Spotted: Fashion design, like many other areas of design, is increasingly digital. Large fashion manufacturers now often digitise their fabrics and then use tools to design products digitally using these fabrics, making sure all measurements and seams are accurate, before manufacturing the physical garments.
However, 3D imaging technology can be very expensive, so smaller designers often have no choice but to produce many physical samples first, each with a different fabric and measurements, wasting time, money, and resources. Bandicoot Imaging Sciences is working to change this with a solution that can quickly and cheaply capture fabrics and materials digitally, without any special equipment, and create digital twins that can be used with other digital design tools.
Bandicoot’s Shimmer View system allows designers to scan their physical fabrics with just 10 minutes of training. The photos are then uploaded to the web app where the cloud service automatically generates physically based texture maps and fabric renders. These can be used with other 3D design tools or digitally shared with customers.
Fashion is big business, and this is reflected in Bandicoot’s recent pre-seed funding round. The company raised AU$1 million (around €605,000) to boost innovation and grow the technology, including the addition of new capabilities to the cloud-based platform. Bandicoot CGO Jørgen Sevild told Springwise that “Bandicoot is the fastest growing material digitisation technology on the market, and we are constantly looking to improve the user experience and impact of our pioneering technological developments.”
From upcycling textiles into new products to delivering integrated analysis of the complete fashion supply chain, there is a wide range of innovations aimed at reducing waste in fashion.
Swiss furniture brand Vitra will prioritise reducing the environmental impact of its existing lines through material innovation, CEO Nora Fehlbaum tells Dezeen in this interview.
One of the industry’s best known and most influential manufacturers, Vitra‘s collections include iconic pieces such as Eames plastic shell chairs and Panton chairs.
Like its peers, the brand is under increasing pressure to reduce the ecological footprint of its operations in the face of worsening climate change.
Nora Fehlbaum spoke to Dezeen at the Vitra Campus in Weil Am Rhein
Speaking to Dezeen at the Vitra Campus in Weil Am Rhein, Germany, Fehlbaum suggested that the company’s heritage as a high-end, design-focused furniture brand is inherently aligned with sustainability.
“Vitra’s greatest contribution to sustainability is its products with an above-average service life, which omit everything superfluous,” she told Dezeen.
“Our roots in modern design would allow nothing else.”
However, she claimed Vitra is “doing everything we can with all the means we have” to become more sustainable.
The Álvaro Siza-designed Factory at the Vitra Campus has been partially converted to accommodate a new Vitra Circle store (also top)
“Everybody at Vitra has understood our environmental mission,” she said. “We don’t have a sustainability officer – everybody has taken it as their own.”
Vitra’s stated goal is to be “a net-positive company based on all the indicators of its ecological footprint by 2030”.
It has a long way to go, with the company’s most recent sustainability report published in 2022 stating that its total emissions for the year were equivalent to nearly 141,000 tonnes of CO2.
Eames shell chairs now made from recycled plastic
The brand’s sustainability strategy is chiefly focused on its popular existing products, Fehlbaum said.
“We have the biggest impact if we change the products that we sell the most of already, rather than inventing one single sustainable product,” she argued.
“At Vitra, a product is never final, but continues to evolve.”
The Vitra Circle store refurbishes and sells second hand Vitra products
As of January this year, the shells of the Eames plastic chairs manufactured by Vitra are now made exclusively from recycled post-consumer plastic.
“[The Eames shell chair] is probably the most iconic, most copied chair out there – and it won’t be available in virgin material,” said Fehlbaum.
The switch means the shells have a speckled finish that differs from the originals, but Fehlbaum is satisfied with this “recycled aesthetic”.
“It’s a different aesthetic, and of course we hope the consumer gets used to – and maybe even comes to love – this new aesthetic,” she said.
“That’s a risk that we’re taking and that we’re willing to take.”
The RE plastic shells are noticeably more speckled (on the right) than the original plastic shell (on the left)
It follows earlier switches of products and parts from virgin to recycled plastic, starting with Barber Osgerby’s Tip Ton chair in 2020.
A number of accessories like Arik Levy’s Toolbox and Konstantin Grcic’s Locker Box have since followed. The entire HAL chair family, designed by Jasper Morrison, now also have their shells manufactured using recycled plastic.
