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Conifera

Innovation - 24.06.2019

Conifera Arthur Mamou-Mani & COS

Arthur Mamou-Mani collaborated with COS for the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in April, designing this installation built with 3D printed bio-plastic in the courtyard of Palazzo Isimbardi in Milan. The fashion house COS, headquartered in London, built its eighth consecutive installation at Milan’s annual Salone del Mobile, this time in collaboration with the London-based French architect Arthur Mamou-Mani.Conifera is a large-scale digitally designed pavilion built with 700 3D-printed ‘bio-blocks’ made of renewable materials. The project centered on using 3D technology without sacrificing sustainablity and the message. The structure connects the palazzo’s central inner courtyard to the garden, creating a transition symbolized in a change of materials, with a mix of wood and bioplastic transforming into soft, translucent, pure bioplastic towards the other end.In Arthur Mamou-Mani’s words, “Conifera blends the digital with the physical world while addressing sustainability through the use of compostable bio-plastic, propduced and 3D printed locally. It is a dialogue between technology and craft, between the manmade and the natural and between monu
Mars 2117

Innovation - 16.05.2019

Mars 2117

BIG

The government of the United Arab Emirates is developing the ‘Mars 2117’ project, the objective of which is to build the first stable human settlement on the Red Planet within a time frame of 100 years.  Part of this ambitious program is Mars Science City, a campus for outer space simulation located outside Dubai, formed by interconnected domes covering 17.5 hectares of desert, where conditions on planet Mars are recreated. A group of scientists will live during one year in this ‘city,’ conducting researches on self-sufficiency in energy, water, and food. Meanwhile, a museum built with walls made of desert sand and 3D-printed, will show the progress of the space conquest. If architecture is the art and science of making the world fitter for human life, this becomes even more evident as we venture beyond Earth. Designing for low gravity, low pressure, extreme cold, and high radiation levels radically changes the architect’s tools, as well as the resulting forms and spaces. In this sense, the project studies the possibilities of inflatable architecture, robotics, and 3D printing to create a vernacular Martian architecture using local materials. With the prospect of inhabiting

The Earth in Perspective

Innovation - 14.11.2018

The Earth in Perspective

Planet

Taken from a distance of 450 km above ground, these photographs show cities’ impact on the territory in places like Doha’s artificial islands, the development around Bilbao’s estuary, and Riyadh’s built desert. Since 1968, when the crew of Apollo 8 took the mythical image of Earth from outer space, many zenithal photos of our planet have been taken from satellites, with evident applications for fields like agriculture, the environment, or mapmaking. The firm Planet, set up by former NASA employees, advances in this direction by turning the lenses of their cameras to an angle between 45º and 60º, in such a way that the Earth’s surface appears three-dimensional. The effect obtained with this simple innovation simulates the oblique view one would have from an airplane window.A constellation of over 175 satellites monitors the planet day by day, coursing the lunar orbit every 90 minutes. Measuring less than a meter and with a useful life of six years, the satellites are designed and made by the same enterprise that launches a new one every three months. The system allows sending information every day to thirty land-based stations, located at different points of the globe, where it is processed, fil
MINI LIVING-BUILT BY ALL

Innovation - 09.05.2018

MINI LIVING-BUILT BY ALL

MINI and Studiomama

MINI LIVING and the London firm Studiomama show how to turn abandoned spaces into potential livable ones. The installation BUILT BY ALL concentrated four inhabitable cells in less than 20 square meters, designing them under the MINI principle, a creative use of space where footprint is minimized and flexibility maximized. The project arose in response to the limitations on access to housing adapted to current needs of society, including people’s desire to make dwellings their own through active participation in the design process and subsequent changes. In Shanghai now, on a larger scale, there is a project for a complex of over 50 apartments and communal facilities organized around the same revolutionary concept of habitation. FACTORY OF IDEAS comes in the context of Milan Design Week to promote participatory architecture among visitors, who set out to make small models of their own versions of flexible, collaborative spaces.
Inhabits

Innovation - 25.04.2018

Inhabits

DNN, Progetto CMR and Dekton by Cosentino

Ultracompact surface Dekton® covers 300sqm floor area right in front of Sforzesco Castle. Piazza Castelo becomes a smart plaza thanks to technology designed by Progetto CMR  and Dekton by Cosentino. The 300 square meters of public space is covered with an ultracompact veneer, Dekton® Radium, 80% of which is made of recycled materials taken from the Dekton® production process. This collaboration falls under the innovative INHABITS line, a DNN initiative that provides solutions adapted to the human being and respectful towards the environment in the housing sector.
The Diner

