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Thursday 23 December 2021

Dezeen's top 10 rebrands of 2021

Continuing our 2021 review, Dezeen looks back on a year of high-profile rebrands including Facebook changing its name to Meta and Volvo adopting a flat logo.

Peugeot by Peugeot Design Lab

The first of three car manufacturers to feature in this list is French brand, Peugeot. This year, the company released a new version of its logo for the first time in a decade to mark a new era of building electric vehicles.

As with every version of Peugeot's logo since 1847, the lion is still central to the design: a stylised head with mane sits in the middle of a shield emblazoned with the brand's name. However, unlike the previous logo, the design no longer includes the lion's body.

Find out more about the Peugeot rebrand ›

Burger King by Jones Knowles Ritchie

Twenty years on from the last Burger King logo revamp, the American fast-food restaurant rebranded this year with new packaging, uniforms and a logo.

Its new visual identity harks back to the flat logo used by the brand in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. The chain hopes that the restyle "pays homage to the brand's heritage with a refined design that's confident, simple and fun."

Find out more about Burger King's rebrand ›

Meta by Meta

The parent company of social media giant Facebook changed its name and logo to Meta in a move that propelled the brand further into the direction of the metaverse.

This new name, which translates to "beyond" in Greek, is often associated with possibility and the future. It appears along with the new infinity loop logo within all apps owned by the company including Whatsapp, Instagram and Messenger.

Find out more about Meta's rebrand ›

CIA by unknown

America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) unveiled a new brand identity in January with a new logo and an updated website designed to attract a more diverse employee base.

The CIA website now has a clean, sans-serif typeface as well as a new circular logo with a background of fractal lines. A border formed of the words Central Intelligence Agency frames the design. In true espionage fashion, the agency refused to disclose the designer behind its new look.

Find out more about the CIA rebrand ›

The Moholy-Nagy Foundation by Pentagram

Design consultancy Pentagram created new monochrome branding for The Moholy-Nagy Foundation, an organisation that aims to preserve the legacy of renowned artist László Moholy-Nagy.

Pentagram partner Marina Willer and her team were asked to design an "expressive" visual identity that embodies the style and methods used by the artist such as his photograms – images made by laying objects onto photographic paper and exposing it to light.

Find out more about The Moholy-Nagy Foundation rebrand ›

The White House by Wide Eye

Creative agency Wide Eye updated the White House logo after Republican president Donald Trump left office. The updated design, which is a slightly more detailed and architectural depiction of the White House, was intended to convey Joe Biden's "desire to bring the country together" following a tumultuous few years.

"This is symbolic of the president's desire to bring the country together: conveying a sense of openness, warmth, inclusion, and humanity," explained the agency.

Find out more about The White House rebrand ›

MIDI, by Pentagram

Pentagram makes this list again with its brand identity for Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI), the global standard that allows digital musical instruments to talk to each other.

Yuri Suzuki, a musician and Pentagram partner, worked with the graphic designer and partner Sascha Lobe on the update. The logo, which looks like an abstract letter M, replaces its previous wordmark and follows the 2020 release of MIDI 2.0, the first major update of the standard in over 35 years.

Find out more about MIDI's rebrand ›

Volvo by Volvo

Swedish carmaker Volvo joined BMW, MINI and Volkswagen in officially replacing its three-dimensional emblem with a flat, two-dimensional version. It bears a resemblance to other two-dimensional logos created by automotive brands looking to adapt their visual identity to an increasingly digital world.

The company believes that the flat, less colourful logo is a more "modern" reinterpretation of its longstanding Iron Mark logo. It still retains the same circular shape and upward-pointing arrow first used by the brand in 1927.

Find out more about Volvo's rebrand ›

Inter Milan by Bureau Borsche

Graphic design studio Bureau Borsche redesigned the logo for Italian football club Inter Milan as part of an effort to promote the club beyond sport.

The studio updated the original logo designed by painter Giorgio Muggiani in 1908 by producing a simplified crest and removing the letters FC, which stand for football club.

