Scientists from South Korea’s Yonsei University have invented what they believe to be a sustainable, high-protein food in the form of “beef rice”, made by growing cow cells in grains of rice.
Tinged a pale pink from the cell culturing process, the hybrid food contains more protein and fat than standard rice while having a low carbon footprint, leading its creators to see it as a potential future meat alternative.
The beef rice was made by inserting muscle and fat stem cells from cows into grains of rice and leaving them to grow in a Petri dish.
The hybrid “beef rice” is made by growing cow muscle and fat cells within rice grains
Because the rice grains are porous and have a rich internal structure, the cells can grow there in a similar way to how they would within an animal. A coating of gelatine – in this case, fish-derived – further helps the cells to attach to the rice.
Although beef rice might sound like a form of genetically modified food, there is no altering of DNA in the plants or animals. Instead, this process constitutes a type of cell-cultured or lab-grown meat but with the beef grown inside rice.
Soy and nuts are the first foods that have been used for animal cell culturing, they say, but their usefulness is limited because they are common allergens and do not have as much cell-holding potential as rice.
It contains more fat and protein than standard rice
The nutritional gains for their beef rice are also currently small, but the researchers from Yonsei University’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering say that with further optimisation, more cells and therefore more protein could be packed in.
The hybrid rice contains 3890 milligrams of protein and 150 milligrams of fat per 100 grams – just 310 milligrams more protein and 10 milligrams more fat than standard rice.
“Although hybrid rice grains still have a lower protein content than beef, advances in technology that can improve the cell capacity of rice grains will undoubtedly improve the nutritional content of hybrid rice,” the researchers said in their paper.
The scientists also believe the product could be inexpensively commercialised and tout the short time frame required to boost nutrition through culturing.
Whereas beef production usually takes one to three years and rice 95 to 250 days, they say their cell culturing process took less than 10 days.
“Imagine obtaining all the nutrients we need from cell-cultured protein rice,” said researcher Sohyeon Park. “I see a world of possibilities for this grain-based hybrid food. It could one day serve as food relief for famine, military ration or even space food.”
If commercialised, the hybrid grain is expected to have a low carbon footprint, similar to growing standard rice, because there would be no need to farm lots of animals. While the stem cells used for the process are extracted from live animals, they can proliferate indefinitely and don’t require animal slaughter.
An obstacle for some may be the taste; the cell culturing process slightly changes the texture and smell of the rice, making it more firm and brittle and introducing odour compounds related to beef, almonds, cream, butter and coconut oil.
The meat alternative was grown in a Petri dish
However, lead researcher Jinkee Hong told the Guardian that the foodstuff tastes “pleasant and novel”.
The team is now planning to continue their research and work to boost the nutritional value of the hybrid rice by stimulating more cell growth.
However, scaling up production, clearing regulatory hurdles and creating an appealing taste and texture have proven a challenge, and there are few examples on sale anywhere in the world.
In the meantime, speculative designers have explored the issue. Leyu Li recently created three conceptual products that, similar to beef rice, combine lab-grown meat with vegetables, calling them Broccopork, Mushchicken and Peaf.
Is it possible to stage a trade fair without producing excessive waste? Dezeen editor-at-large Amy Frearson explores eight approaches that were all on show at this year’s Stockholm Furniture Fair.
The trade show format is increasingly under scrutiny, with environmental concerns prompting many to reconsider the material cost of building large exhibition stands that are only used for a few days.
Stockholm Furniture Fair has pointed a way towards how trade fairs might become more eco-friendly. The majority of exhibitions and stands at this year’s edition of the fair were designed to reduce waste and promote circularity.
“A new layout to promote less construction”
Hanna Nova Beatrice, director of Stockholm Furniture Fair, said that numerous strategies were set out to reduce the carbon footprint of the fair.
“First and foremost, we updated the halls with a new layout to promote less construction,” she said.
Nova Beatrice and her team also drew up “very strict guidelines” that were applied to all of the in-house exhibitions, and worked closely with exhibiting brands to help them find more sustainable solutions.
“We had many discussions about how fairs can be more sustainable, promoting less construction and less waste, both within the organisation and with our exhibitors,” she explained.
Here’s a look at eight approaches that featured:
Photo is by Erik Lefvander
Create island stands without walls
The new fair layout made it possible for some brands to create “island stands” formed simply of a floor surface that could be easily repurposed or recycled.
Brands adopting this approach included Hem, whose stand was defined by bold chequerboard flooring. The result was a space that became a de facto public plaza.
