Spotted: In the midst of a war for talent, security costs in real estate are rising. The good news, however, is that investment – including in new technologies – can help to keep these costs under control. AI is one such technology, and one area where it can help is in reducing the costs associated with monitoring security systems.
Animals, moving objects, and even the weather can trigger false alarms and, if these false alarms become repetitive, it can distract from real threats and necessitate large, labour-intensive, and costly monitoring centres. To combat this, startup promiseQ is harnessing advancements in AI to centralise video surveillance management and filter out false alarms.
Using computer vision and generative AI, the startup forwards only real threats to its customers. And on the rare occasions where the AI is uncertain whether a threat is real or false, the footage is forwarded to the company’s remote ‘crowdforce’ of expert human reviewers. The hybrid human-AI system has a fast learning rate, with the human feedback improving the quality of the AI continuously.
Meanwhile, a ‘Camera Integrity Check’ feature prevents equipment downtime, while ‘Privacy Zone Control’ enables companies to set parameters and exclude certain zones from surveillance. The system’s ‘Device Tree’ feature further enables companies to monitor multiple sites and cameras from a single dashboard. Finally, a reference picture of an area can be uploaded to the system, which is then continuously compared to the live footage to identify any deviations in real time.
Springwise has spotted other innovations boosting safety, including a security robot on wheels and computer vision tech that helps to prevent workplace accidents.
Spotted: The health of the animals in the world’s oceans is already severely compromised, with many more species than previously thought at risk of extinction. An additional threat to marine life is abandoned fishing equipment, or ‘ghost gear’, which is considered “the deadliest form of marine plastic”.
Ashored Innovations, based on Canada’s Atlantic coast, works with fishers to develop tools of the trade that protect marine life without compromising the quality of the catch. Ashored’s rope-on-demand technology allows fishers to eliminate the use of tethered buoys and, hopefully, better protect right whales – one of the animals most at risk of injury from entanglement with commercial fishing gear.
Called MOBI (Modular Ocean Based Instrument), the rope-on-demand system keeps the buoy and tethering rope coiled on the ocean floor until the fishing team arrives to check the traps or lines. Fishers can choose to use an acoustic call or a timer to release the buoys, and the MOBI system changes nothing about the harvesting of a catch. Fishers use their existing gear to check and reset traps, and then the buoy is lowered back down until the boat returns.
MOBI works with a range of fishing equipment, including lobster and crab traps and trawl lines. A connected software tool called ATLAS tracks the location and inventory of a fisher’s gear, and smart tags and sensors provide automatic digital updates, allowing teams to more efficiently plan their workload and time. Ashored’s tools and technologies are Blue Glove Certified, meaning that they work effectively even when operated by someone wearing the ubiquitous thick blue rubber gloves used by people in the fishing industry.
As well as protecting marine life, the MOBI system also helps fishers reduce the amount of equipment they lose from ship strikes and extreme weather carrying away or breaking their gear. That, in turn, helps reduce the amount of ghost gear polluting ocean waters.
A number of innovations in Springwise’s library are providing new life for collected ghost gear by upcycling the lost fishing equipment into stylish new products such as dog accessories and eyeglasses.
Spotted: Climate change has led to more frequent and severe heatwaves, and the increasing need to stay cool indoors is, in turn, speeding up global heating. Researchers have calculated that air conditioning is responsible for around 3.9 per cent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions and startup Blue Frontier Inc. has developed an ultra-efficient, sustainable air conditioning (AC) technology to tackle this climate footprint.
The company’s AC system is designed to replace the energy-intensive Packaged Rooftop Units used to cool commercial buildings. The system uses a liquid saltwater solution as a ‘desiccant’, which is a substance that removes moisture – like the silica bead packets used when shipping products to prevent damp.
First, air is passed over a thin layer of the dessicant, which absorbs moisture. The dried air is then split into two streams. The first air stream gets directed over a thin layer of water, which absorbs the air’s energy (heat) to leave it cooler. This cooler, now-humid, air cools a metal surface, before being funnelled outside. Finally, the cool metal sucks heat out of the second (still dry) air stream, which is then blown into the building. As well as cooling down the building, the system also dehumidifies it to improve indoor air quality and create a healthier indoor environment.