Find out more about the Inter Milan rebrand ›

General Motors by General Motors

An eye-catching bright blue and a softer border was used to modernise the logo of American automotive company General Motors. The firm's old logo, which had thick white letters superimposed onto a navy background, had remained largely the same since 1964.

The redesign is part of the company's pivot towards electric vehicles and "a zero-emissions future".

Find out more about the General Motors rebrand ›

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"With Richard Rogers gone there is a melancholic sense of slow extinguishing"

The passing of British architect Richard Rogers at the age of 88 marks the loss of one of the architects who shaped the past four decades, says Catherine Slessor.

"Ciao vecchio", said Renzo Piano, famously, when calling Richard Rogers to let him know that their fledgling practice had won the competition for the Pompidou Centre. "Are you sitting down?"

Vecchio – old man. The joke was that they were both in their late 30s – relative whippersnappers as far as architecture is concerned – but Rogers was four years older than Piano.

Now, with Rogers finally gone at 88 – molto vecchio – there is a melancholic sense of slow extinguishing, a point of light disappearing from a constellation of architects that shaped the last 40 years.

Rogers' star burned especially furiously, a stellar intensity illuminating leaden, dreary, exhausted post-war Britain. Born in Florence, scion of a cultured and well-connected Anglo-Italian family, he was transplanted to gloomy England in the late 30s, but his appetite for the food, cityscapes, atmosphere and general bella figura of mediterranean Europe remained perpetually undiminished.

Rogers' star burned especially furiously

There was no townscape problem that could not be solved by an infusion of cafe culture. An unrealised proposal to drape London's South Bank in an undulating glass roof would have had, in Rogers' view, the wholly desirable effect of blotting out the terrible English weather (and perhaps England itself) and create a microclimate, in both temperature and ambiance, approximating that of Bordeaux.

It's hardly surprising then that France, rather than England, formed a receptive crucible for the building that changed everything, the preposterous Pompidou Centre. I first saw it in 1982, when it was still relatively pristine, a hectic, eviscerated, hell-raising cenobite, gaudily flashing its candy-coloured guts to the world.

Back then, it was operating as Rogers and Piano intended, the free, zigzagging escalators bearing you skywards in a slow, ecstatic swoon to admire the best artwork of all, the aerial tableau of Paris, while in the parvis below, buskers straight out of central casting worked the crowds. Nobody actually went in.

Decades on, this idealistic conception of civic generosity, always appealing to the better nature of the city has been lost in the paranoia of modern security and creeping privatisation of the public realm.

Moreover, like all high-tech buildings, the Pompidou's maintenance regime is an increasingly huge and Sisyphean challenge. Since it opened in 1977, the Pompidou has cost more to maintain than build, and earlier this year it was announced that it is to close for four years from 2023 for yet another mammoth overhaul.

For Rogers, however, it remains his breakthrough project, turbo-charging a career that had hitherto been confined to pottering about with houses for in-laws.

Creek Vean in Cornwall, designed with Team 4 for his then father-in-law Marcus Brumwell, who sold a Mondrian to pay for it, gave little sense of what was coming, as the confluence of Victorian engineering puissance and Archigram's provocations slowly but surely aligned.

Rogers' vision of high-tech found its moment and its niche

Untainted by associations with modernism, at that time quietly lumbering to its unlamented grave, or the emerging pastel ironies of postmodernism, Rogers' vision of high-tech found its moment and its niche, adopted as the "progressive" style du jour by banks, museums and airports.

In theory, it was neutral, agile and rational, espousing kits of parts and infinitely flexible spaces, but in practice it could be as phantasmagorically fiddly as any German rococo church, memorably exemplified by the Lloyd's building, a self–professed "cathedral of commerce".

Again, it's hard to overestimate the impact of Lloyd's when it was completed in 1986, emblematic not just of a new and daring kind of architecture, but of a City exploding in a post-Big Bang frenzy following Thatcherite deregulation.

