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3 | 2017

The magazine for form and function, meaning and value:

designreport.

The skin of thingsFacades and surfaces – multifunctional, intelligent, visionary

ad_design_report_05_2015_210_297_plus_3_emco_touch_bel.indd 1 04.09.15 10:25

3 HeadEditorial

T he excitement that designers have been showing in their exploration of materials, surfaces and fa-cades in recent years seems to have given way to

a certain nonchalance. To the obvious conclusion that, if the world is to remain liveable for generations to come, a level-headed approach to materials development is essen-tial. Breathless enthusiasm has been replaced by quiet con-fidence that there is no reason why a niche experiment can’t lead to a product suitable for large-scale manufactur-ing – even if it takes a while. And by the certainty that, in a society that celebrates nerds, no idea is too weird.

Not even the idea of developing a kind of facade made of outsized aquariums that produce microalgae for generat-ing biogas – as seen on the BIQ-Haus in Hamburg. Chris-tian Tröster investigates this and similar projects involving innovative facades in his article “Research on the front-line”. Even if they sound like mixed-up ideas from second-year students, today’s materials developments are “rooted in wide-ranging considerations about the climate, energy, the environment and functionality” (see p. 30).

At this year’s Interzum materials trade fair, the broad spectrum of possibilities for recycling and upgrading re-sources was the focus of an exhibition curated by materials specialists Diana Drewes and Sascha Peters, who have re-capped the showcase for us in “Waste not want not”. Charmingly conventional repurposing ideas such as chairs made of old bicycle frames are featured alongside furniture whose material – willow – was grown in the desired form, thereby saving resources even during the production pro-cess (see p. 48).

Whether it’s a case of architecture or furniture design: the latest developments in this field are all about added benefits that enhance the materials’ properties in terms of the amount of resources used, energy efficiency, usability or unusual aesthetics. What’s more, an in-depth considera-tion of materials and surfaces prompts reflection on the interplay between technical trends in design and develop-ments in society. “Lately we’ve started to associate shine with the pseudo-confidence that financial institutions and the new rich want to imbue us with,” observes Dutch de-signer Chris Kabel in one of his three essays about surfaces

(see p. 26). “So, we use matt as a material statement of civ-il disobedience, knowingly denying that in the end matt will turn shiny as well.”

Some readers might be wondering who the new face in the top right corner is. Who would voluntarily sign on as editor-in-chief of a niche magazine in the limping print media market? As a designer myself, I’ve been familiar with designreport for a long time and very much admire the work of my predecessor Lars Quadejacob. And as a design-er and design journalist with 13 years of experience, cham-pioning designreport in the world of trend-sensitive, visu-ally powerful creative media is a prospect that very much appeals to me. So does the opportunity to cultivate it as a place for reflection and visions, for background informa-tion and specialist topics relating to all aspects of the design industry.

After my time as a freelance editor and author in Berlin, I was head of the editorial department at a design-oriented family-run business in the Sauerland area of Germany – a position that gave me the opportunity to learn about the industry’s perspectives and rhythms, needs and challenges. There are many facets to creative work – in the case of de-sign journalism, it means never looking into the future without keeping a sharp, realistic eye on real-life practice.

So now the pack is being reshuffled and we would love to hear your thoughts about the future of designreport. If you have any suggestions, innovative ideas or constructive criticism, please send them to lang@designreport.de.

I’m particularly looking forward to working with the designreport team based around copy chief Pauline Klünder and editor Klaus Meyer. The two of them have successfully overseen the editing of the last few issues, as well as developing and implementing the current issue with our team of specialist contributors – and a wealth of good ideas. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it – and I’m sure you will too!

Best regards, Wiebke Lang, Editor-in-chief

P.S.: Changing jobs can be fun! You’ll find plenty of brand-new positions in our job listings at www.designreport.de/jobboerse

Multifunctional, surprising, tactile

Contents

In depthFacades and surfaces

Products MaterialsStandards Newcomers

Editorial 3

The designer’s lot 6

Calendar 78

Next issue 80

Publication details 81

Closing thoughts 82

BulletinServiceware by Alessi, a projector by Sony, stools by Nola and much more 8

Shining examplesEight highlights from the Euroluce lighting show in Milan 10

Sit, sprawl, loveLasting impressions from the Salone del Mobile: a selection of seating that stood out in Milan this year 14

A selection of objects with spectacular physiognomy sets the scene for our in-depth report 18

