Spotted: Concrete is the second most-consumed substance in the world behind only water, and this popularity comes from its remarkable characteristics as a building material, which include strength, durability, versatility, and economy. However, it comes at a heavy environmental cost, with UK company Cemfree highlighting that the ubiquitous material currently accounts for around 25 per cent of the UK’s ‘embodied carbon’ from construction – the carbon emissions associated with building materials and construction processes.
To tackle the climate impact of concrete, Cemfree uses a proprietary Alkali-Activated Cementitious Material (AACM) to completely replace Portland cement (OPC) in concrete mixes. Typically, OPC is used to bind together the other concrete ingredients, including sand and aggregates, and is the main component that determines the overall properties of concrete infrastructure.
However, despite its usefulness, OPC is incredibly energy-intensive to produce. To make OPC, limestone is heated to temperatures as high as 1,450 degrees Celsius in huge kilns, which results in around one kilogramme of CO2 being emitted for every kilogramme of cement.
Cemfree’s AACM binder activates ‘pozzolanic’ materials – materials that acquire cement-like characteristics through chemical reactions – such as Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBS) and Pulverised Fly Ash (PFA). Both of these substances are waste products, the former from steelmaking and the latter from coal-burning. The company’s binder reacts with GGBS to form a solid mass that is comparable to, and can therefore replace, OPC.
This technology forms the basis of three products: the company’s original Portland cement alternative, Cemfree Optima, as well as two follow-on products Cemfree Rapid and Cemfree Ultra. The company’s materials have already been used in a wide range of projects from a railway station to the Thames Tideway, with Cemfree’s staff working in collaboration with project experts to deliver a process that meets the project’s particular demands.
Concrete is a classic ‘hard-to-abate’ industry and Springwise’s library contains a range of innovations tackling concrete’s climate impact. These include electrified cement production, the use of AI to design out excess concrete, and an AI platform for optimising concrete recipes.
Japanese designer Daisuke Yamamoto presented recycled steel chairs on podiums of the same material as part of an exhibition in Milan, which has been shortlisted for a 2023 Dezeen Award.
Yamamoto‘s Flow project explores ways to minimise industrial waste by focusing on a single material – light-gauge steel (LGS).
Daisuke Yamamoto presented his Flow chairs as part of the Dropcity showcase
Commonly used in construction as a strong, lightweight framing option, LGS is also one of the industry’s largest waste products, Yamamoto claims, as it is rarely recycled after demolition.
The designer therefore chose to create a second life for the steel sheets and components as a series of sculptural chairs.
The chairs were placed on podiums made from the same light-gauge steel
He also used LGS to form platforms for showcasing the seating designs as part of an exhibition at Milan design week 2023 that has been shortlisted in the exhibition design category of this year’s Dezeen Awards.
“This project began with the awareness that everyday recycled construction materials are disposed of, then new construction begins – a so-called ‘scrap and build’,” Yamamoto said.
Each of the recycled steel chairs had a different form
“Using the iconic LGS material – one of the most popular materials normally used in framing systems throughout the interior wall structure – we transformed it into beautifully redesigned furniture, giving the materials a second chance,” he added.
The exhibition formed part of the Dropcity showcase, which took place inside the Magazzini Raccordati spaces at Milan Central Station during the design week in April.
A workshop bench was also placed at the centre of the space
These empty railway arches have a dilapidated, industrial aesthetic with peeling floors, stained tilework and exposed utilities.
Yamamoto chose to leave the vaulted room largely as he found it but placed a series of platforms in two rows, upon which he presented the series of chairs.
Track lighting was installed overhead to spotlight the elevated designs, each of which has a slightly different shape.
In the centre of the exhibition, a workshop bench also built from lightweight gauge steel was used to fabricate more chairs during live demonstrations between Yamamoto and craft artist Takeo Masui.
Yamamoto and Takeo Masui built more recycled steel chairs during live demonstrations
“This is a landfill, a place where a volume of used LGS is collected,” Yamamoto said. “A place where the designer and craftsmen work hand in hand to recreate what was bound to be disposed into something new, a process of disassembling to re-assemble.”