Though in a telling coda, the Lloyd's management insisted on retaining their 18th–century Committee Room, designed by Robert Adam for the 2nd Earl of Shelburne, reconstructed like a stage set or comfort blanket within their new high-tech home, possibly to protect against what Owen Hatherley has magisterially described as: "pure hedonism, architecture with all the crackle and complexity of a Detroit techno track".

Some sense of the distance travelled in the intervening decades can be conveniently apprehended by the Cheesegrater just across the road from Lloyd's, completed in 2014, bigger and duller, rococo fiddles long flattened out, yet still bearing the Rogers imprimatur with its perky yellow lift shafts.

Rebranded as Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, reflecting a carefully managed succession, the practice is now ensconced halfway up the Cheesegrater, an abrupt experiential contrast from its long-standing and more languorous riverside berth at Hammersmith, next to the famous River Cafe, which started life as the staff canteen. Ennobled in 1996, Rogers took the title Lord Rogers of Riverside.

An especially accomplished example of how to humanise a profoundly alienating building type

This is not an original observation, but there is a certain irony in high-tech so evangelistically espousing the advantages of industrial prefabrication and spatial flexibility, rapidly congealing into a bankable and biddable style for a limited cadre of the institutional elite.

Rogers himself was astute enough to understand this, and his mid-career output – the beehive pods of Bordeaux Law Courts and rippling manta ray roof of the Welsh Senedd – showed a certain softening and maturing of the original 'toys for the boys' aesthetic. Barajas Airport, which won the Stirling Prize in 2006, is an especially accomplished example of how to humanise a profoundly alienating building type, its chromatic structure guiding passengers through the airport labyrinth.

By contrast, Heathrow's Terminal 5 suffered from being bogged down by a 20-year public enquiry and as a result felt stodgy and dated on its eventual completion.

Other less successful projects would have to include the Millennium Dome, a village marquee on steroids that the public has now grudgingly taken to its bosom as a concert venue, and the slick silos of luxury flats at One Hyde Park and Neo Bankside, hyper-rich blandness personified, which have all the depressing hallmarks of a large firm on cruise control.

He grasped that architecture is nothing if not a social art

Typical of his expansive approach to practice, Rogers also turned his hand to engage in policy-shaping as the London mayoral advisor between 2001 and 2008. In assorted manifestos for architecture and urbanism he made the case for sustainability and the high-density city, attempting to inculcate a sense of wider, better possibilities.

Though there were obvious contradictions in his racking up of a largely institutional client list, he grasped that architecture is nothing if not a social art.

And, as the built environment is dragged down to the level of mindless 'Building Beautiful' sloganeering and bureaucratic cheeseparing by the present Conservative administration, such a genuinely engaging and galvanising presence will be missed. Days after Rogers' death, Lloyd's ceremonial Lutine Bell was rung once, signifying the loss of a great ship. Ciao vecchio.

Catherine Slessor is an architecture editor, writer and critic. She is the president of architectural charity the 20th Century Society and former editor of UK magazine The Architectural Review.

The photograph is courtesy of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and shows Rogers at the "London as it could be" exhibition in 1986.

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Wednesday 22 December 2021

Set Ideas extends Fluid House in Argentina using glass and steel

Argentinian office Set Ideas has added a glass-and-steel extension to a house in the mountains of Córdoba, using a modular structure to enlarge the resident's living spaces.

Completed earlier in 2021, the project is dubbed Fluid House, and entailed a thorough remodel of an existing home in the central province of Argentina.

The extension is made from glass and steel

Set Ideas, an office that is based in Córdoba's Villa Allende, employed its signature modular steel system to create new living spaces within the home.

"We took advantage of the spectacular vistas and the original layout of the house to generate a modular metal structure," Set Ideas explained.

Outdoor lounge area — An outdoor lounge area features a fireplace and grill

The intervention is first seen from the street, where a new gate provides more privacy for the home's residents.

Black metal pickets now front the building, giving only glimpses of the residence beyond. Behind these, the architects laid out a new outdoor lounge area, with a fireplace and grill.