Photo is by Sanna Lindberg
Use products to frame space
Swedish outdoor furniture brand Nola put its own spin on the island stand by making clever use of one of its new products, the Moiré pavilion by designer Mattias Rubin de Lima.
By installing two of these pergola structures, Nola was able to create a simple frame for its stand. This was accompanied by a floor formed of recycled bricks, making the space feel like a garden patio.
Build an installation rather than a stand
The fair organisers encouraged some brands to find ways to exhibit using no construction at all. “Think Lars Von Trier’s Dogville, which used only tape to divide the different areas,” Nova Beatrice explained.
One of the most successful examples came from Pholc. The Swedish lighting brand worked with design agency Nineties to create a multilayered scenography out of stacked packing crates.
Photo is by Erik Lefvander
Creatively repurpose an old stand
Many Stockholm exhibitors chose to reuse a stand they had already used before, either for a previous edition of this fair or for one of the many others on the furniture design calendar.
One of the most simple and effective approaches came from Swedish furniture brand Lammhults, which reuses the same stand every year but simply paints it in a different colour. For this year, the cobalt blue of 2023 was replaced with a bold shade of red.
Other noteworthy examples included fellow Swedish brand Mitab, which opted for transparency. Its stand featured a counter that made clear how it had used the same stand for the last five years. “This is the same bar we used last year. And we will use next year,” read text printed on the front.
Photo is by Felix Odell
Work with waste materials
Minus Furniture made its fair debut with a stand built entirely from recycled materials, in line with the Norwegian brand’s ambitiously eco-friendly business model.
Interiors studio Omhu went to great lengths to source everything. Together with a rented scaffolding system, the design included items sourced from construction sites, second-hand stores and municipal waste.
“Not every company wants to put in the work to think in this manner. It takes time and research to demonstrate and source supplies of a circular nature,” said Poppy Lawman, designer at Omhu.
Photo is by Andy Liffner
Find a new home for everything
All of the fair’s own exhibitions were designed for circularity, which meant rehoming every component once the fair was over. The Reading Room installation by guest of honour Formafantasma was one of the best examples.
Both the fabric curtain that framed the space and the books displayed inside have been donated to design schools, while the Flos lighting has been gifted to a bookshop. The Artek furniture is meanwhile being sold by retailer Nordiska Galleriet as signed limited editions.
Photo is by Andy Liffner
Adapt an old design for a new purpose
The bar and stage installation by Stockholm-based Färg and Blanche was first created for Sweden’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which took place in the first six months of 2023.
The design duo adapted the components into a new configuration so that they could be reused here, along with flooring that manufacturer Tarkett plans to repurpose at its factory in Ronneby.
Photo is by Andy Liffner
Keep things simple
Young brands exhibiting for the first time were invited to make use of ready-made booths designed by designer Nick Ross, rather than building their own.
This “nude edition” was built from recycled materials – an aluminium truss system created freestanding wall modules in untreated MDF – that are now being recycled again.
“The entire area can be disassembled and reused for other events,” explained Ross.
Biomaterials have the potential to significantly cut carbon emissions but designers should approach them with caution to avoid creating a whole new set of problems, warns Sioban Imms.
The vision of a civilisation based on biomaterials is compelling: products, clothes and buildings made from materials that have been “grown”, rather than derived from polluting, extractive fossil industries. The promise is not only lower emissions, but products that are more in tune with the environment – manufactured objects that are part of the natural cycle of life. And consumers are willing to pay a premium for such ostensibly “sustainable” products – 12 per cent more, according to a recent study by Bain.
However, in a bid to gain competitive advantage, marketing narratives surrounding biomaterials are regularly inflated or gloss over important details. Prefixing “bio” to a material name conjures a sense of being natural, compostable, and better all round for personal and environmental health.
Marketing narratives surrounding biomaterials are regularly inflated
But these claims can unravel, or at least become complicated, when researching a little deeper than the material classification, product name and strapline. A report from RepRisk found a 70 per cent increase in incidents of greenwashing between 2022 and 2023. Incoming legislation in the EU is specifically targeting this issue.
The definition and terminology around biomaterials is still evolving. For clarity, we’re not talking here about biomaterial designed for implanting into the body, but biologically derived materials used in product, fashion and architecture.
Often grown using living micro-organisms like yeast, bacteria, cellulose and mycelium, they can be finely tuned at the nanoscale by engineering DNA sequences to produce specific properties. For example, UK company Colorfix tweaks the DNA of bacteria so that they excrete coloured pigments for dyeing textiles. Microbial manufacturing organisms like these tend to be fed, fermented and modified in controlled environments.
