Dezeen Showroom: Swedish elevator manufacturer Aritco has released the Aritco 4000, an ultra-compact lift that's designed to fit in almost any home.
The Aritco 4000 lift is the manufacturer's smallest model to date and can even be installed in residences that are slightly short on space.
Its rectangular chamber can accommodate up to 250 kilograms, or two people, and be custom made in over 200 different colours so that it complements any given interior.
The Aritco 4000 lift is designed to be compact in size
There's also the possibility of choosing whether clear or tinted glass is used to make the lift's walls and what material finish is applied to its floor. Each lift additionally comes fitted with Aritco's SmartSafety system, which has been carefully developed to prevent accidents.
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.
Paint buckets, street signs and beaded car seats feature in a series of found seating designs, made by working-class migrants in the United Arab Emirates and collected by artist Christopher Benton.
Displayed as part of the artist's How to be at Rest installation at Dubai Design Week, the eight chairs were spotted at businesses in the industrial neighbourhoods that fringe major cities such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah.
Benton collected the objects over the course of two years and purchased them from the owners.
The How to be at Rest installation is currently on show as part of the UAE Designers Exhibition at Dubai Design Week
Most come from nearby South Asian countries in the hopes of finding employment and supporting their families back home. As a result, money is saved to send back rather than spent on furnishings.
"The makers who live in these areas are carpenters, tailors and upholsters, chiefly from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan – places where the frugal innovation and 'making it work' can be essential to your livelihood," Benton told Dezeen.
"It's their way of 'design thinking'. They would make objects that defied gravity or taste – but they never defied logic."
In pursuit of ultimate comfort, the owners of the Al Khat Al Thahabi Auto Accessories & Upholstery shop in Dubai kitted out a cantilevered dining chair with a grinning emoji pillow, strapped into place using a beaded car seat cover.
At Auto Beauty Car Accessories, a red car seat cushion was simply attached to a battered IKEA office chair.
The Home Outside 10B Street chair is perched on a cement-filled paint bucket
Other designs focus on repairing broken seats through whatever materials are at hand at the time.
An office chair is cemented on top of a paint bucket and padded out with a fringed seat and majlis floor cushions, while Dubai's Classic Car Accessories shop replaced the missing leg of a wooden dining chair with a PVC pipe and fixed automotive upholstery in place as cushions with zip ties.
These chairs embody both the trades and the practical needs of their makers, who are also the end-users.
"The chairs in the exhibition are representative of what we've been calling improvisational vernacular – everything is essential, with form following function using an economy of gesture," said Benton, who moved to Dubai from the US.
"Everything lasts forever through a process of repair, refurbishment and renewal. And everything exists in its time and place, where context controls the design."
A missing leg is replaced by a PVC pipe in this chair found at the Dubai's Classic Car Accessories shop
According to Benton, the designs also reveal something about the UAE, which is experiencing rapid economic growth and urbanisation largely propelled by its oil reserves and the exploitation of cheap migrant labour.
Perhaps the best example of this is a chair found at a carpentry shop, which features a Barcelona-style base with an old street sign repurposed as the seat and backrest.
"It's a perfect microcosm of the narratives that surround the neighbourhood where I found it. In Satwa, many roads are closed because the city is knocking down affordable old homes in favour of new towers, so there are old street signs everywhere," he said.
"On the back of the street sign, there are pasted-on ads for bed spaces, which are shared bedrooms that comprise most of the original housing in the area. All of these economic forces you can see in one chair."
SMC Samir Mohd Carpentry created the seat and backrest for this chair from a road sign
In this context, Benton's installation presents a direct provocation, taking stories from the fringes of UAE society and placing them at the heart of one of the biggest cultural events of the year.
"With Covid-19 travel restrictions, we are all being forced to look at what's directly around us and that's a good thing. I hope I'm not being controversial by saying the last thing we need is another design fair full of collectable, high-end furniture designed by a starchitect," he explained.
"For many viewers, it has been a big shock to see luxurious, seductively-designed objects situated next to a collection of recycled chairs made by everyday people. But that juxtaposition also works to flatten hierarchies between our idea of an artist, designer or craftsperson, which are of course loaded terms."
The owners of Auto Beauty Car Accessories topped an IKEA office chair with a car seat cushion
To Benton, the installation also presents a vision for how we can develop more sustainable production and consumption practices, without defaulting to a white, Western point of view.
"In the countries of the Indian subcontinent, there's a concept called jugaad, which basically is about hacking things to make them work using whatever's at hand," he said.