Extension by Set Ideas — The extension is arranged over four storeys

To the home itself, Set Ideas added a four-storey volume that is attached to the existing stone structure. Because of the site's steep slope, this addition meets the scale of the current property.

"We re-evaluated the functionality of the house on each of the existing levels, giving precedence and visual importance to what was previously built," said Set Ideas.

Open staircase at glass extension — An open staircase connects the living room and kitchen

"We designed and built everything in metal on the house, to make old and new as one complete project," the studio told Dezeen.

The extension itself is made of black steel structural supports and windows, complemented with plywood panels that form guardrails and ceilings.

On the ground floor, the architects included a new living room, which enjoys sweeping views of the lush surroundings and is connected to a dine-in kitchen below by an open staircase.

"With few but significant elements, we managed to make the space flow through a modular structure," said Set Ideas.

Home office in Fluid House extension — Set Ideas also added a home office as part of the extension

Set Ideas also used the intervention as an opportunity to create a new storage room in the cellar, as well as a small home office perched on the top floor. In total, the new floor area encompasses 130 square metres.

Technical improvements were also made to the existing structure, including new windows throughout the home, and a refurbishment of the existing masonry facade.

Masonry facade — The glass and steel structures joins an existing masonry facade

Other projects in Córdoba include a residence that Argentinian studio Nanzer + Vitas designed to resemble a ruined medieval village using local stones cast into concrete formwork, and a home that architect Edgardo Marveggio designed for his ex-wife that features intricate textures on its walls.

The photography is by Gonzalo Viramonte.

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Seves glass bricks front Mexican restaurant in Texas by Olson Kundig

Dezeen promotion: glass bricks designed by Seves animate the pared-back exterior of the Comedor Restaurant, which US architecture studio Olson Kundig has completed in Austin, Texas.

Located in the city's business district, the contemporary Mexican eatery is designed by Olson Kundig to disguise its interiors and create a sense of intrigue.

A photograph of the Comedor Restaurant in Texas — Olson Kundig has used glass bricks by Seves at the Comedor Restaurant in Austin

The utilitarian exterior features black brickwork and doors, broken up by a wall of Vetropieno Solid Glass Bricks that were produced by the glass block manufacturer Seves.

This glass brickwork provides distorted views of movements and colours inside the Comedor Restaurant without revealing its interior, which is intended to entice passersby.

The photograph of Vetropieno Solid Glass Bricks — The Vetropieno Solid Glass Bricks feature on the restaurant's facade

Seves' Vetropieno Solid Glass Bricks were chosen for the project by Olson Kundig in collaboration with the on-site architect called Mckinney York Architects.

Navvab Taylor, an architect at Mckinney York Architects, said the glass bricks help create "a process of discovery upon entering the building".

A photograph of a glass brick facade — The bricks were chosen to create a sense of intrigue

"It was important to the owner to create a sense of mystery and not give away the view of the interior," Taylor added.

While creating this sense of intrigue, the Vetropieno Solid Glass Bricks ensure the building meets building regulations in Austin that require a certain percentage of transparency on exterior facades.

Photograph of the interiors of the Comedor Restaurant — The glass bricks conceal the industrial interior of the restaurant

The design of the glass bricks also allowed them to be toothed and coursed together in continuous rows with the black bricks on the rest of the restaurant's facade.

The mystery created by the glass brickwork is matched by brass lettering outside the restaurant, which is designed to be obscure.

Inside, visitors are welcomed by an industrial bar and dining area. It features unexpectedly tall ceilings and large hand-cranked glass doors, which lead out to a brick-walled courtyard containing trees and a fountain.

To find out more about Seves products visit its website.

Partnership content

This article was written by Dezeen for Seves as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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Three Little Pigs story reinforces prejudices that biomaterials are "terrible"

The fable of the Three Little Pigs highlights negative perceptions about natural construction materials, according to James Drinkwater, head of Built Environment at philanthropic climate organisation the Laudes Foundation.

Speaking about the need to increase the use of timber and other biomaterials in construction, Drinkwater said that the well-known children's story presented natural materials such as straw and wood as "terrible".

