Be Open think tank

Tati Ferrucio, a Brazilian industrial designer, currently living in United States, has developed a set of sand toys that aims to teach children how to take care of their own food, encouraging the new generations to build a more sustainable living future. Named Veggies, the set encompasses four toy vegetables, which can be filled with sand, and two shovels with three interchangeable heads and interchangeable foliage that act as handles for the child to hold. Developed for children between 2 to 5 years old, the set is meant to stimulate outdoor play as well as enhance children's curiosity for exploring nature.

Chinese designer Xiaoxi Xiong has designed a 1000 sqm office informed by the “blurry and warm sense of the future” depicted in Spike Jonze’s sci-fi movie Her, which chronicles how a man falls in love with an artificially intelligent virtual assistant, and is set in the protagonist’s high-rise minimalist apartment. Trying to replicate the movie’s striking aesthetic, the designer covered almost every surface in the office for the furniture brand Fnji, with soft grey gypsum plaster. This ultra-matte finish is interrupted by a couple of textural featured walls, which she created by pouring semi-solidified gypsum over jumbled piles of broken bricks. More cinematic interiors informed by motion pictures in our blog

Norwegian architecture office Spacegroup has designed Movikheien Cabins, a series of wooden dwellings that seem to effortlessly float amidst the Nordic forest. The design of the cabins features a semi-covered balcony space that enables the interior to extend outdoors and helps to naturally condition the residence. Designed to be minimally invasive, each 64 sqm cabin is made almost entirely of wood, a renewable material that helps the buildings blend into the landscape. Since the site is designed to be inaccessible by car, the structures are pre-fabricated with components small enough to be transported without traditional construction machinery. Residents will also have to use hiking paths to reach the destination.

Addressing the pressing issue of construction waste, architect and designer from Spain Irene Roca Moracia has created a modular furniture system made from discarded building materials. Titled Appropriating the Grid, it is composed of 11 modules that can be combined and joined with metal clips to serve a range of different functions, from seating to storage. The designer welds and hand-patinates surplus reinforcement mesh to form a frame, which is then topped with different types of cement and sand that were thrown away because their packaging had torn in transit. This layer is internally reinforced through insulation panels that were broken or water damaged on their way to the construction site. Moracia uses pulverised bricks as a pigment to colour the panels. More aesthetically pleasing applications of construction debris in our blog

In the grounds of a former convent in Riom, France, Paris-based architecture firm Tracks Architecture has designed a new multi-cinema complex that consists of three distinct movie theatres, totaling 543 seats. The structure is divided into two contrasting concrete volumes. While the first of the two is dark, rough and monolithic, the other one is white and apparently fragile due to its succession of arches. The identifiable openings of the façade is an element borrowed from the architectural vocabulary of the site – namely, they echo a nearby wall broken with seven arches enclosing the former convent. However, to give the colonnade a contemporary interpretation, the architects arranged the arches in an irregular pattern. More bespoke cinema buildings in our blog

The Dune House by Oslo-based Studio Viktor Sørless is an isolated coastal summer home commissioned by a film enthusiast to be a retreat inspired by Roman Polanski’s movie The Ghostwriter. From the outside, the waterfront house “with the cinematic qualities” is distinguished by its cross-shaped form oriented to the four cardinal directions. This makes the light the fifth element driving the design, as its angle wanders with the sun and changes throughout the day. Elevated off the ground on a central column, the structure is made from locally sourced natural stone and topped by a green roof, which helps to improve the summer heat insulation. To enhance the sustainability of the residence, a solar heat system is integrated to cover the water heating and heating supply.

The Japanese startup Open Meals uses 3D printing technology to customise nutritious food. Their new restaurant in Tokyo called Sushi Singularity aims to revolutionize sushi by digitizing its ingredients, designs, and flavors. Guests who make reservations in the restaurant are asked to submit a health test kit with biological samples, such as saliva and urine, to determine what nutrients should be in their meal. The biometric and DNA data are then analysed by health experts prior to using 3D printers (printing with food cartridges containing plant ingredients, such as seaweed, enzymes and fibre) and laser technology to create hyper-personalized dishes injected with nutrients that the customer might be lacking in. More sushi art in our blog

With his Tree in the House set to be built in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Los Angeles based architect Aibek Almassov has taken the concept of a cabin to the next level. Designed as an inverted tree house, the tubular naked glass structure appears to be blending in with the surrounding woods, while offering 360-degree views of the stunning greenery from each of its ring-shaped floors. The four levels are connected by a spiralling white staircase that wraps around the trunk of the tree and seems to be fading into the sky through the transparent glass ceiling. The architect compares climbing the stairs in this unusual house with the stages of spiritual purification, enlightenment, harmonising with the environment.

Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Santa Kupča has developed Stuck-at-Home Masquerade, a collection of garments that express how she felt when being isolated in time of the lockdown. Each of the three items of clothing represents a different "mundane" aspect of having to stay indoors and is made using materials Kupča found around her home during lockdown, including the stuffing of an old duvet and leftover polyester fabric. To create different patterns on the duvet dresses, Kupča used a regular home printer. Designed to embody "pleasant idleness,” the Dolce Far Niente dress embraces the essence of doing nothing and enjoying it. It encompasses a floor-length pillowy A-dress printed, which Kupča describes as “illuminating a feeling of a princess who's prepared to go out and socialize,” as well as “the pure awkwardness that arises from not knowing how to act around people anymore.” More lockdown-inspired fashion in our blog

On International Women’s Day, we suggest playing a feminist version of the classic Guess Who game. Polish designer Zuzia Kozerska has created an guessing game named Who’s She? that celebrates accomplished women throughout history. The biography cards are made of beautiful Baltic birch wood for a solid, natural feel, and protected with linseed oil for durability, and feature portraits of 28 women, who represent a variety of professions, ethnicity, and ages, from painter Frida Kahlo to astronaut Valentina Tereshkova, hand painted in watercolour. Offering to guess the identity by answering questions about her accomplishments, rather than her appearance, the game includes interesting and inspiring facts only about women, to show that girls can do anything, even if someone says 'It's a boy thing!'