Spotted: The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) says that a lack of ‘system enablers’ is the main challenge in scaling up supply chain transparency in the garment and footwear industries. The lack of those enablers presents a significant market opportunity in this area, as recent research found that 78 per cent of consumers would pay more for products that are produced locally or made from sustainable material. French company Weturn is improving this visibility for full circularity in textile production and use.
Weturn provides a complete recycling service that makes it possible for brands to offer consumers clear traceability of garments. Weturn tracks a company’s entire inventory, from finished products to production scraps, and builds a recycling process around future fabric needs. Weturn’s team picks up and transports unsold products and then recycles and spins them into new yarns that are used to create recycled raw material (RRM) fabrics.
It takes two to three months after pick-up of waste materials for a company to receive its recycled fabrics. Weturn’s service includes a full traceability report, and the company works with production partners in Spain, Italy, France, and Portugal to keep transport and other emissions to a minimum. The RRM fabrics are Global Recycled Standard certified, and part of every traceability report includes life cycle assessments covering water consumption, pollution, CO2 and other waste emissions.
While the complexity of the fashion industry can make it challenging to implement sustainable changes quickly, it also creates opportunity for exciting innovations. Springwise has spotted improvements in the industry’s sustainability in a number of different ways, including a cellulose powder that removes textile dyes from water, and 3D printed footwear that is 100 per cent recyclable.
The latest edition of our weekly Dezeen Agenda newsletter features Foster + Partners’ designs for a high-speed rail line in California. Subscribe to Dezeen Agenda now.
Fosters + Partners and Arup have revealed designs for the first segment of the California high-speed railway.
Four train stations planned for a segment of the 500-mile line will be – according to the studio – part of the continent’s “first high-speed rail segment”.
Manuel Cervantes develops “assisted self-production” housing in Mexico
This week’s newsletter also included a DIY home designed by Manuel Cervantes Estudio, Kith and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation’s release of a New Balance sneaker and a new podcast series about designing for climate change by SketchUp and Dezeen.
Dezeen Agenda
Dezeen Agenda is a curated newsletter sent every Tuesday containing the most important news highlights from Dezeen. Read the latest edition of Dezeen Agenda or subscribe here.
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A red “cave” hides behind the main dining space of this wine and small plates bar in Madrid designed by interiors studio Plantea Estudio.
Located on the ground floor of a neoclassical building in Madrid’s buzzy Justicia neighbourhood, Plantea Estudio designed Gota to appear “dark, stony and secluded”.
Gota sits on the ground floor of a neoclassical building in the Justicia neighbourhood
Guests ring a bell to enter the 70-square-metre bar, and are then welcomed into a dining room enclosed by thickset granite ashlar walls. While some of the walls were left exposed, others have been smoothly plastered over and washed with grey lime paint.
The floor was overlaid with black volcanic stone tiles that the studio thought were suggestive of a “newly discovered terrain”.
A counter in the first dining space is inbuilt with a record player
A bench seat runs down the left-hand side of the bar, accompanied by lustrous aluminium tables and square birchwood stools from Danish design brand Frama.
Guests can alternatively perch on high stools at the peripheries of the room, where lies a slender stone ledge for drinks to be set down on.
Shelving displays wine bottles, vinyls, and other objects
More seating was created around a bespoke chestnut counter at the room’s centre; its surfacetop has an in-built turntable on which the Gota team plays a curated selection of music.
Behind the counter is a storage wall where wine bottles, vintage vinyl records and other music-related paraphernalia are displayed.
A cave-like dining room hides at the bar’s rear
An open doorway takes guests down a short corridor to a secondary cave-like dining space, which boasts a dramatic vaulted ceiling and craggy brick walls. It has been almost entirely painted red.
“It’s relatively common to find this kind of vaulted brick space in the basements of old buildings in Madrid – this case was special because it’s on the ground floor with small openings to a garden,” the studio told Dezeen.
“It was perfect for a more quiet and private area of the bar,” it continued.