The intention was to not only showcase the material’s capabilities for reuse but also to allow visitors to engage with the process and ask wider questions about how society deals with waste.
The demonstrations allowed visitors to engage with the process
Using waste materials produced by other industries was a key trend that Dezeen spotted during this year’s Milan Design Week, with designers and studios including Formafantasma, Prowl Studio, Atelier Luma and Subin Seol all looking to reduce the environmental impact of their products.
Future Landfill took place at Magazzini Raccordati from 15 to 23 April 2023 as part of Milan Design Week. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
California studio Electric Bowery has arrayed a series of wood or Corten steel-clad cabins in Upstate New York that are nestled among meadows and woodland.
Electric Bowery was responsible for the architectural design of Wildflower Farms, a rural retreat in the Hudson Valley operated by the Auberge Resorts group, while interiors were completed by New York studio Ward + Gray.
The buildings at Wildflower Farms are based on vernacular farmhouses and barns, but with modern European influences
Intended as an escape for reconnecting with nature, the site of the former Rosedale tree farm was transformed into a luxury getaway with hiking trails and a working farm with produce and animals.
The masterplan for the 140-acre site revolves around a central meadow, through which the winding paths connect various clusters of guest cabins with the communal buildings.
Interiors for the resort were completed by Ward + Gray, which chose a warm and textured palette for spaces including the restaurant
Views of the Shawangunk Ridge are framed through the Great Porch, a covered open-air lounge organised around a central fire pit.
To one side is the resort’s restaurant, Clay which uses many ingredients grown or produced on-site.
In the shop, curated by Gardenheir, pressed botanicals are framed on a wall above earth-toned furniture
The dining room interior features warm, textural earth tones, wood-framed furniture and large indoor trees, while outdoor tables overlook the meadow and mountains beyond.
The other side of the Great Porch houses the reception area and a store curated by Gardenheir that sells a variety of garden-themed products.
The indoor swimming pool sits below exposed timber trusses and features slate floors
The Thistle spa and an indoor pool are accessed beyond, decorated in a palette of buffed biscuit, mottled green and slate grey that complement the exposed beams.
Together, this row of large, timber-clad gabled structures anchors the resort, while the various guest accommodations are spread out around it.
Guest cottages also feature offset gabled roofs, and are clad in reclaimed oak
“With a more modern take on the vernacular building typologies of farmhouse and barn, inspired by modern European architects such as Peter Zumthor, the buildings were designed to frame the surrounding mountains, nestled harmoniously into the site,” said the studio.
Other amenities across the resort include an outdoor swimming pool and lounge area and a building dedicated to fitness that houses a gym and a yoga studio facing a pond.
The guest bedrooms are cosy yet modern, with a colour palette borrowed from the natural surroundings
For the design of the 65 cabins and cottages, Electric Bowery co-founders Cayley Lambur and Lucia Bartholomew looked to several references including the lifestyle of their native state, and architects like Mickey Muennig.
“It was particularly important to convey the indoor-outdoor living experience that was borrowed from and inspired by west coast Californian architecture, using tall storefront glass in several locations with naturally weathered and repurposed wood-clad ceilings and fin walls visually extending from the interior to exterior,” said the architecture studio.
Sliding glass doors open the guest rooms to private porches
The oak-clad Ridge and Meadow cottages all have an offset gabled form, while the double-gable structures house the two-bedroom suites.
Sliding glass doors open onto private porches, which are each angled to block views from their neighbours.
Nestled into the trees, the Bower Cabins are clad in weathering steel
Interiors are bright and modern, with bold colours borrowed from the natural surroundings and custom furniture paired with locally sourced antiques.
Tucked beneath the tree canopy, the Bower Cabins are a similar shape to the cottages, but clad in weathering steel.
These smaller rooms feature a darker, more intimate palette of dark blue walls and patterned textiles, and details including woven cabinet doors.
“The overall palette of the project is composed of an abundance of natural materials – stacked stone, slate, weathered wood finishes, naturally oxidized Corten steel, to name a few – that blend seamlessly with the landscape and provide warmth through texture and lack of uniformity, but also conform to the modern architectural lines of the buildings,” said the studio.