The skin of thingsPaint, varnish, patina: virtually every object we come into contact with is covered with a “top layer”. But what’s it all about? An interview with designer Chris Kabel 24

Layers of meaning Why is “matt” in vogue? Can “steam” be designed? And why are we so eas-ily fooled by “shine”? Three essays by Chris Kabel 26

BulletinA flexible touchscreen, invisible connectors, laser-based glass deforma-tion and much more 46

Waste not want notThe Circular Thinking special showcase at Interzum pre-sented ideas for recycling materials 48

BulletinWild fanwear, a resourceful chair collection, composta-ble bowls and much more 50

Friendly takeoversCollaborations and presen-tations: the École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL) and its high-impact shows during the Milan Furniture Fair 52

Reviews

BulletinExhibitions: Food Revo-lution 5.0 in Hamburg Books: design for school-children, critical design, legal matters for designers and much more 56

A pioneerFrançois Burkhardt: Auf dem Weg zu Ungewissheiten 58

An old romantic with digital toolsRoss Lovegrove at the Centre Pompidou 60

Report Business

A visit to Busse Design+EngineeringSince the departure of com-pany founder Rido Busse, Gabriele Busse-Kilger and Felix Timm have been at the helm of one of the oldest and most successful design firms in Germany 66

BulletinDispute about Gio Ponti, scorn poured on Juicero, record sales at BSH and Hansgrohe and much more 74

Not quite the happy mediumThe ambitious plan to boost the rights of creatives fell by the way-side: the German Act on Improved Enforcement of the Entitlement to Appropriate Remuneration has been in force since March 76

People

Bulletin News about Sebastian Wrong, Renato Stauffacher, Claudio Luti, Brigitte Wolf, Jeff Bridges and much more 64

Research on the frontlineToday’s innovative facade materials can generate electricity, absorb air pollutants or change their properties. A report 30

Pushing the envelopeA brief and concise update on the materials and functions being incorporated into today’s facades 36

Masters of the material artsArchitects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron have a penchant for facades 39

Skimming the surface in MilanDesign for the fingertips: a tactile scouting mission at the Milan Furniture Fair 42

BulletinLuminale, Vienna Biennale, Bauhaus Campus Berlin, me Convention and much more 62

Design scene

6

F or many years now, Moroso has been inviting hip or acclaimed designers to guest at its showroom in downtown Milan for the duration of the Salone

del Mobile. On opening day, long queues of visitors on Via Pontaccio testify to the importance of the event. This year, the Italian furniture manufacturer was showing the Save Our Souls installation by Achilleas Souras. It consisted of an igloo that the 16-year-old artist had erected out of 1,000 lifejackets left behind by refugees on the beach of Lesbos. The object was meant to be interpreted as both a place of refuge and a sign of welcome. The wall was adorned with photos of its construction and montages of the igloo in emergency accommodation centres. In the room next to the igloo, a prosecco brand was serving drinks at a stand.

The design crowd downed a glass, had a quick peek inside the orange life jacket structure, ate a few nibbles and moved on. No long queues.

After decades of hyper-economising, many companies have a teeny-weeny credibility problem when it comes to criticising globalisation, rebuking capitalism or convinc-ing the public of their social engagement. We’ve seen too many interior brands get off to a high-minded start with promises of sustainability, socially responsible production, creative substance or the preservation of old craft tradi-tions, only to end up selling mass-produced vases on an ambitious scale and marketing meaningful candlesticks. There have been too many likeable online projects that set out with the goal of establishing a new, world-spanning community, only to mutate into global social media with a monstrous appetite for our personal data. We’ve watched

charming underdogs like Apple grow into tax-saving mul-tinationals, and seen how clever alternative projects like Airbnb and Uber do good business by commercialising individuality, casually changing the face of our inner cities or destroying entire sectors while they’re at it.

As sustainability, corporate responsibility and social de-sign evolve into new values, more and more companies are trying to combat the impression of superficiality, opulence and aestheticisation. Nobody wants to stand for nothing but commerce and profit. Everybody wants inner values instead of outward appearances. And so they brace themselves against the loss of relevance with image campaigns and even defensively cite criticism of their own products on bill-boards – as Facebook recently did in Germany: “You share a picture of your children and the whole world sees it.”

