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Vertical forests A skyscraper in Nanjing is being built as a vertical forest. In a world with rapidly growing populations, every millimetre of available space must be utilised to the fullest.

R E F U S E

DEMOCRACY

TE CHNOLOGY

Nature eats plastic

Reinvent the UN and win â‚Ź4.7 million

See-through lorries

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FA S C I N AT I O N

W O R L D

G RO U N D B R E A K I N G

C H A N G

S O LU T I O N S

O N E

W O R L D .

Look around you. The world is full of innovation and potential.

As the leading private bank in the Nordic region with customers all over the world, we want to introduce you to the exceptional people and thoughts that help shape the world we live in. From the innovators to the business owners, these are the entrepreneurs who find solutions

I D E A S

to today’s greatest challenges.

Our new magazine is about ideas with the potential to change the world. Our perspective is Nordic, but our focus is on the positive and fascinating solutions developed by people all over the world – solutions that create positive change, ­ solutions that are good business.

We hope you will enjoy reading Share.

I D E A S

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Thorben Sander

Flemming Lauridsen

Director, Nordea Global Private Banking

Director, Nordea Private Banking International

Torsten Østensen

Ninni Franceschi

Director, Nordea Private Banking, Norway

Director, Nordea Private Banking, Sweden

Hans Henrik Klestrup Director, Nordea Private Banking, Denmark

2017#01

Jukka Perttula Director, Nordea Private Banking, Finland

I have no faith in the future. It is too uncertain to have any faith in it.

Instead, I try to influence it.

Lá s z l ó S zo m b a t fa l v y, i nve sto r

Publisher Nordea Private Banking Adress Nordea Bank S.A., 562 rue de Neudorf, L-2220 Luxembourg, P.O. Box 562 Luxembourg Web nordeaprivatebanking.com Tel +352 43 88 77 77 Mail nordea@nordea.lu Editorial team Ulla Madsen (EIC), Thomas Engelsmann (Ed), Mari Hotti, Ann-Sofie Hammarin, Kristin Skaug og Mari Yli-Sirniö Adaptation Datagraf Communications, Karen Gahrn (Ed) and Julie Bondo Gravesen Graphic design Datagraf Communications, Thomas Brandstrup, Kim Ewald Fossum, Helene Hjorth and Nicolai Ditlev Grønnegaard Front page Stefano Boeri Printer Datagraf Communications Nordea Private Banking strives to ensure that the information presented in this publication is true and correct, but assumes no responsibility for its accuracy or completeness. Moreover, Nordea Private Banking cannot be held liable for any decisions or financial actions made based on the information presented in this publication. Reprinting, reproduction or further distribution is only permitted with the prior permission of Nordea Private Banking.

NORDE A PRIVATE BANKING | MAY 2017 | NO. 1

11 He was just 14 years old when he won 1,600 guilders in an international tennis tournament. Mats Wilander shares what he has learned about money.

06

Conquering new ­territory for the homes of the future: in old grain silos, underwater – and underground.

An Afghan mine clearer blows with the wind and detonates landmines without putting people at risk.

NOR DI

ING KN

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541 Tryksag

46 Kalle Freese, a Finnish barista, is taking on the American coffee giants. His weapon: a new type of no brew coffee.

intro

regular

themes

profiles

02 Welcome About our new ­magazine

11 W hat I’ve learned from money Mats Wilander

15 F rom the Nordics with love Phenomenal ­innovation

12 Marie S. Berggreen and Heiða G. Nolsøe Danish entrepreneurs

06 One world.

1,000 ideas Ideas from around the world

14 M y light-bulb ­moment Ice cube bags 23 A Nordic region ­without borders If we were one country

MILJØMÆR SK

26

39 Investments throughout the ages The tulip bulb 48 Back page Cheat sheet, magazine highlights

26 Homes of the future In search of room for everyone 40 Nature eats plastic Bacteria as binmen

24 László Szombatfalvy Swedish investor 46 Kalle Freese Finnish barista

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Lend out your eyes Denmark

From Uganda to the USA TEXT

BY

MARTIN

LEER

SCHARNBE R G

The app is based on a shuffle system where the video call is forwarded until the first available helper answers. Today, there are 32,000 visually impaired users and 470,000 volunteer sighted helpers.

The best idea

Imagine being able to borrow other people’s eyes. Reading a letter, checking the use-by date on a carton of milk or selecting the right colour sewing thread can be a challenge for the visually impaired.

