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    Panter & Tourron and Davide Rapp create “speakeasy-style secret lounge” in Milan

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    Experimental furniture and nostalgic films combine in Diurno, a Milan design week installation exploring the past and future of the living room.

    Curated by Gianmaria Sforza, the show features the work of Lausanne-based design studio Panter & Tourron and Italian video artist Davide Rapp.
    Purple curtains framed an octagonal roomIt saw a Milanese studio apartment transformed into a “speakeasy-style secret lounge” where a limited number of guests were invited into an octagonal room surrounded by purple curtains.
    Once they had swapped their shoes for slippers, guests were encouraged to get comfortable on a yellow sofa-bed hybrid. Here, they could chat to other guests, enjoy a drink and watch the montage-style videos playing around them.
    Guests wre invited to sit on a yellow sofa-bed hybridRapp produced three videos, with hundreds of clips that show living room interiors depicted primarily in Italian cinema.

    Each film focuses on a different piece of furniture. The sofa, the television and the bar are all featured.
    “Diurno is an invitation to take a break from the hustle and bustle of Milan’s design week, a speakeasy-style secret lounge where guests can relax in a setup that oscillates between nostalgia and science fiction,” said the design team.
    Other furniture included a tubular floor lamp, a curved display shelf and slender vasesPanter & Tourron founders Stefano Panterotto and Alexis Tourron developed six pieces of original furniture for the space.
    As well as the modular sofa platform, the Hall collection includes a lightweight chandelier, a tubular floor lamp, mirrored stools, a curved display shelf and slender vases.
    Drinks and snacks were served on mirrored traysThe duo hoped to draw attention to the changing nature of lounge and passage spaces in the home.
    The project has an affinity with another of their recent works, Couch in an Envelope, which imagines a sofa that can be folded up and carried from place to place.
    “Looking at the decors from gathering spaces like entrance halls, lobbies and lounge rooms, the pieces in the collection function like a reenactment element, questioning the evolution of these places today and our relationship to shared environments at large,” they said.

    Form Us With Love and Samsung replace the sofa with textile “watching platform”

    Drinks and snacks were served on matching mirrored trays, on linen cocktail coasters embroidered with the Diurno brand logo. These were produced in collaboration with La Colombarola.
    Danish textile brand Kvadrat, Italian steel manufacturer Fittinox and material supplier Formtech also donated materials to make the event possible.

    One of the videos featured movie clips of scenes that centred around a sofa
    This isn’t the first takeover of this apartment. Under the name Studio di Pittura, it is primarily an art space with the goal of facilitating collaboration between international and local creatives.
    Diurno was one of Dezeen’s pick of the 12 key installations on show for Milan design week.
    Diurno was open by appointment only from 13 to 20 April. See Dezeen Events Guide to discover our Milan design week guide, or for more architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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      Triennale Milano celebrates Alessandro Mendini at Milan design week

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      Cultural institutions Triennale Milano and Fondation Cartier are hosting a retrospective show of Italian designer Alessandro Mendini at this year’s Milan design week, showcased in this video produced by Dezeen for Triennale.

      [embedded content]The exhibition takes place at Trienalle Milano
      Triennale Milano partnered with the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain to host the exhibition, which explores Mendini’s work across the fields of architecture, art, design and theory.
      Titled Io Sono Un Drago (I am a dragon), the show brings together over 400 different works and intends to explore Mendini’s philosophical approach to the world around him.

      Mendini was an Italian architect and designer known for his role as a key figure in the radical design and postmodernist movements of the 1960s and ’70s.
      Through his 60-year career he created some of the most iconic design pieces of the 20th century, such as the Proust armchair, which combined baroque references with pointillist patterns. Mendini passed away at the age of 87 in February 2019.
      The exhibition is named after a self-portrait Mendini drew depicting himself as a dragonSplit into six thematic sections, the show looks back on Mendini’s life and work, with the first section, titled Identikit, showcasing a series of self-portraits Mendini created over the course of his life.
      The following sections explore aspects of his work including his firm Atelier Mendini, which designed buildings such as the Groninger Museum and the Arts metro stations in Naples, as well as exploring his research in radical design theory.
      The last section of the exhibition consists of three immersive installations that Mendini created towards the end of his life, which play with the concepts of dreams and nightmares.
      The exhibition covers Mendini’s contribution to the postmodernist design movementAs part of the wider exhibition, French designer Phillipe Starck will also debut an immersive installation created in homage to Mendini during the run of the design week.
      Titled What? A homage to Alessandro Mendini, the installation aims to take visitors into a sensory journey through Mendini’s subconscious.
      Speaking on the installation, Starck said “before being a human, [Mendini] was an idea, a sensation, an osmotic vibration that I wanted to recapture through the installation, conceived as an immersive experience in Alessandro Mendini’s brain”.
      Starck’s installation will be located in Triennale Milano’s Impluvium space.

