Be Open think tank

London-based practice Will Gamble Architects has designed a residential extension to a listed Victorian house in Northamptonshire, UK on the place of the ruins of a 17th-century parchment factory and old cattle shed. Instead of demolishing the ruin to make room for the new extension, the studio proposed ‘a building within a building’ with two lightweight volumes delicately inserted within the masonry walls in order to preserve and celebrate it. Named The Parchment Works, the single-storey extension introduces an open-plan kitchen, living and dining area, and occupies one half of the ruins footprint to reduce the visual impact of the newly built structure and ensure it is subordinate to the ruin. More beautifully designed residential extensions in our blog.beopenfuture.com

i am OTHER, the creative collective assembled by the artist Pharrell Williams, has collaborated with a circular economy company Pentatonic to create the Pebble, a compact and portable dining toolkit made of reclaimed materials. The case is made from recycled CDs, while the handles of the featured knife, fork, spoon and chopsticks are derived from recycled food packaging. Weighing about the same as a smartphone, the kit comes with a carabiner-style clip that makes it easy to carry along. Designed in response to the increasing environmental threat of plastic pollution, the Pebble is intended to serve as an alternative to single-use plastic utensils. iamother.com Even if a product is old, broken, or obsolete, the material in it still has so much more to give. We invite you to join our open call through sharing your ideas of repurposing and recycling in Instagram with #BEOPENBetterWay hashtag. The winner will get the prize of €300. Full rules: beopensocial.com

While most of us see a slice of bread as a base for our breakfast toast in the morning, Japanese water colour artist and designer Manami Sasaki uses toasts as her canvas, reproducing artworks and art techniques with the help of margarine, mustard, ketchup and other edibles available in her fridge. More bread-based artworks in our blog.beopenfuture.com

Extending 526.14 meters, a new bridge in China’s Huangchuan Three Gorges Scenic Area designed by the Architectural Design & Research Institute of Zhejiang University Co. Ltd. (UAD) has broken the Guinness World Record as the world’s longest glass-bottomed suspension bridge. Innovative construction techniques allow the bridge structure blend seamlessly into nature and hold 500 people. To reduce its visual impact, and also create a unique experience for visitors, the bridge is paved with three layers of 4.5cm thick tempered laminated ultra-clear glass. Since typhoons are frequent in the area, the team performed wind tunnel testing and finite element simulations to assure the safety and optimum wind resistance of the bridge. Dubbed by the designers a ‘transparent corridor’, this landmark gives one a feeling of a dragon soaring up towards the sky. zuadr.com

Belgian co-working company Fosbury&Sons has commissioned the local studio Going East to overhaul their 7,000 sqm office spaces in the modernist 1970s building. The studio added Japanese and James Bond like vibes to the interior, while making it feel more like a home than an office. The luxurious, professional interiors exude a mature and warm feel while respecting the already existing structures and unique character of the building by Constantin Brodzki, one of Belgium’s most innovative architects. Corridors were removed from the layout to create more open spaces. The design includes private and shared office spaces, 15 fully equipped meeting rooms, an auditorium, a large event room in the open lobby with bar, and a restaurant, as well as numerous other shared workspaces throughout the building with a total capacity to accommodate 600 people and 25 companies. More co-working spaces that help build new ideas in our blog.beopenfuture.com

Stockholm-based designer Maki Omamoto has collaborated with an Amsterdam-based art unit Steinbeisser to create cutlery that celebrates experimentation and the search for new ways to enjoy food. Driven by a search for new ways to enjoy food, these pieces don’t follow the normal rules of usability. The works invite the user to find out different perspectives, whilst becoming a part of the creation. All the tableware elements are here, while the function is no longer obvious. More unusable experimental tableware in our blog.beopenfuture.com

Don’t miss your chance to win €300! Our Instagram challenge invites the creatives who feel anything can be made into something new, if you keep your imagination awake. Joining is as easy as sharing your repurposing and recycling ideas on Instagram with #BEOPENBetterWay hashtag. Rules: beopensocial.com Stockholm-based product and interior designer Daniel Svahn has developed A New Paradigm, a collection of six pieces of contract furniture made from furniture discarded by the same sector. Inspired by the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, the project shows the potential material can have if it is allowed to live out its full lifecycle. Svahn worked with recycling companies to learn about the problem articles, such as laminated pieces and obsolete furniture typologies. The reclaimed materials do not undergo much processing – it takes just some sanding and a coat of paint for the finished upcycled products to look new. Since the designer only does minimal work cutting the pieces and connecting them with wooden pegs and glue, the user can knock them apart and treat the material the same way again for new purposes and designs. danielsvahn.com

Chicago-based designer Yuting Chang has combined mass production method of slip-casting and age-old craft techniques to create her version of the traditional blue-and-white Chinese porcelain. Appropriately named Plycelain, a term coined by Chang as a reference to how plywood is constructed with layers of compressed wood, the collection encompasses multilayered tableware that shows its colour on the rims and edges, skillfully embedded within the clay. The designer incorporates up to 29 layers to her pieces switching between colors within the mould. Different components are cast in various moulds before they are individually assembled by hand to achieve the desired look. More modern tableware in our blog.beopenfuture.com

As part of London Design Festival 2020, acclaimed British Designer, Paul Cocksedge has presented a collection of eight tables with industrial sheets of glass stretched under high temperatures and ‘slumped’ over bases of steel, wood and stone. Aptly named ‘Slump’, the limited edition series is an exploration of how a solid industrial material can be altered through time and nature. Each piece is produced as a result of collaboration with dozens of craftspeople utilizing special techniques. Through these complex processes, the rigid and flat glass gets an unexpected softness and fluidity, so that the bases appear to be under waer surface. This effect is emphasized in the Bubble table, where a soft drop-like surface is created over tubing of patinated steel. paulcocksedgestudio.com

The global design firm Populous has designed two almost identical spherical venues for the Madison Square Garden Company to be built in Las Vegas and London. MSG Sphere London is conceived to be 120 metres wide and 90 metres high, which will make it the world’s new largest spherical building. The exterior of the sphere will be covered in LED screens used to display high-definition concert footage or advertising images. Internally, the venue is designed to feature a screen that the MSG describes as the "largest and highest resolution media display on Earth". The arena in Las Vegas is currently under construction, while the MSG Sphere London is still debated. More spherical architecture in our blog.beopenfuture.com