Indesign 59

171 Collins Street Peter Muller Profile Khalid Shafar Container Concepts It’s Time Apaiser’s Success

Issue 59. 2014 AUstralia $16.50 New Zealand $17.50 SinGapore $12.95 USA $21.99

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welcomeindesign

letter from the editor issue 59, 2014

Like other devious people, I often don’t actually read certain books. Instead, I read the review essays in the London Review of Books or the New York Review of Books. It is a kind of short cut to the basic information with the advantage of a pre-packaged point of view.

The disadvantage is that the reviewers seem so phenomenally well-informed, that one tends to develop an inferiority complex. Such was the case when I read Jenny Diski (one of my favourites in the LRB) on a new book by Nikil Saval, Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace. She begins with a recap of the history of the office – scribes in the 19th Century – and points out that purpose-built structures for office work is a modern phenomenon.

Following the Taylorist era of conformity, we arrived at open plan and ‘cubes’, or boxes without lids. This model is still effectively with us, despite the claims of an infinitely flexible (‘agile’) workplace. But with the arrival of the digital age, some of the concerns about open plan – noise, lack of privacy, poor lighting, poor ventilation – have been addressed. “The new workforce,” says Diski, “was offered on-site playgrounds that kept obsessive minds refreshed but still focussed.”

Now, of course, we have dispensed with personal workstations and offices and people work wherever they wish. “For some reason,” says Diski, “homelessness was deemed to be the answer to a smooth operation.” Co-design has been one response, with the implication that if the worker’s needs are primary, then perhaps we don’t need specific buildings any more.

The cynical Diski sees a bonus here for employers: outsourcing removes the cost of maintaining offices. The employer is now the customer, while the employees meet their deadlines in noisy cramped cafés or in co-worker third spaces which the ‘employee’ now pays for.

Diski quotes a US Bureau of Labor Statistics report which estimates that 40 percent of the workforce in 2020 will consist of independent contractors. Dare we imagine a future without the office building? Be careful what you wish for because this will be a world in which the worker now bears the costs and job description once reserved for management – but without management salaries and perks.

PAUL McGILLICK – editor

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abovE Editor, Paul McGillick (right) with Assistant Editor, Lorenzo Logi (Photo: Kelsie Barley)

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Nov-feb, 2014

Issue 59 regulars

portfolio

027 EVOLVE Bite-sized portions from the latest people, places, products, events

COMMERCIAL

057 All in the family Responding to a gap in the industry, Australian brand Apaiser has disrupted the market to make a name for itself as a leader in luxury, custom bathware

092 Compulsive Productions, Melbourne, Matt Gibson Architecture + Design 104 171 Collins Street, Melbourne, Bates Smart, Geyer 124 Royal Wolf, Melbourne, Room11 Architects

065 Fuse Lighting designer David Morgan explores the dramatic impact technological innovation has had on his profession

Hospitality

072 Business interiors by staples + indesign Newcomer to the commercial furniture scene, Business Interiors

by Staples showcases the flexibility of its product range

RESIDENTIAL

080 luminary Pippin Drysdale is Australia’s most famous ceramicist, and has produced a rich and varied body of work that powerfully evokes Australian landscapes

133 The Porter, Sydney, Gensler

142 Fremantle Houses, Fremantle, Pendal and Neille with Rebecca Angus, Jonathan Lake Architects 150 Wanaka House, Lake Wanaka, RTA Studios

088 art Two proposed sculptures by a team from UTS aim to celebrate the social reforms of the Whitlam Era 157 PULSE London-based architect David Adjaye reflects on the importance of referencing local typologies and his struggles with urban planners Dubai’s design scene is heating up, and at the centre of it is designer Khalid Shafar 167 ZONE In a career spanning over six decades, Peter Muller has designed buildings throughout Australia and the world. Each project, however, demostrates sensitivity to the local site 177 SUSTAIN Leyla Acaroglu advocates subversive sustainability, asserting that designers hold a powerful position in ensuring that products are produced sustainably At Work* with Camira’s model of addressing sustainability at every level of the company’s operations yields impressive results 184 PS A residential and commercial building by celebrated architect Koichi Takada anchors Sydney’s Green Square development

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Cover Interior view of Heydar Aliyev Centre, Baku, by Zaha Hadid Architects (pp. 65–70) Photo: Helen Binet

Hack Circus Ecology André Sampaio Kong Royal College of Art, London andrekong.com

lens to the future If the future of the built environment lies in the hands of fearless architecture graduates like the Royal College of Art’s André Sampaio Kong, its foundations are about to be shaken.