Ever since Naomi Klein’s No Logo from the year 2000, the dominance of brands has increasingly been called into question. As a result, companies in this postindustrial age of ours are desperately looking for credibility, identity and a unique DNA; a frantic search is on for authenticity, at-titude, individuality, change, community, experience! And since classic advertising has a hard time communicating all that nowadays, they are paying bloggers or Instagramers a lot of money to position their products in an authentic, credible setting – thereby simultaneously destroying any remaining shred of authenticity and credibility.

For furnishing brands too – who are increasingly copy-ing one another, confining themselves to small accessories that are easy to sell online, and resorting to the merely decorative because it makes the whole product liability thing so much easier – it is becoming increasingly difficult

to set themselves apart by letting the actual product tell the story. In Milan, the presentation of products has long since become the side effect of an all-encompassing stage show focused on the brand and its lifeworld. Which is why an increasing number of the projects you can find there stem from companies that don’t actually want to sell furniture or lamps at all. Take the Airbnb platform for instance, whose current TV ads suggest it brokers nothing but breathtaking accommodation where you’re treated like part of the family and get to partake in communal pizza baking sessions. In Milan, it took up residence in a spec-tacular palazzo again – this year it was the Casa degli Atel-lani, where Leonardo lived while he was working on The Last Supper. Small contemporary design objects were dot-ted around in the midst of historical bookcases, wall panel-ling and curio collections; but you can’t actually spend the night on the premises, obviously.

No matter how hard the brand consultants try, credibil-ity is something money can’t buy, authenticity something

Soul-saving manoeuvres

Design-savvy companies don’t always turn out to be dab hands at portraying themselves as socially engaged.

Perhaps because their own hands are too busy clutching a glass of prosecco?

By Markus Frenzl; illustration: Lars Hammer

that no amount of strategic planning can guarantee. As important as it is for design brands to be politically en-gaged, commit to pressing social issues, produce responsi-bly, attempt to find new forms of community or propagate an open society, it is nevertheless disconcerting when they do nothing more than transplant a few symbols of compas-sion into their usual luxury world, stage engagement in the same way they stage an exclusive event, artificially charge the brand with content or celebrate a project with Ikea as a prime example of democratic participation. In the con-text of Milan’s perfect marketing machinery, the over-the-top settings, the impressive palazzos and the photoshopped press photos, even well-meaning initiatives can easily seem like fig leaves for otherwise thoughtless production, the satisfaction of a jaded clientele’s needs or the contrived justification of luxury as charity. Because somehow, it’s hard to relate to refugees’ suffering as you tuck into pro-secco and nibbles. l

7 Standards The designer’s lot StandardsThe designer’s lot

1110 Products Euroluce

The Euroluce 2017 lighting show presented an extremely diverse selection of new product launches: from fragile to opulent and waterproof to inflatable, they covered the entire spectrum – all the way to totally bananas. They also demonstrated that the sector is currently experiencing a surge of new developments. The technical innovations of recent years were accompanied by a new-found delight in experimentation, and LEDs are still tempting designers to try out new forms and typologies. Not all of it is here to stay, but a tour of the trade fair was definitely a highly enjoyable experience, because many of the booths were radiant not just with light but with the innovativeness of good design.

By Jasmin Jouhar

Shining examples

In the loopBocci is second to none when it comes to giving opu-lence a contemporary look. Whereas multi-branched crystal chandeliers could once be counted on to cause a stir, nowadays it’s often the creations of Bocci design-er Omer Arbel that are used to provide decorative high-lights for lobbies or imposing staircases. The 87 Series definitely stood out among the new launches present-ed at Euroluce, and consisted of unique lighting ob-jects made of stretched and folded glass. The glass loops hang heavily over a cylinder that serves both as the light source and a mount for suspending the lumi-naire. The light flows through the object along the lay-ers of glass, creating a special shimmer thanks to the air trapped between them. bocci.ca

Light mattressThis was definitely one of the most unusual new products on show at Euroluce 2017: the inflatable Blow Me Up lamp from producer Ingo Maurer, designed by Theo Möller and the Ingo Maurer team. It comes rolled up inside a small can and consists of a 180cm-long plastic tube with an LED strip glued to it. The user just has to puff into it, switch it on and – hey presto! – the reflective inner surface of the tube scatters indirect light. Blow Me Up can be suspended from the ceiling, leaned against a wall or laid on a flat surface. But beware! According to the press re-lease, the light is “neither a swimming noodle nor a lasersword”. So please treat it accordingly!ingo-maurer.com

