Design Line: 23 – 29 September
Lego abandons its plan for recycled plastic bricks; Greenwich Council cracks down on planning permission rebels; and Jony Ive is rumoured to be working on an AI hardware device. A disparate selection of stories, you may think, and you’d be right to do so, but such is the cut and thrust of breaking design news – read on to find out more in this week’s Design Line!
The fifth slice of Pi (image: Raspberry Pi Foundation).
Fresh Pi
The Raspberry Pi is a fine thing – a single-board computer that was initially designed to help kids learn how to code, but whose low cost, flexibility and open design quickly saw it picked up by hobbyists and technologists from around the world. Exciting news came this week, then, when the foundation behind the computer announced a new version launching at the end of the month – the Raspberry Pi 5. The new device is a faster, souped up version of that which has come before (including a new component that speeds up transfers between the computer and peripheral devices), with prices starting at $60. For those interested in the technology, there are plenty of juicy specs available to read here, but there are also things to celebrate for even those who find technical details a drag, not least the ever increasing range of components and hacks to ensure the computers can handle whatever is thrown at them. The Raspberry Pis are a family of devices that learned early on that making computing affordable, accessible and open source doesn’t just benefit those learning the ropes, but actively supports everyone throughout the user base. Five iterations into the device’s lifespan, it’s good to to know that this ethos is still serving the Pi well.
Soak up the swampy vibes in Airbnb’s latest offering (image: Alix McIntosh via Airbnb).
Staying Swampy
First it was Barbie’s Dreamhouse; then it was a night in the Moulin Rouge; then it was Barbie’s Dreamhouse (again!); and this week, in the latest of Airbnb’s sleuth of movie-inspired rental experiences, it’s Shrek’s swamp. Arguably less glamorous that the former offerings, guests at this site will experience a “mud-laden, moss-covered, murky-watered swamp” and can “stay up late, swap stories, and eat like an ogre – because in the morning, Donkey’s making waffles!” according to Airbnb’s news page. The property is located on the Ardverikie Estate in the Scottish Highlands and guests can apply to stay from October 27-29th for free (although Airbnb bizarrely stresses it is not a contest). What happens to the house after this period, is unclear. The structure has generated a huge amount of press since its announcement two days ago, presumably cooling some of the heat that Airbnb had come under when New York banned short term rentals though the site earlier this month. Staying in Shrek’s house does, admittedly, sound fun and it would be interesting to see how objects like the film’s earwax candle and pufferfish lamp have been translated from on-screen whimsies to real life objects. But behind this novelty, beware! As critics Seema Mattu and Zarina Muhummad point out in their brilliantly titled podcast ‘Come Ogre Here!’, Shrek’s swamp in the film is a site of power struggle between the land-owning rich and the rest of the fairytale creatures who are the villainous Lord Farquaad’s tenants and have been forcibly removed from their homes in a classic move of gentrification. In the light of this subtext, Airbnb’s announcement takes on an ironic and more sinister tone, holding up a mirror to the company’s complicity in creating the housing shortages faced by many today.
The AiPhone
OpenAI already looms large in the public consciousness thanks to its ChatGPT AI-powered language model, but the company clearly has designs on occupying an even larger place in the discussion around AI. According to new reporting from The Information and The Financial Times, the company is in conversation with Jony Ive about designing a new AI hardware device that is being billed as the “iPhone of artificial intelligence”. The idea, which is reported to be backed with more than $1bn in funding from Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, seems to be at an early stage, with Ive reported to have hosted preliminary brainstorming sessions at his LoveFrom studio to discuss what such a device might look like. Whatever does eventually emerge, reports suggest, may strive to be less reliant on screens than current pieces of consumer tech – a trend that Ive’s design for Apple’s iPhone played no small part in driving. Yet even if ChatGPT’s device (if it ever sees the light of day) does steer clear of the iPhone template, the company will hope that Ive ensures that lightning strikes twice – his work on the iPhone, and its prioritisation of touchscreen technology, is widely hailed as having reshaped the way in which users interact with the internet on portable devices. As AI grows in significance, could Ive once again play a key role in determining how we interface with the technologies shaping modern life?
