Author Archives: Ruchi Thukral

These 3D printed pods are sustainable personal offices that you can subscribe to just like Netflix!

Posted on by

Post the pandemic, all of us have realized the importance of having a dedicated space where we can focus on work without having to explain on our zoom calls what the noise in the background is. Meet the Denizen Architype pod – a smart, functional, personal office that supports your remote work life and also could double up as a creative escape! This prefabricated office is designed with everything you need for the perfect work day and you can set it up anywhere in the world if you have subscribed to it – it’s like Netflix but for a physical office space.

Denizen pods want to help reduce central office costs while adapting to the changes like remote work and flexible lifestyle. The 100 sqft pod is a modern solution with a small footprint that can help retain global talent, maximize productivity and reduce environmental impact that big corporate offices have. “It is ideally suited for high-volume production as a consumer product – more like an automobile or smartphone than a conventional building. Leveraging the latest in 3D printing, robotic fabrication, and technology integration, Denizen can mass-produce high-quality office units that are not only more desirable spaces to work than conventional offices, but also cheaper and faster to build,” says the team in their press release.

The modern tiny office is constructed from premium materials like sustainably harvested timber, 3D printed biopolymers, and durable metal cladding. The tech has been integrated in the pod to make your work from home life as easy as possible. The company hopes to partner with cities to help deploy pods in green spaces to build communities and upgrade neighborhoods so that those who don’t have a backyard big enough for the pod can still subscribe and take advantage of it. This will mean less space for cars, office parks, and parking lots; more space for people, culture, and nature in the city. Remote tech and architecture is a critical tool for eliminating the carbon impact of business flights and traditional office buildings.

“There is a major unmet need in the shift to flexible, remote, and hybrid work, and it’s going to take conventional real estate decades to catch up. Even prior to the pandemic, offices were expensive, distracting, and inconvenient. A better solution was needed. We’ve created a space so inspiring that it will change the way you want to work and live. And by offering it as a subscription service, we make it natural for employers to give their teams a professional, connected, and safe work environment,” says Nick Foley, CEO of Denizen.

The desk seamlessly blends within the large glass arch that has a switchable privacy glass made of two layers with liquid crystals in between – this is expensive so we wonder if it will be a feature available only for the higher end subscription models. It has audiophile-grade speakers and 40 Amp electrical service for the structure. Another question for the team would be the source of electricity since they are pushing for sustainability and reduction of carbon footprint. The Denizen pod is still at a conceptual stage but is an interesting way to decentralize offices as we know it!

Designer: Denizen

This geometric concrete house is giving us modern brutalism goals!

Posted on by

Brutalism has long been considered an architectural style most commonly used in industrial and institutional buildings. This design theory is centered around the usage of concrete, steel, and modular elements. People stay away from this style because the aesthetic isn’t inviting or warm enough for residential projects but Badie Architects proves otherwise. The Maadi Villa is nestled away from the Egyptian traffic and is an expat haven complete with a pool and open views – a gem in the city. Maadi Villa combines elements of brutalism with materials such as wood and wide windows in order to create a home that is both timeless and modern.

The angular arch over the main entrance complements the otherwise simple geometric form of the house. The wood and concrete naturally balance the cool and warm CMF of the exterior with black accents to tie it all together. The interiors also have the same modern and minimal vibe with a giant spiraling staircase that catches the eye (even from outside!). The large windows allow for plenty of natural light that adds to the ‘spaciousness’ inside the light-colored interiors. Mohamed Badie brings minimalism, expressionism, and experimentalism to life in this one project in perfect balance.

Designer: Badie Architects

 

This skyscraper dissolves to distribute soil and seeds which will help revive burned forests!

Posted on by

Wildfires are becoming a common occurrence, some places like California and Australia even have wildfire seasons which are now becoming longer and more aggressive. According to this official research paper, data shows that since 2000, an annual average of 70,600 wildfires burned an annual average of 7 million acres in the USA alone in 2020 while Australia has seen 46 million acres destroyed since September 2019. The need for sustainable design has never been more urgent and in all verticals of the industry, not just packaging or product. Keeping this in mind, architect Alberto Roncelli created Regenera – a skyscraper that aims to heal ecosystems that have been burned down by wildfires.