The substitution of fossil-derived, high-carbon materials for biomaterials is urgently important. A recently published study by Radboud Universiteit in the Netherlands concluded that biomaterials reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by an average of 45 per cent compared to fossil-based materials.
But biomaterials are not a magic bullet to the multi-faceted nature crisis industrial civilisation is causing. Especially important is avoiding what are sometimes called “regrettable substitutions” – whereby one material is replaced with another that merely introduces a new set of problems.
For example, BioCane disposable food packaging is an alternative to plastic food packaging made from bagasse – pulped sugarcane-fibre, a waste product from the sugar industry. The design is geared to express its natural origins and circularity, from the subtly flecked, neutral colour and matte finish to the embossed logomark featuring a plant within a gradated circle.
Biomaterials are not a magic bullet to the multi-faceted nature crisis
However, for BioCane to be grease repellant (so it doesn’t fall apart before you’ve consumed the contents) it needs an oleophobic coating, unlike plastic packaging. BioCane uses a polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) for this coating. PFAS are termed “forever chemicals” due to their damaging long-term persistence and accumulation in the environment – not to mention our own bodies.
BioPak, which produces BioCane, transparently publishes information about this on its website, highlighting it as an industry-wide problem. The company also includes a timely pledge to phase out PFAS-containing packaging by June 2024, which happens to coincide with a move to phase out PFAS by the Environmental Protection Agency in the US.
Not all manufacturers are as responsible; it’s common to find unlisted additives – or perhaps a fossil-based lamination to improve a material’s durability – under a headline claim of biological origins.
Bioplastic is another material experiencing significant growth, partly driven by high oil prices making fossil-fuel-derived plastic less competitive. Most bioplastic is made from ethanol, commonly sourced from corn, wheat or sugarcane. Sugarcane, for example, is planted in monocultures in tropical and sub-tropical countries like Brazil. The sugar is extracted, fermented and distilled to produce precursor chemicals for bioplastics.
But to assess the environmental value of using this bioplastic, we need to know about how the crops are managed – for example, the pesticides and synthetic fertilisers used to increase crop yield, the land-clearance practices, and the effect on food prices if the bioplastic became widely adopted. At the end of the product’s life, specialised infrastructure for disposal will need to be in place, further complicating the picture.
Biodegradable bioplastic would seem to offer a solution to the worst ravages of plastic – the alarming buildup of microplastic pollution across the world. How much better if the material could be absorbed back into the environment?
Biodegradable doesn’t mean a material will break down in the environment over useful timescales
The market opportunity for biodegradable plastics is alluring, and forecasts predict that they will account for the majority of the bioplastics market – 62 per cent, by 2028. This opportunity is attracting investment and also the potential for greenwashing as companies vie for a competitive advantage over others.
But biodegradable doesn’t mean a material will break down in the environment over useful timescales. A 2022 UCL study of supposedly “home compostable” bioplastics revealed that 60 per cent did not fully degrade within the tested timespans – a finding that unravels the whole purpose for investing in compostable packaging.
Claims relating to bioplastics were at the crux of a recent legal case brought against US biotech firm Danimer Scientific Inc. The manufacturer of biodegradable products had claimed that its proprietary plastic material Nodax PHA is able to biodegrade not only in industrial composting facilities but in landfill and in the ocean.
Danimer’s share prices rocketed, sparking an investigative report in the Wall Street Journal, which stated that “many claims about Nodax are exaggerated and misleading, according to several experts on biodegradable plastics”. Danimer refutes this statement, but what came out in court was that the company performed biodegradability tests on Nodax in a powdered form, which doesn’t relate to real-world product formats like bottles that have variable thickness.
The legal case was eventually dismissed, but nonetheless the alleged greenwashing spiked Danimer’s share price, shaking investors’ trust in the company and having knock-on effects for the wider industry.
Going forward, manufacturers will need to be transparent about what goes into their products. In the EU, legislation tackling greenwashing in product labelling will come into effect in 2026. The new law is a direct response to the rise in misleading claims that companies use.
When specifying a biomaterial, it’s important to dig into its provenance
It comes after a study commissioned by the bloc found that 53 per cent of green claims on products and services are vague, misleading or unfounded, and 40 per cent have no supporting evidence. In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority has published the Green Claims Code – a six-point guide to help businesses ensure they are not unwittingly misleading customers.
These two initiatives highlight the importance of using the right language when promoting products and materials, and as the impact of the EU’s legislation ripples through the industry, there will be a natural calibration to more transparency.
The takeaway for designers is that, as ever, the picture is complex. When specifying a biomaterial, it’s important to dig into its provenance, as well as to look at the material use and disposal. The allure of the “bio” prefix from an ethical – and marketing – perspective may be strong, but must be taken along with some healthy scrutiny.
