9 to 14 November

Dubai is one of the few design weeks to take place not just virtually by also in real life this year, spanning more than 200 events across the second week of November focused on how we can reimagine the way we live in light of the pandemic.

This includes the Global Grad Show, exhibiting projects by students from around the world, and the trade fair Downtown Design alongside the city's inaugural d3 Architecture Festival.

Dezeen Awards ceremonies
23 to 25 November

The winners of this year's Dezeen Awards will be announced via a three hour-long livestreams, hosted by Saatchi Gallery's poet in residence LionHeart.

Set on three consecutive days, each ceremony will be dedicated to a different category from architecture to interiors and design, with their respective key judges Norman FosterMichelle Ogundehin and Paola Antonelli each sharing an address reflecting on this year's entries.

Combo chair by Frank Chou
Combo chair by Frank Chou, one of the designers exhibiting at Design Shanghai

Design Shanghai
26 to 29 November

Postponed from its original date in March, China's preeminent design fair Design Shanghai will now take place at the end of November, highlighting local designers and brands alongside exhibitors from 30 other countries.

The highly-anticipated Norwegian Presence showcase, which is normally exhibited at Salone del Mobile, will be presented as part of the Chinese trade fair instead, alongside a speaker programme featuring Ini Archibong, Ross Lovegrove and Hong Kong designer André Fu.

Design Miami
28 November to 6 December

For its 16th edition, the Design Miami fair will supplement its regular programme with a new curated exhibition series called Podium, in which pieces of collectable design and craft will be not just on display but also for sale.

In the wake of a tumultuous year in US history and the divisive 2020 election, the showcase will highlight pieces that question what it means to be American, from a 19th-century Navajo tribe textile to ceramics by Puerto Rican "ghetto potter" Roberto Lugo.

World Architecture Festival
30 November to 4 December

The WAF is going virtual this year, with a series of talks, panel discussions and special prize ceremonies being live-streamed for free.

Speakers including UNStudio's Ben Van Berkel, Archigram founder Peter Cook and Jeanne Gang of Chicago firm Studio Gang will discuss everything from recent technical innovations to the ever-present topic of how we can learn to live with pandemics.

Contemporary Istanbul
16 to 20 December

Turkey's leading contemporary art fair will this year offer both virtual and physical events, including its recurring Plugin exhibition, which this year is focusing on human-machine communication and artificial intelligence.

The event's online version will act as a platform for visitors to interact with the fair in real-time, during its actual opening hours.

National Gallery of Victoria Triennial
19 December 2020 to 18 April 2021

The second triennial from Melbourne's NGV will showcase projects from around the globe that blur the line between art, design, architecture, science and technology.

More than 80 artists and designers will take part in this year's edition, including up-and-coming talent alongside stalwarts such as Kengo Kuma, Faye Toogood, Jeff Koons and Patricia Urquiola.

Render of Patricia Urquiola's Recycled Woollen Island installation at NGV Triennial 2020
Patricia Urquiola presents an installation titled Recycled Woollen Island at NGV Triennial 2020

About Dezeen Events Guide

Dezeen Events Guide is our guide to the best architecture and design events taking place across the world each year.

The guide is updated weekly and includes virtual events, conferences, trade fairs, major exhibitions and design weeks, as well as up-to-date information about what events have been cancelled or postponed due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Inclusion in the guide is free for basic listings, with events selected at Dezeen's discretion. Organisers can get enhanced or premium listings for their events, including images, additional text and links, by paying a modest fee.

In addition, events can ensure inclusion by partnering with Dezeen. For more details on inclusion in Dezeen Events Guide and media partnerships with Dezeen, email eventsguide@dezeen.com.

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Sunday, 1 November 2020

Hula 46 bar stool by Benjamin Hubert for Andreu World

Hula 46 by Benjamin Hubert for Andreu World

Dezeen Showroom: British industrial designer Benjamin Hubert has designed the aluminium Hula 46 bar stool, which comes in 10 colours, for Andreu World.

Hula 46 comes in white, black, rust red, terracotta, dark grey, sand, basalt, blue, green and camel colours.

Hula 46 in two colours by Benjamin Hubert for Andreu World
Above: Hula 46 comes in 10 colours. Top image: There is also a version with a backrest

Designed by Hubert for manufacturer Andreu World, it is has a frame composed of a round base and circular footrest made from injected aluminium.

