Be Open think tank

BE OPEN and CUMULUS are happy to announce the three main winners of the ‘Second Life of Things in Design’ international student competition that focused on United Nations SDG programme. SDGs were adopted by all United Nations Member States as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030. 683 projects from students and graduates of creative courses in universities in 44 countries were submitted, demonstrating a creative, design-oriented take on the problems of sustainability, wiser production and consumption formulated by SDG12. The three selected winners - Valerio Di Giannantonio (Iceland University of the Arts), Natalie Ferry and Stefano Pagani (Parsons School of Design, The New School in New York), and Frida van der Drift Breivik and Frøya Thue (The Oslo School of Architecture and Design in Norway), - will receive the prizes of €5,000, €3,000, €2,000 from each BE OPEN and Cumulus. In addition to the three winners, the judges selected 50 honorable mentions, out of which two more winners of ‘Second Life of Things in Design’ will be named: one selected by the founder of BE OPEN Elena Baturina, and one selected by an open online vote. Both of the winners will receive €2,000.

Dear friends, we invite you to vote for your favourite project and creator for them to be awarded €2,000 of the Public Vote Prize in the “Second Life of Things in Design” competition! The short-listed projects are the 50 honorable mentions selected by our international expert jury out of almost 700 submissions, accumulated by the Cumulus Green 2020: For A New Circular Economy programme. The creator of the project with the biggest number of your votes will not only get the prize money, they will attend the awards ceremony in Rome in 2021 to present their creative ideas to a wide panel of academics, design professionals, sustainability experts, and many more. The vote is on till 15 June, 2020. Please, choose your winner! http://sltd2019.com/choose-your-winner/

#BeOpenNEWS Today, in the time of distraught caused to our lives by the COVID-19 virus, more than ever, we need to see unexpected beauty in the customary and capture it to share with others. With #BEOPEN_at_home we reach out to all creative minds around the globe for their positivity and inspiration, so much needed to overcome the hardships of self-isolation and support millions of people touched by the pandemic. Stay creative, reimagine your daily routine, add style to chores, fashion a perfect space for remote work and learning, add colour to your kids’ activities, and share your unconventional ideas with the global community by joining our #BEOPEN_at_home Instagram open call for visual responses. The entries will close June 30, 2020. The winner will receive a €600 prize. Full rules: beopensocial.com

To give a chance to more creatives around the globe willing to make their statement to support the UN’s SDG12, entry deadline for our #BEOPENThinkFuture Instagram challenge has been extended to May 31st. You now have two extra months to submit your art, video, photography or graphics that help raise awareness of mass consumption and mass production issues, be recognized and get an opportunity to win €300! We’d be thrilled to receive your visual responses! We thank everyone who is participating! Featured submissions are by Mikhail Kapychka, Liliana Nicolae, Johanna-Josefina Alanko, Jutta Imelda Kanneberger, Alii Mirhosseini Rules: beopensocial.com

New York architect Marc Thorpe has developed houses made from earth bricks intended to create a work-based community for Moroso's M'Afrique furniture makers in Senegal. Each building featuring two apartments and a studio is designed to accomodate a whole family of weavers and welders to live and work in. Named Dakar House, the structure pays homage to traditional patterns found in African textiles and paintings via their characteristic pointed roofs. The house is to be built from earth bricks, a common material in Senegal, both sustainable and cheap. The technology is dating back to over 5,000 years ago and includes packing locally sourced earth into a mould and curing it over several weeks. marcthorpedesign.com

Pino, a multi-functional kitchen appliance by German designer Manuel Immler does not need electricity to operate. The eco-friendly product features a straightforward crank drive and can perform a variety of high speed tasks, transforming the movement of hand to over 1000 rpm, which is enough to whip eggs or cream as well as to carry out activities requiring greater forces, such as grinding coffee. Pino was conceived as a product to be maintained for decades, hence its timeless design and sustainable choice of materials. Wood veneers have been chosen for the housing as wood ages gracefully, while the base is made of cast iron, the gears of brass and the connecting parts of sheet steel, due to the metals’ long life span and excellent circulation properties. More sustainable home appliances in our blog.beopenfuture.com

AO Air’s Atmos faceware is the latest high-tech personal filter designed to remove pollutants and infections from the air you breathe. The design encompasses a clear mask that goes across the face, covering the mouth and nose. Incorporated is a system of the li-ion powered fans that adapt to the user’s breathing and generates a pocket of clean air in front of their face. The mask cleans the air at about 240 liters per minute, while its filters last up to one month, depending on the air quality. The manufacturer claims that according to independent testing, Atmos faceware provides 50 times better protection than a standard air filtering mask. More bespoke smart face masks in our blog.beopenfuture.com

Brand studio Placeholder founded by Japanese artist Sho Shibuya has come up with a stunning eco-friendly alternative to plastic carriers that are currently banned in New York, where the studio is based. Taking inspiration from their trip to Taiwan, the team has developed a novel bag design that becomes a stable, three-dimensional mesh from a single sheet of material. As its name suggests, Biodegradable Bamboo Bag (BBB) is made from bamboo fibre, a renewable and sustainable material that can 100% compost away and is strong enough to stow cabbages or grapefruits. www.placeholder.nyc If you too support UN’s SDG 12 devoted to responsible consumption and production, join our #BEOPENThinkFuture Instagram challenge. Share the visuals on the topic to win €300. Rules: beopensocial.com

British designer Paul Cocksedge has designed the Exploded View, a CLT footbridge to span the Liesbeek River in Cape Town, South Africa. The bridge is set to be built within the Upper Liesbeek River Garden as a permanent river crossing. Cocksedge has chosen eucalyptus, an invasive tree species for South Africa, as the one and only construction material for the bridge. The eucalyptus wood is transformed into cross-laminated timber (CLT), the material that is strong enough to be a sustainable alternative to steel and concrete. The lengths of the CLT beams forming the bridge will be staggered to create various ledges and seats to offer the pedestrians resting areas. More stunning footbridges in our blog.beopenfuture.com

Win €300 in our new open call! Are you concerned about the future of the Planet? Make your statement by sharing your visuals promoting the values of UN’s SDG 12 devoted to responsible consumption and production with #BEOPENThinkFuture hashtag. Rules: beopensocial.com In their Microplastic Project for Copenhagen Zoo, the branding and communication agency Sweet Sneak Studio and photographer Morten Bentzon address the issue of micro plastics and their presence in our food. The tiny plastic pieces escape water treatment filtration systems and end up in oceans where they are ingested by fish and sea animals, which end up on our plates. Aimed to create more awareness on our usage of single-use plastics, the visual campaign portrays eight different foods and beverages contaminated by micro plastics. The team believes that the only way to solve the problem is “to reduce the problem at its source, namely, to reduce the use of plastics in our daily life.” sweetsneak.com