The Be My Eyes app connects blind and visually impaired people with sighted helpers via live video, thereby giving the blind “a pair of eyes” they can keep in their pocket. The sighted helper can see what the blind person is pointing at via a phone camera, enabling them to provide immediate assistance anytime and anywhere. Be My Eyes was invented by Hans Jørgen Wiberg, a Danish man who is himself visually impaired.

Windpowered mine clearer Afghanistan

A tumbleweed can save people’s lives.

At least that is what Afghani Massoud Hassani is trying to do in real life with his invention, the Mine Kafon. The Mine Kafon is a wind-powered anti-mine device which rolls over the ground and can detonate landmines. Even if the Mine Kafon loses some of its feet during the process, it can continue to roll and trigger up to four detonations.

The Mine Kafon has undergone years of prototyping and pilot projects, including in collaboration with the Dutch Ministry of Defence.

In these pages, we present a diverse collection of ideas from all over the world. And we have asked the Nordic designers, Marie S. Berggreen and Heiða G. Nolsøe, to tell us which ideas they consider to be the very best within four categories. Read on to learn more – and go to page 12 to learn more about the designers and their own great idea.

Netherlands

A newborn baby in a clean bed. It may seem obvious. But it isn’t. In the Western Cape province of South Africa, the Thula Baba Box is given to new parents. It is filled with baby clothes, toys and hygiene products, while the box itself can be used as a crib.

This helps to give the newborn a healthier start to life. The idea is not isolated to South Africa. In recent years, companies with names like Baby Box Canada and British Baby Box have popped up on both sides of the Atlantic. The Baby Box Company, based in the United States, has sold their baby box to parents in 52 different countries. The idea comes from Finland.

The baby box has been offered to new parents in Finland since the 1930s. The introduction of the Finnish baby box is considered a contributing factor to the significant decline in child mortality in Finland, which today is among the lowest in the world.

S c a n p i x / Pa t r i c k v a n Ka t w i j k

Imagine using the huge amounts of heat produced by a large company’s servers to heat your living room.

As the sheer volume of data increases every year, so do the costs of the energy needed to cool the data centres where the world’s serv-

Today, the United Nations estimates the cost of mine clearing to be $300-$1,000 per mine. A Mine Kafon costs around $50 to build and can clear up to four mines. It consists of a 17kg iron core on 175 bamboo legs.

“We think it’s an excellent idea. Instead of gathering all the servers in one room, they are distributed in private homes so the heat can be utilised. And it’s completely silent. We think that before long, hundreds of families will benefit from this.”

Jan and Rienske Visser, eRadiator users

Business

ers are stored. Dutch company Nerdalize has devised a system in which servers are installed in private homes, where the heat can be useful instead of being a problem.

They call it the eRadiator. Homeowners are offered free heating from a Nerdalize server, which is installed in their home, and Nerdalize pays for the electricity. This enables Nerdalize to save money on cooling and to offer cheaper server space to their customers. Nerdalize’s green model utilises the same energy twice: for computing and for heating. The first eRadiators are currently being installed in private homes in the Netherlands.

Finland

A real (remote-­ controlled) lifesaver USA

Last year, around 300 Syrian refugees where saved off the coast of Lesbos by a remote-controlled buoy.

The buoy, Emily, can sail through powerful currents and rough seas at up to 20 knots, and can reach people in distress faster than a lifeguard. The buoy has already been sold to navies, coastguards and search and rescue units in South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, the UK, France, Brazil, Mexico and Greece, among other countries.

“One day, while we were testing a remote-controlled vessel on a beach in Malibu, California, we saw lifeguards swim out to rescue some drowning swimmers. We realised that what we were building could be used to provide help even faster.”

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Boxing up baby

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Homes ­heated by data

Robert Lautrup, Hydronalix, co-inventor

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HOMES HEATED BY DATA “The sharing economy is a growing global phenomenon, and we believe that Nerdalize’s idea of reusing the heat produced by servers to heat spaces is a business idea with huge potential – the fact that it is also good for the environment and is more financially attractive for the user makes the idea even more brilliant.”

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Dr. Jacket Uganda

Rapidly ­regenerative coral USA

The seethrough lorry Argentina

Can you avoid traffic accidents by making lorries “transparent”?

Samsung has set out to develop a lorry that can increase safety for the vehicles behind it as they overtake it.