The skyscraper will be located in the center of a burnt ecosystem and as it degenerates it will spread nutrients and seeds through winds while also becoming a temporary shelter for birds and small-sized animals. Think of Regenera as a supporting pillar to the recovering ecosystem. Through the erosion of its own structure, Regenera will transform and spread itself into the ecosystem in a purposeful manner. During the initials phases, a laboratory on the lower level is dedicated to experimenting, monitoring, and researching the process and the progress of the ecosystem. In the following phases, scientists will abandon the skyscraper and make more space for the undisturbed re-population of small to medium-sized animals and plants.

Regenera proposes a new paradigm that creates the possibility to carefully program and diversify each part of the structure, defining a life cycle determined by erosion and constant transformation…which is exactly what the cycle of life is all about. Materials chosen to build the structure include mixing substances needed by the forest with the architectural capability to be a temporary shelter while slowly dissolving. This design can be a success with a team of chemists, phyrogeographers, meteorologists, engineers, and biologists, all working together to understand the necessities and needs of a dead ecosystem. Regenera wants to be a manifesto for a new way of relating architecture and nature, structure and ecosystem, time and erosion, skyscrapers and forests.

Desinger: Alberto Roncelli

This smart kettle is an upgrade your kitchen REALLY needs!

Posted on by

That plastic kettle sitting on our kitchen counter probably looks like something from a time capsule compared to all the other appliances that have gotten design makeovers. Finally, it is the kettle’s turn and the B POINT shows it all off. It features a touch interface that instantly gets the appliance up to speed with others and lets the user form a more organic connection with it. The circular display has two rings – the outer ring shows the temperature and the inner ring shows the water level inside. Countdown starts after setting the water temperature and will beep once its ready!

The choice of CMF really elevates the simple appliance into an aesthetic product that you can display proudly on your kitchen counter. The minimal form has metal and wooden details that are evergreen as well as work with all interior settings. The body has a linear shape that is well complemented with the oblong ring that connects the handle which looks like it is almost floating. B POINT is possibly one of the most beautiful kettle designs we’ve seen.

Designer: Andrew Chang

This ultra-fast boat’s aerodynamic design lets it fly over water and uses 10x less fuel than a helicopter!

Posted on by




French start-up A2V (Advanced Aerodynamic Vessels) recently unveiled a prototype called ‘Lili’ that has the ability to glide on water at 100 km/h. The futuristic design was involved work from Marc Lombard and the Fernand Hervé Shipyard to develop the aerodynamic lift that is the reason behind its jaw-dropping velocity and reduced fuel consumption.

Lili is designed to be super lightweight with an aerodynamic form so the more it accelerates, the less it sinks into the water therefore the less fuel it uses. In fact, it uses three times less fuel than other vessels of its kind and ten times lesser than a helicopter going the same distance, The 10-meter-long boat is constructed with 3.5 tons of plastic and fiberglass. Lili’s shape helps it shift and turn like a fish in water without tipping over. The interior features plush leather seats and large windows making it a favorite among expensive hotels that are on Lake Geneva or Gulf of Guinea. Even the principality of Monaco acquired Lili to connect the Port of Hercules with the Marina of Cala del Forte in Ventimiglia.

With reduced fuel consumption, Lili contributes to cutting down drastically on marine pollution. With this design, A2V is targetting several market segments – personnel transport (oil platforms, wind farms), coastal surveillance (customs, police, anti-piracy), passenger transport, luxury yachting, taxi boats, etc. and theoretically, if this concept is applied across the board it can truly make a big impact on reducing marine pollution. However, this innovative boat is nothing less than a luxury – it costs 1.2 million euros! Hopefully, A2V can find a way to scale down the costs so other sectors using water transport can get the eco-friendly benefits and the speed that Lili brings.

Designer: Advanced Aerodynamics Vessels

This tiny studio apartment sits in your backyard to give you a bonus functional and flexible space!

Posted on by

Not every family can move into a larger home when they are falling short on space as children grow up. While it would be an ideal solution, it involves uprooting everyone from friends, extended family, adjusting to a new school/job as well as the whole process of moving which is extremely draining. To offer a smarter, more convenient solution, Parsonson Architects created the Herald Garden Studio – a functional, flexible, freestanding 183-square-foot structure that sits in your backyard to accommodate for all those growing pains!