“The red colour is an abstract reference to the brick of which the cave is really made, and also a reference to wine.”
The space is arranged around a huge granite table
At the room’s heart is a huge 10-centimetre-thick granite table that’s meant to look as if it has “been there forever”, surrounded by aluminium chairs also from Frama. Smaller birch tables and chairs custom-designed by the studio have been tucked into the rooms corners.
To enhance the cosy, intimate feel of the bar, lighting has been kept to a minimum – there are a handful of candles, reclaimed sconces and an alabaster lamp by Spanish brand Santa & Cole.
Red paint covers the space’s vaulted ceiling and brick walls
Established in 2008, Plantea Estudio is responsible for a number of hospitality projects in Madrid.
Others include Hermosilla, a Mediterranean restaurant decked out in earthy tones, and Sala Equis, a multi-purpose entertainment space that occupies a former erotic cinema.
Spotted: According to a paper from the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, 36 per cent of the world’s crop calories are actually used for animal feed, which is an inefficient way of producing food. For example, it takes about 100 calories of grain to produce just 12 calories of chicken or three calories of beef. However, a biotech startup in India is developing a more efficient way to feed livestock – using insects.
Instead of growing grain, Loopworm farms black soldier flies and processes them into animal feed products. The insects are raised on food waste sourced from food processors, retail chains, and fruit markets. Once grown, the insects are processed into animal and fish feed.
The finished meal is high in protein, containing around 60 per cent crude protein. The company also claims that it is rich in bio-active peptides which promote anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory, and anti-microbial properties. Because of this, it can be used as an ingredient in fish, poultry, and even pet food formulations as a replacement for fish meal. The feed also has a lower ash content than traditional meals, which makes it more digestible.
Co-founders Ankit Alok Bagaria and Abhi Gawri set up Loopworm to help solve India’s food waste problem. Bagaria explains: “Our major concern was that we had a significant amount of food waste in India … and there wasn’t much of a meaningful solution, where food waste is actually upcycled. There are solutions like composting, or biogas generation, which actually down cycles the product.”
Insect farming has been gaining traction in recent years as entrepreneurs and scientists search for alternative ways of producing protein for animal and human consumption. Some other innovations that Springwise has spotted include using insects to produce aquaculture feed, and a project that converts waste into animal feed using insects.
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Steel is a rather overlooked material when it comes to building facades. Most commonly used for structural purposes, its function is often limited to framing systems and building foundations. What happens when we bring steel to the forefront of a building’s design? Can these shifts tease out the material’s ‘hidden’ properties? These projects reveal different approaches to manipulating steel as an intricate façade element, revelling in its flexibility as a malleable cladding material. In these projects, steel takes the form of fins, perforated meshes, orthogonal steel patios and even metallic spider legs.
Barceloneta
By MiAS Arquitectes, Barcelona, Spain
The Barceloneta Market project celebrates the local character and unique qualities of the Barceloneta neighborhood, currently one of the most popular destinations within Barcelona. Inspired by the work of Spanish artist César Manrique’s fantastic fish, MiAS Arquitects designed a series of steel beams that closely resembled fragments of fish bones. These were later attached on the existing market steel façade, creating a floating roof that playfully curls and uncurls over the market square.
The malleability of steel-constructed “fish bones” allowed MiAS Arquitects to capture the liveliness and enthusiasm of César Manrique’s art as well as the social ambiance of a coastal, local food market and expanding it towards the rest of the city.
The Spider’s Thread
By Hideo Horikawa Architect & Associates, Waco, Saitama
Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health
By Gehry Partners, Las Vegas, NV, United States
When thinking of “dancing steel façades” a specific architect comes to mind: Frank Gehry. The Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health is a research facility in Las Vegas that aims at curing Alzheimer’s disease. Gehry’s intent was to design a building that served both as a statement to the facility’s ambition as well as a distinctive place for both researchers and patients to inhabit. A steel trellis skin wraps around two distinctive building blocks. In addition, by echoing the Las Vegas architectural typology, this flexible, freestanding structure creates a grand cathedral-like event space. This “dancing assembly” becomes a smart marketing gesture, whose aim is to bring the desirable attention to the foundation.