With the help of two cameras and four monitors, the cars behind the lorry can see any oncoming traffic in the opposite lane.

The project is currently being tested in traffic in Argentina.

Change

“For some ­species, the method can be a huge ­improvement and hopefully get them off the endangered list.”

Dr David Vaughan, Head of Mote’s Coral Reef Monitoring & Assessment Program

The world’s coral reefs are seriously threatened by overfishing, pollution and rising sea temperatures. Now, a team of biologists working at the third largest coral reef in the world, the Florida Reef Tract, has developed a new method of restoration.

With this new method, coral grow up to 25 times faster than normal. In all its simplicity, the method consists of slicing the coral in half. The process does not kill them, instead, they heal quickly and grow out again. In this way, one coral quickly becomes two. The cultivated coral from the lab are planted in the coral reef near Florida.

The process called micro-fragmenting has so far produced thousands of new coral, but with the fast growth rate, Dr David Vaughan, head of Mote’s Coral Reef Monitoring & Assessment Program, expects to reach a million in three to five years.

We have the stethoscope, we have the thermometer, and now doctors may be getting a new tool: a jacket. Brian Turyabagye, an engineer from Uganda, has developed a biomedical smart-jacket that can quickly and precisely conduct the preliminary diagnosis for pneumonia. Called MamaOpe, the jacket listens to the lungs using a built-in stethoscope connected to a mobile app, which can also detect any raspy sounds in the lungs.

One of the causes of the many deaths among children is misdiagnosis, because the symptoms of pneumonia closely resemble those of malaria.

The jacket eliminates those errors. A prototype is currently being tested in Uganda.

DR. JACKET “Pneumonia is a widespread and deadly illness, which is why fast and precise technology that can diagnose the illness is so important. With its simplicity, the thermal jacket is one step towards a significant improvement for children with pneumonia in developing countries.”

Po l f o t o /A l i r e z a R a m e z a n i

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Batdrone USA

Harvestable water Canada

Photo: FogQuest/Tony Makepeace

09

The sound of bat wings causes chills in some people. But it can also be a useful resource.

Robotics engineers from California Institute of Technology have developed a robotic bat. Weighing just 93 grams, they hope their bat can be used for monitoring without the security risks associated with propeller-driven drones. The robotic bat is not remote controlled. Instead it flaps its wings using lightweight sensors and computers in its skeleton. The ambition is for the Bat Bot B2 robot to begin flying into disaster areas and building sites within five years.

A 40 m2 net produces on average 200 litres of water a day. The FogQuest project is suitable for areas with high humidity and has been set up in Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nepal and Eritrea, among other locations.

We harvest the fruits of the soil. But we can also harvest water – from the air.

Even when it isn’t raining. The Canadian FogQuest project is an alternative means of bringing water to drought-plagued areas. Fine-meshed nets hung up between two poles cause fog to condense into droplets of water which then drip down into a water collection system comprised of pipes and tanks.

The system doesn’t require the use of pumps or electricity.

Photo: FogQuest/Robert Schemenauer

Creativity

2017#01

THE WATER-PURIFYING STRAW “A straw with an integrated filter that can transform dirty water into clean drinking water, free from waterborne bacteria, is a creative, innovative and simple invention that will help thirsty people in developing countries as well as backpackers and mountain climbers.”

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The waterpurifying straw Phone ­controlled birth control Sweden

Birth control has taken the form of objects for many years, and condoms and The Pill are found in countless wallets and handbags.

Now, birth control is joining the digital age.

The Natural Cycles app has been officially approved as a medical conceptive, offering the same level of protection as a condom.

Using daily temperature measurements and a special algorithm, the app calculates a woman’s fertility and ovulation cycle.

Natural Cycles is a Swedish invention and is used today by more than 150,000 women all over the world.

Denmark

A straw inspired the invention of an ideal tool for backpackers and mountain climbers, but has also played a role in developing countries. The little LifeStraw is able to filter water in places where the water is not fit for drinking. Its filter removes 99.9999 per cent of waterborne bacteria, such as E. coli and salmonella, transforming polluted water into clean drinking water and reducing the risk of disease. One LifeStraw can purify 1,000 litres of water.

Today, the straw is available in 64 countries in both retail sales and as humanitarian aid.

