Spotted: The textile industry is recognised as one of the most polluting. This is due to manufacturing methods that often require lots of water, energy, and harmful chemicals, and the sector as a whole generates 8-10 per cent of global carbon emissions. But now, one fashion tech startup is harnessing the power of seaweed to create cleaner and more sustainable fashion.
After being frustrated with how harmful the fashion industry can be, Phycolab founder, Thamires Pontes, turned to the potential of seaweed – both as a crop that boosts marine ecosystems while it grows and as a greener material for textiles. The startup is developing natural-based textile fibres derived from macroalgae, called PhycoFiber, to replace existing polluting materials.
Notably, seaweed does not require arable land, pesticides, or insecticides, and the plant absorbs more carbon than terrestrial forests, while also helping to de-acidify and re-oxygenate the ocean. Phycolab also promotes seaweed cultivation as a promising alternative for creating job opportunities in coastal communities; particularly in areas that have been overfished, seaweed farming offers more stable and sustainable employment.
In June this year, Phycolabs was selected as one of the winners of H&M’s Global Change Award. Upon finalising its prototype, the company is looking to test the product with interested players both in Brazil and internationally to prove its viability.
Seaweed has proven to be an effective solution in helping various industries cut their carbon footprints. Springwise has spotted many ways the plant is being used, like in home interiors and as a methane-reducing livestock feed.
Architecture studio Gonzalez Haase AAS has completed a store on London’s Regent Street for Icelandic clothing brand 66º North, featuring curved walls and freestanding plinths made from rammed earth.
The Berlin-based studio headed by Pierre Jorge Gonzalez and Judith Haase set out to create a holistic concept for the store that represents Iceland in an original way, rather than relying on stereotypes.
The shop interior was informed by Iceland’s volcanic landscapes
Gonzalez Haase AAS let the natural elements and the country’s geology inform key design features such as curved grey walls that evoke the shifting weather and rammed-earth islands that represent the earth.
“The weather in Iceland is a very real and prominent feature in the land and we classified this as static (the island) and forever changing (the weather),” the studio explained. “The static island of Iceland stands still in comparison to the constantly evolving and adapting weather, but this influences the perception of the island.”
Rammed-earth islands add colour and texture to the shop’s interior
Upon entering the space, visitors encounter a series of curved walls rendered in natural pigmented clay sourced from Cornwall in the south of England.
The designers said the use of different grey tones represents the changing weather: “the immaterial, movement, changing, blurry and informal”.
Grey walls represent Iceland’s shifting weather
The curved walls vary in height and frame different views within the store. At the entrance, one of the walls stretches back 18 metres, drawing the viewer’s gaze into the space and offering a tactile introduction to the experiential interior.
“These curved walls create different perspectives and atmospheres,” the design team added. “They sit in front of the existing white walls to create a dramatic foreground of rolling soft curves.”
A series of monumental rammed-earth islands are inserted throughout the floor plan, adding colour and texture that evokes the earth and magma of Iceland’s volcanic landscape.
The islands were created by artist Lennart Frank, who cast and sculpted them from an aggregate mix of different lava rocks to create a layered effect.
The islands were made from an aggregate mix containing different lava rocks
A combination of pigmented aggregate and sand gives the islands their reddish-brown hue, while the rugged texture brings a tactile element to the space that complements the brand’s clothing.
The earthy tones are echoed in the metal clothes rails, as well as in the colour of a carpet applied to the surfaces within a more intimate space at the rear of the store.
Earth-toned carpet was used in parts of the shop
A custom-made mesh ceiling was designed to evoke a misty white sky, while also concealing lights and technical equipment.
Mirrors and screens displaying films of the Icelandic landscape help to define the flow of movement through the space and add a playful dimension to the shopping experience.
The shop is located on Regent Street in London
Gonzalez and Haase founded their Berlin-based studio in 1999. The firm works on commercial, residential and cultural projects, developing spatial concepts and experiences that foreground the interplay between light and architecture.
Previous interiors designed by Gonzalez Haase AAS include a minimal office for a Berlin communications firm and a sparse, white-walled concept store in Lisbon that occupies a disused warehouse.