Augmented Structures
By Alper Derinboğaz, Salon, İstanbul, Turkey
Argul Weave
By BINAA I Building INnovation Arts Architecture, Bursa, Turkey
The Argul Weave building literally “threaded” its program on its façade. This new textiles hub is located in Bursa, home to Turkey’s historic textile industry. Meanwhile, inspired by the district’s manufacturing traditions, BINAA wrapped the building’s façade with interweaving, giant, white looms. Using digital fabrication tools, mathematical equations and detailed construction practices, a team of designers, architects and researchers developed a flexible steel structure that effectively generated “thread geometries” that enveloped the building. Through original steel fabrication practices the Argul Weave project materialised a symbolic façade that instigated the regeneration of Bursa’s industrial urban fabric.
P.E.M Vitré
By Tetrarc Architectes, Vitré, France
Apart from shaping organic forms, steel can also be used to design intricate cladding patterns. P.E.M Vitré is a mixed-use planning and landscape project located in Vitré Station, France. It consists of an intricately designed footbridge and a much plainer underground car park. Still, Tetrarc Architectes designed the car park’s facade with a twist. Perforated steel cladding dresses its exterior elevation with an intricate pattern. Evidently, what could easily have been a blunt parking lot facade is now transformed into a playful pattern that interacts with the passing cars and pedestrians. The perforated pattern copies the footbridge’s linear form and creates a semitransparent visual threshold into the city.
Valby Machinery Halls – Assembly Hall
By C.F. Møller Architects, Copenhagen, Denmark
This last project successfully uses steel both as a structural as well as a cladding material. Valby Machinery Hall is an old industrial, listed building that has transformed into Multi-Housing units and commercial spaces. Red-lead steel grating structure is the protagonist of the building’s façade. Consequently, C.F. Møller Architects followed this characteristic industrial motif through to the new building additions. The same rhythmic cadence clads the new residential halls, while serving as a structure for external balconies. This hybrid use of steel reveals the dual properties of the overlooked material and showcases new approaches to more sustainable and waste-less material practices.
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Brooklyn-based Ringo Studio designed a store for kitchenware brand Our Place that features colourful tile displays and expressive drapery that hangs from the ceiling.
The Our Place Melrose store is the brand’s second location in Los Angeles, following the inaugural shop in Venice, and is situated in West Hollywood’s busy shopping district.
The Our Place store is designed to showcase the brand’s colourful cookware
The interiors by Ringo Studio are based on the identifiable colour palette of Our Place cookware sets, which are known for in a variety of pastel, neutral and jewel-toned hues.
“It retains the warmth and intricacy of Our Place’s first store in Venice, concepted by Mythology, while also taking Our Place’s design ethos into new and unique expressions,” said the team.
Many of the surfaces are covered in long rectangular tiles laid in a straight stack pattern
Elements derived from classical architecture were included, from fluted columns that support a wavy-topped table to arches that curve over shelving units and form punctured openings for showcasing small items.
Storage cabinets have rounded corners, as do the doors that front them, and many of the built-in elements also feature filleted edges.
At the back is a space coloured entirely terracotta, which features a table displaying the brand’s products
Long rectangular tiles laid in straight stack patterns cover several of the walls and display stands.
Each tiled block or surface is a different colour, with large panels including terracotta, lilac and cream, and smaller sections in pale blue and green.
An area towards the back is decorated entirely in terracotta, which covers the floor and walls, as well as matching strips of fabric hung in rows from the ceiling.
There’s also a side room where Our Place products are laid out on a dining table with mirrors on three sides, creating infinite reflections intended to “welcome everyone to have a seat at the table”.
A side room features mirrors on three sides to create infinite reflections of a dining table setup
Covered in mosaic tiles and with an undulating front, the table is accompanied by a pair of purple velvet chairs, and from the ceiling hangs purple drapery.