The leg extends around the bottom of the seat, which is upholstered in fabric that is coloured to match the aluminium.

Detail of Hula 46 by Benjamin Hubert for Andreu World
Upholstery is chosen to match the hues of the aluminium

"This stool is as functional as it is unique, it captures the eyes and defines the spaces where it is integrated," said manufacturer Andreu World.

The height of the Hula 46 stool is adjustable so it can suit a variety of uses – from dining tables and benches to work desks. There is also a version of the stool with a backrest for added comfort.

Product: Hula 46
Designer: Benjamin Hubert
Brand: Andreu World
Contact: c.salavert@andreuworld.com

About Dezeen Showroom: Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen's huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.

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Gold inflatable house for Mars designed by Hugh Broughton Architects and Pearce+

Exterior view of Martian House in Bristol by Hugh Broughton Architects and Pearce+

Hugh Broughton Architects and Pearce+ are creating Martian House, an inflatable building in Bristol, England, that will explore what an extraterrestrial house for life on Mars could look like.

The house,  a collaboration with local artists as part of the ongoing art project Building a Martian House, is set over two levels, with the lower level designed to be built below the ground of the red planet.

The upper level will be made from a gold inflatable formwork, which is being developed by specialists Inflate.

View of Martian House by Hugh Broughton Architects and Pearce+
Top and above: the Martian House will go on display in Bristol

On Mars it would be filled with regolith – Martian soil and rock – to reduce "cosmic and galactic radiation" although the team will have to settle for more terrestrial materials in Bristol.

"Inflate are still developing the designs, but it will likely be a ripstop nylon fabric with a gold coating externally," architects Hugh Broughton and Owen Pearce told Dezeen.

"The gold is important for dissipating heat into the thinner atmosphere on Mars. For future use on Mars, a new polymer might need to be developed that is light enough to be transported to the red planet."

"The regolith within is set using biological solidification – the regolith becomes bonded using microbes and forms essentially Martian concrete. The inflatable formwork remains as a seal and final surface."

Drawing of Martian House in Bristol by Hugh Broughton Architects and Pearce+
One of the house's two levels will be below ground

Although it will be displayed above ground, Martian House's lower level will be designed to be fully buried to maximise protection, and would likely be made of reused rocket components.

"On Mars, it would occupy one of the maze of lava tubes which run beneath the Martian surface," the architects explained.

"The life support systems would be reused from spacecraft manufactured on Earth to ensure quality control."

Inside, the architects envisioned the house would feature a hydroponic living room filled with decorative plants that could feed into a circular wastewater system that is currently being developed with Hydrock.

Artists Ella Good and Nicki Kent
Artists Ella Good and Nicki Kent conceived of the project

Hugo Broughton Architects is used to creating designs for challenging environments, as it has previously worked on projects including a research station in Antarctica, and both it and Pearce+ have experience of designing for space.

"Whether working on these extraterrestrial projects or in the polar regions, there are are many similarities in approach," said the designers.

"We need to make ergonomic space in the least volume possible; minimise the impact on the environment through the application of technology to reduce waste, energy consumption and water demand; protect the crew from the hostile external environment, whether that's wind-driven ice or solar radiation, and consider the well-being of the crew, isolated from home for many months, even years, at a time," they added.

Martian House, which will be installed in Bristol for five months in 2022, was conceived by local artists Ella Good and Nicki Kent.

They have brought together experts, including scientists and engineers, as well as the general public to create new visions for life on Earth and on Mars.

IKEA also looked at living conditions on Mars when it redesigned the living pod on the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, US, while BIG is working with NASA to develop 3D-printed buildings for the moon.

Martian House will be on show outside the M Shed museum in Bristol from April 2022 to August 2022. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.


Project credits:

Architects: Hugh Broughton Architects and Pearce+
Artists: Ella Good and Nicki Kent
Science advisors: Dr Lucy Berthoud, Dr Robert Myhill, Professor James Norman, University of Bristol
Museum partner: M Shed
Structural engineer: Buro Happold
M&E engineer: Hydrock
Quantity surveyor: MDA Consulting
Inflatable specialists: Inflate and Airclad
Visualisations: Hugh Broughton Architects and Pearce+
Funding: The Edward Marshall Trust

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