The photography is by Thomas Meyer, Ostkreuz Photography.
Organic shapes and stone-like surfaces characterise the interior of the Haight clothing store in Rio de Janeiro, which was designed by interior and landscaping design practice AIA Estúdio.
A large pillar with a rough, textured surface dominates the 110-square-metre shop interior, expanding as it ascends before merging into the ceiling to create a cave-like space.
A pillar transforms into a cave-like structure
“Its height starts small and in the back part it ends higher in a nonlinear form, just like a cave,” AIA Estúdio founder Alice Tepedino told Dezeen.
“The infinite and diverse processes of erosion that form cliffs, caves, stalactites, sands, stones and the movements of water with its tracks and shapes led to our creative process being part of the concept developed for the store’s spatiality.”
Stone slabs around the pillar are used to display objects
Rather than being a cumbersome obstacle, the pillar helps organise the shop’s circulation and movement of shoppers, according to the studio.
“It is from the occupation around the pillar that the space fluidity is achieved. This disposition is enhanced by curved lines that define the path inside the store,” said Tepedino.
Curved stone plates balance on rocks
Slabs of soapstone and Bahia beige marble encircle the pillar at different heights and are propped up by Bahia beige marble rocks that create a display surface and a place for shoppers to sit.
On the perimeter walls, niches with stainless steel bases display Haight’s clothing on brushed-brass rails.
The metallic surfaces and straight edges of the niches contrast with the organic shapes and materials in the centre of the shop, which is located in the Shopping Leblon retail centre.
Tepedino used indirect lighting in the niches to illuminate the space, mimicking cracks in cave walls where sunlight can seep through.
Clothing is displayed on brushed-brass rails
“The exhibition interspace was thought of as a cut in the walls, an operation emphasised by the transition of materiality,” said Tepedino.
“Inside, there are exhibition racks in brushed brass, which, with their more solar aspect, contribute to subtly warming up the store’s ambience, together with the soapstone and its greyer tone.”
The bottoms of wall niches are lined with steel
Tepedino’s design is the first of Haight‘s stores to be located inside a shopping centre, which prompted the designer to approach the project in a different way.
The entrance to the shop is a large opening that provides open access from the shopping centre to the nature-inspired shop interior.
It is the first Haight store to be located in a mall
“The design adopted a contrasting strategy between the store and mall, which, despite the rigid and controlled environment, offers opportunities such as the possibility of not having a door,” said Tepedino.
“The brand’s conceptual basis is related to natural landscapes but when you are inside the mall, you find a language that is the opposite of Haight’s conceptual basis, with artificial elements and cold materiality.”
Natural materials and surfaces were used throughout the shop interior
“Once you’re inside the store you get disconnected from the artificial atmosphere of the rest of the building,” Tepedino continued.
The project has been shortlisted in the small retail interiors category of Dezeen Awards 2022, alongside a surfaces showroom in Helsinki with colourful terrazzo-like walls and an oxblood red shop interior with walls decorated with Victorian-style balusters.
Spotted: Material technology company Petit Pli has won the 2022 European Startup of the Year award in Amazon’s annual Innovation awards. The brand’s pleated designs are all made from recycled plastic, and its children’s garments can ‘grow’ up to seven sizes as the child grows. Initially started to reduce textile waste in the children’s wear segment of the fashion industry, the company has recently expanded into adult sizes.
The children’s line is called LittleHuman, and each piece includes water and stain-resistant coating that is incredibly durable. The technology behind the pleated design ensures that the strength of the fabric remains consistent even as the garment stretches out. Should a piece rip, Petit Pli offers free repairs.
Alongside the reduction in waste and overproduction, reducing the numbers of items of clothing that consumers buy each year contributes dramatically to reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. Every nine months that a garment is used, rather than buying a replacement, reduces water usage and carbon emissions by 20 to 30 per cent.
The Amazon award includes €100,000 and online sales support on the platform. Springwise covered the launch of the brand in 2017 and its win of the UK James Dyson Award for technological invention. Since then, innovations in materials and fashion, in general, have proliferated, bringing to fruition products such as dissolvable thread that makes it easy to recycle clothes, and zero-waste luxury wool made from recycled garments.