      Triennale Milano brings together iconic works of Italian design at Museo del Design Italiano

      Io Sono Un Drago is open to the public at the Trienalle Milano 13 April to 13 October. What? A homage to Alessandro Mendini runs from the 16 April- 13 October. See our Milan design week 2024 guide on Dezeen Events Guide for information about the many other exhibitions, installations and talks taking place throughout the week.
      Partnership content
      This video was produced by Dezeen for Triennale as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen’s partnership content here. 

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      Crosby Studios creates office-themed installation in LA for The Frankie Shop

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      New York-based Crosby Studios has piled office equipment around a long metallic table as part of a pop-up installation for fashion brand The Frankie Shop in Los Angeles.

      The month-long installation titled The Office was launched to coincide with LA Art Week and the Sag-Aftra film festival and marked the New York label The Frankie Shop’s first presence in the Californian city.
      A long, metallic conference table formed part of The Office installation created by Crosby StudiosThe brand’s founder Gaëlle Drevet and Crosby Studios creative director Harry Nuriev met at his studio, talked for 2.5 hours and decided to work together.
      The resulting installation occupies a trapezoidal building on Sunset Boulevard wrapped in metallic film on all sides.
      Equipment like printers, office chairs and water coolers were arranged around the perimeter of the spaceInside, the warehouse-like space features a long table also covered in a reflective material, with matching cube-shaped stools set along either side.

      Articulated desk lamps, microphones and bottles of water were arranged on the table as if set up for delegates at a convention.
      The central table featured microphones and water bottles as if set up for a meetingAround the perimeter, Nuriev placed recycled office equipment, such as a large printer, a stack of binders and a pile of plastic-wrapped office chairs.
      A row of water coolers was lined up along one end of the room, encircled with glowing light boxes to create sharp silhouettes of the equipment in front.
      Light boxes that encircle the space create sharp silhouettes of the office furniture placed in front”It’s not really about the office, it’s more about what happens after the office,” Nuriev told Dezeen. “I was thinking it’s time to officially move on from the office and consider the future. However, in this project, we’re uncertain about what the future holds exactly.”
      A selection of apparel by The Frankie Shop is interspersed among the vignettes, while a “storage” area in the back serves as a fitting room.
      Some of the furniture is plastic-wrapped, appearing as though just installed or ready to be shipped awayTogether, the industrial style of the building, the silvery materials, the lighting and the equipment served to highlight the brand’s reinterpretation of businesswear.
      “The pop-up design blends a dynamic combination of fashion and nostalgia, where the power suits of the past seamlessly align with the modern attitude of The Frankie Shop,” said the team.

      Crosby Studios looks to the “signature red” of David Lynch for Silencio New York

      Metallics are commonplace in Nuriev’s interior projects, appearing prominently in a Berlin jewellery store, a Moscow restaurant and his own New York apartment amongst others.
      However, he is vague about the reasons or intentionality behind this recurring theme.
      The exterior of the building on Sunset Boulevard is also covered in reflective film”I don’t really think about ‘why’; it’s just my instincts, and I prefer to follow my feelings,” said Nuriev. “For this project, I had a vision of silver, and I think it works perfectly.”
      Originally from Russia, the designer founded Crosby Studios in 2014 and is now based between New York and Paris.
      The month-long installation marks The Frankie Shop’s first presence in LA and was timed to coincide with the city’s art weekHe recently completed the interiors for New York nightclub Silencio, based on the original location in Paris designed by film director David Lynch.
      Nuriev frequently collaborates with fashion brands, on projects ranging from a virtual sofa upholstered with green Nike jackets to a transparent vinyl couch filled with old Balenciaga clothing.
      The photography is by Josh Cho.
      The Office is on show in Los Angeles from 23 February to 24 March. For more events, talks and exhibitions in architecture and design visit Dezeen Events Guide.