Sioban Imms is a colour, material and finish (CMF) and sustainability strategist with a background in design and manufacturing. She is co-founder of consulting agency Substance and a contributing editor at trend forecasters Stylus and WGSN.
The photo, of MarinaTex designed by Lucy Hughes, is courtesy of the University of Sussex.
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Swedish design duo Folkform has presented a series of furniture pieces made using Masonite hardboard sourced from a factory that closed down over a decade ago.
On show at Stockholm Furniture Fair, The Museum of Masonite centres around a patented type of engineered wood board that is made by steam-cooking and pressure-moulding wood fibres.
Folkform founders Anna Holmquist and Chandra Ahlsell first started experimenting with this material 15 years ago, in collaboration with Sweden’s last remaining Masonite producer in Rundvik.
The Museum of Masonite features furniture made from a patented type of wood board
When the factory closed in 2011, the pair took all the remaining stock.
“I felt a responsibility to tell the story of what happened to this material,” explained Holmquist, who has since completed a PHD exploring the cultural significance of Masonite.
“It created the Swedish welfare state in the 1930s, 40s and 50s,” she told Dezeen.
“It was made from leftover wood from the Swedish sawmills so it became bigger here than anywhere else. Everyone was using it, for everything from boats and caravans to houses.”
Works on show include the Masonite Chair, a collaboration with Åke Axelsson
The Museum of Masonite follows the release of the Production Novellas, a book published by Folkform detailing the results of Holmquist’s PHD research.
Folkform is showcasing this book alongside some of their favourite Masonite designs created over the years.
Works on display include the Masonite Chair, a 2021 collaboration with Åke Axelsson based on an experimental design the Swedish interior architect produced in 1978.
Older pieces include a chest of drawers and a bedside cabinet, both created in 2012, which feature different material samples arranged in geometric collages.
“We combined materials with different ages, with this idea that the furniture becomes an archive,” said Holmquist.
The exhibition follows the release of the book Production Novellas
The most recent designs in the show explore a more minimalist approach, suggesting how the material can create the suggestion of solid blocks.
“I feel like the compositions will be never-ending because we still have more of this board,” added Holmquist.
The works are presented alongside photographs, illustrations and artefacts that tell the story of the factory.
The exhibition includes photos from the factory. Image by Amy Frearson
Later in the year, the exhibition will move to the Laurel Museum of Art in Mississippi, the city where Masonite was patented in 1924 by William H Mason.
Masonite is distinct from other engineered wood fibre boards, such as MDF, because it is made without glue. Holmquist believes the material could have a future in manufacturing.
Masonite is made from pressure-moulded wood fibres. Image by Amy Frearson
“It’s a beautiful material and it’s very sustainable,” she concluded.
“We are already seeing a shift in food, where people increasingly care where the things they eat come from, so maybe it will also happen for furniture and objects.”
At Stockholm Furniture Fair this year, visitors could also enjoy the Wekino With exhibition by South Korean furniture designers and British designer Faye Toogood’s collaboration with Finnish company Vaarnii.
The photography is by Erik Lefvander unless otherwise stated.
The Museum of Masonite is on show at Stockholm Furniture Fair, which is open to the public from 7 to 11 February 2024. See Dezeen Events Guide for more Stockholm Dezeen Week exhibitions in our dedicated event guide.
Father and son architect duo Luís and Tiago Rebelo de Andrade explain how they furnished Lisbon’s Art Legacy Hotel entirely with Moooi products in this video produced by Dezeen for the Dutch furniture brand.
Lisbon practice Rebelo De Andrade designed the interiors of the five star Art Legacy Hotel, located in the Baixa-Chiado district in the city’s centre.
The hotel is notable for its exclusive use of Moooi products and rooms with bold primary colour schemes.
Art Legacy Hotel is a five star hotel in Lisbon
“Hospitality is always about image and stories,” said Luís Rebelo De Andrade, founder of the studio, in the exclusive Dezeen video interview. “We wanted the guests, when they come to this hotel, to have a completely unexpected experience.”
“So, we proposed to our client that we make a hotel with only Moooi products, to give it a very strong identity.”
Moooi’s products were used throughout the hotel, including carpets, furniture, lighting, wall coverings and art pieces.
“Moooi is everywhere in the building,” said Tiago Rebelo De Andrade, who is partner and principal architect at the studio and Luís Rebelo De Andrade’s son. “When you enter the hotel, all the colours, all the textures, all the furniture from Moooi helps us to tell a different story in every floor.
