The Design Line: 10 – 16 December
From an Avatar-themed concept car to a concept for artificial wombs, a refurbished Japanese masterpiece to recyclable fashion wrapping, Design Line traverses a wide range of topics this week.
A capsule home is for life, not just for Christmas (image: AirBnb).
Cool for the summer
It’s been a sad year for fans of architect Kisho Kurokawa and Japanese Metabolism in general after the dismantling of his Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo (see ‘Obsolescent Masculinity’ by Aki Ishida in Disegno #32). So it is perhaps happy news that Kurokawa’s own summer house, designed in the style of the capsules from his lost tower, is now available to rent as a holiday home. Capsule House K, which juts out from a wooded hillside in the town of Miyota, Nagano Prefecture, is owned by Kurokawa’s son, who crowdfunded the costs for its restoration last year. Built in 1973, a year after Nakagin Capsule Tower opened, the house features the same round aperture-inspired windows and built-in furniture featuring what was then state-of-the-art technology. A floor-to-ceiling round window in the wood-lined master bedroom looks out into the canopy of the surrounding trees, while a central tatami mat room includes a shoe nook set into the floor. While Disegno generally abhors AirBnB for its degenerative effect on local housing provision, the hosting of Capsule House K on the platform does mean that fans of mid-century architecture have a shot at staying in piece of design history for their holidays.
Algorithms of hate
The design of Meta’s algorithms has been coming under increasing scrutiny of late, culminating this week in a court case that highlights the life and death issue of posts on the social media platform. Human rights group the Katiba Institute and Abrham Meareg, the son of an an Ethiopian academic who was murdered after being targeted in viral posts on Facebook, have filed a case in Kenya’s High Court. Meareg alleges that Facebook failed to moderate posts made on its site, making his father vulnerable during the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia. "If Facebook had just stopped the spread of hate and moderated posts properly, my father would still be alive,” said Meareg. Not only did Meta fail to moderate posts, claim the litigants, posts targeting Meareg’s father were allowed to go viral, with one shared 50,000 times and left up eight days after his death. Meta claims it has already put funding towards a moderation team and technology to filter out hate speech on the platform. Nairobi, where the case has been filed, is a content moderation hub for the hundreds of millions of users across the African continent. "The Ethiopian market has 117 million people, Facebook currently employs 25 content moderators," said British lawyer Rosa Curling. "That is woefully inadequate.” Along with a change to Facebook’s algorithms, the plaintiffs hope to establish a $2bn fund for victims of hate on the platform.
Nothing (but biomaterial) comes between me and my Calvins (image: Peter Vinther via Dezeen).
The gift that keeps on giving
It’s the most wonderful wasteful time of the year, as people prepare to send 227,000 miles of wrapping paper to landfill once the presents under the tree are opened. While us normies trying to do a more sustainable gift-giving season might reach for the brown paper and newspaper, fashion giant Calvin Klein has gone several steps further with biomaterial pouches and ribbon that can be repurposed before eventually composting down. Natural Material Studio, a Copenhagen-based design practice, has developed a bio textile called Procel, which has been shaped into pouches held together by steel pins. The pale, neutral-toned bags are accented by a dark ribbon made of the same material, which adds a festive – if slightly austere – accent to the gift wrapping system. A pattern of bubbles set into its surface adds to the naturalistic feel. Natural Material Studio said they wanted to nod to the brand’s minimalist aesthetic, while creating a wrapping system that could be re-used by the recipient. While it’s surely a drop in the ocean compared to the amount of packaging used in any given brand’s supply chain, it’s certainly a fetching present to find under your tree.
A growing concern
These days, all a concept design needs to gain global attention is a slick marketing video to accompany a wacky idea. So it was this week with EctoLife, the creation of science communicator Hashem Al-Ghaili that imagines an industrial facility where babies could be grown in rows of egg-shaped artificial wombs. In this futuristic vision, foetuses would grow in an artificial environment, connected by an app that would allow the parents-to-be to monitor every movement through a 360° camera. Does the miracle of procreation need a VR application? Common sense would suggest there are many other interventions that could elevate maternal health before abdicating the role of gestation entirely, but with slick sci-fi graphics and an eerie automated narrator it’s easy to pass off these concerning ideas as a going concern. The EctoLife facility would be “designed to help countries suffering from severe population decline” intones the chirpy text-to-speech voice-over, while an “Elite Package” option would allow parents-to-be to select for intelligence, height and skin tone – a eugenicist nightmare inside an ethical minefield. Let’s hope that EctoLife never comes to life.
Carol Ross Barney is the AIA’s choice for its 2023 Gold Medal (image: John Boehm).
Going for gold
This week, the architect Carol Ross Barney became the second ever sole woman recipient of the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architecture (AIA). The prize has been awarded annually since 1907, only going to a solo woman twice and to four women in total. Ross Barney founded her practice in 1981 and made her name redesigning the Oklahoma City Federal Building in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. At least 168 people died when a domestic terrorist detonated a truck bomb near the government complex. In response, Ross Barney Architects designed an open building around a courtyard with security features designed to be subtle rather than overwhelming, as “a philosophical and practical response to tragedy”. The native Chicagoan is perhaps best known for her work on the Chicago Riverwalk, designing a 1.25 mile stretch of the waterfront regeneration scheme to include spots to kayak, walk, sit and fish from. Ross Barney is also a founding member of the nonprofit Chicago Women in Architecture. Awarding her the 2023 Gold Medal, the AIA called her “an unrivalled architect for the people, [who] exudes design excellence, social responsibility, and generosity”. Ross Barney is a worthy winner – let’s hope the AIA continues to recognise a more diverse pool for its top gong.
Reverse to Pandora
Movie tie-ins can lead to some interesting design choices and heavy-handed product placement. But the relegation this week of a collaboration between Mercedes and Avatar, the multi-billion-dollar alien movie series from director James Cameron, is something else. The Mercedes-Benz Vision AVTR concept car starred in a promotional test drive this week to drum up enthusiasm for Avatar: The Way of Water. First unveiled at the 2020 CES, the unearthly car has now been made into a drivable test vehicle, with a number of unusual features to compliment its far-out design. Mercedes loaned its automotive designers to Cameron in 2018 to help design the creatures for the subaquatic sequel, leading to the idea of designing an electric vehicle that echos banshees – the flying steeds of the film's blue-hued Na’vi. The AVTR features spherical wheels, big glass doors and 33 moving flaps on the back that can move independently. To drive it, you use a central joystick, while the dashboard is made of a surround screen that responds to touch and projects gesture-controlled menus onto your hands. Hilariously, the car doesn’t appear in the film at all, because the heroes are one with nature and only the villains have machines. “We didn’t want it to be the bad guy,” Mercedes told The Verge. Looks like the AVTR will miss out this Oscar season.