The smaller cabin interiors feature dark blue walls, woven cabinet fronts and patterned textiles
Lambur and Bartholomew founded Electric Bowery in 2013 after working together at Frank Gehry’s office, and now has offices in Los Angeles, Big Sur and New York City.
Their earlier projects include a house in Venice Beach with an off-centre pitched roof, which bears a resemblance to the cabins at Wildflower Farms.
Wildflower Farms occupies a 140-acre site and offers a rural escape 90 minutes from New York City
The Hudson Valley is a popular getaway destination for city dwellers craving a dose of nature, and its popularity increased further during the pandemic, when many New York City relocated there temporarily or permanently.
Among the myriad places to stay in the area are the boutique Hotel Kinsley in Kingston, and Troutbeck, a renovated English-style country house.
Street furniture brand Vestre and designer Emma Olbers have produced a piece of furniture using fossil-free steel that was made without creating carbon emissions.
The Tellus bench is made from steel forged by Swedish steelmaker SSAB in its converted blast furnace, which uses green hydrogen instead of coal for heat, and so emits no carbon dioxide.
Vestre, which aims to be recognized as the world’s most sustainable furniture company, says it is the first furniture manufacturer in the world to use the fossil-free steel. Steel is one of the brand’s prime targets for slashing its carbon emissions.
The Tellus bench is the world’s first item of furniture made from fossil-free steel
“Early estimates show that converting all our steel to fossil-free could reduce our overall footprint by around 60 percent,” said Vestre chief sustainability officer Øyvind Bjørnstad.
For designer Olbers, the goal was to lower emissions even further by using as little material as possible to make the bench. Even though SSAB’s alloy is forged without coal, there are still carbon emissions elsewhere in the value chain, such as from mining and transport, so every gram of material still has some carbon cost.
“An outdoor bench for public environments must also withstand a lot of wear and tear,” Olbers said. “We have striven to use as little material as possible but still maintain the strong construction.”
Emma Olbers designed the bench so it would use as little material as possible
Aesthetically, Olbers wanted the bench to have a “metal feel” but also look inviting, so she gave it wide armrests that would invite repose while providing enough space to rest a coffee cup.
Tellus is intended for parks and other public spaces, and can be ordered in any classic RAL colour. The bench is titled after one of the alternative names for planet Earth.
Vestre came to work with the fossil-free steel following a long-time partnership with SSAB. Bjørnstad describes the companies as having a “tight dialogue” on several sustainability projects.
The bench is designed for public spaces such as parks
The Norwegian brand brought in Olbers because of the designer’s dedication to sustainable practices, which Bjørnstad said involves being highly scientific and rigorous in her approach.
The Swedish designer’s previous work includes the Now or Never – 1kg CO2e exhibition at this year’s Stockholm Furniture Fair, in which she visualised the carbon emissions of common materials.
The material has exactly the same properties as traditional steel but is produced using a process called Hydrogen Breakthrough Ironmaking Technology (HYBRIT), in which green hydrogen is burned instead of coal and coke.
The pattern in the steel sheet helps to minimise the amount of material used
Green hydrogen is obtained via the electrolysis of water, which splits the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen and emits no greenhouse gases.
SSAB is planning to convert all of its factories in Sweden, Finland and the USA to HYBRIT and phase out its other steel products by 2045.
Doing so could reduce the total CO2 emissions of Sweden by around ten per cent and Finland by approximately seven per cent, SSAB has estimated.
Fossil-free steel has the same properties as traditional steel
Vestre’s previous sustainability efforts include introducing CO2 emissions product labelling and reusing its old fair stands for new installations.
Its production facility in Norway, completed by BIG in 2022, is described by the brand as the most environmentally friendly furniture factory in the world, with Passivhaus strategies, solar panels and geothermal wells.
Architects: Want to have your project featured? Showcase your work through Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletter.
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.
Architects: Want to have your project featured? Showcase your work through Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletter.
Mass timber could become a key tool in reducing waste from the construction industry, GXN partner Lasse Lind tells Dezeen in this interview for our Timber Revolution series.