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      LG OLED and Shepard Fairey present digital street art at Frieze Los Angeles

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      Electronics brand LG OLED has collaborated with American street artist Shepard Fairey to exhibit digital versions of his artworks in this exclusive video produced by Dezeen.

      Called Peace and Justice, the installation is being presented at Frieze art fair in Los Angeles and features select works by Fairey that address global issues while advocating for positive change.

      Dezeen has produced an exclusive video for LG OLED
      Fairey was directly involved in the design of the installation space, which features a reimagined version of his 2018 piece Damaged Wrong Path Mural.
      Other works presented at the exhibition include Fairey’s 2023 Swan Song print, a reflection on the state of the environment, as well as a piece titled Make Art Not War, echoing the 1960s anti-war slogan “make love, not war.”
      The video explores artworks reimagined by Shepard Fairey for Frieze Los AngelesFairey is the founder of OBEY Clothing and is widely known for his Hope portrait of Barack Obama – which was widely circulated during the 2008 US presidential election campaign – as well as a series of posters called We the People that were released the day before the inauguration of Donald Trump in 2017.
      The LG OLED Art initiative invites artists to exhibit digital versions of their works using LG OLED TVs.
      The exhibit includes Fairey’s Damaged Wrong Path Mural with added digital elementsEach pixel in the OLED TVs emits its own light and can be controlled individually, creating an emissive display that was designed to produce accurate colour reproduction.
      The LG OLED TVs currently on show at Frieze Los Angeles aim to accurately express the prominent red tones in Fairey’s artwork.
      The LG OLED Art installation is on display at Frieze Los Angeles until 3 MarchLG OLED Art has collaborated with over 27 artists from around the world, including Anish Kapoor, Barry X Ball, Damien Hirst, the late Kim Whanki and Kevin McCoy.
      The photography is by LG Electronics.
      Frieze Los Angeles takes place from 29 February to 3 March 2024 at Santa Monica Airport. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
      Partnership content
      This article was written by Dezeen as part of a partnership with LG OLED. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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      Ten highlights from Design Doha exhibition Arab Design Now

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      A disaster-proof chandelier from Lebanon and a towering sand dune-style stone installation feature in Arab Design Now, the main exhibition at the inaugural Design Doha biennial.

      Arab Design Now was curated by Rana Beiruti to capture the spirit of contemporary design across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the curator told Dezeen ahead of the opening of the first Design Doha.
      Set within the Qatari capital’s M7 building, the design biennial draws together a range of collectible design and installations.
      Selected works from 74 participants paid homage to the MENA region’s “extremely harsh and unique geography” and investigated the “use of materials as a guiding principle,” explained Beiruti.
      Here are 10 of Dezeen’s highlights from Arab Design Now, which is on display in Doha until early August.

      Sites – New Sites by Studio Anne Holtrop
      Bahrain- and Amsterdam-based architect Anne Holtrop has designed a cluster of large-scale mobiles made from vast slabs of lumpy resin.
      Holtrop took casts of a series of manmade and natural sites that he found across Qatar to create the textured pieces, which hang from bearing mechanisms and can be manually rotated by visitors to produce continuously moving formations.

      Constellations 2.0: Object. Light. Consciousness by Abeer Seikaly
      Over 5,000 pieces of Murano glass were woven together by Jordanian-Palestinian designer Abeer Seikaly to create this chandelier, which combines Bedouin weaving practices from Jordan with traditional Venetian glassmaking techniques.
      Brass and stainless steel were also integrated into the lighting, made flexible by the glass mesh.
      Once illuminated, the sculptural piece creates dramatic light patterns that nod to a starry night sky seen from the Badia desert, according to Seikaly.

      House Between a Jujube Tree and a Palm Tree by Civil Architecture
      Kuwait and Bahrain-based office Civil Architecture has designed a looming fibreglass roof proposal for a majlis – the traditional term for an Arabic gathering space.
      “It’s a 1:1 model of a roof of an actual house that we designed in Bahrain,” studio co-founder Hamed Bukhamseen told Deezen.
      Supported by steel and suspended from tension cables, the majlis features openings designed to accommodate tall trees and was created to explore the “symbiotic but blurred” relationship between indoor and outdoor settings.
      Photo courtesy of Design DohaNubia, Hathor and Gros Guillaume Stool by Omar Chakil
      French-Egyptian-Lebanese designer Omar Chakil was informed by his father’s homeland of Egypt when he chose alabaster onyx to create this monolithic shelving, a bulbous coffee table and a stool that glides across the floor on wheels.
      Taking cues from ancient practices, Chakil carved the rounded furniture from raw blocks of the material, which was sanded down over time using water rather than covered in varnish – something that the designer said had became common in Egypt, especially when making “cheap” souvenirs.
      “The whole idea of the collection was to use Egyptian alabaster, which was a healing stone,” Chakil told Dezeen.
      “The pharaohs used [the material], then it transformed it over time. It lost its soul. So I tried to put it in the contemporary context by using the shapes that healing emotions would take – so they are round and soft, even though they are very heavy,” he added.
      “I see that people are afraid to, but I want them to touch the furniture.”

