Power Play
A girl walking across a petroleum pipeline in Orika Town, Nigeria. Vitra Design Museum’s Transform! Designing the Future of Energy exhibition questions how energy infrastructure can be transformed to support the transition to renewable energy (image by Ed Kashi, courtesy of Redux).
Vitra Design Museum’s Transform! Designing the Future of Energy exhibition does not limit itself to one form of energy. Rather, it makes the point that energy is so much more than oil and gas: it is the life force that animates – and structures – our world.
The exhibition, which has been curated by Jochen Eisenbrand with Emma-Louse Arcade, imagines how renewable energy could be incorporated into designs for everyday objects, cities, and entire energy landscapes, expanding so far as to also include the European Space Agency's research into the viability of solar farms in outer space. But it kicks off with a series of bike generators by Energym that show how much time and effort it takes to produce enough electrical energy to carry out everyday activities: making a coffee, browsing the internet, or taking a hot shower. Introducing the body as a source of power right at the start of the show broadens visitors’ ideas of what energy is, and puts feelings of scarcity surrounding it into perspective. “So many people work out at the gym for nothing,” says Eisenbrand. “What if we could turn this energy into electricity at home?”
Sunne, Marjan van Aubel’s solar powered lamp (image courtesy of Marjan van Aubel Studio).
The first section of the exhibition builds on this idea of self sufficiency through product designs that might support an off-grid lifestyle. Designer Marjan van Aubel’s Sunne, for example, is a solar-powered hanging lamp that harvests and stores energy from the sun during the day, before emanating light at night. “One hour of sunlight provides the Earth with enough energy to meet the whole world’s electricity needs for an entire year,” van Aubel says. “There is enough energy, it just needs to be more accessible for everyone.” Sunne is designed to imitate natural sunlight, with settings ranging from a pale purple sunrise to a deep orange sunset, and it can be unscrewed and moved around to catch the sun. These design elements encourage a deeper relationship between the object and its owner, instilling the idea that the lamp should be admired like a sunset and tended like a houseplant. “We need to feel connected to something in order to embrace it,” van Aubel says. The lamp shows how designers can aid the transition to renewable energy by creating objects that support people’s autonomy and foster greater intimacy with energy sources.
As the exhibition moves onto architectural and transport solutions, the scale and complexity increases. In this section, multiple design elements work in tandem to reduce energy consumption and harness renewable energy. Powerhouse Brattørkaia, an office building in Norway that was designed by architecture practice Snøhetta, is covered in solar panels, and its hexagonal roof and facade are sloped to maximise their exposure to sunlight. Meanwhile, efficient insulation, optimisation of natural daylight, high thermal mass, heat recovery systems, and the use of seawater for heating and cooling all work to minimise the energy needed to run the space. These measures combined mean that the solar panels typically generate double the amount of energy the building requires, and the surplus energy is channeled back into a local micro-grid. In a similar vein, the Covestro Sonnenwagen, a solar-powered race car designed by students at two technical universities in Germany, RWTH and FH Aachen, combines aerodynamic design and solar panels to enhance efficiency and run on renewables. Aesthetically, these projects perhaps lack the charm of van Aubel’s Sunne: Sonnenwagen is covered in tiny solar panels like fridge magnets, while Powerhouse Brattørkaia is a behemoth of a building that blocks the view of the sea from the city centre. Softer designs, which are more integrated into the natural landscape, appear more challenging to execute on a larger scale.
The Covestro solar powered racecar (image courtesy of Sonnenwagen Aachen).
The next section of the exhibit focuses on energy infrastructure, including a speculative project that envisages how micro grids such as Powerhouse Brattørkaia’s might anlso encourage community life. SolarVille, a project by Ikea’s Space10 research lab, imagines how people could buy excess solar energy directly from their neighbours using blockchain technology, cutting out intermediaries to create a more empowering system in which energy can be easily traded. Another speculative project by design and innovation office CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati centres community life by imagining how thermal energy storage units could double up as a recreational space. The project proposes using seawater pumps to convert power into heat that would then be stored in an archipelago of domed reservoirs off the coast of Helsinki. These reservoirs create a warm place for people to socialise in the winter, where the natural heat might be used to create tropical rainforests for visitors to explore.
So far, the transition to renewable energy looks hopeful, exciting, and innovative. But the final section of the exhibit also includes two projects that emphasise the dangers of prioritising renewable energy generation above all other social concerns. Atlantropa, an idea devised by German architect Herman Sörgel in the 1920s, aimed to generate enough hydroelectric power to provide the entirety of Europe and Africa with electricity. A nice idea on its surface, Atlantropa proposed to achieve these lofty aims by colonising Africa and merging it with Europe to create one supercontinent, as well as by partially draining the Mediterranean Sea. Although it seems almost laughably outlandish now, in its heyday the idea was seriously considered by heads of state and even the United Nations.
A wooden diorama of SolarVille, a speculative project by IKEA’s Space10 which imagines a community-driven energy system (image by Irina Boersma, courtesy of Space10)
Meanwhile, the Human Power Plant, a 2017 project by journalist Kris de Decker and artist Melle Smetts, imagines a society where electricity is generated entirely through exercise, which seems like a harmless thought experiment at first glance. But after recognising that power producers could only be paid a fraction of a euro per hour, the pair theorise about possible solutions. “The use of human power could open the door to new forms of slavery,” they write in an article setting out the project. “Is such slavery justified for a reduction in CO2-emissions? Could we force refugees or criminals to produce power?” After rejecting these ideas on moral grounds, they propose motivating the production of human power by making it more salacious. “All exercise machines in our prototype human power plant are facing a jacuzzi and shower where girls are invited to encourage the boys to flex their muscles and generate more power,” they write, baking ideas of male dominance into their vision of the future by theorising that men are both stronger and hornier than women.
The Human Power Plant intentionally highlights how authors of speculative projects need to carefully consider the social impact of their ideas, but the glib tone of the article — and de Decker’s defensiveness when criticised in the comments section for its sexist attitudes — leaves a bitter taste. The devil already has enough advocates: even if the pair are trying to be provocateurs, it is insensitive to toy around so flippantly with such serious issues. Both Atlantropa and the Human Power Plant end up highlighting how new designs for energy emerge through the paradigms and biases of the societies in which they were created. The projects show how important it is to incorporate multiple perspectives into any vision of the future, to avoid completely ignoring or needlessly arguing over the rights of huge swathes of people.
Helsinki Hot Heart, a speculative project which imagines thermal energy storage units doubling up as a recreational space (image courtesy of CRA Carlo Ratti Associati).
Vitra Design Museum proposes many possible roles that designers can play in the transition to renewable energy, from making renewable energy more accessible to mapping out our uncertain future. The museum effectively shows how energy is both within and all around us, and communicates the invigorating message that off-grid designs and community-focused energy infrastructure have the potential to redistribute power, both literally and metaphorically.
Words Helen Gonzalez Brown