13 EuroluceProducts

A question of tasteTotally bananas, right? When Seletti’s instinct for bad taste collides with the subtle humour of Studio Job, the result can only be a glowing tropical fruit wrapped in a golden skin. Originally a limited edition launched by the Belgian-Dutch design duo, the lamp is now being produced for the mass market by the Italian manufac-turer. Made of synthetic resin and glass, it is available in three variants called Huey, Dewey and Louie. Bon appetit!seletti.it

Floating on airThe classic spherical lamp is currently inspiring a whole host of new variations, often combined with metal finishes like brass or chrome – echoes of Bauhaus and art deco, perhaps. Spanish designer Eugeni Quitllet prefers to keep his white glass sphere hovering in midair, held in place by nothing but a truncated cone made of clear glass. The two mouth-blown glass vessels are connected at the top. As simple as it is poet-ic, Satellight is available from Italian producer Foscarini as a large or small table lamp or a pendant light.foscarini.com

Under the guise of magicThe fascinating family of lamps Stefan Diez designed for Spanish producer Vibia already stole the show when his Full House exhibition opened in Cologne. Guise, which can mean appearance, semblance or pretence, takes ad-vantage of the fact that glass conducts light invisibly. The shade of the table and pendant lamps consist of a boro-silicate glass cylinder with a linear pattern engraved on it. The light, which emanates from LEDs concealed be-neath a black strip, only shines along this pattern and on the edges of the cylinder. The wall version consists of a glass disc that paints a glowing circle on the wall. A wave of the hand is all that’s needed to switch the lamp on or off. Guise probably isn’t the right choice for illuminating a workspace, but its pleasant, glare-free light definitely creates a great atmosphere.vibia.com

Clear as a bellBritish designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby actu-ally developed their wireless Bellhop table lamp for the restaurant at London’s new Design Museum, which opened its doors late last year. But their client Flos sur-prised Euroluce visitors with an entire Bellhop family. And while the lampshades might be reminiscent of the Beatles haircut, the name seems to suggest they were inspired by the hats sported by hotel pages. Besides the portable tabletop version, the indoor collection also in-cludes wall, pendant and floor lamps. On some of the bigger products, the head has been turned upside down so that it sits on top of the base like a little bowl on a torch (perhaps that’s no coincidence: Barber Osgerby designed the torch for the London Olympics in 2012). There is also an outdoor collection, consisting of bol-lard lights in two sizes and a wall light, all made entire-ly of aluminium.flos.com

Ring of wireFormafantasma were the stars of this year’s Euroluce. Their Foundation exhibition at the recently reopened Spazio Krizia de-sign gallery amounted to nothing less than fundamental research on light. The two Italian designers presented a total of 16 ob-jects – some of them experimental – that play with colour and space, reflection and refraction in a variety of ways. Two of the experimental set-ups by Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin were on show in the form of finished products at the booth of lighting manufacturer Flos. WireRing is a wall lamp par excel-lence – and not just because it consists of a power cable stretched over a slender illuminated ring and attached to the wall. The fragile yet sizeable lamp also uses the wall as a projection surface for light and shadow. The two designers have thus come up with a new take on the familiar idea of staging the power supply as a design element in its own right. flos.com

Garden partyNowadays, garden furniture that’s as cosy and comfort-able as your living room furnishings is a must. Accord-ing to the manufacturers, that includes sectional sofas, comfy armchairs and even weatherproof carpets – as well as lighting so that you can stay outside even when darkness falls. The Mia collection from Spanish out-door specialists Kettal is a prime example of this trend and consists of weatherproof floor, pendant and table lamps with polypropylene shades. The smaller of the two table lamps is also totally mobile because it’s not fettered by a cable – wireless lighting is extremely pop-ular right now and was a common sight at the trade fair. Mia’s simple yet attractive design is the work of young Swiss designer Michel Charlot, who has previously made a name for himself with office accessories for Vit-ra and L & Z and his U-Turn lighting for Belux.kettal.com

12Euroluce Products

A facade can be an

enlightening countenance

or a dissimulating mask,

express profundity and

reflect superficiality. It

provides a stage for style

and a showcase for func-

tions. A selection of objects

with spectacular physio g-

nomy to set the scene.