      Tiamat by AAU Anastas
      Palestinian architecture office AAU Anastas is presenting Tiamat, a dune-shaped installation that forms part of the studio’s ongoing project, Stone Matters, which explores the potential of combining historical stone building techniques with modern technologies to encourage the use of structural stone.
      Positioned for visitors to walk through, the installation is a towering structure made of stone sourced from Bethlehem and informed by the Gothic-style architecture found across Palestine, Syria and Lebanon.
      According to AAU Anastas, the light, sound reverberations and climate control within Tiamat’s internal space is unique to stone construction.

      Clay in Context by Sama El Saket
      Jordan-born architect and ceramicist Sama El Saket took cues from her native landscape when creating this “taxonomy of Jordanian clays”.
      The result is a set of spindle bottle-style vessels, each made of a different natural clay found across Jordan. This gives the pieces their distinctive colours, textures and character.
      “These are all natural clays with no pigments added,” El Saket told Dezeen. “The colours are attributed to the different minerals that are found within the region. Some are sandier, some are rockier.”
      The designer noted that while Jordan features an abundance of clay deposits and a rich history of ceramic production, today most Jordanian clay is imported.
      Photo by Sabine SaadehLight Impact by Fabraca Studios
      Lebanese industrial design brand Fabraca Studios has created Light Impact, a solid aluminium lighting fixture that was designed as an alternative chandelier, resembling durable ropes.
      The piece was made to replace a glass chandelier that shattered in the aftermath of the 2020 Beiruit explosion, which destroyed a large part of Lebanon’s capital city.
      Light Impact is defined by “flexible characteristics designed to withstand another disaster,” studio founder Samer Saadeh told Dezeen. He added that the piece, which includes internal brass components, was designed as an ode to Beirut’s adaptability and resilience.

      Eleven by Sahel Alhiyari
      Eleven is a cluster of tall fluted terracotta columns by Jordanian architect Sahel Alhiyari that were made through moulding and forming rather than traditional cutting and carving.
      The architect handcrafted the segments, which are vertically stacked, using a similar technique to pottery-making,
      “As you twist and turn the material, it creates all of this stuff,” Alhiyari told Dezeen. The designer explained that the columns were deliberately created to celebrate imperfections, despite referencing classical architecture.

      Sediments by Talin Hazbar
      UAE-based Syrian designer Talin Hazbar is featuring her Sediments project, which previously gained recognition at Dubai Design Week.
      The work consists of blocky seating made from fishing ropes and fishing cage ropes extracted from the Persian Gulf with the assistance of the Dubai Voluntary Diving Team.
      Also made up of recycled rubber grains, the heavily textured seating was created to serve as a reminder of how we might attempt to clean up damaged coastlines, according to Hazbar.

      Whispers from the Deep by T Sakhi
      Lebanese-Polish sisters Tessa and Tara El Sakhi of the studio T Sakhi combined discarded metal salvaged from factories in Veneto, Italy, with Murano glass to create amorphous glassware that takes cues from underwater sea creatures.
      These pieces were arranged atop dramatic shelving inside the elevator connecting the first and second floors of the Arab Design Now exhibition.
      The result is a playful installation that draws together the Venetian lagoon and Lebanese glassblowing traditions.
      The photography is by Edmund Sumner unless stated otherwise.
      Arab Design Now takes place at Design Doha from 24 to 5 August 2024 in Doha, Qatar. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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      Akin Atelier houses Gallery Shop at Sydney Modern in “translucent bubble”

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      Curved resin walls define this retail space, which architecture studio Akin Atelier has created for the Sydney Modern extension at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

      Designed by Akin Atelier with surfboard designer Hayden Cox, the Gallery Shop is located in the entrance pavilion of the gallery that was recently completed by Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning studio SANAA.
      The retail space is conceived as a “translucent bubble” within the entrance area, the studio said, and it aims to challenge the typical commercial experience in a museum shop.
      Akin Atelier has created the Gallery Shop at Sydney Modern”The shop captures natural light throughout the day, bringing dynamic reflections and refractions of the city while holding people, objects, and books within its centre,” Akin Atelier told Dezeen.
      “[It] showcases products to passers-by through the lens of the resin walls – gently maximising the identity of the space while preserving the architectural experience of the new building.”