“A theatre for the post-tragic condition of subverted capitalist technologies,” muses Kong, referring to The Hack Circus, his graduate showcase recently nominated for the RIBA Silver Medal. “The Hack Circus is a critique of current technologies, which are masking real climate change under the guise of a seamless, virtually augmented continuum of trivial delights,” he explains.

“Reacting to a digitally ‘media-ted’ surveillance society, Hack Circus proposes a radical, social-libertarian, selfsustainable community, leveraging itself off existing hardware, hacking ‘alternatives’, unlocking their full potential and going beyond the narrow limitations of ecological design.”

Rethinking the role of technology in a rapidly evolving design landscape, Kong’s organic – although extreme – approach demonstrates the kind of thinking required to sustain a marriage between architecture, technology and the natural environment.

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words Anna guerrero

‘Floralia’ vase Eragatory eragatory.blogspot.be

Steel Construction Joint Prototype created by Arup Engineering (61 2) 9320 9320 arup.com

focus on form How important is form in design? ‘Floralia’, a flower vase by Eragatory, uses form to create motion, orchestrated through the use of 3D printing to achieve harmony between functionality, organic beauty and digital aesthetics. Engineering firm Arup takes this concept to an industrial stage, creating bespoke 3D-printed steel construction joints to achieve more efficient structures, a development it believes signals “a whole new direction for the use of additive manufacturing in the field of construction and engineering”. In a more hands-on approach, Dutch designer Pepe Heykoop turns to the humble hands in some of the poorest areas of Mumbai, India, operating a studio teaching men and women how to produce high-end design with largely recycled materials in various organic forms.

Paper Vase Cover Pepe Heykoop & Tiny Miracles available at Space Furniture spacefurniture.com.au

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Technological innovation has seen a radical re-thinking of the lighting design process itself. David Morgan discusses the implications.

OPPOSITE Corridors

he design of technical lighting equipment has been changing rapidly over the past decade as solid state lighting (LEDs) takes over from traditional light sources in many lighting applications.

Strangely enough, the luminaire design process has not changed quite as dramatically as the actual lighting products themselves.

My London-based design company has been working with the lighting industry for over 30 years to create innovative lighting products. So, we have lived through a number of these technology changes, starting with the MR 16 halogen lamp and now facing the challenge of designing for flexible OLED sheet.

However, the current state of flux in the lighting industry is unprecedented.

The transition from the gas mantle to electric lighting took several decades and the incandescent lamp has been an important source for over 100 years.

Mirroring the technological changes in the lighting market there has been an equal change in the way lighting schemes are designed. When I started designing, there were only two independent lighting designers operating in the UK – most schemes were designed by the manufacturers.

Now there are hundreds of lighting design companies and consultants working on major domestic and international projects, many of them within a few miles of our offices, several of whom have become clients.

My company spent many years working as design consultants to lighting manufacturers around the world, including Louis Poulsen, Holophane, Thorn Lighting and Panasonic, and this work continues to grow today.

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However, an increasing amount of our activity is now based on project work with lighting designers.

We have our own manufacturing company to produce the resulting products and are much more involved with the complete process of luminaire designs for particular projects.

The products and systems that are developed for specific projects have now become the basis for a successful prêt-àporter range that lighting designers are specifying on projects every day.

A good example of this change is the 3D LED Flex 100 system we created specifically for the auditorium of the Zaha Hadid-designed Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan. We were introduced to the project by MBLD lighting designers, with whom we had worked on previous projects.

The interior of the auditorium required a three-dimensionally flexible, high- power LED system to provide all of the ambient light in the space. The lighting system was to be housed in five deep coves that ran around the interior of the auditorium with all the light being indirectly reflected from the wooden panelled surface. We had already developed a number of flexible LED lighting systems, but nothing with the power or degree of flexibility required for this project.

Working to a tight deadline, we developed a concept of a highly efficient, finned die cast heat sink which would be linked together in a flexible chain to follow the complex building contours.