Illusion: for the International Garden Festival in Chaumont-sur-Loire, French designer Mathieu Lehanneur used hand- polished green marble to create a 7.5-metre-long “pool”. mathieulehanneur.fr

surfacesand

21 Facades and surfacesIn depth

ReflectionPeople have always been fascinated by the magic of the mirror, which throws everything else back on itself yet reveals nothing

of its own nature but its surface. In the old town of Graz – a World Heritage Site – architectural practice Hope of Glory built

an apartment block with a mirrored facade. hog-architektur.com

TransparencyModern tastes and modern science

have always sought the same thing – a world made transparent. In keeping with

the metaprogram of the modern age, fashion designer Sruli Recht has created

a collection made of transparent cow leather, developed by Dutch firm Ecco.

eccoleather.com

20Facades and surfaces In depth

22

PatinaEvery now and then, design and time conspire to produce

works of exquisite beauty. In this case, the wind and weather have transformed a facade made of ordinary wood

shingles into a captivating skin of scales.

CommunicationThe tech visionaries of British digital design

collective Universal Everything conjecture that any surface can mutate into a screen –

even the skin of little fish that use “ videotext” to ask for food. The collective’s

Screens of the Future video series also features communicating hats, rings,

columns and buoys. universaleverything.com

Facades and surfaces In depth

Layers of meaning Non-reflective finishes have been in vogue for a while now.

But what lies behind the shift to matt? And why can’t we help being attracted to shiny things all the same? And finally, what about

steamy car windows and lichen-covered towns? Three essays on interesting surface phenomena shed some light.

By Chris Kabel

mountain peak overlooking Sicily’s west coast, Erice is a rather gloomy place. Unlike its surroundings, which bake in the Mediterranean sun for most of the year, the town receives an average of four days’ sunshine in a month; on other days it is shrouded in clouds that seem to be glued to the mountain top. Interestingly, the hu-midity from the clouds provides fertile ground for a liv-ing layer of lichen that covers every available surface of the small town. Stone walls and wooden doors, plastic plant pots and concrete public benches – every surface is covered with a fuzzy layer of grey-bluish-green algae and fungus patched by black circles. Yellow and orange dots that unify trash cans with church walls and light-ing poles with asphalt. Walking around in this striking merger of the built and the natural, it feels as if the city itself, with its soft, pastel-coloured primordial skin, has become a living organism.

Accidental finishes already provide inspiration for designers and artists. Inspired by the “weather” marks that appear on a wet towel left in a plastic bag for too long, one of fashion designer Martin Margiela’s earliest works is a series of white dresses infused by bacteria and fungus, each garment displayed in a separate glass clos-et with a controlled atmosphere. Over time, the white cotton of the dresses became a breeding ground for the organisms that – even after their death – left their bright colours and growing patterns on the dresses. And Star Wars creator George Lucas started a small revolution by being the first director in Hollywood to add (or leave) dirt, soot and even scars from previous battles and meteorite collisions on his already iconic space-craft creations. This layer of astro-patina gave his mov-ies street – or rather space – cred. Cinemagoers recog-nised their own gritty surroundings in these stains and

S ometimes even a tacky 1980s rock song can lead to surprising design observations. Tina Turner’s cover of Tony Joe White’s Steamy Windows de-

scribes two people making out on the backseat of a car on a parking lot. Their steamy interactions generate quite some humidity, which condenses on the car win-dows. This coating of tiny water droplets breaks the light that passes through the car windows and blurs the

scars and were able to project themselves more easily into the fictitious surroundings.

How to embrace the accidental and the uninten-tional? What if we could organise accidents and natu-ral processes in such a way that things we dislike be-come things we like? Could we colour and shape the salts that ooze from newly constructed brick buildings, or the algae that grow on concrete? Could we make patterns with patina? Could the accidental condensa-tion on a window be controlled, and not only by having to make love (which wouldn’t be too bad, but a bit im-practical), so that we can determine its position and transparency? Could, by means of static electricity, dust be repelled or attracted and organised into pat-terns? Is the soot that comes from a fire beautiful or functional? In some traditional Japanese wooden hous-es, the open fire used for cooking and heating deposits soot on the wood walls and open roof construction. From the ground up, as far as the arm can reach, this soot is polished into the wood, creating a deep black-brown, lustrous finish that preserves the wood and makes it water-repellent. Above arm’s reach, the soot continues to build up in a thick matt layer that works as a fire retardant.