The dessicant will periodically need to release water and be ‘recharged’ for the system to keep working. Typically, this would require fossil-fuel-powered heating, but Blue Frontier instead uses a heat pump. This recharging can occur at night when electricity is cheaper and grid demand is lower.
Depending on weather or usage, the system reduces electricity use by 50 to 90 per cent and reduces peak electricity demand. The company points out that its AC system also enables the replacement of traditional ACs with an ‘HVAC-as-a-service’ business model that’s designed to speed up market adoption by removing the need for large capital investments.
Luckily, recognition of the huge energy footprints of heating and cooling systems is leading to a wave of innovations. These include more viable heat pumps and the use of geothermal energy.
HAMS and, Studio’s One Nuance rearranges apartment’s layout
HAMS and, Studio takes over the renovation of an apartment in Tokyo‘s suburbs, tailoring it for a forward-looking, flexible lifestyle. The project revamps the rigid grid plan and introduces subtle variations, or ‘nuances’, in spatial composition, color, and materials. The aim is to create an adaptable living space that accommodates the diverse activities of a working couple. Embracing the unique features of the corner-room layout, the design eliminates the original corridors, replacing them with smaller rooms arranged along the exterior walls. This transformation creates a bright, open area, enhancing the sense of overall spaciousness.
all images by Akira Nakamura
subtle textures and unified color palette adorn the living space
The living room, designed as an open zone, connects directly to the smaller rooms, fostering a lively and relaxed atmosphere. The double-opening design, incorporating ‘outer openings’ for light and ‘inner openings’ framing living activities, adds continuity and expansiveness to the interior space. The inner facade varies in appearance based on the purpose of each room and the type of partition used, creating nuanced viewports within the home. The design team opts for different finishes, such as robust plastering for the internal walls and glossy solid finishes for passages to the living room. These subtle textures, along with a unified color palette adorn the flexible living space, offering inhabitants a dynamic environment.
the unique double-opening design of ‘inner and outer openings’ creates continuity and expansiveness
the ‘outer openings’ bring natural light inside the space and ‘inner openings’ frame living activities
depending on the purpose of the smaller rooms, the inner openings change in form
Spotted: Organic waste makes up a huge proportion of all municipal waste, with around 17 per cent of global food production going to waste at the retail, restaurant, or household level. But what if that food wasn’t all wasted? What if some of it could be turned into renewable energy? That is the question being answered by New Zealand clean-tech startup Cetogenix.
Cetogenix has designed a modular system for breaking down organic waste to generate renewable energy and other useful by-products, such as fertilisers and biodegradable plastics. The company’s technology uses a combination of chemical and microbial processes, which can be located at source and easily scaled.
The flagship product, called CETO-Boost, is currently under development. When complete, it will allow a 40 per cent increase in the production of renewable natural gas from anaerobic digestion plants. It will also be capable of being retrofitted, and the company has identified more than 15,000 anaerobic digester plants that could benefit from this retrofitting.
Cetogenix secured $4.5 million(around €4.1 million) in a 2022 seed funding round led by deep-tech investor Pacific Channel, with support from angel investors. The investment is being used to scale up the company’s technology and enable global deployment, with an initial focus on Europe and North America.
This technology aims to tackle both organic waste and natural gas issues at the same time. In the archive, Springwise has spotted other methods for tackling these issues, including turning organic waste into bio-plastic and using methane pyrolysis to generate green hydrogen.
Spotted: As summer brings us brighter, longer days, the effects of sunlight on our energy levels and mood are undeniable. But did you know that light also affects our health? Working for prolonged periods in poor quality lighting can cause eyestrain and trigger migraines – particularly in harsh artificial lighting – as well as amplifying feelings of fatigue and anxiety.
This is an issue Barcelona-based startup Kumux has set its sights on tackling. The company creates what it calls automatic human-centric lighting solutions. This technology acts as an ‘indoor sun’, working with the body’s natural rhythms rather than against them, mimicking natural daylight patterns with artificial dynamic light.