These chains were fitted on to adjustable angle brackets so that the light output could be aimed to follow the surface’s shapes. The coves were deep, so we designed a spring clip mounting system to ease installation and servicing. Using very warm white LEDs produced by

outside the auditorium echo its fluid forms (Photo: Helen Binet) right 3D LED Flex 100 Modular, flexible LED linear lighting system by Radiant Lighting below The lighting follows the sinuous lines of the auditorium’s interior ribs (Photo: Helen Binet)

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words David morgan

...emphasis has shifted to the quality, efficiency and effect of the light output.

David morgan

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words Jan Howlin portrait Anthony BRowell photography acorn

Pippin Drysdale Australia has produced some fine ceramicists, but none have achieved the international prominence of Pip Drysdale.

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City VISION

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words Paul McGillick interviews stephen crafti photography Peter Clarke architect Bates Smart, Geyer location Melbourne | AUS PROJECT 171 Collins Street

a new building in melbourne’s collins street combines elegance and innovation with a sense of place. indesignlive.com

above A series of internal

courtyards with interconnecting glass walls allow an abundance of sunlight into the building opposite above Room11’s detailing of external privacy and shade screens sustains the industrial materials palette opposite below LEft

There is a variety of work stations and offices within the building, but most are kept open to allow interaction and communication among staff opposite below right

The internal courtyards are planted with native grasses to give a calm meditative outlook

oom11 first teamed up with Royal Wolf, providers of shipping containers, for a design exhibition in Hobart in 2009. The newly formed Tasmanian architectural firm was interested in affordable modular housing, and Royal Wolf provided the raw material – one of its containers. Four years on, Royal Wolf called Room11’s Aaron Roberts.

“The company was interested in using shipping containers in an innovative way to build a new site office. We convinced them to allow us to express the nature of the containers and to reconsider the expectations of the resulting internal environment,” Roberts recalls.

In particular, Roberts wanted to counter-act the containers’ spatial claustrophobia and design a well-lit and well-ventilated space with an open feel. Coming from an architectural firm focused on designing homes, Roberts brought his residential skills to bear, including a careful initial examination of site. The site was a light industrial precinct in Melbourne, with a busy four-lane road down one side and a site yard piled high with containers on the other three.

“The office manages the opportunities from a sale and logistics point of view, and also manages the site yard,” Roberts explains. “When trucks come in with a container, to drop off or pick up, [the driver has to] stop and talk to the people in the office, for relevant delivery or pickup instructions.”

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Room11’s design presents a blank façade to this industrial domain with a building formed from a series of containers, one of which is literally turned on its end.

“It is a submarine-like aesthetic,” Roberts says. “It is in a flat industrial landscape, and the container on its end is a vertical marker in this horizontal plane.”

Roberts used 3D modelling to finesse his combination of the containers, settling on using 14 in all: 10 20-feet (six-metre) containers (including the one on its end) and four 40-feet (12-metre) units. These containers are strung around a series of courtyards, with floor-to-ceiling glass walls facing inward to let in maximum sunlight, book-ended by predominantly solid walls.

“It was important,” says Roberts, “to have the majority of the windows facing the internal courtyards, allowing sunlight, ventilation and views into green spaces, while blocking direct views of the industrial surrounds.”

Certainly, when you walk into the office via a ramp on the eastern end of the building, there is a significant contrast between the industrial neighbourhood and the autonomous world of sunlit workspaces overlooking internal courtyards and their recently planted, sage-green outcrops of native grasses.

Roberts wanted people to walk around the building looking out from one courtyard to the next. “These spaces extend the sense of volume,” he says, “and reduce the perception of constricted spaces within the containers.”

Though Roberts blew out a ship container’s usual spatial limits, he wanted to retain the experience of its metal skin. This had its challenges, particularly in relation to insulation. He resolved the problem by heavily insulating the walls and roof and installing cork flooring and double-glazing for noise and thermal insulation. He also re-worked the internal skin of the containers.

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Is it a harbinger of the death of the traditional office building?

The first swallow of summer? paul mcgillick

The heritage façade has been welcomed as an opportunity to give The Porter special character.

The elegant windows, for example, had been closed up. These have been restored and the stripped back walls and deeply recessed window ledges make a rich contrast to the contemporary furnishings and fittings – the David Trubridge pendant light in the second library being an excellent example.

Blinds make the individual spaces flexible, offering either privacy or connection, while every space offers its own unique experience along with its own functional orientation.