Until now the Chinese, who have always been mas-ters in repurposing nature, have been the most success-ful in appropriating accidental coatings. Taking the pearl cultivation industry one step further, they have found a way to place preshaped nuclei made from shell in oysters, which the oysters diligently cover with a lay-er of nacre. Until now their imagination hasn’t gone beyond Buddha and heart-shaped nuclei, but why not place a (wedding) ring, Montblanc fountain pen or Cartier watch dial in the shell?

view of the lovers. Here passion creates a temporary privacy screen that gives the couple some intimacy. An unexpected scenario of cause and effect. A helping hand offered by a simple physical phenomenon: brought to you by means of a rock song cover.

A little less practical, but beautiful nonetheless, is another phenomenon that can be seen in the medieval town of Erice in Italy. Perched on a 700-metre-high

Steam

29

Shine

A bright summer’s day at a small cemetery in Hungary. Hundreds of dragonflies are zoom-ing through the air. The black, polished grave-

stones seem to have caught their attention: some drag-onflies choose a particular stone and defend it as if it’s their own territory. They chase others away, and guard it, resting on a little perch. Some even try to lay their eggs on the brilliant stone surface. In fact, these grave-stones are ecological traps: no egg can survive on these dry, barren surfaces. Biologists, puzzled by this self-de-structive behaviour, finally discovered the reason for it: dragonflies confuse the polarised light bouncing off the shiny black surface with the light that is reflected by a body of water, and see the gravestones as little black ponds where they can lay their eggs and feed. So, they die because of a surface that is lustrous and shiny.

“Shine” is, first and foremost, a surface quality. Al-most any material can be made shiny. Rub something long enough and it will shine.

This became appallingly clear to me when I visited the (not so) Forbidden City in Beijing. After the palace’s intense visual impressions had overwhelmed me, I was searching for a quiet place to rest in the shade of a near-by tree, and return to myself again. Then the bark of the tree caught my eye. It was completely shiny – but only at about arm’s height. When I looked further, I noticed that every surface on the imperial grounds, from the plaster walls to the stone statues, wood pillars and met-al doorknobs, hinges and even nails, shone with unex-pected brilliance: polished by the touch of millions of fingers that had caressed and investigated every surface they could reach. The entire Forbidden City seemed united by a polished, horizontal band of shininess. This

band of shininess, strangely enough, completely erased the palace’s lustre, rendering China’s most prominent monument foul and greasy, not unlike a smudgy light switch in a public toilet.

We are, however, hardwired to love lustre. Irides-cent car bodies, advertisements for glossy lipstick in glossy magazines, the deep dark shine of the lifeless screens of electronic devices – a shine that is protected, in the packaging process, by a little piece of shiny cling-film – will always catch our gaze. It turns out that we are evolutionarily wired to be attracted to shiny things. Like the dragonflies, our eyes are very sensitive to glittering, brilliant, moving specks of light because these signal the presence of water.

And so our glistening telephones, cars, jewellery, accessories and the like fool us, just like the gravestones fool the dragonflies. And it seems we like to be fooled: advertisement agencies and designers tap into this ru-dimentary evolutionary (human) software glitch and present us with a cleaned-up, polished version of the world, where all surfaces shine. So the next time you see your phone lying on the table, and you are seduced by its dark, glistening surface, remind yourself: it’s the genes, stupid. Or rather, it’s the economics, stupid, since companies, it seems, have perfected a modern-day appeal to our prehistoric survival instincts.

Matt

T here is a wind of change blowing through the world of industrial varnish. It’s not a revolu-tion, more of an evolution. With mirror coats

and hypergloss varnishes, industrial finishes have final-ly achieved an unsurpassed level of shine – at extreme-ly low cost. So perhaps it’s no surprise that when nearly every product we see positively glares with brilliance, the tide is turning in the other direction. First it was cars, wrapped in matt black vinyl skins, rolling opaque-ly down the streets of big cities. Headphones and other electronic devices quickly followed suit. Now, lots of things that used to reflect light have started to absorb it instead. Suitcases, bicycle frames, magazine covers and furniture are all shedding their shiny skins.

In fact, these days, it seems a matt finish is the belle of the ball. Its fragile and absorbent qualities lend its wearer a soft, tactile, almost surreal glow. Take, for ex-ample, Surrey Nanosystems’ ultrablack, ultramatt Vantablack nano coating. A kind of paint, the nano coating uses molecular tubes of carbon, perpendicular to the surface, to let in light waves, then smother them. Not one photon can escape. It’s the colour version of the sound-absorbing anechoic chamber. Unfortunately, exclusive rights to its use have been granted to artist An-ish Kapoor, who likens the visual effect to “looking into a black hole”. The fact that more people won’t be able to use it is a shame. Who wouldn’t have loved to play around with this blackest of black paint?