"The researcher Deepa Butoliya has coined the term 'critical jugaad' to talk about how these DIY, hacked designs are one of the only available forms of resistance and subversion to consumer culture and mainstream design typologies. I like this idea because it situates design solutions around the Global South and gives us a framework for a possible way out."
Dezeen Showroom: Swedish elevator manufacturer Aritco has created Aritco HomeLift Access, a practical lift for residences that lets inhabitants easily travel between floors.
Designed by Aritco in collaboration with Swedish designer Alexander Lervik, the Aritco HomeLift Access is available in a variety of dimensions that can meet the needs of different households. Up to two people can be accommodated in the smallest lift, while the largest size can hold up to six people.
The lift can be custom made in over 200 colours so that it suits any given interior. There's also eight different flooring options available for inside the lift shaft.
"The world of elevators hasn't had design as a key point…they have been more about the function and production possibilities," said Aritco.
"So the goal with our work has been for the architect to want to put the lift in because it's a nice design that can lift their spaces in a way."
Other handy features included in the Aritco HomeLift Access include a sleek control panel, an updated drive system that enables a smoother ride and an additional battery that acts as backup in the event of a power failure.
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.
Dezeen Showroom: A lit-up wall showcasing contemporary artwork is one of the features included in the Aritco HomeLift by Swedish elevator manufacturer Aritco.
Designed to act as an additional decorative element in the home, the Aritco HomeLift has been developed by Aritco alongside Swedish designer Alexander Lervik to include several standout features.
This includes a DesignWall – a backlit panel of the lift chamber which displays a curated selection of artworks made by creatives from across Scandinavia. The lift is also integrated with DesignLight, a state-of-the-art lighting system that can be adjusted via Aritco's SmartLift app.
The Aritco HomeLift features a backlit wall that can display artworks
"The most obvious change in our new generation of home lifts is the visual aspect," Aritco explained.
"Previously, all the focus was on functionality, technicality, weight and speed. In most cases, the lift was considered 'a necessary evil', a tool to facilitate everyday life that ideally should be hidden away in a building," it continued.
"But now, the focus has shifted: it's about creating an attractive addition to a particular space."
Aritco and Lervik have also made the control system of the lift more distinctive. Instead of traditional push buttons, the Aritco HomeLife is controlled by a large round knob that the two parties liken to a steering wheel.
Lervik said the feature is directly inspired by the knobs seen on hi-fi systems or inside cars.
Aritco's HomeLift can be custom made in 11 different colours in order to complement a variety of interiors. Options include champagne – a cool-tone beige – anthracite grey, jet black and sage green. It is also possible to choose which glass the lift shaft is fitted with, and what type of material is used for its flooring.
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.
Cycling shoes are tucked into all-black shelving in this boutique spinning studio in Montreal, Canada, designed by locally based Ivy Studio.
Ivy Studio chose the material palette for the indoor cycling facility to reflect the monochrome branding of ELMNT, a boutique gym providing spaces for yoga, spin, barre and high intensity interval training (HIIT).
Above image: Ivy Studio chose the palette to complement ELMNT's brand. Top image: the spinning room
Black runs heavily throughout the 1500-square-foot (139-square-metre) studio but is intended to provide a different atmosphere between the calming lobby area, with lockers and changing areas, and a spin room for "excitement and energy".
"Although both areas are united by the brand's all-black colour palette, they each suggest opposing ambiances," said Ivy Studio.
Existing concrete beams are teamed with stained-black wood
ELMNT's space, which occupies the ground floor of a residential building in the city's Griffintown neighbourhood, features exposed concrete columns and concrete floors in the lobby.
This is teamed with built-in furniture made from black stained oak and reflective laminate.
A curved black wall wraps around gender-neutral bathrooms
Among these is a black wooden bench leading from the entrance door along a glazed wall and then around an existing column. A black plant pot filled with greenery is tucked into a nook on the other side of the column.
Facing the bench is a curved black wall that wraps around the studio's gender-neutral changing rooms, including four showers covered in black tiles.
Cycling shoes are stored in black shelves
Before entering the studio, class attendees pick up their allotted spin-bike shoes – specially designed to click into the bike pedals – from black shelving. They can also store belongings in black lockers and fill up their water bottles from a cylindrical black fountain.
The spinning room is intended to provide a more electric atmosphere.
Red LEDs illuminate the spinning room
"A series of color-changing LED lights span across the ceiling from one end to the other," said Ivy Studio. "The walls are surfaced in acrylic mirrors that distort the reflections of their subjects."
Ivy Studio is led by architects Gabrielle Rousseau and Philip Staszeksi in Montreal.