Just Not Good Enough
This week the Royal Borough of Greenwich council ordered the demolition of Quay Mast II, an apartment block completed one year ago. Described by the council as an “unprecedented” decision, it comes as a consequence of Comer Homes Group, the block’s developer and landlord, having deviated from the original planning permission on 26 major counts. These deviations include taking up a larger footprint than was originally granted permission for; failure to deliver an underground carpark and instead installing an above-ground carpark in space that was allocated for gardens; not delivering a children’s playground and roof gardens; a lack of wheelchair accessibility in the “accessible” flats… the damning list goes on. Furthermore, the building’s bleak, blocky grey facade fails to match the shiny renderings that were submitted to the council over a decade ago and local residents are not happy. The council leader, Anthony Okereke, who announced the decision on Tuesday declared the deviations were “just not good enough”. While Disegno wholeheartedly agrees with, and applauds, the council for holding developers accountable, the council’s response is also just not good enough, however. In an age of climate collapse and in a city facing an affordable housing crisis, tearing down a new building that has used masses of carbon-intensive steel and concrete in its construction, and where tenants are already living in its 204 apartments, seems ludicrously irresponsible. Surely there should be other ways to deal with this issue? Enforced retrofitting? Doling out fines so large they deter other developers from doing the same? Requiring Comer to build and maintain a local community centre? Revoking its licenses? Implementing more rigorous checks throughout the building process going forward? All of the above? While there is likely legislative complexity in how the council can respond, we hope that in the 30 days that Comer has to appeal the demolition notice, the council will also take a long, hard look at alternative means of rectifying the situation. Demolition should not be the answer.
Billions of these petroleum-based bricks are sold each year (image: Pietro Zuco via Creative Commons).
A PET Complex
In a somewhat ironic twist, Lego announced this week that it will no longer produce bricks made from recycled plastic bottles as part of its drive to reduce its carbon emissions. For two years Lego has been researching the use of recycled Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, but after multiple rounds of testing it has found the bricks to be less durable than its required standards, while the new manufacturing processes required for their production were also more polluting than its existing brick-making model. As such, abandoning PET bricks is now, oddly, part of Lego’s pledge to use only sustainable materials and reduce its carbon emissions by 37 per cent by 2032, although the company has said that it will continue to research other plastic alternatives from both recycled sources and e-methanol-based plastics. If these two years of research by Lego show anything, it is that the category of what counts as a “sustainable material” continues to be murky. Material resources are complex and need to be considered from multiple angles before their overall impact can be assessed. As such, kudos to Lego, which has recourse to R&D funds beyond most manufacturers (it has invested €1.13bn in sustainability initiatives), for announcing its failures – these stories are helpful for consumers and industry alike in understanding the reality of our changing material culture. In the meantime, however, Lego continues to pump out fossil fuel-based plastic bricks at a rate that is hard to comprehend; a cursory internet search of Lego “fun facts”, for instance, proffers that there are currently in existence an estimated 80 Lego bricks per person on Earth.
The NYCEDC wants to make mass timber buildings a concrete reality (image: via NYC Mass Timber Studio).
Supporting Timber
Sometimes change doesn’t happened naturally, you have to give it a bit of structural support. This week the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) announced the launch of the NYC Mass Timber Studio, a platform and funding body aiming to provide support, guidance and otherwise encourage mass timber building activities in New York City. The studio will offer $25,000 grants for design teams to help assess the design and feasibility both technically and economically of building in mass timber. Support will take place over nine months in 2024, with the selected studios working closely with the Wood Products Council, the NYC Department of Buildings, and the American Institute of Architects New York (AIANY). The platform is an effort to connect a number of disparate organisations and building bodies to one another with a focused end in mind: creating more timber buildings in New York. It’s a satisfyingly direct programme with the clear intention of filling in knowledge gaps between architects, developers, engineers and wood product suppliers. Mass timber buildings are increasingly popular for their embodied carbon, quicker construction times, and quieter building sites. As such, it will be interesting to see if this scheme’s promise of pooled knowledge is a sufficient incubator to encourage more of these kind of buildings, or if it becomes a way of shining a light onto hidden hurdles to building with timber.