The military’s preference for matt coatings dates to the beginning of the 20th century, when warfare changed its tactics and went undercover. Colourful and shiny apparel was exchanged for a stealth-led, camou-flaged non-presence. From then on, all equipment was

painted in dull and matt greens, browns and greys. In-deed, the quality of the matt paint of the US Army is so high that the American National Gallery of Art, after comparing it with commercially available paints, de-cided to use it for restoration works on outdoor statues by Alexander Calder and Tony Smith. But matt re-mains a tricky business. Matt coatings have more pig-ment than glossy ones; they stick through the resinous bonding agent and scatter the light rather than reflect-ing it. However, these grains are easily rubbed off, let-ting the shiny ghost out again. And in the end those matt car-wrap stickers are a masquerade, too –they cov-er a super-glossy top coat – without that smooth top coat the wrap wouldn’t stick for long to the car body.

We love matt for aesthetic reasons, too. Unground-ed, floating, like some kind of exotic extraterrestrial matter, matt objects exist, happily unaware and inde-pendent of the settings in which they are placed. The Germans would call them Fremdkörper – their skin a cloak that denies context, sucking in the light, rather than bouncing it away. Matt’s blandness resonates with the ongoing normcore trend, whose adherents try not to stand out of the crowd but instead wear unpreten-tious plain clothing by mainstream brands – it’s not about bling, but blending. The hard sheen of polished objects that reflect light, repel dirt and resist touch is just too real and too present. On top of that, lately we’ve started to associate shine with the pseudo-confi-dence that financial institutions and the new rich want to imbue us with. So, we use matt as a material state-ment of civil disobedience, knowingly denying that in the end matt will turn shiny as well.

Chris Kabel’s texts are from On the Surface, a series of essays first published by online magazine Interwoven: the fabric of things (kvadratinterwoven.com).

BetteLux OvalCoutureStahl kann alles tragen

Design:Tesseraux + Partner

www.bette.de

O nce you start looking into new facade materials, you soon feel as if you’re on the set of comedy series The Big Bang Theory: surrounded by

quirky geniuses who postulate improbable and somehow fun theories. And to start with it really does sound like slap-stick when a German researcher explains how a new kind of concrete by the name of DysCrete works: basically, you just smear blackcurrant juice, toothpaste and tincture of iodine on conventional concrete and voilà – the facade generates electricity. Another has hit on the idea of mount-ing large aquariums full of algae in front of a house so that the green goo can eventually be harvested and converted

Research on the frontline

Keeping the wind and weather off isn’t enough anymore: innovative facades can generate electricity, absorb air pollutants

or change their properties. While some materials show off their new qualities for all to see, others look perfectly ordinary:

their functionality is often contained within concrete or glass.

By Christian Tröster

into biogas. And then there’s the suggestion of extracting CO2 and pressing it into geometric facade elements, which would turn a house into a CO2 depot. It all sounds a bit crazy, but hopeful too. And nobody can get away with claiming that German researchers lack imagination any-more.

But one thing at a time. Far from being a joke, the bit about the blackcurrant juice and the toothpaste is a research project by the Building Art Invention department at the University of Kassel. “The principle was invented 25 years ago by chemist Michael Grätzel for glass,” explains architect Thorsten Klooster. “We’ve transferred it to con-

Left: for the glass facade of the Elbphilharmonie concert wall, facade firm Josef Gartner developed insulated glazing printed with a matrix of chrome dots to provide solar shading. Right: the energy-generating building material DysCrete was developed by the Kassel-based Building Art Invention institute.

5150 Bulletin

By Martin Krautter l

Newcomers Newcomers

4A colourful revolutionA large gathering of football fans often comes across as a uniform, faceless mass. So is there any way to brighten things up? Lena Gedon has developed Abseits (Off-side), a collection that aims to provide in-spiration for a new kind of football-loving youth culture. The fashion graduate from Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences doesn’t just want to question and overturn clichés, she wants to adapt and develop them as well. “Fashion has to hurt, tease and put up resistance,” believes the young designer. She wants to charge the medium of football with responsibility, draw atten-tion to outdated principles and propagate a new system of values. In fact, she is a ve-hement champion of “offside” values. Yet far from being brutal and bloody, the rev-olution the collection advocates is posi-tive, loud and colourful. The panel of judges who awarded the Bavarian State Prize for Young Designers 2017 thought her efforts worthy of a special mention. Lena Gedon’s project was supervised by professors Claudia Throm and Matthias Kohlmann. designpf.hs-pforzheim.de