The recycled plastic is taken from household recycling obtained through the German garbage collection programme Gelber Sack (Yellow Bag).
“Utilising this raw material instead of petroleum-based primary plastics generates fewer climate-damaging emissions and less primary energy consumption,” Fehlbaum claimed.
The role of recycling in solving the world’s plastic pollution crisis is contested among designers.
Some, including designer Richard Hutten and Belgian curator Jan Boelen, argue that big brands are using recycling to create an illusion of change while continuing to use virgin plastics.
Others, among them the CEO of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Andrew Morlet, argue that durable, recyclable plastics can form part of a circular economy.
Many recycled plastic products involve the use of some virgin plastic or additive substances that then complicate or inhibit their own recyclability.
Vitra said its RE product, used for the Eames shells, does not contain any virgin plastic and can be fully recycled at the end of the product’s life thanks to the use of technical fillers, like glass fibres, rather than any additives that prevent onwards recycling.
Vitra products are available to purchase at discounted rates at the new Circle Store
Another sustainability initiative is Vitra’s Circle Stores, which sell used furniture and accessories by Vitra and Artek, such as sample products and exhibition pieces, with prices depending on the condition of the products.
All products are tested for functionality and repaired if necessary so that a renewed product warranty can be granted.
The first Circle Store opened in Amsterdam in 2017 in response to questions from customers about second-hand Vitra products, with a second in Brussels.
A third recently “moved” from Frankfurt and opened in an adapted space at the Álvaro Siza-designed Vitra Campus factory building, with a service and repair area where customers can bring their products to receive a new lease of life.
“With the Circle Store, we can offer our environmentally conscious clients an even more environmentally conscious choice: namely that of a second-hand product,” said Fehlbaum.
Absence in Milan “really wasn’t such a huge deal”
The brand has also taken steps to rewild parts of the Vitra Campus. The Piet Oudolf garden was completed in 2020 and Vitra is working with Belgian landscape architect Bas Smets on a masterplan plan for fewer roads and more native trees on the site.
Fehlbaum acknowledges that some may be sceptical about the sustainability work it is doing within the context of widespread greenwashing.
“It’s impossible to get through this jungle of messaging,” she said.
“How do we talk about it to make sure that it is clear how thoroughly and authentically we’re really tackling this?”
Some other furniture brands have also reduced their presence at design fairs amid concerns about the significant emissions associated with shipping products around the world for temporary showstands.
Vitra has historically had a significant presence in Milan during the Italian city’s annual design week in April, but was noticeably absent in 2023.
However, Fehlbaum said that although she was asked about this a lot “it really wasn’t such a huge deal”.
“For us, it makes a lot of sense to use what we already have,” she said.
“We have the Vitra Campus and it’s not so far from Milan. We prefer to use and invest in something that can be around for five or 10 years rather than spending a lot of energy and resources on something that after five days we’re going to have to break down.”
It is yet to be seen if the brand will return to Milan design week this year.
“The way we think about it [showing at design fairs like Milan] is never black or white,” Fehlbaum explained.
“There might be a moment where we say Milan is exactly the right place at the right moment to talk about something, and then maybe we’ll be there.”
The Eames Plastic Chair RE was photographed at the Eames house, Pacific Palisades, California. Photo by the Eames Foundation
Vitra was founded in 1950 by Nora Fehlbaum’s grandparents Willi and Erika Fehlbaum and has since grown to become one of the industry’s leading names.
Nora Fehlbaum succeeded her uncle, Rolf Fehlbaum, as CEO in 2016 and identifies improving the brand’s sustainability as her key mission.
“There is still a long way to go before reaching our environmental goals,” she acknowledged. “Things need to be tested, mistakes must be made, and in the process the company might sometimes overlook an important aspect or underestimate the impact of an activity.”
This is now a central part of the brand’s function as an industry leader, Fehlbaum suggests.
“The designer landscape has changed. In the past, it was a lot about iconic design and breaking the mould, building your own brand and your studio – new things – and now, the students that are graduating come with their own environmental mission,” she said.