Rebelo De Andrade furnished the Art Legacy Hotel entirely with Moooi products
The project is a renovation of a historical office building. Alongside overhauling the hotel’s interior, Rebelo De Andrade also redesigned its facade.
According to Tiago Rebelo De Andrade, Moooi’s blend of modernity and classical references suited the studio’s approach to designing the hotel’s interiors.
“Moooi is classic but in a way that can also be modern,” he said. “It’s a modern-classic building.”
Art Legacy Hotel is a renovation of a historic building in Lisbon’s centre
Luís Rebelo De Andrade decided to partner with Moooi on the hotel’s interiors after visiting the brand’s Museum of Extinct Animals exhibition at Milan design week in 2018.
Each room in the Art Legacy Hotel has either a blue, red, yellow or green colour scheme, with matching wall coverings, furniture and tiling in the bathrooms.
“When I first met Moooi’s products, I felt that it uses a lot of primary colours,” he said. “So I used primary colours in a very strong way in the hotel. They are colours that provoke you.”
Moooi’s lighting, furniture, wall coverings and carpets are used throughout Art Legacy Hotel
In the video interview, the duo also discussed their working relationship.
“My son, he provokes me,” said Luís Rebelo De Andrade. “We had to educate ourselves on how to work together.”
“I offer my experience, he offers his youth in projects,” he continued. “So I think it’s a good mix.”
Rebelo De Andrade used primary colour schemes in Art Legacy Hotel’s rooms
“It’s difficult because it’s a father and son relationship,” added Tiago Rebelo De Andrade. “We are always arguing, but at the end of the day, we drink a bottle of wine so that we can make peace with each other.”
Other recent projects from Moooi include the IDEO-designed Pallana suspension lamp, made up of adjustable ring lights, and the rope-like Knitty Chair designed by Nika Zupanc.
The photography is by João Guimarães.
Partnership content
This video was produced by Dezeen for Moooi as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen’s partnership content here.
Two British materials companies, Sages and Osmose, have collaborated to dye sheets of mycelium with natural food waste, mimicking the appearance of tanned leather and suggesting a colourful future for the biomaterial.
Osmose is a company making a leather alternative from mycelium – the fibrous underground root network of mushrooms – while Sages makes natural dyes from food waste such as avocado pits, blueberries, red cabbages and onion skins, which are normally applied to textiles.
The two believe they’ve achieved a world first with their collaboration, combining two emerging areas of sustainable material development to colour mycelium without resorting to petroleum-based synthetic dyes, thereby keeping the product non-toxic and able to biodegrade safely in soil.
Sages and Osmose have developed a natural dying process for mycelium leather
“There are lots of different types of vegan leather alternatives to traditional leather but the majority of them use either synthetic colourations or they use plasticisers, so they’re non-biodegradable,” said Sages CEO Emily Taylor.
“We wanted to explore an option where we could have a fully biodegradable leather that has also been coloured in a biodegradable and sustainable manner,” she continued.
Companies that prioritise biodegradability have offered mycelium in its natural shades of white and brown or black, which Osmose CEO Aurelie Fontan says is much easier to achieve naturally.
“I think the challenge for mycelium leather was that the offering just wasn’t there in terms of aesthetic,” she said. “When you’re presenting for brands and you’re like ‘we can only do brown’, it’s a little bit boring for them.”
The companies experimented with different food wastes in the dyeing process
“The colour sector is somewhere where you can develop your USP, essentially, which is why working with Sages is so interesting,” Fontan added.
Osmose and Sages have created tan-coloured mycelium sheets using avocado waste, which Sages sources from an importer and guacamole factory in Milton Keynes, where tens of tonnes of leftover pits and skins are produced each week.
It was a new area for both companies, as the food waste dye takes differently to mycelium leather than it does to the usually cellulose-based textiles that Sages has worked with.
The duo collaborated with materials science researchers at the UK’s Cranfield University on the project, for which the researchers focused on how to transfer and fix the dye to the material using “green chemistry” – an area of chemistry that aims to cut out hazardous substances.
In this case, the researchers sought to replace the formic acid and fluorinated acids that are often used in tanning to dissolve the polymers of the leather so it can be infused with dye. Instead, the team developed a method, which they say is significantly less toxic.
After working with Cranfield University, Sages and Osmose expanded the experiment and trialled other waste streams such as blueberries and onion skins to see what colours they could get, producing mycelium swatches in shades of violet and bordeaux.
Taylor and Fontan say they are trying to develop a process for mycelium that is akin to leather tanning, where both colour and durability properties are added in one or two steps. Their equivalent, they say, would be to dye and waterproof the material at the same time.