Kumux works via a cloud-based API that can easily be integrated into any lighting control system with tunable lights. It then automatically alters light intensity and colour temperature, taking into account variables such as geolocation, date, time, and the type of activity or work occurring inside a room.
The startup, which raised €500 million in it latest funding round, offers its solutions across various sectors, including healthcare, offices, schools, and hotels. The company also claims that its system can help with reducing light-related electricity consumption by up to 20 per cent and boost productivity by 4.5 per cent.
In the archive, Springwise has spotted other solutions fostering greater indoor well-being and productivity, including a lighting panel that boosts mood while working from home, and an artificial intelligence (AI) planting system.
Spotted: Less than 45 per cent of original global reefs remain, and scientists predict that by 2070, they could disappear altogether. Reefs are declining at twice the pace of rainforests and stopping the damage requires swift, focused actions at sites around the world. One company, Swiss-based Rrreefs, creates bespoke coral reef replacements that provide multiple environmental benefits. The company’s goal is to revive one per cent of coastal coral reefs by 2033.
Using pure clay, the company 3D prints reef bricks that are customised to best suit the nearest shoreline and local environment. By understanding water flows and marine topography, the company builds structures that provide microenvironments for thousands of animals and plants to thrive. Protecting shores from erosion improves the growing environments for underwater forests of mangroves and seagrass, both of which are crucial to the capture of carbon dioxide. And a single cubic metre of the reef blocks provides a new home to more than 20,000 tiny animals, 20 corals, 60 fish, and more.
The surface of the bricks is designed specifically to support a variety of coral larvae contributing to the genetic diversity of the new reef. The natural clay material contains no artificial ingredients or chemicals, making it a healthy choice that contributes no new pollution to the world’s oceans.
Using 3D printing allows for modular production and complete customisation of height, width, and length of the overall reef structure. The process also allows for local manufacturing, which further reduces the carbon footprint of each reef.
The innovations seeking to help stop the irreversible destruction of the world’s coral reefs are many and varied. Recent ones spotted by Springwise include a global cat food brand supporting new reefs and a company making leather out of an invasive fish that threatens reef health.
Benjamin Hubert’s studio Layer has worked with US start-up Croft to design a system of products for retrofitting vehicles to run on green hydrogen.
The Nanoplant and Nanocartridges are the first prototypes from Croft, which is currently raising funds for the project, and enable users to produce their own solid-state hydrogen to power cars, trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles.
With an appearance similar to a large home battery, the Nanoplant uses electricity and water from the mains supply to carry out electrolysis — the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen.
The Croft system features a Nanoplant and cartridges for powering retrofitted vehicles with hydrogen
The hydrogen obtained in this process is known as “green hydrogen” because, if it is produced using renewable energy, it creates no greenhouse gas emissions. This is in contrast to “blue hydrogen”, which is produced from natural gas and creates some emissions.
The Nanoplant contains a pull-out drawer with room for four Nanocartridges, which store the hydrogen by sticking it to the surface of a proprietary particulate. According to the brand, this method stores the hydrogen densely and at low pressure, making it a safe solution that also gives more power and range than electric batteries.
According to Layer, Croft is “dedicated to creating a blueprint for an enduring, scalable, green-hydrogen economy” and offers its technology at a much lower cost than other hydrogen storage solutions on or near the market.
The Nanoplant produces hydrogen by splitting it from water through electrolysis
The studio says the product is best suited for larger vehicles in environments with little fast-charging infrastructure, and that heavy-duty pick-up trucks for farming, forestry, construction and other industries are the first target.
“Batteries are great to decarbonise smaller passenger vehicles that get used in gentle, predictable ways with access to good charging infrastructure,” Hubert told Dezeen.
“However, lots of mobility applications don’t match that description, and there, we need a power source that is denser than batteries and has fewer dependencies on infrastructure,” he added.
“Hydrogen stores significantly more energy in less space and with less weight than batteries, and it’s much easier to use hydrogen in environments with weak grids or where charging otherwise isn’t available.”