“I see our role, together with these people and with the right suppliers and innovative companies, to find solutions that are, for lack of a better term, sustainable in the longer term.”
Other interviews recently published on Dezeen include the Kvadrat CEO saying sustainability is “not making our lives easier” and Iittala creative director Janni Vepsäläinen sharing her goal to help the brand “remain culturally relevant for another 100 years”.
The photography is courtesy of Vitra unless otherwise stated.
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.
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.
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.
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.
British design studio Layer has aimed to bring sustainability to mattress design in a collaboration with Chinese start-up Mazzu, creating a modular, foamless product made up of textile-covered springs.
The Mazzu Open mattress was designed to have the comfort of a traditional sprung mattress while being adaptable, repairable and easy to pack down when moving house, so as to prolong the product’s life.
The design features row upon row of individually textile-wrapped pocket springs, which sit sandwiched between a base “matrix” and a cushioned topper to hold them in place.
The Mazzu Open mattress is foamless and made up of modular, textile-covered springs
All its components are either recyclable or biodegradable, and no glue was used in the construction of the mattress.
The structure — left open at the sides for a distinctive, utilitarian look — also has the benefit of being hygienic, according to the studio, as users can check the inside of the mattress and take it apart to clean every element.
The modular design of the mattress means buyers can treat the springs like “pixels”, choosing between three levels of firmness for each point in the matrix to create a support pattern of their choosing. This also allows couples to customise their own side of the bed.
The springs are held in place by a grid layer
Additional spring modules and a different base and topper can be added to change the size of the mattress, and the whole kit can compress down to around 80 per cent of its size when disassembled.
The mattress comes in a reusable packaging system, also designed by Layer, that sees it divided into small components and split across several cartons, each weighing less than 10 kilograms. The spring modules compress from 250 millimetres to 50 millimetres in height as part of this.
Layer founder Benjamin Hubert told Dezeen that the studio tried to tackle multiple problems with current mattresses in one go with Mazzu, ranging from the impracticability of transporting them to the lack of customisation.
The mattress has an open structure that gives it a unique aesthetic
“They are too bulky once you unpack them and they ‘inflate’ from their compressed shipped form,” said Hubert. “They contain huge amounts of foam, which is next to impossible to recycle, and for the most part you can’t pack them down again for storage or transport.”
The studio wanted to avoid using polyurethane foam, a common mattress material, because as well as being difficult to recycle, it is energy intensive to produce and generates volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are harmful to health.
The material is technically recyclable, but most mattresses do not reach the scarce recycling facilities, and they are often discarded before their time. In the UK, for instance, around 6.4 million mattresses are thrown away each year — about one for every ten people — and only around 14 per cent of them are recycled.
Instead of foam, the Mazzu Open mattress’s hourglass-shaped springs are shrouded in a two-tone 3D-knit polyester sleeve. The other materials used are steel for the springs, ABS plastic for the connection system and wool for the topper. The wool is biodegradable, while all the other materials are recyclable.
The metal springs are wrapped in a 3D-knit textile
Hubert describes Mazzu as “leading the way” in delivering sustainable, high-performance bedding, and says the companies worked together for three years through the pandemic.
They went through many iterations of the mattress design in that time, as the studio tried to find a connection solution that would be both simple and comfortable.
“We must have tried about 20 different connection techniques,” said Hubert. “We had to find an optimum size that could be calibrated to fit all the standard mattress sizes too — not easy given there are a lot of international sizes.”
The springs compress to one-fifth of their full height for transport and storage
“The system needed to be highly cost-effective by using the least amount of parts and the simplest connection feature,” he continued. “The design of the connection systems changed dozens of times as we tested strength, ease of use, noise and comfort — we had hundreds of springs in the studio at times!”
Other recent designs from the London-based design studio have included sustainable dog toys for Canadian company Earth Rated and a green hydrogen vehicle retrofitting system for US start-up Croft.
Mazzu and Layer launched the Mazzu Open mattress at the German furniture fair IMM Cologne, which was held from 14 to 18 January. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
New planning legislation that aims to boost biodiversity in development projects will come into effect in England in January. Here, Dezeen explains what architects need to know.
What is biodiversity and why does it matter?