“Infused with the cozy feeling of home, the streamlined suite of products are artfully displayed throughout the store, making them feel like chic, sculptural objects,” said the Our Place team.
Our Place Melrose is located in West Hollywood’s busy shopping district and is the brand’s second location in LA
Ringo Studio was founded by architectural designer Madelynn Ringo, who has created retail experiences for companies such as Glossier, Studs and Funny Face Bakery.
Last year, the studio completed a store for fitness brand Bala in New York City, which includes scaled-up versions of its products.
Spotted: Believe it or not, some heavy metals are commonly used in foods and cosmetics. One of these is titanium dioxide (TiO2), used as a whitening and brightening pigment in everything from gum to plant-based chicken. While TiO2 has been banned from use in food products sold in the European Union (EU), it is still in use in Canada and the US. While there is no general consensus on the safety of TiO2, consumers are increasingly becoming wary of such additives. Luckily, there is now a substitute.
Swiss startup Impossible Materials has developed a cellulose-based alternative to TiO2. The company extracts the cellulose from biomaterials such as wood pulp and transforms it into a white pigment in a chemical process. The startup claims this process is more sustainable than current production processes for generating white pigments, and the material is also biodegradable, unlike other white pigments.
Impossible Materials has recently raised $3.8 million (around €3.4 million) from investors like Big Idea Ventures in a seed funding round. The money will be used to construct a pilot facility in Switzerland, expand the team, and work on market entry in food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals.
Andrew D. Ive, founder, Big Idea Ventures, explained: “Alternative protein products are getting better every day and it won’t be long until we can deliver consumers their traditional foods in more sustainable and climate friendly ways. Big Idea Ventures is investing in high quality and cost-effective supporting technologies that help accelerate consumer acceptance of alternative proteins.”
Pigment-based materials can often be unsustainable – using materials that are damaging to the environment and energy-intensive to manufacture. This is why Springwise has spotted several innovations aiming to create more sustainable pigments. These include an energy-saving paint inspired by butterflies and a non-toxic, biodegradable glitter.
Architect and restauranteur Elly Ward has opened the low-impact restaurant Edit in London, drawing inspiration from its vegan, minimal-waste menu to create an interior filled with reused and recycled materials.
Ward collaborated with her husband Joe Morris of architecture studio Morris + Company on the project, which was designed using low-intervention methods.
“It’s been designed to be as circular as possible, which is the whole philosophy of the restaurant,” she told Dezeen.
The Edit restaurant features exposed brick walls
Edit is located in a former factory and warehouse building in east London and connected to the adjacent Morris + Company architecture office.
Visitors to the restaurant can view the studio’s models through a large glass door, adding a decorative touch to the space.
This door and a window into the office were two of the main changes Ward made to the existing space, which she has transformed using recycled and reclaimed materials.
A window connects the interior with the adjacent architecture studio
The building’s brick walls – including a former exterior wall that still features old advertising text – were retained alongside the warehouse’s cast-iron columns and beams, forming the structural fabric of the 197-square-metre restaurant.
Ward added lightweight screen partitions that slot between the existing structures, including a wall made from wood and recycled polycarbonate that divides the main dining area from a smaller private dining room.
A polycarbonate screen with wood shelving divides the space
A warm red floor, made from screed topped with a water-based resin, matches the floor in the architecture office next door and contrasts the textured brick wall that Ward and Morris painstakingly unveiled from underneath layers of paint.
At the rear of the space, the duo clad a wall in salvaged maroon terracotta tiles, which merge into the bar counter. These were among the many recycled materials that Ward used for the project.
“I call them my wonky tiles because they’re like the wonky fruit and wonky veg of the industry that gets thrown away because it’s not a perfect carrot,” she said.
Elly Ward filled the restaurant with vintage furniture
The architect also reused the copper from an existing bar in the restaurant, which now clads the sinks in the bathroom.
“It’s all about diverting waste from waste streams,” Ward said.
“When you’re building something new, you have to get things,” she added. “If you can’t buy recycled or reclaimed, you have to look for renewable materials, things that would have otherwise gone to waste but you’ve made into something else.”