Scalability

Oddball football pitches Thailand

In the Khlong Toei district in the megacity of Bangkok, there is not a lot of space to build new parks, playgrounds or football pitches for the city’s children. However, property developer AP Thailand has found a creative solution.

Using aerial photographs, they localised a handful of small, odd-shaped spaces which they cleared and paved with cement, paint and anti-skid material. And while they defy the norm – and shape – of ordinary football pitches, they have proven fully functional for games and competitions.

BIRTH CONTROL BY PHONE “Birth control by phone is a healthy, natural and not least affordable solution for avoiding unwanted pregnancy. The fact that it works for women all over the world makes the idea highly scalable.”

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What I’ve learned from money

Text by Per Colstrup Vinkel / Photos byJürgen Hasenkopf

“If you lose touch with the days before you became wealthy, then it becomes difficult to handle setbacks.”

Mats Wilander

I come from a family and a background where money wasn’t something we focused on, maybe because we didn’t have much. I still feel that way, even though I have money in the bank now. I’ve seen how money can destroy more than it helps.

How it can make a successful young sports star forget where he comes from, who helped pave the way for him. It makes people egotistical and self-centred. If you lose touch with the days before you became wealthy, then it becomes difficult to handle setbacks. It comes back and hits you at some point like a boomerang.

The best investment I’ve ever made is in my children. I live in the US, where an education costs money. Being able to give my five children the education they want has meant a lot to both them and me.

Because I’ve seen how unhealthy and superficial the world of professional tennis can be, I spend three months a year in my Winnebago. It strikes a stark contrast to life in first class, which I still experience when I consult as an expert at the four Grand Slam tournaments. I drive around in my old Winnebago in unknown parts of the US and teach tennis. I sleep uncomfortably on the same hard mattress every night. The food I eat varies in quality, but my soul and body get recharged by new experiences and meeting inspiring people. During that period, I could make ten times as much being a tennis commentator, but in my world, no amount of money in the bank can compare to those months in the Winnebago.

They help make me the man I am and always have been – a hard-working country boy.

2017#01

Won seven Grand Slam titles and $8 million in prize money before retiring at the peak of his career in 1996. Today, Mats Wilander is an expert commentator on Eurosport and active in the Wilander on Wheels tennis concept. He lives in Idaho with his wife and five children.

11

I still remember the handshake from the Dutch tournament director, who seemed like he couldn’t believe he was handing me the prize money. In an adult tournament with players from all over the world, he never would have expected to be handing the winner’s envelope to a 14-year-old teenager from Sweden. I had a hard time getting my head around those 1,600 guilders. The money in the envelope didn’t become real for me until I called my father back home in Väksjö and told him he didn’t need to work extra hours at the workshop – and that he didn’t have to ask my brothers Anders and Ingmar to help pay for my tennis trips.

I’ve learned that money doesn’t define happiness in any way. The happiest people I’ve met haven’t be the ones with the biggest fortunes.

2017#01 12 share

A COL L A P SIBL E , S USTA INA BL E WAST E BIN

“It was totally surreal.

We were surrounded by top designers from all over the world.”

When Marie S. Berggreen and Heiða G. Nolsøe invented DropBucket, their mission was to invite the waste bin to the party. Now they have set their sights on something bigger.

Text by Tommy Heisz / Photo by Tobias Selnæs Markussen

get your burger menu in a cardboard “We are backed by investors, and container that can be quickly and easnow we are ready to go after the ily folded up. It should be possible to whole world.” use this same principle in a waste bin, Marie S. Berggreen, age 25, is ambithought the two women. The idea was tious and confident. Together with so good that DropBucket was invited her business partner, Heiða G. Nolsøe, to Danish Roskilde Festival in 2013, two years her senior, she created a where it proved its worth right away. collapsible sustainable waste bin in The way festival guests handled cardboard. A simple invention, rubbish changed drastically. and yet, an invention that has the two women poised for an international breakthrough.

When did your big At their office in the Vesterbro break come? district of Copenhagen, they Heiða G. Nolsøe: “It was defiHeiða G. Nolsøe receive emails every day from nitely in 2015 when we won festival organisers all over the the Red Dot Design Award, the world looking to invite Dropmost prestigious design award Bucket to the party. It all began in the world. It was totally surwith a quiet observation: real. We were surrounded by “We had both been to festiMarie S. Berggreen top designers from all over the world. We were some of the vals and wondered why there only women, and we were definitely always appeared to be a sense of indifthe youngest. At the dinner, we sat ference towards rubbish. People would at the same table as the team from just leave it lying around. At the same Bosch. Their chief designer asked us: time, handling all that rubbish seemed ‘Which department do you come from very cumbersome. Huge bins lined at your company?’ We said that it was with plastic bags, which had to be just us. That we were the company.” moved around on the festival site on lorries,” explains Heiða G. Nolsøe.