Innovation - 23.04.2018

The Diner

Rockwell Group/Cosentino

David Rockwell and Cosentino present The Diner, their latest installation awarded Best Engagement in Fuorisalone 2018, during Milan Design Week. The team formed by the American firm Rockwell Group , the Spanish company Cosentino, a leader in innovative surfaces for architecture and design, the studio 2x4, and the American magazine Surface presents a pop-up space that transports us to the aesthetic of diners, bringing it to another level. This ephemeral restaurant with a retro aesthetic uses Cosentino surfaces to create unique spaces: Silestone® quartz surfaces in the Pearl Jasmine and Eternal Marquina colors for a central curved bar counter 14 meters long; the Dekton® Onix ultracompact surface, with a finish inspired in eroded cement, for the Roadside bar counter; and the Dekton® tabletops in the Opera color for the tables of the sector inspired in diners of the

RR201 / Roca Recicla

Innovation - 20.04.2018

RR201 / Roca Recicla

Andreu Carulla/ El Celler de Can Roca

A non-recyclable material can be reused. For two years now the Roca brothers have combined the running of El Celler de Can Roca, twice proclaimed the world’s best restaurant, with Roca Recicla, an ambitious project to work toward zero waste at Celler. In line with this is RR201, an original project of product designer Andreu Carulla that transforms substances impossible to recycle into light and versatile furniture pieces. To make these stools, which can be used at meals, all that’s needed are three boxes of expanded polystyrene, of the kind used to transport food and other ítems to the restaurant. After a process of crumbling and subsequent subjection to pressurized air in metal molds, a final layer of paint is applied. Though coming from the same mold, no two stools are alike, a result with an  artisanal nature highly characteristic of the cuisine of the Roca team. The first limited edition of these stools was presented at Spazio Rossana Orlandi during Milan Design Week 2018.

Innovation - 31.10.2017

"Under" Restaurant

Snohetta

"Under", the first European underwater restaurat,arises from the water at the southernmost point of the Norwegian coast, in the village of Båly. Like a sunken periscope, the restaurant – which will also function as a marine life research center – offers magnificent views of the aquatic environment and its variations through seasons and changing weather. The monolithic form of the building lies against the craggy shoreline, immersed in the water and resting on the sea bed five meters below the water’s surface.The meter-thick concrete walls are prepared to withstand pressure and shock from rugged sea conditions, while forming a ‘shell’ of coarse-surfaced cement that lures mussels to cling to it and eventually create an artificial reef. More than an aquarium, the structure will become part of the marine ecosystem.
Cloud Forest

Innovation - 23.10.2017

Cloud Forest

WilkinsonEyre

An artificial ecosystem thanks to technology and nature working side by side. The British firm WilkinsonEyre has carried out one of the most ambitious environmental projects in the world: Cloud Forest in Bay South Garden of Gardens by the Bay, in Singapore. These climate-controlled spaces bring a slice of the Mediterranean to the tropics. Two structures of steel and glass contain a series of water masses in constant motion that generate the specific temperature and humidity conditions for these plants to thrive in. Beside this confined nature are aerial structures that bring visitors to the tops of the vertical gardens. The main objective was zero consumption in a project where energy use seems inevitable.
Lumen, MoMA PS1 2017

Innovation - 11.10.2017

Lumen, MoMA PS1 2017

Jenny Sabin Studio

A unique space, halfway between technology and nature, with a design based on robotic warps and textile materials. Every summer for twenty years now, in collaboration with Bloomberg Philanthropies, the MoMA commissions an emerging architect or artist to design a temporary installation in New York. Lumen by Jenny Sabin Studio has been chosen this year by virtue of its commitment to sustainability and recycling. Its textile roof interacts with sunlight, capturing energy by day and illuminating by night. This construction is composed of two canopies woven with adaptable and high-resistance materials, integrated into a structure where the pattern, the geometry, and the environment work together. Lumen does not only present a controlled and aesthetically stunning pattern, but also allows interaction between the geometry and the users, in response to thermal stimuli and movement.
La Nube

Innovation - 02.10.2017

La Nube Espacio [la Nube]

A space that makes you dream. So was the project developed by Espacio [la Nube] for INCM Madrid 2016. Three hundred architecture students shared space, perfomances and lectures during ten days under a huge inflatable object combining technology and sensitivity. With the participation of companies specialized in lightning and aerodynamics, Espacio [la Nube] team designed a whirlwind of transparencies, textiles, salt, and air. A 1000m2 inflatable ring was made with a 1200m2 cloth and 12 tons of salt on which to walk barefoot. It incorporates a system of LED lights that illuminate the fabric in accordance with the rhythm of activities happening inside. The entry points act as filters between opposed worlds, from the pristine white cloister to a festival of greenery in the central garden.