“It’s almost a checklist of ‘how circular can you be?'”
A red floor creates a warm atmosphere
Ward also sourced vintage Scandinavian school chairs to provide seating in the restaurant and complemented them with her grandparents’ wooden chairs and vintage Ercol seats.
The accompanying tables have tops made by British company Foresso using waste wood chips set in a plant-based resin, creating an effect similar to wooden terrazzo and adding textural interest to the room.
The tabletops are made from recycled wood and resin
The lighting in the space was handmade by British artist Peter Lanyon using wood salvaged from trees that were trimmed back in a local woodland in Devon. Pieces include a “chandelier” made from a piece of hazelwood with hanging lampshades made from cherrywood veneer.
Throughout the restaurant, the colour palette adds a sense of warmth. While the main room has a red hue, Ward chose a calming green colour for the smaller private dining room.
Lamps made from wood decorate the private dining room
“We started with the red; it’s obviously such a strong colour,” Ward said. “I’m somebody who’s quite into colour and I’m not really afraid of it but I didn’t want it to be a ‘pop’ kind of place.”
In the bathroom, the red hue is tempered by the decorative natural cork that clads the walls in both the main space and the toilet cubicles.
“It’s all waterproof and actually really good for humid, damp environments and you can wipe it clean,” Ward said.
Restaurant guests can admire architectural models while they eat
To Ward, there’s a connection between the food and architecture industries that she wanted to underline in Edit’s design.
“I did a deep dive into the food industry and found out a lot of stuff about provenance and how a lot of the things we’re looking at in the architecture world about circularity and sustainability are kind of echoed in the food industry,” she said.
“I wanted the design to match that philosophy.”
Other vegan restaurants with decorative interiors include Humble Pizza by Child Studios in London and Sydney vegan cafe Gumbuya.
Amid the dense urban fabric of Paris, ūti architectes unveils hidden skateparks sweeping across the cityscape using artificial intelligence design tool Midjourney. The series renders quiet urban pockets far from the hustle and bustle of the street life, where vast concrete skateparks emerge seamlessly as extensions of the city’s iconic architectural fabric. Extending its conceptions beyond the physical realm, the architectural office imagines a new, somewhat surreal dimension to Paris’ culture of skateboarding.
all images by ūti architectes
hidden skateparks become at one with the city’s architecture
ūti architectes creates the series as a photographic report that documents imagined, hidden skating venues that appear to have always been a part of the Parisian landscape. Surreal in their scale and form, the structures at the same time discreetly fuse with the city’s build-up in their materiality. ‘For a moment it is possible to doubt their true existence,’ notes the architect.
The Hidden Skateparks of Paris series explores means of conceptualization and reimagines new urban spaces using Midjourney. The AI program, the architectconsiders, opens up new reflections while creating doubts about whether these renderings really exist or not. ‘Through a process of back and forth iterations with Midjourney, we obtained a collection of quasi-tangible spaces. Having grown up in Paris with the culture of skateboarding, which is deeply rooted in certain iconic places, it was an opportunity to explore and take a new look at Paris as an architect.’
ūti architectes unveils hidden skateparks sweeping across the cityscape
vast concrete skateparks emerge seamlessly as extensions of the city’s iconic architectural fabric
‘a collection of quasi-tangible spaces’
the AI-generated structures appear to have always been tucked into the city
surreal in their scale and form
ūti architectes imagines a surreal dimension to Paris’ skateboarding scene
designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.
In the lead-up to Milan design week, we have rounded up eight residential and hotel interiors in the Italian city that are united by their use of muted colours and diverse materials.
As the Salone del Mobile furniture fair is set to kick off next week, alongside its surrounding Fuorisalone events programme, these interiors provide a glimpse into some of the city’s design-led apartments, homes and hotels.
Among the featured projects in Italy’s industrial capital is a hybrid home and office space in a former dental studio, a home set within a 200-year-old palazzo and a nunnery-turned-hotel.