Their solution is a waste bin in roWhat did the award ultimately bust cardboard in a pyramid shape, mean for you? which makes it difficult to knock over.

“It resulted in agreements with cusAnd most importantly, it can be set tomers all over the world, and toup and taken down in one simple day, DropBucket is sold in Germany, movement. One sentence was crucial Netherlands, Iceland, Norway and the for the construction: “Think of it like Faroe Islands. It has also given us a a Happy Meal.” At McDonald’s, you different type of customer than we’d

expected. Nice places like museums began using the waste bin because they liked the design. But most importantly, it has changed how we perceive ourselves. Since we won the award, neither of us has been afraid to think in big and visionary terms. We used to tell people who showed an interest in DropBucket about how smart and functional it is or show them how it’s put together. Now we talk about bigger topics like sustainability and the importance of sorting waste.”

What drives you?

Marie S. Berggreen: “We want to create change. And on one level, we’ve already changed something important, that is how people think about waste.

At events, a waste bin has always been something to be kept out of sight – which meant it wasn’t used very much. However, DropBucket is always given a visible placement, because it’s something guests and customers actually want to look at.”

The next step is to change how people sort waste with a more sustainable solution. And to really make change, you have to go beyond Denmark’s borders.

Heiða G. Nolsøe: “We won’t be limited, and we’ve experienced huge interest from as far away as Australia.

But right now, we’re mainly looking at the Nordic countries and Germany.

These are countries that already have an approach to sustainability.”

The Faroese connection In March 2014, DropBucket landed an investor in the form of Faroese P/F Royndin, which invested €175,000 for 27 per cent of the company. Heiða G. Nolsøe grew up in the Faroe Islands: “After our success at Roskilde Festival, several investors showed an interest and we ended up choosing an equity fund from the Faroe Islands. One of the big advantages has been that we have sold a lot in Iceland and the Faroe Islands and have been able to use these smaller societies as start-up cases.

They have been excellent testing grounds.”

In many ways, it is logical. If a waste bin is both practical and looks nice, it will be used instead of hidden away. Heiða G. Nolsøe and Marie S. Berggreen have won several awards for their DropBucket.

2017 #01

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“It was like a lightning strike. Ice cubes. Bags.

Of course. The idea crystallised in seconds.”

It was July 1976 and scorching hot.

We were holidaying in a cottage on the North Sea, five friends and my German shepherd. At the time, I was running a small factory in Værløse (north of Copenhagen, ed.), where we made boy scout knives, and I was a little more well off than my friends, so I invited them on holiday.

We’d only been there for about 15 minutes, when we decided we should go out dancing and meet the local girls. To get us warmed up, one of my mates pulled out a bottle of whiskey.

Today, Erling Vangedal-Nielsen is 75 years old and owns Unigreen International, ­situated just south of Copenhagen.

In addition to the ice cube bag, he also invented the long tea filter, a fruit bag, a salad spinning bag and an inflatable seat cushion.

We found an ice cube tray in the freezer, but after the first glass, the tray was empty. ‘Somebody should invent an easy way to make ice cubes,’ snapped one of my friends.

At the exact same moment, it occurred to me that I had forgotten to order plastic bags for the small knife factory I had at the time.

“It was like a lightning strike. Ice cubes. Bags. Of course. The idea crystallised in my head in seconds, and I jumped up from the sofa. A bag divided up into sections, fill it with water, pop it in the freezer and you have a bar of ice cubes. Almost like a big bar of chocolate. Only of ice.

I had a clear picture of the bag in my mind. I was restless for the entire holiday because the idea was bustling about in my head. Three hours after I got home, I had made the first prototype in my workshop with two plastic bags, a soldering iron and a 48-millimetre egg cup.

I filled it with water and put it in the freezer. It worked. I had made my first ice cube bag. From there, things went quickly.

More than 8 ­ illion ice cube b bags have been sold in more than 30 countries.

THREE PATHS TO A GOOD IDEA Attention Inventions solve problems, and everybody solves problems every day without even thinking about it.