GXN was founded in 2007 as the research arm of Copenhagen-based architecture studio 3XN.
GXN looks at circular and low-carbon design, behavioural design – including the social aspect of buildings – and technologies that can help the industry transition to a more sustainable future.
Use of timber “exploded”
Its use of timber has “exploded” recently, with around half of its buildings now having a significant element of wood in their structure, up from almost none five years ago, Lind said.
“We’ve always been very interested in materials and material technology,” Lind told Dezeen.
“Our material focus has evolved to change over the years and now we’re extremely focused on recyclability, recycled content, low-carbon, natural biogenic materials – that is our absolute focus.”
Above: Lasse Lind is a partner at GXN. Top: A CLT-framed hotel on Bornholm is among the studio’s projects. Photo by Adam Mørk
The majority of the studio’s work at the moment is in mass timber, which Lind says has many advantages over other building materials.
“The first one is obviously lower carbon, which is a big advantage, and the fact that it’s kind of regenerative as a material,” he said.
“There are other aspects as well, which are related to build-ability,” he added. “Timber tends to be lighter than, for example, concrete construction. So you need less transport and, in principle, fewer crane lifts.”
Timber helps you “close the loop on waste”
The fact that everything is prefabricated when it comes to mass-timber construction also means it is possible to work with more precise tolerances and cut down on waste, according to Lind.
In a recent project, a full-timber hotel extension on the island of Bornholm, Denmark, the studio even used offcuts from the cross-laminated timber (CLT) used for the building to create furniture and furnishings.
“You don’t have a lot of waste, potentially, in the production,” he said. “Especially if you think about it like we did in the prototype on Bornholm, where we used all the offcuts for furniture – you can actually close the loop on waste in the production chain a bit.”
The studio’s use of timber has “exploded”. Photo by Paul Casselman
As part of its research in this area, GXN is also experimenting with using offcuts from CLT boards as slabs in its buildings.
“You would have to live with the fact that it’s different thicknesses and you would have to look at the grid because if it’s offcut materials, you cannot get everything in eight metres,” he said.
“You have to have some substructure to accommodate a variety of sizes, so you need to spend a little bit more energy on the substructure but then you can actually use these offcuts as actual slabs.”
At the moment, the addition of concrete to the slabs is one of the things that makes it hard to design fully reversible timber buildings.
“In larger timber structures, where you have slabs, the standard practice is to cast everything out due to sound and vibration,” Lind explained.
“So essentially, if you have a timber slab, you cast a screed of concrete on top, and that actually messes up the reversibility of a lot of the structure,” he added.
GXN has attempted to create buildings that use alternatives to concrete slabs, including a version that saw the studio use egg crates filled with sand instead of the slabs.
“What we tried to do on the project on Bornholm is to have these crates and fill them with granite dust, waste production from granite, but the engineers wouldn’t sign off on it, unfortunately, so we weren’t able to do that for that project,” Lind said.
“But we are doing a building right now where we are getting rid of that concrete screed,” he continued.
“It’s something we’re always aware of when we’re building with timber – if we can get away from that detail, we’d like to, because it’s a small detail but it messes up the reversibility of the whole structure.”
Carbon budget “structures the discussion”
Lind believes that in the future, we will see a lot of hybrid timber systems as the industry figures out when wood is best to use.
“We [need to] figure out what timber is really good for, what concrete is really good for and what steel is really good for,” he said.
“The approach should be to minimise the use of concrete and steel, but there are just parts of a building where [those materials] makes more sense,” he added.
“I’m very interested that we use materials where they are best, and I think there are a lot of places where we could easily replace concrete or steel with timber.”
The Lemvig climate centre features a wavy wooden facade. Photo by Adam Mørk
To help minimise carbon emissions, GXN sets carbon budgets for each of its projects that vary depending on the type of project and country it’s built in.
“The one thing we always try to do is bring a carbon budget, because it puts carbon up for discussion with every material choice and in that sense, it structures the discussion, like a financial budget does,” Lind said.
As timber buildings become more popular, Lind believes that as well as having an impact on carbon emissions, the material will also impact the way that buildings look, behave and feel.