The Porter beats not just working in an office, but also in a noisy café. Is it a harbinger of the death of the traditional office building? The first swallow of summer? A brave new world of work.

Paul McGillick is Editorial Director of Indesign Media.

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left above A large

meeting room, all wireless and equipped for video conferencing left below One of the two Libraries showing the heritage fenestration and wall with its historic patina above The chalet is a breakout area featuring private pods

The porter Architect Gensler Managing Director Simon Trude Senior Interior Designer Angela Pearcy Managing Director Simon Trude Brand Designer Danny Wehbe Interior Stylist Natalie Pearcy Builder FDC Acoustic Consultant Acoustic Logic BCA Consultant Philip Chun and Associates Joiners Maneto Lighting Consultant Philips Technology Consultant POMT Power and data CMS Electracom

Time to Complete 12 months Total Floor area: 700m2 Gensler (61 2) 9247 0701 | gensler.com Furniture In Lounge, ‘Flyer’ table, ‘Mama Bear’, ‘Sushi’, ‘Medallion’, ‘Horseshoe’ and ‘Boom’ chairs, ‘Chesterfield’ lounge and ‘Sushi’ sofa. In Library Room, ‘Orbit’ table, ‘Ox’, ‘Mr Executive’ and ‘Signature Rocking’ chairs, In Chairman’s Lounge, ‘Fireplace’, ‘Bison’, ‘Very Conference’ and ‘Wire Stacking’ chairs, In Studio, ‘Sol’ and ‘Giddy Up’ Stools, all from Haworth

Lighting In Library, Haworth x Friends David Trubridge ‘Baskets of Knowledge’ bamboo lights. Generally throughout, ‘Antler Chandelier’ lights, Heritage Building Centre, DAVEY lighting ‘Steel Industrial Pendant’, ‘Well Glass Pendant’ light and ‘Chelsea Outdoor’ lights, Dunlin Home Finishes Generally throughout, clear ‘IdeaPaint’, Diarama, ‘Metalessence Silk’ wallpaper, Instyle, ‘Cut Pile’ carpet, Edge Carpet, timber flooring, Tongue n Groove, and curtains, Woven Image

For the full directory of supplier contacts, visit indesignlive.com/dissections59 indesignlive.com

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rich architectural heritage has been quietly developing around the Southern Lakes of New Zealand. Seemingly hewn from the ground they stand on, these houses are making their subtle presence known in architecture magazines, but are often invisible to the casual passerby.

The discreet landscape buildings have evolved from a combination of very stringent local council regulations – the area is zoned Outstanding Natural Landscape and is near Te Wahipounamu (the Southwest New Zealand World Heritage Area) and Mt Aspiring National Park ­– and a generation of architects who work very carefully and cleverly with context.

In addition, the clients for these significant houses are often expatriates, or New Zealanders returned home, drawn to the Queenstown area for its isolation and beauty.

Such is the background to this remarkable house on the western shores of Lake Wanaka. It is on one of seven private land parcels within a unique 85-hectare subdivision. The not-for-profit trust that manages the land has put the site’s ecology first and reduced the allowable house density by about two-thirds. In addition, it has incorporated a native plant nursery, reserves, onsite storm water and wastewater management, and put in covenants so that each parcel cannot be subdivided further.

A very raw and untamed nature dominates here.

The trust has removed all the exotic wilding pines (‘exotic’ being a bad word in the sad history of New Zealand’s natural heritage) and has planted more than 100,000 native trees and plants across the block. Each of the seven individual house sites were selected, sized and approved as part of the original Resource Consent process. And in addition to local building regulations, the trust has its own site-specific rating tool for energy use by each house.

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All these requirements make it a very expensive and exclusive place to live. But they are part of the architectural story, for the design was born out of this regulatory and natural context, a product of these conditions.

This is the first house to be built of the seven, and nestles into the side of a hill looking north and west to Lake Wanaka and Treble Cone ski area. It was designed by Auckland-based practice RTA Studio, for a couple that works part of the year abroad. There are three bedrooms and three living spaces across two floors. It is a generous size, but not oversized, and maintains a very human scale.

The building is difficult to make out from afar. Trees veil its perimeter and its main cladding materials are from local timber and stone sources, making it fairly camouflaged. Its substantial schist walls imitate a rock outcrop, as if hewn from the site; and the recycled native timber cladding is oiled, matt and recessive.