In this context, biodiversity usually refers to the variety of all species living within a certain area or ecosystem, including plants, animals, insects, bacteria and fungi.
Each species in an ecosystem has its own impact on the environment, affecting the availability of clean water and air, soil condition, pollination and other food sources and resources. Variety is necessary to keep all these elements in balance, maintaining a stable and resilient world for humans to survive in.
Many parts of the world are experiencing rapid biodiversity loss as a result of phenomena caused by human activities, such as pollution, climate change and habitat destruction. A Queen’s University Belfast study published earlier this year found that 48 per cent of the world’s animal species are experiencing population decline. The Worldwide Fund for Nature claims we are witnessing the sixth mass extinction event in the Earth’s history.
“We live in a time of mass extinction, where an alarming number of species are disappearing and where the impoverished ecology of the planet is having a detrimental effect, not only on our climate emergency, but also on pollination and in the production of food,” Adam Architecture director Hugh Petter told Dezeen. “It is a powder keg.”
Adam Architecture’s work includes Nansledan, an extension to the British city of Newquay that is being designed for the Duchy of Cornwall. The studio says it will surpass the new biodiversity net gain rules by adding “habitat ‘units’ of around 24 per cent and an increase in hedgerow ‘units’ of around 48 per cent”.
What are the new rules?
Construction can be a major cause of direct biodiversity loss, and the new planning rules for England aim to address that. They mandate that new developments deliver a “biodiversity net gain” – that is, a measurably positive impact on biodiversity compared to what existed before.
Specifically, the legislation requires developers to deliver a biodiversity net gain of 10 per cent. To calculate this, the UK government has produced a formula called the “statutory biodiversity metric” for counting what it terms “biodiversity units”, which are gained through work to create or improve natural habitats and lost through building.
As they strive to meet the 10 per cent requirement, developers must prioritise enhancing biodiversity on-site. If they cannot meet the threshold on the site being developed, they will be allowed also to make biodiversity gains on other plots of land, including by purchasing biodiversity units from other landowners.
As a last resort, they must buy “statutory biodiversity credits” from the government, which will use the money to invest in habitat creation. Biodiversity gains delivered must be maintained for a minimum of 30 years by whoever owns the land, bound by legal agreements.
Once planning permission is granted for a project, the developer must submit an evidenced biodiversity gain plan to the local planning authority (usually the council), which will approve it or refuse it. Development can only start once the biodiversity gain plan is approved. If the developer then fails to act in line with their biodiversity gain plan, the planning authority may take enforcement action.
The legislation was initially intended to come into effect for large developments of more than 10 dwellings in November, but that was pushed back to January 2024.
Smaller sites will also be subject to the new rules from April 2024, while major infrastructure projects will have to comply from late November 2025.
What do architects and landscape architects need to know?
Architects and landscape architects will likely play a leadership role in ensuring that projects deliver on biodiversity requirements, working with ecologists and the authorities.
The most important thing, says Petter, is to understand the importance of biodiversity loss as an issue.
“The more architects can take a proper interest in the subject, the better placed they will be to work with the spirit of the new legislation and to think of imaginative ways that the minimum standards can be exceeded,” he said.
“It is crucial to engage with an ecologist as soon as possible,” added RSHP sustainability lead Michelle Sanchez. “It is also beneficial to evaluate the site as soon as you gain access.”
“This enables you to develop your designs based on the existing level of biodiversity, tailoring your strategy to local flora and fauna you particularly would like to support,” she said.
One thing to bear in mind is that the new rules aim to prioritise avoiding biodiversity loss in the first place.
“Avoiding biodiversity loss is the most effective way of reducing potential impacts, and it requires biodiversity to be considered at early design stages,” the guidance states.
To gain planning permission for a project that does cause biodiversity loss but proposes strategies to replace it, developers will need to explain, with evidence, why avoidance and minimisation is not possible.
Will this actually help to boost biodiversity?
The rules will mark the first time biodiversity enhancement has been a planning condition in England. According to University of Oxford researcher Sophus zu Ermgassen, it represents “one of the world’s most ambitious biodiversity policies”, but the exact impact is not yet certain.