The tan colour was created by using waste avocado pits and skins
Osmose’s focus now is on developing a waterproof coating for their mycelium that, like the dye, is bio-based, non-toxic and able to biodegrade safely in soil. This is notoriously a challenge for plant-based leather alternatives, which almost always rely on a protective synthetic coating.
“It’s really hard to design a solution that fits all materials, which is basically what everyone is struggling with,” said Fontan. “Someone might have pineapple leather and they have their own coating but it doesn’t mean it’s going to work on mushroom and so on.”
Unlike some companies, however, Osmose says it does not want to bring a product with a non-biodegradable coating to market.
“If you’re doing a composite, it will not biodegrade at the end of life, which is compromising all the good work that you’ve been doing before that step,” Fontan said.
Mycelium is one of the most popular emerging leather alternatives. It has already appeared in luxury goods such as a bag by Hermes, clothing by Stella McCartney and trainers by Adidas.
The world’s first full-scale timber wind turbine has started turning in Sweden, with a tower built by wood technology company Modvion.
The 105-metre-tall tower, located in the region of Skara, is Modvion‘s first commercial wind turbine tower, and follows on from a smaller 30-metre-high demonstration project the company completed in 2020.
While its rotor blades and generator hub are made of conventional materials, the tower is made of laminated veneer lumber (LVL), a type of engineered wood made of thin veneer strips glued together and often used for beams and load-bearing building structures.
The tower of a wind turbine in Skara is made of engineered wood
The company says that this type of wood is not only strong enough to withstand the forces of a turning turbine, it is much more environmentally sustainable to build with than the currently used steel.
While wind power plays an important role in providing the world with green renewable energy, there are still ample carbon emissions created during their construction — in part because of the steel towers.
Modvion describes its wood towers as reducing the carbon emissions from wind turbine construction by over 100 per cent, due to the combination of a less emissions-heavy production process and the carbon storage provided by trees.
“Our towers, just in the production of them, they emit 90 per cent less than a steel tower that will do carry the same work,” Modvion chief financial officer Maria-Lina Hedlund told Dezeen. “And then if you add the carbon sequestration, then you actually end up with a minus — so a carbon sink. This is great if we want to reach net zero energy production, and we need to.”
The type of wood used is laminated veneer lumber
Hedlund, who is also an engineer, describes LVL as having a construction “similar to carbon fibre”, with strips of veneer just three millimetres thick sandwiched and glued together, giving it a high strength-to-weight ratio.
This lightness is a benefit, reducing the amount of material needed overall. With a heavy material, there is a “bad design spiral”, says Hedlund, as the weight of the tower itself adds to the load that it needs to carry.
And while some LVL has all their veneer strips facing in the same direction, Modvion uses its “own recipe” specifying the directions of the fibres, improving the material’s performance even more.
The turbine tower is the tallest so far built by Swedish company Modvion. Photo by Paul Wennerholm
The production process involves timber boards being made to order in a standard LVL plant and then delivered to Modvion’s factory. There, they are glued together into larger modules and bent into a rounded form in a step called lamination, and then very precisely machined to fine-tune the shape.
“In the wood industry, you usually see centimetre tolerances, while we are in the sub-millimetre scale,” said Hedlund.
The modular nature of LVL construction addresses another problem Modvion has observed with steel: that with turbines getting ever bigger to give more power, it’s becoming impossible to transport steel towers to site.
They are built as essentially large cylinders and transported by truck, but the base diameter desired for the tallest towers is getting to be taller than some bridges and roads can allow.
The timber is laminated into modules at Modvion’s factory
“We’re now reaching a point where they will not get through anymore,” said Hedlund. “So we will see a transition in the wind power industry to modular construction, because this is the way to get them there. And one of the big advantages of building in the material we do is that it’s naturally built modular.”
While steel could also be built modular, it would require bolts rather than glue to join it together on site, which Hedlund says is a disadvantage.
“Bolts are not very nice when you have so much dynamic loading, because it will loosen over time,” she said. “So first of all, you have to have to put them in place which is a lot of work, and then you have to also service them over the lifetime.”
The modules were assembled and glued together on site
On the outside, the tower has a thick white coating that makes it look similar to steel, and it’s rotor blades and generator hub, which are not supplied by Modvion, are made of conventional materials like fibreglass. This may change in the future, however, with another company, Voodin Blades, working on the technology for wooden blades.
Modvion was founded in 2016 by university peers David Olivegren and Otto Lundman. While its current focus is wind turbines, it is dedicated to wooden technology more broadly, and Hedlund told Dezeen that the team believes it has “the world’s strongest joint for timber construction”, which could also be put to other uses.