From the outside, it is a tough house, but then it has to be. It is built not only to meet the earthquake code, but also to manage the yearly cycle of freezing Southern Alps winters and hot dry Central Otago summers.

It stands on the edge of two very different regions and gracefully accommodates each.

The entry sequence is beautifully staged. Car parking is kept a short distance from the house, from which a pathway leads to a massive schist wall that literally drives up out of the earth. The wall continues inside to form a ‘subterranean’ entry warmed by a fireplace and with access to a large multipurpose room, bathroom and conservatory. The end wall of the entry is floodlit with northern light and a broad staircase rises up through a double-height space to join the main living floor. From the forest floor and the cave-like entrance, we are gently taken up into the tree canopy: an eagle’s nest and private retreat surrounded by views of the mountains, lake and forest.

Opener The house nestles into the side of a hill for less visual impact on the land PREVIOUS above Local stone and timbers are used extensively to bring textures from the outside in previous below The stone walls are dense and deep and appear to grow out of the site left A bar and concealed drinks fridge serve the living room, while the kitchen proper is tucked behind

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ondon-based architect David Adjaye first came to Australia 20 years ago as a graduate architect. “I was already in Singapore, so it was worth a few extra hours on a plane to see Utzon’s Opera House,” says Adjaye, who recently returned to Australia as keynote speaker for the National Architecture Conference in Perth.

Adjaye, who established Adjaye Associates 15 years ago, has been conscious of the unique physical qualities of different countries since childhood. His father was in the Foreign Service and provided the introduction to many of the world’s architectural wonders. “My father baptised me with experiences,” says Adjaye, recalling in particular the Buganda Shrine in East Africa and the Great Pyramids in Egypt. “The medieval cities in Jeddah I saw in the 1970s moved me,” he adds.

These experiences have shaped Adjaye’s approach to architecture and

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have become increasingly important to him as the world becomes more homogeneous. “It doesn’t have to be that way. You need to value place and it’s geography, and respond to it,” he says.

Those who attended the conference in Perth would have been impressed with Adjaye’s projects, both in London and elsewhere. His largest project to date, the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, is a milestone project, extending over 370,000 square metres of space and costing half a billion dollars.

Expected to be completed in 2016, it is not so much the scale that weighs the architect down, but its importance.

“It’s the powerful material which will be displayed, but it’s also the context of where it is, in the Mall, surrounded by some of Washington’s most significant buildings.”

While half a billion dollars seems a vast amount, the size of the museum project required thinking outside the

square. “Originally, the museum was going to be solid bronze,” says Adjaye.

“Now it’s cast aluminium, still having that bronze sheen.”

The extraordinary timber ceiling in the foyer, made from a ‘forest’ of timber shards to varying lengths, will create a sense of the burden experienced by America’s black population, the weight almost chain-like. “Architecture is about making things accessible, but it’s also about creating an emotional response,” says Adjaye, who graduated from the Royal College of Art in London, before pursuing architecture at the Middlesex Polytechnic.

“There was a good reason I went for architecture rather than fine art. I needed a client, someone to respond to.

I also see architecture as an art form,” says Adjaye, who has some of his liveliest conversations with artist friends.

His brother Emmanuel was partially paralysed as a child, which also made Adjaye question the amenities provided

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words Stephen Crafti photography ADJAYE ASSOCiates

previous Sugar Hill

housing development

below Smithsonian

Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture bottom Silk Weave Community Centre

for those with disabilities. “I think it’s important that people have freedom in mobility and lead dignified lives irrespective of their physical state.”

Although Adjaye has slowly built a reputation for his work worldwide, one project in particular accelerated his career. The Elektra House in London featured a relatively ‘blank’ timber façade in a heritage streetscape. A generous curtained glass wall to the rear created another side to the home. After it was completed, Adjaye was instructed to demolish it, as it was considered ‘unsympathetic’ to the neighbourhood. At the same time, the journal for the Royal British Institute of Architects (RIBA) featured the house on the front cover.

“This gave the house validity, entering the collective consciousness and creating a dialogue as to some of the values of architecture,” says Adjaye, relieved that the local council had a change of heart.

“I still have to battle on certain fronts. Fortunately, the local planners aren’t as ‘opaque’ as they used to be with me. They have a little more faith in your design and there’s more discussion.”