But Sanchez is broadly optimistic. “Developers were not inclined to consider biodiversity enhancement in the past,” she told Dezeen.
“Only on projects attaining sustainability certificates such as BREEAM would biodiversity targets be discussed. Even then, it would sometimes more regarded as a tick-box exercise rather than an opportunity to make the building better and more appealing and to reduce the environmental impact that architectural projects have on the planet.”
However, she has warned in an opinion piece for Dezeen that a 10 per cent net gain on its own “is not enough to be able to reduce the negative impact that our way of life has had on biodiversity”.
A new design trend prioritises the needs of bugs and animals above human beings. Rima Sabina Aouf finds out if “interspecies design” is the next step in creating more sustainable spaces and objects.
An exhibition designed to invite in animals, a garden optimised for the senses of pollinators rather than humans and architecture designed with nooks in which birds and insects can nestle form part of the novel approach.
“This is a subject that we have been more and more interested in,” the co-founder of London design practice Blast Studio Paola Garnousset told Dezeen.
Blast Studio started out by making 3D-printed structures from waste coffee cups where mycelium – the filamentous part of fungus that has applications as an architectural and design material – could grow.
Blast Studio is now making its 3D-printed mycelium structures with thought to other species. Top photo is courtesy of Serpentine Gallery
But as the designers gradually optimised their designs with more folds and interstices that would meet the organism’s preference for darkness and humidity, they found themselves thinking about other species as well.
The studio is now working on an outdoor pavilion whose intricately structured columns will accommodate ladybirds, bees and birds.
“The 3D printing techniques that we use give us the possibility to create artefacts that are designed both at the micro scale of fungi and insects and the macro scale of human beings,” said Garnousset.
Interspecies design about “changing our level of respect” for other creatures
London’s Serpentine Gallery has hosted two projects that centred interspecies approaches in the last two years.
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg’s Pollinator Pathmaker is an artificial-intelligence-powered tool that designs gardens to be as appealing as possible for bees and other pollinators, while Tomas Saraceno’s Web(s) of Life exhibition involved making several changes to the building so it would be welcoming for the animals and insects of the surrounding park.
Ginsberg considers the interspecies approach to be an attempt to create with empathy for other lifeforms. She came to it after spending several years researching the idea of what it means to make life “better”.
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg’s Pollinator Pathmaker project is about optimising gardens for the pleasure of pollinators
“Exploring how other species experience the world and – in the case of Pollinator Pathmaker – how they experience the things that humans create, opens up a world filled with empathy,” said Ginsberg.
“We need to think beyond sustainability towards prioritising the natural world.”
MoMA’s senior design curator Paola Antonelli has also developed an interest in interspecies design. She suspects the approach has a “very long history” but that it is reemerging in the West in line with the recuperation of indigenous knowledge and the rise of the rights of nature movement, which involves granting legal personhood to entities like rivers and mountains.
“I think that we get closest to real interspecies design when we think like that,” Antonelli told Dezeen. “When we change our level of respect and communication and really try to position ourselves in a different way, not as colonisers but rather as partners in crime, so to say.”
A “process” towards the impossible
True interspecies design, as Antonelli sees it, may be impossible since human designers have a fundamentally human-centric view of the world.
But Antontelli considers the term a useful umbrella for a range of works that call for an “unlearning and learning process”, dismantling the hierarchy that humans uphold between ourselves and other species.
Her version of the canon includes earlier works that attempt to find “a common language” with animals, like Sputniko!’s Crowbot Jenny, for which the designer, scientist and polymath created an instrument in order to communicate with crows.
Then there is Thomas Thwaites’ GoatMan project, for which the designer spent three days living as a goat.
Thomas Thwaites spent three days living as a goat in his GoatMan project. Photo by Tim Bowditch
While Thwaites told Dezeen he doesn’t consider GoatMan to be a true work of interspecies design – “the impetus of GoatMan was my desire to have a holiday from being a human, so pretty selfish” – he does see the connection.
“Goatman was definitely intended to contribute to a shift in how we think of non-human creatures,” he said. “Goats are just as highly evolved as humans – there’s no hierarchy.”