Another recent milestone for wind power came in the form of a wind-powered cargo ship, which had been retrofitted with two 37.5-metre-tall sails.
Packaging designs aimed at boosting recycling rates and reducing the prevalence of single-use plastics are destined to fail unless they help to change people’s behaviour, writes Matt Millington.
No one is particularly happy when they find out there’s plastic waste on Mount Everest, or in the deep oceans, or in human blood. It’s not controversial to say that we need to stop churning the stuff out and throwing it away.
One way for businesses to tackle single-use plastics is to design their packaging to be reusable, but so far efforts have not succeeded at scale.
We weren’t exactly succumbing to dehydration on the streets before coffee shops designed takeaway cups
It’s not that we don’t care: research suggests consumer motivation towards environmentally positive behaviour is high. It’s that as a society we have developed an expectation of convenience: to have what we want, when we want it, without any consequences.
This is entirely unreasonable – we weren’t exactly succumbing to dehydration on the streets before coffee shops designed takeaway cups – but while it persists, consumers are very unlikely to switch to reusable alternatives if it puts them out. And without a high return-and-reuse rate, reusable packaging is usually worse for the environment, owing to the much higher quantities of plastic involved.
This is why we need to design for human behaviour if we’re ever to get rid of single-use plastics. You cannot control what people will do with packaging once it leaves your premises, but you can influence them by factoring behavioural psychology into the design of the packaging itself.
The first step is understanding how consumers interact with the pack, throughout its lifecycle. Where are they and what are they doing when they open it? What’s their headspace? How about when they’re finished with it? There’s a big difference between how someone interacts with a reusable plate after a meal in a cafeteria, and how they interact with the reusable salad bowl they’re gobbling from on the lunchtime rush back to the office.
Then it’s about understanding the levers you can pull to nudge people towards more planet-positive decisions. Behavioural psychology shows there are three factors that work together to drive behavioural change: increasing consumer motivation to recycle or reuse, raising their ability to do so, and providing a trigger to remind them.
It’s possible to go too far in signalling that a pack isn’t disposable
Online grocer Ocado uses recyclable bags instead, but it has had success in achieving returns because it pulls all three behavioural psychology levers. Consumers are happy to receive bonus reward points for each bag they give back (motivation).
The bags are straightforward to return and customers know not to throw them away because of their clear messaging and distinct off-grey colour, which follows from not using harmful bleaching agents (ability). And because the driver usually asks for old bags after delivery, they’re unlikely to forget (trigger).
Ability is the key consideration. If you wanted to return the packaging from a takeaway burger meal, it would mean washing and then carrying around a bulky burger box, fries box and cup, and either making a special trip to the restaurant or waiting until you happen upon another branch.
New Zealand start-up FOLDPROJECT has done some interesting work here, trying to make boxes more portable. It’s a simple idea: a machine-washable lunch kit that packs down to a flat sheet. The challenge is that because it is so minimal, its form and material make it look disposable.
One way to ensure a reusable design communicates its intended purpose is through material choice. For example, using explicitly post-consumer recycled plastic could be a visual shorthand to communicate a planet-positive intent, as could using longer-lasting materials like glass or stoneware.
Interestingly, it’s possible to go too far in signalling that a pack isn’t disposable. When McDonald’s introduced reusable packaging in its restaurants in France, it found the packaging kept disappearing, only to reappear on eBay. It looked reusable and on-brand, but was too novel for some, defeating the object.
So long as we have bins on every street that lead directly to landfill, we are going to struggle
Businesses cannot just switch to reusable packaging – even when intelligently designed – and expect results. So long as we have bins on every street that lead directly to landfill we are going to struggle.
We therefore need to think beyond just designing the packaging to be sustainable, and think about how we design systems to be sustainable. In a circular economy that means service and experience design, packaging, industrial design, marketing, data, artificial intelligence and logistics all working hand-in-hand to keep the pack “in the loop”. It will therefore need to be an ecosystem effort.
We’re already seeing innovations that can help make reuse and return viable in the age of convenience. For example, when is a bin not a bin? When it’s a Bjarke Ingels Group-designed TURN system – a remote, digitally connected, RFID-enabled, packaging-asset reclaim and sorting network, which rejects unwanted trash.
Similarly, we’re seeing nudge messaging along the pack journey, and even packs that communicate their status themselves. Scottish start-up Insignia has designed colour-changing labels that reveal how long a pack has been exposed to the environment. Imagine taking this further, with reusable packaging telling you what to do with it, and offering prompts or rewards to encourage you.
