In recent years, urban farming has become a global trend, and is continuing to grow. The idea of growing foods with a high nutritional value within a city environment can mean a healthier diet, stronger local economies, direct contact with food producers for those who like buying local, and even lower carbon emissions. We have selected some projects aiming to boost the local residents’ nutritional profile, from basic DIY solutions to complex aeroponics systems.
Month: October 2020
While the trend for working from home has seen a gradual increase in recent years, the global pandemic has accelerated this shift. Since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, distanced desks and laptop stands have populated our living rooms and saturated any shared space. For those working from home who struggle to integrate work equipment within their current home setting, which is often squeezed to the minimum, designers offer unconventional and versatile solutions to suit “modern day living” as people demand more from their homes.
Launched by French company, Dartagnans and YAC, an association whose aim is to promote architectural competitions amongst graduates and students, the Tree House Module Competition invited young architects to invent their own treehouse concept. The entries from young professionals all over the globe showed that being one of the most shared archetypes of architecture, the tree house is the materialization of a desire for adventure, a spurt of creativity, and reconciliation with nature.
Definitely, the tree house was one of our greatest childhood aspirations. Once children grow up, the tree house often turns into a distant memory or an unfulfilled dream. Among all adults, architects have an extraordinary privilege – they can build their own childhood desires. This is the opportunity that YAC’s Tree House Module 2020 competition among young designers, students and graduates, organized by the French company Dartagnans. The projects were to be sited at one of the many picturesque castles of rural France, namely Vibrac, Mothe Chandeniers and Ebaupinay, in an effort to preserve and draw touristic interest.
“Design for Sustainable Cities” is an international student competition, being held by BE OPEN and Cumulus. It is open to students and graduates of all art, design, architecture and media disciplines of universities and colleges worldwide. The competition aims to encourage creation of innovative solutions, by younger creatives, for more sustainable cities.
As the coronavirus pandemic struck, it brought radical changes to the way we work. Despite the fact that the lockdown has ended, a great number of people are still working from home, often without a clear date in mind about when their lives will be returning to normality. Addressing these people, designers come up with new work-from-home solutions that can help to organize a proper workplace right in your backyard.
Food is becoming an increasingly explored area among designers. Aiming to tackle mindless food consumption when we eat on-the-go barely minding not only the taste but even the size of the portions, they develop tableware that is designed to restore our connection to food and change our eating habits.
A bookshelf is an extremely practical piece of furniture and is rarely treated as statement objects design-wise. However, aiming to change this typology, contemporary product designers try to make shelving as important as any other furniture in the room.