      The Gallery Shop comprises two resin walls that curve around its displays, with a gap between the two of them forming the entry point.
      It has curved walls made from a resinThe installation is placed in the northwest corner of the entrance pavilion, to the left-hand side of its entrance, meaning that its distinctive resin walls are visible from the street.
      Its walls are constructed of 29 modules formed of 12 tonnes of resin. According to the studio, the resin is a type of “bio-resin” manufactured to incorporate biological matter.
      It sits within the building’s entrance pavilion that was designed by SANAA”It is composed of a minimum 26 per cent biological matter,” said the studio.
      “[This reduces] the amount of embodied carbon as well as reducing toxicity during the manufacturing process.”

      SANAA designs Sydney Modern to be “harmonious with its surroundings”

      The distinct tonal gradient of the bio-resin was achieved by hand pouring layers of colour into custom moulds – a process that took 109 days.
      Meanwhile, its glossy translucency was achieved through hand sanding followed by seven rounds of hand polishing.
      The translucent material allows natural light through the space. Photo by Tim SalisburyThe resin’s earthy hues reference the sandstone used in the original Art Gallery of New South Wales, while its gradation is a nod to the layered nature of Sydney’s bedrock of sandstone.
      “The handmade nature of resin casting and finishing allowed for experimentation across colour and form while addressing the patinated qualities of the outside environment,” explained Akin Atelier.
      Two curved walls enclose the shopInside the Gallery Shop, adjustable resin shelves line the curved walls, housing books and publications. Stainless steel is used for display plinths, providing a contrast to the warm tones of the resin.
      The project has been shortlisted in the small retail interior category of the Dezeen Awards.
      Akin Atelier also recently used tactile materials such as onyx, plaster and travertine to form the interiors of a branch of the womenswear store Camilla and Marc in Melbourne.
      The photography is by Rory Gardiner unless otherwise stated. 

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      Customers exchange urine for soap at Het Nieuwe Instituut pop-up shop

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      Cultural centre Het Nieuwe Instituut is rethinking the archetypal museum shop with a pop-up at Dutch Design Week, designed to encourage more ethical, resource-conscious consumption.

      Instead of offering a straightforward exchange of wares for money, New Store 1.0 gives patrons the opportunity to trade their urine for a piece of Piss Soap and encourages them to place their phones on specially designed fixtures to provide lighting for the venue once the sun goes down.
      Het Nieuwe Instituut has launched its debut pop-up shop at Dutch Design WeekTaking over Residency for the People – a hybrid restaurant and artist residency in Eindhoven – the pop-up also serves up two different versions of the same seabass dish, one made using wild locally caught fish and the other using fish that was industrially farmed and imported.
      The pop-up is the first of two trial runs for the New Store, aimed at helping Rotterdam’s Nieuwe Instituut work out how to design its own museum shop to prioritise positive social and environmental impact over mere financial gain.
      Arthur Guilleminot’s Piss Soap is among the projects on offerIn collaboration with the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) and research consultancy The Seeking State, the second trial will take place at next year’s Milan design week, with the aim to open the first dedicated shop in the museum’s Rotterdam location in 2025.