“I feel that interspecies design is a process,” said Antonelli. “That it goes from designing for animals to designing with animals to – what’s the next step? Enabling animals to design for themselves?
“That would be the real gesture, right? If we were able to actually let go of the tools of production. That’s what I would like to see at some point.”
The thorny status of biodesign
A practice of creating together with organisms as they conduct their natural processes, known as biodesign, is emerging. It includes making mycelium bricks or bacteria-produced textiles.
These objects are created by human and non-human actors together, but different projects treat their creature-collaborators in varying ways.
Antontelli considers Neri Oxman’s Silk Pavilions, a biodesign project created in collaboration with silkworms, as one of the closest examples yet to a true work of interspecies design.
Oxman studied silkworm behaviour in detail for the work and ended up finding a way to encourage the caterpillars to lay down their silk in sheets rather than cocoons, creating unusual structures.
Neri Oxman’s Silk Pavilion II was made by silkworms encouraged to lay down silk in a different shape
In contrast to traditional silk harvesting, the silkworms are not killed during this process but instead caught safely as they metamorphose and left to carry on living.
This level of care and symbiosis make the Silk Pavilions stand out as works of interspecies design, even if, in fact, we can’t know for sure that the silkworms are happy with this arrangement.
Curator Lucia Pietroiusti, who is head of ecologies at the Serpentine Gallery where Saraceno and Ginsberg’s works were presented, thinks the area of biodesign distils a key tension in the budding practice of interspecies design.
“Many completely legitimate, genuine and compassionate attempts to design with more-than-humans at heart also exist within capitalist consumerism, within a chain of production,” she said.
“No matter how you slice it, making more of something new is always going to be making more of something.”
And what is ultimately good for other species is probably that we make as little as possible.
A new look for sustainability
While it can be tempting to conclude that the best design for other species is no design at all, that downplays the role that projects like these can play in changing the way we think about production.
Pietroiusti sees interspecies design as part of an evolution of the idea of sustainability towards something more like “thrivability”, where we design for the planet to thrive, not just survive.
“Sustainability as a notion has been in too close a contact with zero-sum principles – this is sustainable because I do it and then I do something else to offset it,” she said. “In the maths of the planet, that is very rarely the case.”
Tomás Saraceno included consideration for the comfort of spiders in his environmentally focused Serpentine Galleries exhibition
“Are there situations in which certain projects or initiatives can think more ambitiously than sustainability or than reducing harm, and into ‘can we leave things actually better than they were before?'”
Seven years on from GoatMan, Thwaites believes that while the real shifts to recognise and protect non-human creatures need to come at the legislative level, design can contribute commentary and explore how the change might materialise.
“I hope people will one day look back once the cultural shift has happened and wonder at how we didn’t have interspecies design,” he said. “Like smoking in pubs and all the more important social shifts that have taken place over the decades.”
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Architects need to listen to younger generations and take a collaborative approach to sustainability, according to a panel of design experts in this filmed talk hosted by Dezeen for developer Brookfield Properties.
The panel included Brookfield Properties director of design Pragya Adukia, architecture studio Foster + Partners senior partner Dan Sibert and architecture studio BVN strategy director Esme Banks Marr. The talk was moderated by Dezeen co-CEO Ben Hobson.
The discussion followed the publication of a report commissioned by Brookfield Properties and Foster + Partners, which surveyed workers’ thoughts on the importance of sustainability in the workplace.
The panelists discussed how younger generations are increasingly more invested in furthering sustainable practices in their workplaces, with the report finding that 93 per cent of people working in an “environmentally friendly office” felt happier in their job.
The panelists was made up of experts in architectural design and strategy
“We want to make sure that we’re hearing what people say, which is why we co-commissioned this report with Foster + Partners – to listen to what the younger generation at work was saying, to give them a voice around their own sustainability, ideas and goals,” Adukia explained.
“The idea of sustainability is really a community-based thing,” added Sibert. “[There’s] a generational shift. People are no longer interested in just sitting and letting it happen to them, they actually want to be involved in it.”
“Our approach has always been ‘this is what can be realistically achieved’, it’s not just a fancy hashtag or a strapline,” continued Adukia.