“I think we will begin to explore, as designers, the vocabulary of what we can do, which I think will be very interesting,” he said.
“I don’t think it will be the same as architecture was 50 years ago when we kind of discovered the computer, but if you think about it, there are a lot of really creative half-timber buildings in Europe that have all kinds of weird ornaments and shapes and forms,” he added.
But though the use of timber and mass-timber is becoming more popular, there are still challenges facing architects when designing timber buildings. One of these is conveying the safety of the buildings to insurance companies.
“What we’re seeing as a challenge for timber buildings right now is generally insurance, because it’s a different material from what people usually use,” Lind said.
“We often find that insurers need to get on board and understand that it’s different. Because you can secure timber buildings, you can build them in a way where they are safe to operate and they’re safe as an asset, but there is a degree of scepticism from insurers.”
Designers should love timber’s “natural patina”
There are also sometimes regulatory difficulties as fire safety rules are often based on buildings made from steel or concrete.
“Inherently timber structures burn in a different way than steel or concrete does,” Lind said.
“And you can build safely with timber, but the way that you measure and regulate it needs to be different because it’s not steel,” he continued.
“Steel gets extremely hot and then it snaps, timber burns very slowly. It’s just a different strategy, fire-wise, that you need to apply.”
GXN uses a carbon budget for its projects. Photo by Rasmus Hjorthøj
Architects and clients also need to get used to the fact that timber is a living material, which means it will change in ways that concrete and steel buildings might not, he argued.
“There’s a certain degree of natural patina that you should love as a designer,” Lind said.
“You should love the fact that it’s a material that changes over time – it’ll change colour, maybe have some cracks, it’s not going to look the same forever,” he added.
“So there’s some aesthetical considerations that you should be able to take your client through and understand that this is a living material and performs in a different way than an inorganic material.”
The architect believes that we’re only at the beginning of seeing the possibilities of timber and mass timber.
“There are loads of things that you could do even with fairly simple timber construction; there’s a whole field of investigation that we’re getting into which will be very interesting,” Lind concluded.
This article is part of Dezeen’s Timber Revolution series, which explores the potential of mass timber and asks whether going back to wood as our primary construction material can lead the world to a more sustainable future.
Spotted: Since their creation, fossil fuel vehicles have been a major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions. While we are beginning to lessen the environmental cost of road transport by travelling in fossil fuel-free cars, auto manufacturers still rely on fossil resources when building their products. And, with the Paris Agreement giving automakers until 2040 to produce net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the entire value chain of vehicle production, this is an issue.
In a bid to resolve this, the Swedish steel manufacturer SSAB has harnessed new technology that leverages electricity and hydrogen to create fossil fuel-free steel. As steel is elemental to assembling cars and trucks, this innovation gives auto manufacturers a chance to fulfill the Paris Agreement and achieve net-zero emissions.
Showing its environmental commitment, Volvo Trucks has become the first truck manufacturer in the world to use fossil-free steel. The hydrogen-produced steel will be placed into the frame rails that form the backbone of Volvo’s electric trucks, where all the other main parts are mounted. Once the availability of fossil fuel-free steel increases, Volvo claims it will then be introduced in other parts of the truck.
“Our journey to net zero emissions includes both making our vehicles fossil-free in operation and over time fully replacing the material in our trucks with fossil-free and recycled alternatives,” says Jessica Sandström, Senior Vice President of Product Management at Volvo Trucks.
Volvo began their small-scale introduction of the SSAB steel in May 2022 and it became commercially available the following month, just nine months after the first fossil-free vehicle concept was unveiled.
Springwise has spotted other innovations seeking to decarbonise steel, such as the implementation of AI within steel and cement plants, and using green hydrogen to manufacture green steel.
As part of Stockholm Design Week, Swedish design firm Form Us With Love has opened the doors to its new studio space featuring modular furniture informed by pegboard walls.
Perforated steel units are dotted throughout Form Us With Love‘s (FUWL) Stockholm studio, which is housed in a former travel agency.