The technology is said to be best for heavy-duty vehicles like pick-up trucks
Hubert said that, at least in the short term, hydrogen would be a complement to electric vehicle technology, not a competitor.
“It’s a great complementary solution to batteries, and as with all things, it’s important to pick the right tool for the right job,” he continued.
To retrofit a vehicle with the technology, Croft removes most of the components of the power train and replaces them with its hydrogen storage system, a fuel cell, electric motors and other components, while reprogramming the vehicle’s onboard computer to utilise them.
Layer led the design and engineering of the Nanoplant and Nanocartridges, endeavouring to make them straightforward and easy to understand while also giving them an aesthetic that would communicate robustness and technological prowess.
The Nanocartridges store hydrogen in a solid state and at low pressure
The Nanoplant is modular and infinitely expandable — additional Nanoplant modules can be connected horizontally, each with the capacity for four Nanocartridges.
Each module has a minimal user interface on its front that counts down the time left to complete the recharge, and there is also a hose module for on-board charging. The drawer containing Nanocartridges can also double as a cart for transporting them to the vehicle.
The Nanocartridges weigh 14 to 16 kilograms and have four side handles, creating a cubic frame that can be easily gripped and stacked. A circular indicator on the top surface shows the cartridge’s remaining hydrogen capacity.
The system includes a hose for on-board charging
According to Layer, each cartridge has a range of 20 to 80 miles depending on the size of the vehicle and how hard it works.
“In addition to rapid fueling, cartridges also allow operators to carry additional fuel with them or receive rescue fuel if an asset gets stranded in the field, two features that today’s battery vehicles lack,” said Hubert.
In addition to its product design work, Layer created the brand identity for Croft, including the brandmark and packaging.
Layer also designed the brand identity and packaging for Croft
The brandmark is based on an abstracted letter “H”, which has been stylised to also look like a road vanishing into the distance. It will be used in many ways, including debossed into products, applied as a micro-pattern to create texture, and as a call to action on interaction points.
Layer has been embracing emerging technologies, and has recently also worked on the Ledger Stax hardware wallet for storing cryptocurrency and the Viture One video streaming glasses.
Spotted: Most of us are aware of the environmental harm cause by the use of concrete – around 8 per cent of all global carbon emissions are due to the use of this common material. Given the ubiquity of its use, it’s clear that achieving net zero is going to involve somehow reducing the impact of concrete and its main component – cement. Finnish company Carbonaide is working to achieve this with a carbon-negative concrete.
Concrete is a mixture of aggregate (small stones), and a paste made from cement and water. Through a chemical reaction, the cement and water hardens and gains strength to form concrete. The problem is that creating cement requires heating limestone and other ingredients to a very high heat – which takes a lot of energy. Carbonaide’s solution involves the development of an efficient method to bind carbon dioxide into precast concrete using an automated system.
This method operates at atmospheric pressure and reduces the amount of cement required to produce concrete. The company claims its technology can halve the CO2 emissions of traditional Portland cement-based concrete. In addition, the precast concrete component can include industrial side streams, such as industry slags and bio-ash, further reducing the carbon footprint.
The company’s process can permanently store and remove CO2 from the carbon cycle – making it carbon negative. Tapio Vehmas, CEO of Carbonaide, explains that the company has, “demonstrated in the pilot unit that our technology is capable of reducing the CO2 emissions of conventional concrete by 45 per cent. Last autumn, we demonstrated lowering our products’ carbon footprint to -60 kg/m3 by replacing Portland cement with slag.”
At Springwise, we have seen a wide range of innovations that focus on reducing the environmental impact of concrete. These have included a concrete designed to be covered in moss, to provide cleaner air, and a carbon-negative cement that uses rocks instead of limestone.
Australian architecture practice BVN and the University of Technology Sydney have created a low-carbon, 3D-printed system that “breathes” like frog skin.
Named Systems Reef 2, the invention was made of recycled plastic 3D printed into a computationally optimised design that BVN said has 90 per cent less embodied carbon than a standard air-conditioning system.