This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides curated visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring accent walls, bookshelves and terracotta tiles.
Photo is by Carola Ripamonti
Teorema Milanese, Italy, by Marcante-Testa
With the exception of removing a partition wall to create an open-plan living and dining area, Italian design studio Marcante-Testa looked to maintain the classic layout of this apartment in a 1960s building on Corso Sempione during its renovation.
The studio decorated the apartment in muted colours and used pale grey cipollino tirreno marble as a “carpet” across the sitting area. Elsewhere, a pale lemon-hued cabinet functions as a partition while the bathroom is clad in a maroon-streaked salomè marble.
Find out more about Teorema Milanese ›
Out of the Blue, Italy, by AIM
Italian design studio AIM made liberal use of the colour grey when renovating the interior of this 150-square-metre home in Milan. The concealed staircase that forms the centre of the renovation is framed in the distinctive bluey-grey hue.
And in the dining area, the home’s wooden flooring was decorated with a painted rectangle that aims to visually zone and separate the space from its surroundings. Brass fixtures complement its grey hue, which can also be found across light fixings and ornaments.
Find out more about Out of the Blue ›
Photo is by Giovanni Emilio Galanello
Private apartment, Italy, by Untitled Architecture
A cylindrical staircase and metal structural elements are the focal features of this small apartment, designed by local studio Untitled Architecture.
The apartment has a minimal paired-back aesthetic, with white-painted walls and bleached wood elements contrasted against tiny pops of colour introduced through blue-hued grouting and balustrades.
Find out more about the private apartment ›
Photo is by Michele Filippi
CPR Apartment, Italy, by +R Piuerre
Housed in a former dental studio, this hybrid home and office belongs to a young remote-working couple and was designed to combine Milanese modernism with Nordic design.
Two areas of the apartment were colour-coded according to their function, with the bedroom, office and entryway covered in tones of grey while the living area and kitchen are marked by a bright yellow hue. The spaces are connected by a white-painted staircase constructed from sheets of folded metal.
Find out more about CPR Apartment ›
Room Mate Giulia, Italy, by Patricia Urquiola
Pistachio green was used to colour the dado wall panelling and soft furnishings inside this suite in Milan’s Room Mate Giulia hotel decorated by Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola. Meanwhile, the upper half of the walls and the ceilings are covered in white wallpaper with a geometric grid pattern.
Industrial materials and furnishings, including a galvanised metal shelving unit, were repurposed as boutique storage solutions and room partitions.
Find out more about Room Mate Hotels ›
Casa Salvatori, Italy, by Elissa Ossino Studio
This home, designed by Milanese architecture practice Elissa Ossino Studio for the head of Italian stone company Salvatori, brings together marble furnishings and flecked terrazzo floors to link the interior with Salvatori’s stone manufacturing history.
Dulled hues of blue, peach, green and yellow were carried through the interior of the home, which is set within a 200-year-old palazzo in the city’s Brera district.
Find out more about Casa Salvatori ›
Photo is by Giovanna Silva
House with an iron staircase, Italy, by Roberto Murgia and Valentina Ravara
An iron staircase with a zig-zagging framework reminiscent of structural trusses was installed along one wall of this apartment in the Isola district, designed by Italian architects Roberto Murgia and Valentina Ravara.
The floor of the main living space features a geometric design, achieved through the use of hexagonal cement tiles. Each of the tiles is handmade and coloured in shades of light blue and white to provide tonal variation.
Find out more about House with an iron staircase ›
Photo is by Alberto Strada
The Sister Hotel, Italy, by Quincoces-Dragò
Housed in a former 16th-century nunnery in Milan’s city centre, The Sister Hotel features decadent yet eclectic interiors by architecture studio Quincoces-Dragò.
The studio looked to grandiose private townhouses when designing the interiors, opting for moody shades of navy blue and deep green within the bedrooms. Furnishings introduce brighter colours into the suites, including a velvet-upholstered orange sofa.
Find out more about The Sister Hotel ›
This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring accent walls, bookshelves and terracotta tiles.