"There's a classic story in England called the Three Little Pigs," Drinkwater said during a talk hosted by Dezeen. "The first [pig] made its house of straw and that natural material was terrible."

"There's a need to change perceptions to show what's possible, and to amplify those narratives."

People view natural construction materials as weak

The Three Little Pigs story refers to a fable that dates back to the 1800s, which tells the tale of three pigs who build houses out of straw, sticks and bricks respectively. While the Big Bad Wolf blows down the two pigs' houses made of natural materials and eats their occupants, the brick house prevails and the third pig is saved.

Drinkwater referred to the fable in order to highlight how people often view natural construction materials as weak during his discussion of a new network called Built by Nature, when in fact building with natural materials could significantly reduce climate change, according to Drinkwater.

Portrait of James Drinkwater — James Drinkwater is head of Built Environment at the Laudes Foundation

"The built environment represents nearly 40 per cent of all carbon emissions. So it's a big part of the opportunity for climate mitigation," warned Drinkwater.

Established by the Laudes Foundation – a philanthropic organisation that has a dual focus on climate change and social inequality – Built by Nature is a network and grant-making fund on a mission to normalise and accelerate building with timber in Europe.

Mass timber is increasingly replacing carbon-intensive materials

The network's long-term aim is to achieve a net-zero built environment where embodied carbon is radically reduced and safely stored within mass timber architecture.

Mass timber encompasses various types of engineered wood that are increasingly replacing carbon-intensive traditional construction materials such as concrete and steel.

"Built by Nature encompasses the theme of how do we move beyond 'extractive' to 'regenerative' in our build environment," added Drinkwater.

"What does it mean to get this right for forests and create a climate-smart forest economy so that when we are sourcing timber, we're making sure we're improving the sequestration capacity of forests as a sector procuring from those forests?"

"We need to make sure we're doing that in the right way and creating those demand incentives to drive reforestation."

Built by Nature focus areas — Built by Nature targets different areas to encourage building with timber

During the talk, Drinkwater also discussed the need for a circular economy within architecture, which is an economic system where waste is minimised through continuously recycling materials as much as possible.

"We can't simply switch everything and kind of ask nature to provide us with all of the solution. So we need to be very joined up across sectors," he acknowledged, calling for applicants to Built by Nature's Accelerator Fund.

"Our [current] average building life of 42 years is nowhere near enough. We need to be designing these buildings and timber beams and whatnot for their second and third life," he added.

"As those trees sequester carbon during their life, and then we start to put them into our buildings and our cities, it's really critical that we're storing that carbon safely for a very long time," he explained.

"But the science demands that we don't just reduce emissions. We've got to remove a hell of a lot of this stuff from the atmosphere."

"And arguably if we created 40 per cent of the climate issue, we really now need to work with nature, which is our strongest tool to get on that negative emissions track. We know the science says that forests offer our best hope," continued Drinkwater.

Slide about decarbonisation by Built by Nature — Built by Nature argues we should use wood to help decarbonisation

Hosted by Dezeen founder and editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs in collaboration with window and skylight brand Velux, the talk explored ideas about how architecture can work with rather than against environmental systems in order to support sustainable development.

Also part of the panel discussion was Kasper Guldager, co-founder of European real estate company Home.Earth, and Susanne Brorson of architecture practice Studio Susanne Brorson.

"There are matters that the built environment really needs to react to and address," said Guldager, referring to the relationship between architecture, social inequality and climate change.

"We have this dual focus on social inequality [and climate change] – like today, we see that real estate is separating people. People who can and people who cannot afford things. And we see that real estate is driving climate change and that our planet cannot sustain the way we build."

Brorson also expressed her determination for the built environment to be constructed in line with nature.

"I'm trying to bring the next generation of architects closer to this idea of specific [architectural] solutions for certain climates and environments," she said.

The main image is of CiAsa Aqua Bad Cortina by Pedevilla Architects, an Alpine house in Italy that is clad in shingles made from trees that fell during a storm.

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