The system also uses less operational energy because the air flows more easily around the organically shaped, branching tubing, with no corners to get stuck in.
Systems Reef 2 is a reimagined system of air conditioning with an optimised design
The invention was designed to tackle the many deficiencies the architecture studio identified with air conditioning, a technology that BVN co-CEO Ninotschka Titchkosky describes as not having changed much since its invention in the early 1900s and having been “largely designed for manufacturing processes as opposed to human comfort”.
Air conditioning systems are typically made from steel sheets, which the BVN and UTS team’s analysis showed results in high embodied carbon and the use of much more material than is necessary. The systems also waste energy because they are structurally inefficient and difficult to change after installation.
“At the moment, the systems that we have, they’re really inflexible, they’re not particularly great for human comfort, they’re really expensive to change and they really limit the way we want to occupy buildings now in the 21st century, which is much more adaptive and agile,” Titchkosky told Dezeen.
The system is made of recycled plastic that is 3D printed into tubes
A key difference with Systems Reef 2 is that it’s “designed for air”, removing one of the key sources of inefficiency in existing systems: right angles.
These systems’ orthogonal designs, while suiting sheet metal construction, lead to air becoming stuck in corners and needing more energy to force it out.
“The most shocking thing we realised is that existing air conditioning systems basically aren’t aerodynamic and don’t even go through a computational fluid dynamic modelling process most of the time,” said Titchkosky.
The tubing is meant as a replacement for steel air conditioning ducting
Systems Reef 2 instead has an irregular, branching form with no sharp corners, and with a tapering shape so that extra energy isn’t needed to push cool air out of the furthest reaches of the tubing.
With the friction removed from the system, it is also smaller and slimmer, using overall less material.
To increase the comfort level for people sitting under the contraption, the team drew inspiration from frogs, which breath through their skin. Instead of using ducts, they covered Systems Reef 2 in tiny pores that effectively mist cool air into the space below.
The tubing is said to have a beautiful, crystalline appearance
For a low-carbon material solution that is suitable for 3D printing, they chose recycled plastic, on the basis that not only is plastic waste plentiful but it can be easily recycled again and again, making Systems Reef 2 a circular design.
BVN used waste plastic that was obtained from hospitals, crushed into pellets and fed into the 3D-printing robot.
The material gives Systems Reef 2 a translucent, crystalline appearance that BVN says is “very beautiful”. There is also the possibility to print it in colours or illuminate it to personalise an office environment.
The 3D-printing process gives BVN and UTS the ability to precisely control the shape of the ducting
The team’s final goal for Systems Reef 2 was that it be adaptable, which they achieved with a click-and-connect system with standardised fixings and seals to facilitate easy changes.
Because it is so simple and light, BVN estimates that it cuts down on onsite labour by more than 50 per cent — a significant draw given worldwide labour shortages — while being friendlier to the health of the installers.
The team uses generative design to tailor Systems Reef 2 to specific spaces, with an algorithm generating hundreds of iterations based on a given floor plan and the final design being chosen and tweaked through manual review.
BVN installed a prototype Systems Reef 2 at its own studio in Sydney, replacing the existing tertiary ducting and diffusers. It is now exploring more demonstration projects while getting the design ready to launch as a commercial product.
BVN has installed a prototype of Systems Reef 2 at its studio in Sydney
It particularly sees the product as having great potential for retrofitting ageing buildings and says it could theoretically be installed in any office with an open-plan layout.
It is the second Systems Reef project BVN has undertaken, with each dedicated to some aspect of building services.
The team is now aiming to bring their invention to the market
“The reason it’s called Systems Reef is because we were starting to think about all the layers that exist in the ceiling as sort of like a reef — this kind of multi-layered environment where everything plays a part,” said Titchkosky.
“We wanted to move away from the idea of a services infrastructure to a services system that was more holistically interwoven and a lot smarter.”
BVN is an Australian architecture practice with offices in Sydney, Brisbane, London and New York. Its current projects include the Sydney headquarters for technology company Atlassian, which will be one of the world’s tallest hybrid timber towers at 40 storeys in height.
