Jeremy Snell cinematically documents life on Ghana’s Lake Volta

In photographing children living by the world’s largest man-made lake, Jeremy needed to create a sense of trust with his vulnerable subjects.

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Archipelago House by Norm Architects is a minimal family getaway in Sweden

Norm Architects has completed Archipelago House, a pine-clad holiday home on the coast of Sweden that's designed to embody both Scandinavian and Japanese aesthetics.

Copenhagen-based practice Norm Architects created Archipelago House, which is located just north of Gothenburg, for a couple and their four children.

It's a stone's throw away from a holiday home that the mother of the family frequented when she was younger.

Top image: the interior of Archipelago House. Above: the exterior of the home is lined with pine wood

Archipelago House comprises a quartet of pine-wood volumes that stagger in line with the site's rocky terrain.

Each of the volumes features gabled roofs, subtly mimicking the form of the boathouses which appear along the nearby seashore.

The kitchen features oakwood cabinetry

"We like to consider the spirit of a place and integrate a new building structure more or less flawlessly into its surroundings,"  partner at Norm Architects Frederik Werner told Dezeen.

"The building should look natural to the site and put the focus on the beautiful surroundings and the life unfolding in the place rather than the building itself," he continued.

"It is important for us that architecture does not feel alien to a site – especially in a place like this where there is a perfectly harmonised small village on the shore with other wooden houses around."

At the heart of the floor plan is a double-height lounge

Inside, the practice has used natural materials to devise a sequence of muted, pared-back living spaces that nod to traditional Scandinavian and Japanese aesthetics.

Handleless oak cupboards feature in the home's kitchen, at the centre of which is a jet-black breakfast island with in-built drawers. Stone tiles have then been used to line surfaces in the bathrooms, which have been finished with dark-wood vanity cabinets.

Furnishings in the lounge were designed by Norm Architects and Karimoku Case Study

The influence of Japanese design can be observed most clearly in the home's double-height lounge, which is dressed with furniture that Norm Architects has produced in collaboration with Karimoku Case Study – the sister brand of Japanese manufacturer Karimoku.

This includes a pebble-grey sofa, stone-topped coffee table and pair of armchairs that boast arching backrests upholstered in creamy fabric.

Archipelago House is the third project that the brand has worked on since its launch in 2019, joining the Kinuta Terrace apartment block in Tokyo and the Blue Bottle Coffee cafe in Yokohama.

Japanese lanterns appear throughout the holiday home

The home's living area also has a delicate cone-shaped lantern that was created bespoke for the project by Kojima Shouten, a Japanese brand that has been making lanterns for over 230 years.

Crafted from washi paper, the lantern's peaked form is meant to act as another reference to the architectural form of Archipelago House.

More squat lanterns that balance on four-legged stands appear in the home's tranquil sleeping quarters. Here there are also book-like storage boxes that Norm Architects designed alongside Danish brand August Sandgren, where inhabitants can tuck away their personal trinkets.

Book-style storage boxes hide the inhabitant's belongings

Beyond the home's dining room lies an expansive outdoor deck where the family can play games or enjoy alfresco dinners with views of the adjacent sea and small, rugged islands.

"Nature plays an important role in our soft minimalist approach, where we believe that buildings should be a functional backdrop and structure for human engagement," added Werner.

"It might be a romantic relationship with nature – but after all, that is why we want to escape the city once in a while and reconnect with nature in our holiday homes."

The home includes an outdoor deck

Norm Architects was established in 2008 by Kasper Rønn Von Lotzbeck and Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen.

The practice's Archipelago House joins a number of getaway homes in scenic Sweden – others include Summerhouse Solviken by Johan Sundberg Arkitektur, which is raised up on steel stilts, and Villa Vassdal by Studio Holmberg, which boasts minimal plywood interiors.

Photography is courtesy of Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen of Norm Architects.

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Chat rooms used by cam girls inform stucco wall decorations in Digital Muses project

Designers Giorgio Gasco and Gianmaria Della Ratta have created a range of decorative stucco mouldings based on the interior decor of rented chat rooms used by cam girls.

The Digital Muses collection consists of eight plaster wall pieces featuring elements such as cherubs, dolphins and vibrators, which the designers spotted in chat rooms used by cam girls who put on live sex shows via video streaming in exchange for money.

The collection, which is based on research and interviews with cam girls, was presented at Rotterdam's Galerie Lecq and as part of this year's virtual edition of Dutch Design Week (DDW).

The E-Angel relief features a cherub sticking out its tongue

The designers, who both graduated from Design Academy Eindhoven, spoke about the collection during a Dezeen panel discussion exploring how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted intimacy.

"Physical spaces have been affected a lot by the coronavirus crisis but on the contrary, the virtual space has been amplified and strengthened," Della Ratta said in the talk.

"So digital media is now part of our daily lives and especially in this situation, we cannot live or work without it. So as designers, we felt the need to investigate this universe, to understand it and to use it for design purposes."

The Rain-over rainbow stucco is made from plaster and marble powder

The number of people turning to cam girls has risen during the pandemic, with one performer reporting a 30 per cent increase in business and streaming site CamSoda doubling its viewers.

Through Digital Muses, Gasco and Della Ratta discovered that set design is a key component of cam girls' work.

"This one girl, in particular, told me that she tries to dress according to the room [she is in]," Gasco said during the panel talk. She went on to describe matching her outfit to her backdrop as an "essential part of the job" because it has a noticeable effect on the spectator.

Some of the stuccos such as Xoxodolphins feature cute, girlish motifs

As a result, an entire industry has sprung up to help cam girls set the right mood, with YouTube channels dedicated to tutorials on how to achieve the right lighting and scenography. There are also so-called cam studios available to rent, which come equipped with a range of different backdrops and professional streaming technology.