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Seagrass preservesWhen it comes to food packaging, images of plastic “trash islands” floating in the ocean are a vivid and constant reminder that there is an urgent need for action. When it comes to avoiding waste, the ma-jor retail chains have a key role to play. Dispensing with plastic bags could be the first step in the right direction, developing packaging alternatives the second. And that’s precisely the goal Felix Pöttinger has set himself. The German designer, who is currently taking the Design Products mas-ter’s programme at the RCA in London, has teamed up with British supermarket chain Tesco and the Microsoft Research Lab to work on sustainable packaging concepts. One of his projects, which is still in the development stage, involves compostable trays based on washed-up seagrass, the properties of which are also said to have a beneficial effect on the shelf life of food. Fingers crossed that it proves successful! poettingerdesign.com

2Light in the darknessEmpathy and intercultural competence number among the soft skills young de-signers are expected to have nowadays. But you don’t necessarily have to travel far to acquire such expertise, as a project that forms parts of the master’s programme in Communication Design at Hochschule Konstanz University of Applied Sciences goes to show. Some of the programme’s fe-male design students teamed up with Yazi-di women to create an exhibition entitled Children of the Light. After the so-called Islamic State’s persecution of the Yazidis in northern Iraq, the German state of Baden-Württemberg granted entry to ap-prox. 1,000 affected women. “The exhibi-tion was to give them a voice and support their families in Iraq,” says design profes-sor Judith M. Grieshaber. With this in mind, the students partnered with 12 Yazi-di women and city councillor Zahide Sari-kas, who served as a translator, to develop elaborately designed objects, brightly col-oured screen prints and the overall presen-tation concept. The exhibition was held at the Cultural Centre at Konstanz Minster from 16 March to 16 April – and met with a huge and very positive response.htwg-konstanz.de

5A pretty pickleSome Germans still remember the days when sauerkraut was made at home in a big stoneware crock and then left to fer-ment in the coolness of the cellar. Today, fermenting vegetables is in vogue again – especially among young, hip urbanites – and a number of projects are picking up on the trend. The Brinery is a case in point: students from London’s RCA are aiming to simplify this healthy and sus-tainable way of preserving food with a spe-cial fermentation vessel whose function, format and design have been optimised for household use. The bulbous vessel provides the optimal volume for the brine and features a strainer insert for conveni-ent removal of partial amounts. What’s more, the lid is fitted with a fermentation lock that allows carbon dioxide to escape but prevents any unwanted microbes get-ting in.brinery.co.uk

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Cabinet of curiositiesHans (Nick) Roericht is a living legend – not just as a designer but as a teacher too. His original presentation aids are one of the many things engraved on the memory of his former students at Berlin University of the Arts, where he taught from 1973 to 2002. Roericht hoarded all sorts of finds in countless collecting boxes, putting them up for discussion in his seminars. Today they are part of the Roericht Archive at the HfG-Archiv in Ulm. The boxes recently served pupils from the graphic design pro-gramme at Ferdinand-von-Steinbeis-Schule in Ulm as a source of inspiration for posters, photographs and drawings. From 1 February to 5 March 2017, the HfG-Archiv hosted an exhibition of their work entitled Inspiration Roericht Cabi-net of Curiosities – a wonderful tribute to a designer and teacher whose approaches have lost nothing of their relevance and influence. hfg-archiv.ulm.de

6Steely resolveThere’s an old adage among designers that restrictions fuel creativity. Master’s stu-dents doing the Furniture Design pro-gramme at Helsinki’s Aalto University were recently given the opportunity to provide fresh proof of the rule’s validity. In the Under Bar Himmel project, they were confronted with the problem of designing chairs that had to meet strict material stip-ulations: they were to be made of chrome-plated steel rods with a diameter of 4.5 and 8mm – and therefore supposedly slightly too thin and bendable for the construction of sturdy furniture. As hoped, lecturer Martin Relander’s students mastered the assignment with flying colours. They used deformation and new spatial configura-tions for the material to come up with a great many original designs that were pre-sented in an exhibition of working proto-types as part of Stockholm Design Week 2017 – a resounding success.underbarhimmel.aalto.fi

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