However, with his social conscience, it’s often the cause that attracts him to a project. The recently completed Sugar Hill housing development in Upper West Harlem, for example, is a different housing model. Unlike the glamorous high-rise apartments in New York, this one is low-cost housing, with 30 percent of the residents having previously been homeless. And instead of a ‘glam’ foyer, there’s a farm on the roof and a crèche.

While Adjaye continues to seek out such projects, such as a new community centre for silk weaving in Northern India, many in the profession continue to pursue the luxurious high-end market that feeds the architectural profession. “Sadly the ‘cost-benefit’ analysis drives many projects. Then you get the unskilled part of the profession creating buildings,” says Adjaye.

David Adjaye WHo David Adjaye BORN Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania LIVES London, UK WORKS Established Adjaye Associates

in 2000

Background Son of a diplomat, graduate

of London Southbank University with an MA from the Royal College of Art

adjaye.com

Stephen Crafti is Indesign’s Melbourne Correspondent.

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this page Muller House.

(Photo: Max Dupain)

opposite top Cinema

Centre, Melbourne

opposite bottom

Richardson House, Thredbo next page Amandari Hotel, Bali

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“The basic original footprint of the house is being preserved by adding bedrooms, bathrooms and a library below the original house,” says Muller, who was fortunate to have iconic photographer Max Dupain capture the house as it was in 1957, when it was completed.

One of Muller’s seminal homes was his own (1954), at Whale Beach. A massive boulder pierces a large picture window to form a fireplace. A branch of a tree finds a resting place through the roof. And what could be more poetic than shallow ponds on the roof to reflect the ever-changing sky from the street. “This was my second house and shows a confidence and experience gained from the Audette House,” says Muller, who dedicated the house to Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, his favourite piece of music.

While bespoke homes occupied a significant portion of Muller’s practice, he also designed a number of significant commercial buildings: Taree Commonwealth Bank (1957); offices and factory for Victa Consolidated Industries (NSW 1958); Garry Richardson Ski Lodge, Thredbo (1958); Rockdale Shopping Centre and bowling alley (1961); and the Bulleen Drive-in (1966). One of Muller’s largest and most significant projects was the Cinema Centre in Bourke Street, Melbourne.

Designed in 1969, this stand-alone high-rise brutalist tower is still as monumental as when it first appeared.

While many see Wright as an influence, according to Muller, “the shape of the building simply arose out of a structural idea which seemed to me to answer several questions at once. The overhang also provided shading, reducing energy needs and allowing me to use timber framed windows, probably a first for a multi-storey building”.

In 1970, although Muller was receiving an endless number of commissions for both private and public buildings, he closed his Sydney office and moved permanently to his country indesignlive.com

SYSTEMIC SUSTAINABILITY Building sustainability into product lifecycles starts with designers who understand systems.

above Leyla Acaroglu (Photo: The Josh Craig) opposite Detail of ‘tube’ map showing how systems intersect from the Good Design Guide (Graphic: Daniel Kerris Design)

ike the buzzwords of so many good causes, ‘sustainability’ risks losing its lustre. Misuse and over-use have provoked scepticism or outright rejection from consumers, and a legacy of perceiving environmentalism as hostile to human industrial activity has alienated it from product designers.

Australian lecturer, strategy designer and author Leyla Acaroglu’s analysis of this phenomenon is refreshingly candid: “People will buy something that they think other people want them to buy, but if nobody’s watching, they’ll buy the shitty thing.”

The solution, in her view, is to remove the second option altogether. A crucial component in achieving this is teaching designers how to think sustainably.

‘Thinking sustainably’ may itself seem vague, but Acaroglu refuses to let the concept nebulise. “The first stage is taking responsibility for the choices we have as designers,” she says. By this she means that when designers elaborate a concept, they should be aware of how their choices in everything from materials (from extraction to re-use or recyclability) to manufacturing, packaging, transport and finally use by the end user will affect the social and physical environment. As the makers of these decisions, designers occupy a powerful position where they can, as Acaroglu puts it, “manipulate and coerce people to do the things that we want them to – in a good way, for the good!”

But what is the incentive for designers to adopt this approach? The difference lies in a shift from an adversarial, ‘man-vs-nature’ approach to a more complex understanding of how we interact with our environment. Rather than the paternalistic, environmentalist model, Acaroglu sees ‘systems thinking’ as a natural complement to the fundamental motivation for designing. “We like solving problems,

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WORDS lorenzo Logi

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