Gasco and Della Ratta identified a distinct visual language in these backdrops, consolidating elements of technology such as bright, electroluminescent (EL) wires and keyboards with the tactility of cushions and blankets and soft, feminine colours like baby blue, pink and purple.

Gasco and Della Ratta researched the rooms of several cam girls

"It's very interesting how they create their own identity," said Gasco.

"Our goal is to elevate this aesthetic universe of digital content because we see a big artistic value in these scenarios. We then try to extrapolate some symbols, we extrapolate the language, even the dress code that they are using and try to adapt it into a design piece."

The BDSM stucco depicts a curtain tied by a sturdy rope

In a playful inversion of how our real lives have become mediated by webcams during the pandemic, the duo took this design aesthetic that was developed for the virtual world and transplanted it into real, tangible objects.

To do this they relied on traditional plaster reliefs, which have been used since antiquity to immortalise symbols and entire scenes within architecture.

"Stucco is very decorative but also a narrative element and we wanted to use this powerful aesthetic and narrative in combination with the cam girl world, which questions the concept of intimacy and sexuality," said Della Ratta.

"So our stucco pieces are not only decorative or furnishing pieces but also pieces of storytelling, of this digital movement that [has its own] symbols, messages and stories."

Gag_Ball_Gag is a mandala with a ball gag at its centre

Traditionally cast in plaster and marble powder, the stucco is shaped to suggest different sex toys such as a ball gag, which is integrated into a circular mandala.

Another piece features an abstract swirling pattern, created by replicating and multiplying the sinuous shape of the Lovesense – a vibrator that has become increasingly popular in the camming scene because it can be remotely controlled by viewers via an app.

A remote-controlled vibrator inspired the shape of Lovesense4u

Yet other pieces in the collection draw on more cutesy, girlish iconography from cheeky cherubs to rainbows and dolphins, in a bid to move away from overly stereotyped, singular representations of sex workers.

Similarly, cam girls' use of tactile fabrics is picked up in a piece called Furry20, which mirrors the fur blankets and pillow they often rely on to soften a space and nods to the wigs they use for cosplay sessions.

Furry20 nods to cam girls' preference for furry fabrics

Each of the all-white reliefs is also adorned with a wire that is coated in an electroluminescent phosphor coating, which, as the name suggests, emits a soft glow when it is connected to power.

These EL wires are widely used by gaming streamers who use them to pimp their computers, but they have also become popular among cam girls as an extremely online way to add ambient lighting to their backdrops.

Littleheart features an electroluminescent wire in the shape of a heart

The live panel discussion was part of a series of talks streamed as part of this year's Dezeen x DDW collaboration.

In their talk, Gasco and Ratta discussed the intimacy of workplaces with Sabine Marcelis and Li Edelkoort while other talks focused on privacy and data as well as our relationship with nature and the products we use day to day.

Dutch Design Week 2020 took place online from 17 to 25 October, with Dezeen as media partner. For details of more architecture and design events, visit Dezeen Events Guide.

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Arbour linear light by Ross Gardam

Dezeen Showroom: Melbourne-based designer Ross Gardam has created the Arbour linear light constructed from solid pieces of hardwood over two metres long.

The Arbour linear light is the latest piece created by Australian furniture and lighting designer Gardam. Each pendant lamp is created from a 2,200-millimetre piece of timber that has a curved profile designed to unite interior spaces.

"As with all products we work on in the studio, context plays an important role in defining the overall outcome," said Gardam. "Arbour’s intriguing form aims to accent interiors, providing a natural focal area for bringing people together."

Top: Arbour is available in Maple. Above: it is also available in Walnut

Like all of Gardam's products, the Arbour pendant light is made in Melbourne by local craftsmen. The lighting mechanism is contained within a hand-polished champagne anodised aluminium shell, which is surrounded by a timber body that is available in solid walnut, maple, or oak.

The light is available in either with a 2,200-millimetre timber body or a shorter 1,850-millimetre body. Both sizes are machined to ensure a precise finish.

"Working in partnership with our manufacturer, utilising five-axis machining was key to the success of Arbour, it allowed us to explore a more complex form which we could not achieve using traditional timber processes," said Gardam.

Product: Arbour
Designer: Ross Gardam
Brand: Ross Gardam
Contact: sales@rossgardam.com.au

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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Kisu by Eero Aarnio

Dezeen Showroom: 88-year-old Finnish designer Eero Aarnio has added a minimal cat ornament to the Eero Aarnio Originals collection, informed by the strays he would take in as a child.

Kisu – a word that translates from Finnish into English as "kitty" – is Aarnio's first take on the character of a cat, after having previously created various products representing dogs.

The Kisu cat ornament has been added to the Eero Aarnio Originals collection

The Kisu cat designs were inspired by Aarnio's childhood, when pets weren't allowed in the apartment building where he and his family lived in Kallio, Helsinki.

"Young Eero would take home stray cats who were wandering in the part of the city where the family lived in Helsinki," the brand explained. "Eero's mother would let him keep the cat for one day and Eero loved to play with them."

"Even though the Aarnio family ended up having a dog, Eero has always found cats charming as well," the brand continued.

"The cat has always been a very sympathetic animal character for me," added Aarnio.

Kisu is made from polyethylene and comes in black or white

Suited to both indoor and outdoor environments, Kisu is made from polyethylene and comes in two colours, black and white. The black version is made entirely from the factory's own defect materials.

The cat ornament is the latest addition to the Eero Aarnio Originals collection, and was launched on 21 October 2020 and is now available to order.

Product: Kisu
Brand: Eero Aarnio Originals
Contact: eeva@aarniooriginals.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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