If your shoelace breaks, you find a way to fix it. The trick is to pay attention.

Tenacity A good idea isn’t good until you realise it. And that takes tenacity. At the beginning of my project with the ice cube bags, I put up a quarter of the value of my house as collateral.

It could have lost me a lot of money, but sometimes you have to take chances.

Understandability Create a visualisation of your idea. The best way to help people to understand your idea is to illustrate it. Even the most primitive model is better than nothing.

Photo: Polfoto/Finn Frandsen

2017#01 14 share

My eureka ­moment

Text by Martin Leer Scharnberg Photos by James Bates

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Competitive skiing Eirik Sæterøy, from Norway, Henrik Harlaut, from Sweden, and Jackson Wells, from New Zealand, all triumphed at the 2017 X Games. Norway has always been a pioneer within competitive skiing. The world’s first national skiing competition took place in the capital of Norway, Christiania, in 1868 – and since then, the idea has spread throughout the world. Here’s an extra bit of trivia: Skiers from Norway have won more medals at the winter Olympics than any other country. To date, they have 332 medals.

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Photo: Polfoto/Jon Olav Nesvold

Text by Julie Gravesen

From the Nordics with love

2017#01

The Nordic countries are known the world over for innovation and creative product development. We present here a series of phenomena with Nordic origins that have been embraced by the rest of the world – from the three-point seat belt to paternity leave.

The fact that these children in China can have fresh milk with their lunch is a result of Swedish product development. Ruben Rausing studied economics in Sweden, but did his graduate studies in the USA, where he followed developments within food production and sales – and came to understand that there was a need for innovation in packaging. In 1943, Rausing and his staff embarked on years of R&D work, resulting in 1946 in the world’s first Tetra Pak model: a plastic-lined and efficiently sealed triangular tetrahedron. Since then, it has been joined by other shapes, but the basic principle is the same. According to figures from April 2016, Tetra Pak products are sold in more than 170 countries worldwide and the company sells 184 billion units of packaging every year.

Photo: Tetra Pak

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The packaging is sealed tight

A sweltering success The Grotto Sauna, built on an island in Georgian Bay, Ontario, was developed for a lucky individual

by Canadian design firm Partisans. As the name suggests, it is inspired by an Italian grotto, but as we all know, the sauna is a Finnish invention.

The Finns have used saunas for more than a thousand years , and the phenomenon has spread to many parts of the world – despite the fact that many cultures have their own versions of the sweat room, which resemble the sauna, like the Russian banya and the Turkish thermal baths.

Today, 30 per cent of members of the Finnish trade organisation for sauna manufacturers operate outside Finland.

Photo: Partisans

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Photo: Scanpix/Emmanuel Dunand

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A behemoth of building blocks The world’s largest Lego model was on display in Times Square in New York City in May 2013.

It was built using 5,335,200 blocks and depicted an X-wing Starfighter from the Star Wars universe. The Lego block was invented in the little Danish town of Billund by Ole and Godtfred Kirk Christiansen in 1957. The interlocking system consisting of a hollow base topped with “studs” continues to form the basis for countless different types of Lego. Today, Lego is found in every corner of the world, from Finland to New Zealand, from the USA to Taiwan. Lego’s revenue increased from around €3.8 billion in 2014 to more than €4.7 billion in 2015.

Manning Up

Photo: Scanpix/Facebook

November 2015: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that he will take two months’ paternity leave to care for his daughter. However, the Nordic countries are the real pioneers, topping world ranking lists when it comes parental leave for fathers. The Swedes were the first to introduce the so-called parental leave, back in 1974. Since then, paternity leave has spread to the rest of the world. The British introduced shared parental leave in April 2015, and Facebook offers its employees up to four months’ parental leave for the mother or the father.

The omnipresent ­ombudsman In August 2016, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales, from the Philippines, received the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize, for her work for Philippine society. There are ombudsmen all over the world, but the word ombudsman comes for the Old Norse umboðsmaðr, which means representative. The word became common after King Karl XII established the Högste Ombudsmannen in 1713 to ensure that public servants and judges observed the laws while the king was travelling.