Form Us With Love’s Stockholm studio has furniture made from perforated steel
“We’ve been dealing with this space for a good year and a half, and thinking about it for a good ten years,” FUWL co-founder John Löfgren told Dezeen.
“It’s definitely a place that is a catalyst for what we’re doing – and we’re doing quite a lot of different things, so we need a really flexible space and we need a mobile space,” he added. “We tried to be smart about how you store things and logistics in general, really being economical with each square metre.”
Large hangar doors can be used to divide the interior
The 200-square metre studio space, which was created in collaboration with architecture studio Förstberg Ling and branding studio Figur, was designed to suit the needs of the FUWL team.
Large floor-to-ceiling hangar doors hide an office area, workshop and kitchen while allowing the front of the studio to be sectioned off from the remainder of the space.
The studio is showcasing material experiments on wheeled cabinets
This allows the area to be used as an exhibition space, where FUWL is displaying some of its ongoing projects during Stockholm Design Week.
Among these is a project that explores how toxic glass – a waste material from the glass industry – can be treated to separate the toxins from the glass.
Five low, wheeled cabinets made from perforated steel were used to display the projects.
FUWL has created multiple different storage units
These are just some of the storage units and room dividers that FUWL has made for the studio, drawing on materials found in its own workshop.
“We have these boxes that were derived from the workshop, like ones you would have in the garage,” Löfgren said.
“We started wondering what would happen if we move these things out in the open,” he added. “It started off as dividers and walls, but add some wheels and all of a sudden we are in the open space.”
The studio is currently using the modular units as a material library, a tool wall and storage for personal and studio use, as well as experimenting with new functionalities.
Produced by Tunnplåt – a company that normally supplies lockers to schools, gyms and other public-sector interiors – the containers have a pattern of symmetrical holes.
A material library is housed in their drawers
This was designed to make the reference to pegboard walls immediately recognisable.
“We definitely experimented with patterns,” Löfgren said. “We still wanted people to have a smile on their face like: I can see where it derives from.”
The pegboard-style furniture was informed by tool walls
Realising that the perforated steel units could be used to create a flexible interior was just a coincidence, Löfgren said.
“I think it’s definitely a tool that incorporates how we want to work in the interior,” he said. “And I think that’s just been a coincidence.”
“We were always looking for something that would help us have this kind of full flexibility, and still be able to do something both fun and functional,” he added.
The studio was designed to be both practical and flexible
In the future, the studio said it might also create the units in other colours. For its own office, soft grey tones were chosen to aid concentration.
“We worked with tones of grey as a backdrop throughout the space to put focus on the creative processes taking place within,” architecture studio Förstberg Ling said.
Form Us With Love has previously launched products such as Forgo, a soap designed to minimise carbon emissions and an IKEA chair made from recycled wood.
Form Us With Love’s studio is open to the public between 5 September and 9 September 2022 as part of Stockholm Design Week. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
Spotted: As the world looks to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, solar roofs could enable buildings to generate, store, and release their own secure supply of electricity. This concept is called ‘Active Buildings’ and has been successfully demonstrated by two buildings on the Swansea University campus for several years.
Now, experts at the university are taking the idea further by embarking on a three-year research collaboration with Tata Steel UK. The partnership will develop solar roofing panels which are greener, lighter, cheaper, and more flexible. And the key feature? The panels can be printed directly onto the steel used in buildings.
The panels use Perovskite solar cell (PSC) technology. PSC technology is a cheaper and lighter alternative to silicon-based solar panels. PSCs are made from a class of materials called perovskites, which can be readily produced from inexpensive and readily available ingredients. PSC could play a pivotal role in making solar power more affordable and accessible, and it could also be significantly more sustainable. PSC emits less than half the carbon of a silicon cell.
One of the key characteristics of the perovskite solar cells is that they are flexible and can be applied directly to surfaces, making them ideal for use in roofing materials or printing. Using techniques such as screen printing, PSC could be applied directly to materials such as coated steel.
Springwise has spotted a number of other innovations looking at decentralised solar power. Belgian startup Octave has designed a battery energy storage system (BESS) for stationary energy applications, while a UK company is incorporating solar cells into blackout blinds.
