The Design Line: 19 – 25 November
We have an eclectic mix for you in this week’s Design Line. Material design meets high tech as traditional Italian silverware artisans manufacture AI spoons, and PETA launches a prize for a bio-engineered wool alternative. Meanwhile, there’s more drama than usual over in the fashion world as Gucci parts ways with its creative director, while Balenciaga gets mired in controversy over teddy bears.
Do androids dream of electric soup? (image: Oio).
Smart spoons
You’ve heard of Artificial Intelligence, now prepare yourself for Artisanal Intelligence. Spawn by Oio is a limited range of spoons that was designed by algorithm, then crafted by artisans at Italy’s Greggio Argenterie silverware factory. Spawn’s mastermind is Giorgio Olivero, who creates under the name giosampietro and calls himself a “hypercraft” designer. Having trained at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, Olivero founded the TODO design studio before working on the development of wearables in Hong Kong. To make the AI spoons, giosampietro curated a collection of spoon images to train an AI on. The machine generated 100 new spoon shapes, which were subsequently turned into 3D moulds by humans and sent off to the spoon factory. The result is three spoon shapes with pleasing organic handles, coupled with smaller scoops that look like a cross between a leaf and a commemorative teaspoon. And of course, they are limited to a drop of just 100 spoons – for the hype, you understand. AI cutlery may sound a little silly, but it’s interesting to see a designer embrace the opportunities of machine learning – and demonstrate how important it is to have a human involved too.
Wood you like a seat at the table (image: Lina Gotmeh Architecture/Serpentine).
Gotmeh gets the go-ahead
Very little in life feels certain right now, but as winter begins to bite there is great comfort in knowing these two certainties: spring will come, and summer will bring with it the Serpentine Pavilion. This week, the London gallery announced the architect of its 22nd pavilion will be Lina Gotmeh. Gotmeh, a Lebanese architect who has made a name for her practice with her sensitive use of natural materials, plans to build a timber pavilion enclosed by translucent walls. Inside the pavilion will sit a large, low circular table beneath a gabled roof. In a statement, Gotmeh said she hopes to create “an atmosphere reminiscent of toguna huts of the Dogon people in Mali, West Africa, designed to bring all members of a community together in discussion”. The table motif is also a nod to the connection between sustenance and sustainability, and the wooden pavilion will be constructed in a modular fashion that will allow it to be disassembled afterwards and reused. We’re particularly excited to learn what kind of timber Gotmeh will pick for the project, given that she recently featured on our Words on Wood podcast.
Not so Gucci
It’s layoff season, and even the biggest names in fashion aren’t safe it seems. In a move less House of Gucci, more House of the Dragon, Alessandro Michele has stepped down as creative director of Gucci after 20 years with the fashion house – with immediate effect. It’s a surprising move, given that Michele was responsible for Gucci’s 2010s renaissance and had garnered some serious pop culture cache, championing androgynous fashion and dressing the likes of Harry Styles and Måneskin – the latter being hand picked to star in campaigns for the brand by Michele himself (we stan a Eurovision fan). Admirably, Michele refused to partake in the fashion weeks arms race, cutting all but two of Gucci’s runway shows, jettisoning extraneous cruise and pre-autumn collections. Kering, the French luxury group that owns Gucci, reaps two thirds of its annual profit from the Italian fashion house, but growth within Gucci had begun to slow in recent years. Whereas once Michele’s design had been the toast of fashion, Elizabeth Paton and Vanessa Friedman wrote in The New York Times, the gloss had begun to come off: “the basic offering began to elicit yawns rather than desire,” Paton and Friedman summarised. There’s no news on who will replace Michele, but there’s a high chance his successor will be under pressure to produce more – more designer accessories, more shows, more profits.
If you want to go nyoooooom it will cost you extra (image: Mercedes Benz).
Subscribe for speed
There was much rolling of eyes last month when BMW introduced a subscription service for seat warmers. But putting built-in capabilities behind a paywall is clearly catching on in the automotive industry, with the news this week that Mercedes Benz drivers will have to pay extra for the luxury of using their car’s top acceleration. Speed freaks who hand over $1,200 a year to the German carmakers will have access to the “Acceleration Increase” package, which will take a whole 0.8 seconds off their 0 to 60mph acceleration. Even if you’re regularly flooring it, that’s a pretty expensive way to put pedal to the metal. You can’t even really spin it as a fuel-saving option, as the add-on is only available for the Mercedes-EQ EQE and Mercedes-EQ EQS – both of which are electric models. On the one hand, a general fall in car sales gives us hope that a more sustainable mass-transit future is dawning and that optional extras offer a way for car designers to adapt to a new era. But there’s also the worrying prospect of setting a precedent for consumer goods paywalls. What’s next, a surcharge for extra-crispy toast from your toaster? Premium pricing to access the ice machine in your freezer? We’ll stick to our Spotify and Netflix subscriptions, thanks.
If you can beat this fella at his own game you could win a cool $1m (image: Susanne Jutzeler/Pixabay).
Wooly thinking
In many ways, wool is great. It’s 100 per cent organic, it keeps sheep and people (and sometimes houses) toasty warm, and it’s naturally biodegradable. But not everyone is a fan of the material, particularly animal rights group PETA. As an animal product, wool isn’t vegan, and the organisation wants to highlight that sheep are almost as farty as cows when it comes to herbivorous methane production. To encourage designers to find an alternative, PETA has promised a prize of $1m to the person who can come up with a vegan wool. The stipulations are strict: it must be bio-based or bioengineered, have a lower environmental impact than OG wool, mimic its ability to hold warmth and neutralise smells, and be adopted by a major fashion brand. A tall order, but given that designers are already turning mushrooms into leather and bacteria into beauty packaging (see ‘The Biodegradable Aphrodite’ from Disegno #31) it wouldn’t be entirely baa-my (Ba Dum Tsh) to predict that we may see sheep-free jumpers on the shelves in the not too distant future.
Bad taste bears aren’t the Devil in the details (image: Balenciaga).
Bears some factchecking
Conspiracy theories may be bizarre and ridiculous, but they’re becoming increasingly dangerous, particularly when accusations of “grooming” are weaponised – often against marginalised communities. The mainstreaming of far-right internet conspiracist community around QAnon in the USA has led large numbers of people to believe in secret evil organisations, and they are trained to read for signs of said evil everywhere. Balenciaga fell afoul of this phenomenon this week when agitators took issue with its holiday campaign. The advertorial was a play on photographer Gabriele Galimberti longstanding series Toy Stories, where the Italian photographer shoots children around the world with their favourite toys. In this particular shoot, mini models wearing tiny Balenciaga trainers were posed in front of various designer accessories. The problem was that the teddy bears they were holding were mature in nature, being accessorised with studded harnesses and collars. Showing toys clearly designed for an adult market alongside children was a poor decision and one that Balenciaga apologised for while pulling the campaign. But it was too late to head off the moral panic being whipped up by Fox News et al, who are suggesting it’s a nefarious plot to “groom” children. The waters were further muddied when major outlets, who really should know better, reported conspiracy theorists’ claims that the pictures also contained the corner of a printed document pertaining to a Supreme Court case around child abuse. This picture in fact came from an entirely different campaign from a collaboration with Adidas, and Balenciaga has said it is taking legal action against the relevant set designer. It’s an unfortunate incident that highlights the need for responsible design journalism.