      “It all started out with the idea that we don’t have a museum shop per se,” Nieuwe Instituut’s programme manager Nadia Troeman told Dezeen. “A museum shop, as we know, has books and trinkets and gadgets. And it’s not really doing well for the planet or the environment.”
      “So we were like, how can we make the act of consuming better? How can we consume differently to help not just ourselves but the environment as well?”
      Visitors are invited to donate their urine via a poster in the toilet. Photo by Jennifer HahnFor the Dutch Design Week (DDW) pop-up, Nieuwe Instituut found the three featured projects by Dutch designers Arthur Guilleminot, Brogen Berwick and Arnout Meijer via an open call.
      The aim was to help the designers trial their ideas for how the exchange of goods could be less extractive and transactional in a real-world scenario.
      This can then be placed on a shelf outside the bathroom. Photo by Tracy Metz”The project is part of a broader institutional agenda of ours to become more of a testing ground,” explained the museum’s director Aric Chen. “It’s part of rethinking the role of cultural institutions as being places that can do more than host debates, discussions and presentations.”
      “So our aim is to take some of these projects that try to think about how we can do less damage, take them out of the graduation shows, take them out of the museum galleries, take them out of the biennales and put them into the real world, with real consumers, audiences and real people to see what we can learn from it,” he continued.

      The Energy Show explores the past and future of solar energy

      Guilleminot used the opportunity to expand his ongoing Piss Soap project, with a poster in the venue’s toilet inviting visitors to donate their pee by relieving themselves into designated cups and discreetly placing them on a newly added shelf outside the bathroom window.
      This can then be exchanged for a piece of soap, made using urine donated by previous participants and other waste materials from human activities such as used cooking oil.
      The soap takes three months to cure and is entirely odourless, helping to break up dirt and grease thanks to the urine’s high ammonia content.
      Those who are eating at the New Store can choose between two kinds of fishThe aim of the project is to find a new application for an underutilised waste material and engage people in a kind of circular urine economy.
      “The idea was to revive the ancient tradition of using pee to make soap, which was done for many centuries, including in ancient Rome,” said Guilleminot.
      “Could I make a modern product using this ingredient and, in the meantime, also change our feelings of disgust about our golden organic liquid?”
      The shop’s interactive lighting fixtures were designed by Arnout MeijerThose having dinner at the New Store can choose between two iterations of the same fish dish.
      The first uses wild seabass that was caught locally by fishers Jan and Barbara Geertsema-Rodenburg in Lauwersoog while the other was farmed in Turkey and imported by seafood market G&B Yerseke.
      Devised by Berwick, who is a design researcher and “occasional fisherwoman”, the project challenges diners to ask themselves whether they are willing to pay the higher price associated with locally caught fish in exchange for its environmental benefits.
      “With the fish, they get a receipt of transparency,” Troeman added. “And one is obviously longer than the other.”
      The shop is open until 29 OctoberDiners were also asked to provide their own illumination as the sun goes down, in a bid to make them aware of our overconsumption of energy and the adverse effects our light pollution has on the natural rhythms of other animals.
      For this purpose, Meijer designed two wall-mounted fixtures inside the New Store that have no internal light source and are simply composed of discarded glass shards topped with wooden shelves made from old beams.
      If they require more light, guests have to place their phone on this ledge with the flashlight on, funnelling light onto the glass shard through a narrow slit in the wood.
      It takes over Eindhoven’s artists’ residency and restaurant Residency for the PeopleThis reflects and refracts light around the space while revealing various crescent moon shapes engraved into the glass in a nod to the circadian rhythm.
      “It’s really about our dependence on the constant supply of energy,” Troeman said. “Can we embrace the dark and hence be more environmentally friendly? It has benefits for everyone and everything.”
      Exploring more circular forms of exchange was also on the agenda at last year’s Dutch Design Week, when designer Fides Lapidaire encouraged visitors to trade their own poo for “shit sandwiches” topped with vegetables that were fertilised with human waste.
      The photography is by Jeph Francissen unless otherwise stated.
      Dutch Design Week 2023 is taking over Eindhoven from 21 to 29 October. See Dezeen Events Guide for information about the many other exhibitions, installations and talks taking place throughout the week.

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      Oltre Terra exhibition calls for “constructive relationship” between humans and sheep

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      Design duo Formafantasma has unveiled an exhibition at Oslo’s National Museum of Norway about the history and future of wool production, featuring a 1,700-year-old tunic and a carpet made from waste fibres.

      Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin of Formafantasma created the Oltre Terra exhibition, curated by Hannah Eide, to unravel humanity’s past and present relationship with sheep and, by extension, the production of wool.
      Oltre Terra includes a carpet made from discarded wool fibresThe exhibition features archival and contemporary objects, including life-size replicas of seven different breeds of sheep and tools for shearing, arranged across a diorama-style set within a single gallery at Norway’s national museum.
      Among the first animals to be domesticated by humans, sheep were first culled by hunter-gatherers around 11,000 years ago.
      Tools for shearing also feature in the exhibitionThis marked the start of a complex relationship, according to Formafantasma.