“Let’s look at the data points, that’s very strong evidence, and then talk about what can be achieved, how we can future proof it.”
The talk took place in the public square of the 30 Fenchurch Street offices in London
“People are more vocal about their beliefs and what they’d like to see, it’s a good idea to involve these people in bigger conversations, and then take on board what they want to see,” she added.
“We can’t plead ignorance, none of us can plead ignorance anymore” said Banks Marr, echoing the importance of listening to public opinion around sustainability.
“There are some baseline things that we need to fundamentally just get right in buildings, new and existing, first and foremost. Sounds quite simple, but a lot of people still fail to do it,” she concluded.
The panel discussed the importance of qualitative data and community feedback during the design process
The panel also discussed how approaches such as biophilic design could help lead to more engagement with the environment and green policy-making.
Defining biophilic design, Banks Marr said “it’s not [just] putting plants into a space. Biophilic design is a term that’s been used for such a long time and in lots of different types of ways, when actually it means all of your senses, your experience with the space and your connection to nature.”
“It’s a stepping stone, or a starting point, to taking a really ecological world view of things,” she added.
“If I’m in these concrete jungle cities that do not have any connection to nature, and I don’t experience that on a daily basis, it doesn’t live in my psyche. So how am I expected to care about it and create real change?”
“There’s a desire across the board, not just in the city, to make sure we’ve got spaces to live and breathe in,” Adukia concluded.
Similarly, the panel noted the importance of creating long-lasting and future-proofed spaces.
“We need to get ourselves into that mindset where we actually think about things for a much longer term, and think and design them so they will change over time,” said Sibert. “So, can the building be designed for multiple lifespans rather than a single lifespan?”
“One has to take the overall sense of why you’re building in a city like this,” he added.
“Why do we build where, what does it mean for the overall picture of carbon and regeneration? What’s possible, but why would you make these choices as clients?”
Co-CEO Ben Hobson moderated the discussion
To conclude the talk, Hobson asked each of the speakers what they believed the key challenges the industry needed to overcome were.
“I think one thing we could definitely get better at, which we’re perhaps not currently doing enough, is knowing when to invite the real experts to the table. We don’t have to know everything,” answered Banks Marr.
“Data is absolutely key,” Sibert added. “If we could allow ourselves to find both the right dataset for the purposes of the buildings we have, and also then make the way we manufacture it be database based, I think that would be a massive step forward for us as an industry.”
“Our more successful projects have been where we’ve worked collaboratively and transparently. For any change to be implemented, I think it needs to be taken on board by all of its stakeholders. And that’s not just as landlords or developers – tenants, individuals, everyone has to be on board vocal about what they want out of it,” Adukia concluded.
The event was held at 30 Fenchurch Street, one of Brookfield Properties’ landmark office developments in the City of London.
Partnership content
This video was produced by Dezeen as part of a partnership with Brookfield Properties. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.
Retailer Finnish Design Shop has launched a tool to individually assess and rate the sustainability of more than 20,000 design products featured on its online store.
The retailer’s Product Sustainability Framework intends to support customers in making sustainable design purchases by scoring every item it sells according to a fixed set of criteria tailored specifically for design products.
Scores are determined through a survey directed towards the product manufacturers. The tool assesses five main categories: social responsibility, eco-friendly production, climate impact, sustainable materials, and circular design.
“Each category contains sustainability claims, for which the manufacturer can respond with either yes or no. In total, there are 69 claims,” Finnish Design Shop CEO Teemu Kiiski told Dezeen.
“Manufacturers answer each claim per product, and these claims are based on laws, international agreements, and initiatives.”
This often complex information is assessed and then rated. To make it understandable and comparable for customers, products are badged on the website with one, two or three green leaf symbols, representing good, very good or excellent.
A more detailed breakdown of the product’s score is included in the accompanying sustainability description.
Nikari’s Centenniale coffee table scored full marks in the climate impact category. Photo is courtesy of Nikari
Explaining why the retailer launched this product-specific framework, Kiiski told Dezeen: “The first reason is the growing demand from customers and professionals for sustainability information regarding the design brands and products. This demand isn’t limited to Finnish Design Shop but extends to the entire design industry.”