Reusability hasn’t hit scale yet, but we should be optimistic that it can, not least because we’ve been there before. Milk deliveries were once the norm, with bottles returned, not discarded.
There’s no reason that we can’t get back to this more sustainable approach across the board, without having to endure too much inconvenience. All that’s required is a little ingenuity, and a lot of collaboration.
Matt Millington is a sustainable-design strategist at PA Consulting.
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Climate fatalism stands in the way of a sustainable future but designers and architects are in an ideal position to overcome it, writes Katie Treggiden.
The mainstream media is finally waking up to the realities of climate change. As wildfires, floods and storms wreak havoc across the world, journalists and activists far braver than me are speaking truth to power to make sure we all know just how serious this thing is. And that is vital and right and proper.
However, fear doesn’t motivate action. The biggest obstacle for the environmental movement is no longer climate-change deniers – the evidence is incontrovertible to all but conspiracy theorists. It is those who are fully on board with the fact that humans are the root cause of some very real problems, but just don’t believe that we have what it takes to solve them. Our biggest climate challenge is no longer denial, but despair.
Fear doesn’t motivate action
To spark meaningful change, we need hope. We need to believe not only that a better world is possible, but that we each have the power to help bring it about.
I’m not talking about blind faith or passive optimism. I’m talking about active hope. I’m talking about waking up every morning and making a choice to believe that we can solve this wicked problem, and then choosing to act accordingly. And in today’s climate – political, economic and social as well as environmental – hope is an act of defiance.
So, how can architects and designers inspire defiant hope?
The Berkana Institute’s “two loops” model of systems change proposes multiple roles that people and institutions can play in the transition from a declining system to an emerging one. As the dominant system begins its decline, “stabilisers” keep what is required in place until something better is ready, while “hospice workers” support the process of decline, minimising harm to those still within it.
In turn, the emergent system gathers pace as “pioneers” come up with new ideas, products and systems and they are joined together into networks by “connectors”. Together, they form supportive “communities of practice” that enable them to grow their influence and, eventually, rise up to replace the old system.
In the transition from the declining linear take-make-waste economy to an emerging regenerative and circular economy, we might cast architects and designers in the role of “pioneers” – problem-solvers who can create pragmatic ways to move society towards a better world.
And that is valid; if architecture and design solve problems, then surely they should contribute genuine, impactful, and replicable solutions to arguably the biggest problem ever to have faced humanity.
In today’s climate – political, economic and social as well as environmental – hope is an act of defiance
However, I believe they can also play another part. On the emerging-system loop, there is a role for “illuminators”: people who paint a picture of what a better world might look like.
You see, there is no point in the model where the two loops touch, no simple juncture where people can step off one system and onto the next – they must take a leap of faith. Illuminators are the people who can give them the courage to do that.
One of the questions I get asked most often when I speak at conferences about craft and design in the transition to a circular economy is: “Okay, but how does it scale?”
Firstly, I would contend that scalability is what got us into this mess, and what we need instead are locally replicable solutions, but increasingly I am questioning whether everything we propose as an industry even needs to do that. Perhaps part of our role is simply to inspire hope – defiant, stubborn, active hope.
Kyloe Design’s kelp chair, showcased recently as part of Green Grads at the London Design Festival, may never make it into production and it’s highly unlikely that it will drive the wholesale replacement of leather across the furniture industry. But it does showcase the potential of this incredibly renewable, climate-positive, underutilised material, while provoking the curiosity to learn more.
From responsible material sourcing and advocating for worker welfare to using smartphone components anyone can switch out, Fairphone is offering real-world solutions. But its founder, Bas Van Abel, was realistic about what he could achieve directly, so launched the company with the stated aim of motivating the rest of the industry.
Part of our role is simply to inspire hope – defiant, stubborn, active hope
Zaha Hadid Architects principal Patrik Schumacher might have criticised the “lack of architecture” at last year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, but what if contributions such as the German pavilion (pictured), which he described as nothing more than “piles of construction material”, are exactly what we need to inspire alternative ways of working? Entitled Open for Maintenance, the exhibition was billed as “an action framework for a new building culture” and collated materials recovered from previous installations to be used for repairing and upgrading buildings and public spaces all over Venice.
One of my favourite quotes about hope is from the author Arundhati Roy, who says: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” The question I would like to pose is: how can we, as an industry, help everyone to hear the sound of her breath?
Dezeen In Depth If you enjoy reading Dezeen’s interviews, opinions and features, subscribe to Dezeen In Depth. Sent on the last Friday of each month, this newsletter provides a single place to read about the design and architecture stories behind the headlines.