Sometimes the best solution is to find a way to make the most of what one already has. Herald Garden Studio was born from one such situation because the client was a couple from New Zealand and they live in a small two-bedroom Victorian cottage that was getting cramped with their two growing sons. They didn’t want to leave their neighborhood and this compact backyard studio was the perfect economical solution. It provides additional space for a peaceful retreat, to study, work from home, make-shift guest house, or even storage. It is separate from the house but visually connected and linked by a sheltered outdoor space.

The interior incorporates an office space toward the front of the studio, a bathroom, and storage space at the rear, and the play area and guest bed in the loft up the ladder.

The loft is a cozy space, made more secure with the installation of netting at the edge.

There are a number of windows on the upper level to let in natural light and bring in a view of the valley outside.

To keep costs low, a range of simple materials was chosen. Wooden beams, set in a triangular arrangement, form the supporting structural framework, while the walls are clad with zero-formaldehyde oriented strand board (OSB), and the roof and the rear and side walls covered with green, corrugated Colorsteel, a low-cost option that matches the surrounding garden.

In addition, there is a pergola covered with durable but inexpensive polycarbonate and a wooden deck that extends around most of the studio. A hole has been cut into the deck to accommodate an existing olive tree.

The architects explain:

“Both the deck, pergola, and the main interior space have been conceived as one triangulated structure, stitching together the spaces and reinforcing the interior-exterior connection, while relating to the delicacy of the surrounding vegetation. Materials are unadorned, raw and but carefully assembled.”

Besides the walls, the interior sliding doors and bathroom counter are made from OSB as well, all finished with natural WOCA oil. Some people may understandably balk at the idea of having wall-to-wall coverage of raw OSB, but it’s an economical choice that is both easy to maintain, and also helps to emphasize the openness and minimalism of the space.

Nevertheless, there are pops of color here and there in the sea of honey-colored OSB, most notably in the bathroom at the rear of the studio, which features a shower stall clad with a red Invibe panel board. There’s also a custom-designed lighting sconce, again made with the red Invibe panel board.

Created with simple and cost-effective materials, this award-winning garden studio is a great example of urban infill on a small scale, a well-built solution that allows one family to continue living on a compact property closer to the city, without having to move further afield.

Designer: Parsonson Architects

These architectural renders give life to Elon Musk’s dreams of living in space!

Posted on by

How many times have you heard “I just want to leave this planet for a while!” in the last two years? Very often, right? @sixnfive gives brings that sentiment to life with a collection of architectural renders called ‘What If?’ which is an ode to one of our greatest strengths – imagination. Imagination is a uniquely human ability to visualize unlimited possibilities starting with a simple question like “what if?” and the people who ask it often are the ones driving innovation. This collection explores the possible future move for mankind and probably what Musk has in mind through three elaborate acts

Act one: The Journey includes the meeting, the bedroom, and the dinner room. It represents our trip and the hope to arrive, but also the attachments of our mundane life, carrying memories of a previous reality. Act two: The settlements shows the Universe Edge, Summer House, and Landing Zone. It expresses our freedom to dream and imagine how our intergalactic holiday homes would look like. Act three: The Encounter, is based on human emotions of loving someone, missing someone and being guided. It is all about looking inward and looking from inside, the vestiges of our presence in an inhabited and quiet place.

It explores the perception of time, loneliness, and expectations but it also represents the hope to arrive. Yes, this is scientifically inaccurate but it expresses the freedom to dream and imagine via these zen visuals. Six N. Five is a contemporary studio working on advertising, editorial, and video commissions while finding time to create experimental work with CGI as a new medium for creative self-expression. Their refined imagination, poetic compositions, edgy minds, and sleek skills make the studio a hit amongst brands like Apple, Cartier, Cassina, Facebook, Givenchy, Ikea, Massimo Dutti, Microsoft, Nike, Samsung, Spotify, and many more!

Designer: Six N. Five

This tiny home crafted from timber can be attached to your car for the ultimate flexible lifestyle!

Posted on by

The universal mood after this pandemic has been to be able to travel, to explore unpopular locations, and to embrace remote work so you can travel for longer time periods. Keeping all of these wishes in mind, Ecuador-based Jag Studio designed La Casa Nueva – a timber camper that is also a fully functional tiny home so you can set up your base anywhere.

It includes a bed, a roof, workstations, a kitchen, and a bathroom making it a comfortable shelter for two people. The design team led by juan alberto andrade and cuqui rodríguez built the little retreat for themselves to meet the demands of their life on the road, photographing architecture across ecuador. With its compact size and mobility, jag studio’s ‘la casa nueva’ is able to stay for short periods of time in different locations and with different configurations. It aims to be forever new — to be perceived or experienced depending on its temporary site. Thus, its surrounding context will inform its form.

