Be Open think tank

#BeOpenARCH As part of the competition organized by the owners of a hotel in the mountain village in northern Italy, architects Markus Hinteregger and Elias Lahner have envisioned an extension based on the organic forms of the surroundings. Between the original buildings, clad in expanded metal to unify all the façades, the architects have placed organic spaces that look like they have been carved from the land, their rounded forms harmonizing with the hilly landscape. This extension, embedded in the landscape, can be used for a variety of functions and is conceived as the focal point for guests who stay in the hotel. More extraordinary subterranean hotels in our blog

#BeOpenART Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. What you will remember 2021 by depends solely on how you evaluate the past year’s lessons and achievements. How would you sum up your year in one image or video? What visual taken over the year best reflects how you feel about it? We invite you to sit back and reflect on the year 2021, and share the most heart-warming or outstanding, remarkable moment with the world by joining our new #BeOpenMy2021 Instagram open call. The winner will get €300. Photo credits: www.behance.net/jyojohn

#BeOpenDESIGN Mopet is a compact electric scooter from Japan that gives the rider the opportunity to ride with their pets. The pet’s seat is integrated into the vehicle’s body right under the driver’s saddle. It features a small opening that allows the dog to free their heads and look around. When not in use by your four-legged buddy, the space below can be employed for daily uses, serving as a place for shopping bags or baggage. The foldable scooter weighs around 25 kg and can easily be stored in the trunk of a car. It is equipped with a large-capacity battery that can travel up to 60km and outfitted with safety parts, which means you can commute your pet safely using public roads.

#BeOpenDESIGN Estonian rapper Tommy Cash has proposed to IKEA an extravagant sofa inspired by bread loaf and envisioned by artist Gab Bois. Aptly named LOAFA, the piece looks like a hyper-real composition of glazed bread rolls. The pictures the rapper posted on his account have taken social media by storm. Do you feel like sharing your food-inspired visuals too? Join our #BEOPENFoodIdentity Instagram open call by adding the corresponding hashtag to your visuals reflecting how what you eat defines what you are. The prize is €300.

#BeOpenDESIGN To create their PS Synergy Mule, Amsterdam-based brand Peterson Stoop took apart more than 500 used sneakers as a way to tackle the issue of waste in the footwear industry. To collect the material for their shoes, Jelske Peterson and Jarah Stoop have settled a partnership with a French company that specializes in collecting, sorting and recycling all kinds of textiles and shoes. The designers use their experience and solid knowledge of traditional techniques they acquired through working at a shoe repair shop and leather tannery to deconstruct vintage Nike Air Force and Adidas Stan Smith and rebuild them with natural materials, including cork and leather. The duo deliberately shows the hand of the first maker in the shoes’ unpicked stitches to make each pair one of a kind. The mules are then packed in a dust bag made from a secondhand mens shirt, a secondhand Nike shoe box and wrapped in an read Dutch newspaper.

#BeOpenDESIGN Austrian product designer Barbara Gollackner has teamed up with chef Martin Kilga to create a series of plates, bowls, cutlery, and dishes made from recycled food leftovers. Concerned by the fact that Europeans waste around 90 million tonnes of food every year, the designer has developed a technique, which consists in either cooking or drying a range of discarded morsels from stale bread to pig skin before blending them with mycelium, vegetative part of mushrooms, to toughen the mix. The resulting paste that is then extruded on an FDM printer. The design of the objects is kept simple so as not to make the printing process too complex. What’s your food identity? Share your ideas with the community by joining our #BEOPENFoodIdenity Instagram open call. Be the one to win our €300 cash prize.

#BeOpenDESIGN British designer Adam Nathaniel Furman has created a series of architectural artworks in specially-made waterjet-cut ceramics for the Maternity ward of Chelsea & Westminster Hospital in London. The works, collectively called "Radiance," have been commissioned by the London hospital to enhance its reception area and entrances. The artist explained that the project is based on the theme of birth and rebirth, which is "associated with the joy of spring" and the emergence of colourful flora. The chromatically deep and rich colours specified by Furman were screen printed onto the tiles in Stoke-on-Trent by The Surface Design Studio. Then they were cut using a water-jet machine to achieve the complex mosaic effect. More bespoke hospitals interiors in our blog

#BeOpenDESIGN Chinese design firm X+Living has created a functional layout, which meets the needs of both parents and children for a family-friendly restaurant in Neobio Family Park in Shanghai. The most eye-catching part is an S-shaped slide, from which the children could slide directly to the dining area on the first floor. Parents could bring their children to enjoy delicious food in the area after the children had a great time playing all around. Here, lots of balloon-like hanging Game Boxes are designed, all of which are connected by transparent crawlways. The Game Boxes feature different kinds of pools, some are filled with bubbles, some are with sand and some with toys. Some climbing ladders might reach to 2 meters high and then descend to the next pool, which allows parents walk under the crawlways. Made of transparent acrylic, the winding crawlways let parents look after their kids as they play inside. They can also do that while dining, as there are dining tables around these boxes. More fairytale-like family-friendly restaurants in our blog

#BeOpenDESIGN Wall-mounted cat shelves created by the cat goods company MyZoo are a great space-saving idea for pet owners living in small apartments. Unlike bulky cat towers and stringy scratching pads, their Luna and Solar floating cat beds mount onto any vertical surface allowing cats to rest midair in their own designated space. Perfect for small spaces, they provide a resting spot and jumping platform for cats without taking up valuable floor space. The designs are easy to put together and come with assembly instructions

BeOpenDESIGN Japanese designer Takuto Ohta has created a bespoke furniture set. It consists of wooden building blocks with 45-degree cuts, which can be combined in various configurations using colored masking tape to bind them together. The set allows the user to form an array of furniture pieces – from stools to benches and tabletops. Named Innocent, the set is conceived by the designer as a primitive’ tool bringing out the sensibility and imagination of stacking things according to intuition. ‘The creativity of building blocks, which can transform into rockets and buildings, shows the surprising complexity of letting things flow naturally,’ the designer reflects.