      “The National Museum of Norway [which commissioned Oltre Terra] was interested in us developing a body of work that relates to the local community in Oslo, because wool was an extremely important material in Norwegian culture before the development of the industry connected to oil and farming,” Trimarchi and Farresin told Dezeen.
      The exhibition design nods to dioramasOltre Terra aimed to combine artefacts typically seen in natural history museums with ones more commonly exhibited at art and design galleries, in order to highlight the interdependency between biological evolution and production processes.
      Among the pieces on show are a cream carpet by CC-Tapis made of four different wool fibres extracted from 12 Italian sheep breeds.
      This wool was left over from production and would usually be discarded for its coarseness, but the carpet intends to illustrate how these rougher fibres can still be used to make products that are not in direct contact with skin.
      The exhibition shows artifacts typically seen in natural history museums and art galleriesAlso on display is a 1,700-year-old woollen tunic, which was found preserved under a mountain ice patch 200 miles northwest of Oslo in 2011, and woollen sails that were used for Viking Age boats.
      At the centre of the installation sits a video that Formafantasma created with artist Joanna Piotrowska. Called Tactile Afferents, the film focusses on the sense of touch and explores the ways in which humans have interacted with sheep over time.
      Pieces range from contemporary to historical artefactsThe exhibition also features replicas of notable examples of the species, such as Shrek, the Merino sheep from New Zealand who – like many others – was discovered in the wild with an overgrown coat in 2004 after he escaped his domestic flock six years prior.
      This is an example of when sheep need humans, according to Formafantasma.
      “Many people are against animal farming, which, when it is intensive farming, we also think is extremely problematic,” said the designers.
      “But sheep at the moment are not like their wild ancestors, Mouflons – they do not naturally lose hair. They need humans to shear them.”
      A 1,700-year-old woollen tunic features in the exhibitionThe show’s exhibition design nods to the concept of the diorama – miniature or largescale models found in museums that are encased in glass and typically display three-dimensional figures.
      For Oltre Terra, the diorama was “exploded” into sections and left open, rather than covered in glass, to allow visitors to feel more connected to the pieces and to question the boundary between art and science.

      PETA launches $1 million design competition to create vegan wool

      “For us, it’s about unifying narratives and showing how these are complex ecologies that should be displayed together,” said Trimarchi and Farresin of the installation.
      “The scope of the exhibition is to explore this very intimate yet intricate relationship between humans and animals, in which the boundaries between tamer and domesticated fade,” continued the designers.
      Tactile Afferents is a film presented in the centre of the dioramaTrimarchi and Farresin explained that one of the exhibition’s overarching aims was to promote mutual dependence and respect between humans and sheep, especially when it comes to farming practices.
      “The relationship between humans and sheep is much more complicated and complex,” they added.
      “As with human relationships, there are abusive relationships, and there are just relationships and constructive relationships. What we’re doing now [with livestock] is, in some cases, extremely abusive, but this does not mean that sheep and animals and humans cannot live in a process of symbiosis.”
      Formafantasma created numerous sheep replicas for the exhibitionThe show took its name from the etymology of the word “transhumance”, which is formed by the combination of the Latin words trans (across, ‘oltre’ in Italian) and humus (grounds, ‘terra’) and refers to the practice of migrating livestock from one grazing ground to another.
      Founded by Trimarchi and Farresin in 2009, Formafantasma has previously presented other shows that investigate materials, including an exhibition on timber with furniture brand Artek that was held at Helsinki’s Design Museum last year. The studio also redesigned its website to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
      The photography is by Ina Wesenberg. 
      Project credits:
      Formafantasma team: Sara Barilli, Alessandro Celli and Gregorio GonellaCurator: Hannah Eide
      Oltre Terra is on display at the National Museum of Norway from 26 May to 1 October 2023. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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      Tomás Saraceno adapts Serpentine gallery to welcome all species

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      Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno has changed the HVAC and electrical system of the Serpentine gallery in London, in an effort to make an exhibition for all the nearby species.