With ‘la casa nueva’ camper, jag studio reinterprets the material and shape of typical house along the ecuadorian coast, both on an experimental and on a primitive level. A wooden gabled structure raised from the floor. La casa nueva is made 100% with artisan craftsmanship. While the outer shell is built with yellowheart lumber, teak boards are used for the structural frame, and plywood boards for the interior furniture elements. The structure rests on a metal trailer measuring three by two meters (around 10 by 6.5 feet) which is secured with metal plates.

The outer skin of jag studio’s camper has different opening configurations and can take on a range of forms — beginning from a completely enclosed and sealed wooden shell to a permeable place that is integrated with nature, providing an effect of great spatial capacity. The interior space is divided into five parts conditioned by the structural modulation of the six frames every two feet that divide the project according to its function. The first two out of the five modules correspond to the raised bed and storage, the third module to a flexible dining and desk space, and the fourth and fifth to a corridor and service area including a kitchenette and bathroom.

Designer: JAG Studio

jagstudio

This minimal desk’s special design element is inspired by pianos!

Posted on by

I played piano for a decade and I was so used to reading with my book upright on the music shelf (the little fold-out flap where you keep your music sheet) that I started to keep my textbooks for school upright too – it just felt more convenient! The Piano desk gives that traditional design a nod by incorporating it into your familiar wooden desk with some additional inspiration from the Standard chair by Jean Prouvé that elevates the minimal piece.

The Piano desk created so the designer could experiment with a hybrid material selection and play with interesting visual contrasts. On the one hand, we have metal which is a cold material that is beautifully balanced by the warmer wood. On the other hand, the same metal which allows for a slimmer silhouette is given the sturdiness with the addition of wood. The key factor in the briefing was to design a product with a democratic approach. That is how the minimal desk without any complex production processes was born while still featuring a small design element that other minimal desks didn’t have – the dipped shelf!

It has rounded corners on both wooden and metallic parts which smoothly connects both shapes and materials visually. The choice of discarding drawers led to a different conceptual solution that came from looking at the way some piano players hold their music notes, hence the name. The metal stand is perfect to hold books and documents and it is a fair substitute for the drawer in some cases. You can also add some decor like a succulent or your favorite bobblehead! The Piano desk is perfect for your home office with its pleasing CMF, evergreen character, and improving its integration within the space in the most eloquent way.

Designer: João Teixeira

This sustainable dish cleaning brush is infinitely reusable thanks to its replaceable bamboo bristles!

Posted on by

In 2018, we produced 380 million tonnes of plastic, can you imagine how much that number has grown in the last three years especially during the pandemic where we saw a steep rise in the use of plastic? NOS had created the Everloop Toothbrush which was wildly successful, so they created a family member for it – the Everloop Dish Brush. Every single plastic toothbrush ever made still exists today in some form or another, either in a landfill or the ocean. That’s a pretty scary statistic when you imagine that there are more than 7 billion people on this planet using toothbrushes that they throw out every 3-4 months on average.

We eat more times than we brush, so it is natural that we use far more dish scrubbies, dish sponges, and dish brushes which just adds to the mounting plastic waste problem. With the Everloop dish brush’s design, you can continue to maximize the functionality of your product while reducing waste. The head of the brush has a concave lid mechanism that compresses the bristles against the inner part of the brush. The bristles are snapped into place and you can clean effortlessly. This concavity also works as a soap container and dosifier while you clean your tableware – can you hear the Monica Gellers of the world scream with joy at this?

To replace bristles, use any flat piece from your kitchen as a lever to open it and replace it with a new set of bristles. The body of the brush is made from recycled plastic collected from discarded accessories and the bristles are made from natural fibers (bamboo, castor beans, etc) just like the Everloop Toothbrush. After the bristles wear out, you can dispose of them without guilt because they have ZERO plastic. The bristles are 100% compostable compared to the disposable heads in the market which just add to plastic pollution. Each dish brush comes with 5 sets of bristles and you can buy more replacements later too. Even the packaging is made out of 100% compostable thermoformed paper pulp! Could this BE any more perfect?

Designer: NOS Design

everloop1

everloop2

everloop4

everloop3