“The second reason is that, as a retailer, we have limited means to influence the sustainability of the entire value chain of the products we sell,” he added.
“Through the framework, we can communicate our expectations for product sustainability to manufacturers and guide them towards enhanced sustainability. Simultaneously, we can establish a sustainability standard for the entire industry and lead the way in sustainability matters.”
A puffy lounge chair by HEM scored highly in the eco-friendly production category. Photo is courtesy of HEM
The specific criteria for each product were developed over two years with Ethica, a Finnish circular design expert partner. They rely on the accuracy of the data supplied by each of their suppliers. “We validate it based on our own data, expertise, and experience,” says Kiiski.
While Finnish Design Shop places a high trust in its suppliers to provide it with accurate information regarding their sustainability practices, it also conducts random spot checks.
“We require product manufacturers to be capable of substantiating the authenticity of each sustainability claim,” Kiiski said.
“We do not conduct audits, and this framework is not a standard, certification, or similar entity; rather, it represents our own criteria for sustainable design.”
Vaarnii’s 001 pine stool achieved 10/10 in the sustainable materials category. Photo is courtesy of Vaarnii
Some of the 24,000 products on the Finnish Retail Shop website don’t have a rating, which means they haven’t yet been assessed or they do not meet sufficient sustainability standards.
Products that score poorly on the Product Sustainability Framework could eventually be removed from the portfolio.
“If some products or manufacturers do not meet our minimum sustainability criteria over time, we have the option to remove them from our selection,” Kiiski said.
However, the retailer believes this could also serve as an incentive.
“The PSF also serves as an incentive for further sustainability improvement, and we hope it signals to the whole industry that sustainability must be taken seriously, leaving no room for irresponsible actions anymore,” Kiiski added.
He is hopeful of the change that the Product Sustainability Framework will bring.
“The framework and its sustainability claims inform our suppliers about what can be expected from their sustainability practices today,” Kiiski said.
“Sustainability is a hot topic in our industry, but finding concrete data on it can still be a challenge,” he added. “The Product Sustainability Framework is our answer to this.”
“Essentially, it’s a 69-step list on how manufacturers can enhance their sustainability. The fact that over 110 manufacturers have participated so far indicates a need for concrete actions.”
The A805 floor lamp by Artek reached full marks in the circular design category. Photo is courtesy of Artek
The Product Sustainability Framework is part of Finnish Design Shop’s sustainability strategy. Launched during Helsinki Design Week in September 2023, visitors had the opportunity to explore an installation explaining the framework (pictured, top) and its criteria through five sample products.
Last year, the retailer unveiled a logistics centre in a forest that was designed to enable “a more sustainable future”. It has previously provided the furniture for a pop-up restaurant in New York made from recycled packaging.
The photography is courtesy of the products’ manufacturers. Main image courtesy of Finnish Design Shop.
Spotted: This is a golden age of satellite technology – satellites are being used for everything from communication relays to weather forecasting, navigation, broadcasting, scientific research, and Earth observation. This last use is the focus of SatSure, a Bengaluru-based startup that combines satellite data and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to improve financial institutions’ understanding of the agriculture sector, among other applications.
The unpredictability of crop yields adds uncertainty to agriculture credit underwriting and monitoring, which in turn leads to high transaction fees and reduced access to credit for farmers – especially smallholder farmers. To solve this, SatSure has developed SatSure Sage, a platform and a suite of applications that provide accurate data to assist lending institutions in making and managing agricultural loans.
The data that underpins SatSure’s analytics comes from satellites. These provide detailed geographical and climate records and remote sensing information. This data is then analysed by SatSure’s AI and machine-learning algorithms and distilled into clear risk measurements for a variety of uses.
For instance, another of the company’s offerings, SatSure Skies, can be used for infrastructure planning to understand potential environmental risks or for renewable energy projects to identify optimal placements of solar installations. SatSure Sparta analyses crop health and yield, which can be used by financial institutions to identify farm-level risk or by businesses looking to optimise their supply chains.
SatSure is not the only company to use satellite-derived data to help financial institutions make more informed decisions. In the archive, Springwise has also recently spotted platforms that measure grass from space and monitor ecosystem restoration.