      Titled Web(s) of Life, the exhibition presents some of the artist’s most recent and well-known environmentally focused works, while also encompassing interventions into the building itself.
      These interventions aim to make the Serpentine South building housing the exhibition more porous and responsive to its setting in Kensington Gardens, challenging anthropocentric perspectives that only consider the interests of humans and not any other beings.
      Tomás Saraceno has made changes to the Serpentine South building for his exhibitionSculptures made for the enjoyment of a variety of different animals are placed on the building’s grounds, facade and roof as well as inside the building, while complex webs woven by multiple types of spiders working “in collaboration” with Saraceno feature inside the dimly lit galleries.
      “You see that many architectures today are somehow not so inclusive of what is happening on the planet,” said Saraceno, who trained as an architect. “I’m very happy to think that for the first time at the Serpentine, there are many spiderweb pavilions.”

      “It’s a little bit about trying to think how animal architecture could enter into the discourse and how we need to have a much more equilibrated and balanced way of building cities today on Earth,” he told Dezeen.
      Saraceno’s Cloud Cities sculptures can be found in the groundsTo make the gallery interior more comfortable for spiders and other insects, the equipment that controls the building’s temperature and humidity has been switched off and some doorways opened to allow for free movement of both air and animal life.
      Given the exhibition will run throughout the British summertime, this might mean some discomfort for human visitors – but within limits. According to the Serpentine’s chief curator Lizzie Carey-Thomas, the gallery will allow the staff on its floor to decide when conditions are too hot for them to work safely or for visitors to have an enjoyable time.
      At that point, the gallery will close rather than switch on the air-conditioning, encouraging visitors to enjoy the installations outside in the park and under the trees.
      The sculptures also feature inside the galleryA further intervention by Saraceno comes in the form of a new solar array on the Serpentine’s roof, which will power all the films and lights in the exhibition.
      The destructive effects of lithium mining on the environment and Indigenous communities is a key theme of the exhibition. So Saraceno and the Serpentine are avoiding the use of a lithium battery and instead embracing the intermittency of solar power by adapting the exhibition’s energy use to the level of sunshine outside.

      Tomás Saraceno installs Aerocene metallic orbs in Paris’ Grand Palais

      On cloudy or partly cloudy days, films will run less frequently and lights will be dimmed. On particularly sunless days, the films may switch to audio-only, while some lights will switch off altogether.
      “The irony there is that on the extreme heat days with lots of sun, we will have full power but we won’t be able to open the exhibition,” said Carey-Thomas.
      As the Serpentine South building is heritage listed, both Carey-Thomas and Saraceno say the process for making any alterations was complex and drawn out, with approval for the solar panels taking two years and other plans to remove windows and doors quickly abandoned.
      The exhibition environment is meant to be more comfortable for spiders, whose webs are on displayThe works within the exhibition include Saraceno’s Cloud Cities sculptures, which feature compartments specifically designed for different animals such as birds, insects, dogs, hedgehogs and foxes.
      The artist is also screening a film that documents one of the instalments of his Aerocene project, which involves making an entirely fossil-free aircraft powered purely by air heated by the sun with no need for batteries, helium, hydrogen or lithium.
      In the film, the Aerocene team completes the world’s first piloted solar-powered flight, flying a balloon sculpture over the highly reflective salt flats in Salinas Grandes.
      A film in the exhibition documents Saraceno’s fossil-free flight projectThere is also a work created specifically for children, called Cloud Imagination, which is accessed through a dog-shaped door that’s too small for most adults to enter.
      Saraceno and the Serpentine describe the Web(s) of Life exhibition as having been created “in collaboration” with a host of different contributors, both human and non-human.
      These include the communities of Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc in Argentina, spider diviners in Cameroon, the communities around Aerocene and Saraceno’s Arachnophilia project, and the lifeforms found in the Royal Parks surrounding the Serpentine, which will continue to evolve the works over the next three months.
      The films may run less frequently when the levels of solar energy are affected by cloud coverThe artist and gallery also want to extend the ethos of the exhibition to the potential sale of the artworks by developing a scheme called partial common ownership or, Saraceno hopes, “partial common stewardship”, which means any buyer would “co-own” the work along with a designated species or community.
      Another recent artwork to have explored ideas of intermittency in energy and design is Solar Protocol, which looks at the potential of a solar-powered internet.
      The photography is by Studio Tomás Saraceno.
      Tomás Saraceno In Collaboration: Web(s) of Life will take place at Serpentine South in London, UK from 1 June to 10 September 2023 and culminate with a day-long festival on Saturday, 9 September including a weather-dependent Aerocene flight. For more information about events, exhibitions and talks, visit Dezeen Events Guide.

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