Photo: Scanpix/Aaron Favila

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The Chinese sleep in Stockholm

2017#01

According to figures from 2016, Ikea has 389 stores worldwide. In Asia, there are 44, and 10 of the world’s largest Ikeas are found in China. There, the Swedish furniture chain’s stores have become popular attractions. Especially on Sundays, people flock to the stores, often spending all day hanging out in the furniture, talking on the phone, eating – and sleeping. Like this woman napping on one of Ikea’s Stockholm sofas. In Beijing.

Stars in Swedish seatbelts

Photo: Getty Images/CBS Photo Archive

Los Angeles, July 2016: Along with singer Missy Elliott, First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama sang Carpool Karaoke on “The Late Late Show with James Corden” in high spirits and wearing a three-point seatbelt. This safety belt was introduced for the first time by Volvo in 1959. It was developed

by Nils Bohlin, an engineer who had previously worked in aeronautics. In the interest of public safety, Volvo made the safety belt available to other auto manufacturers free of charge, and since then, the three-point seatbelt has taken over the world. Just five years after its invention, the seatbelt was a natural part of cars all over Europe and the USA. It has been called the most important piece of safety equipment in the long history of the automobile.

Photo: Getty Images/Bloomberg Photo: Scanpix/Stephen Crowley

Let’s skype 1 February 2017: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer held a press conference, physically and via Skype for those reporters not in Washington. D.C. at the time. The communication service is the fruit of a cross-Nordic collaboration. Niklas Zennström, from Sweden, and Janus Friis, from Denmark, founded Skype in 2003, and the company name has since become a verb – today, people all over the world skype on a daily basis.

2017#01 21 share

The King of Savalou, Ahotondji Sèvègni Gbaguidi, photographed in the Ovalia chair in the African country of Benin in 2015. The chair was designed in 1968 by Henrik Thor-Larsen, a Dane who worked in Sweden. As early as the 1930s, designers like Alvar Aalto, from Finland, Bruno Mathsson, from Sweden, and Finn Juhl, from Denmark, were making Scandinavian design world renowned, and Ovalia is typical for the 1960s wave of colourful design, which spread throughout the world. For instance, Finnish designer Eero Aarnio’s Ball Chair, which resembles Ovalia, was featured in the hit movie Men in Black.

Photo: Getty Images/Eric Lafforgue/Art in All of Us Photo: Getty Images/Anadolu Agency

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Sitting pretty

Norwegian Nama Sushi chefs from all over the world competed in the World Sushi Cup in Japan in August 2016. In sushi’s native country, Norwegian salmon is called “nama salmon”, which means “that which no one has done anything to”. Ordinarily, raw and fresh fish must be frozen for 24 hours before it can be used for sushi. But this isn’t the case with the pure salmon from Norway, which is free from parasites and can be placed directly on the rice. Norway is the world’s largest exporter of salmon.

In 2014, Norway exported 1.15 million tons of salmon for nearly €4.8 billion.

Text by Peder Bjerge and Gry Koefoed

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#5 in Europe

We are strong on our own, but how would the world look if four of the Nordic countries formed an alliance? We invite our readers to participate in a little thought experiment: A federation of the Nordic countries.

We are arch enemies, when it comes to football, but we vote for each other in the Eurovision Song Contest, and when we Nordics run into each other elsewhere in the world, we feel like kinsmen. Last year, Norwegian hotel mogul Petter Stordalen conducted a thought experiment in a Swedish newspaper: How would the Nordic region look if we formed an alliance?

He focused on our common culture and history as well as our knack for innovation.

And he was cited internationally.

Here, we invite our readers to explore a world where Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark are one.

From Denmark in the south to Norway in the north, the Nordic consumers spend billions online every single year.

In 2016, Nordic consumers in the four countries spent €21.9 billion on physical products. The Norwegians have the highest average consumption of €173 per person. We especially like to buy clothing and shoes, media and electronics online.

Millions of workers In a federation of the Nordic countries, there would be more than 1.4 million businesses, which combined would employ just over 5.9 million workers.

The long roads A federation of the Nordic countries would span a huge network of roads. For instance, from the Danish-German border in Padborg in the south to the North Cape in Norway, the most direct route by car covers 2,686 kilometres. That is a longer drive than from Padborg to Rome or Paris.

Altogether, the network of roads in the Nordic countries comprises more than 1.2 million kilometres of highway.

The three largest companies Norwegian Statoil, Danish Maersk Group and Swedish Volvo are the three largest companies in the Nordic region based on revenue.

Statoil had revenue of more than €55 billion in 2016, while the Maersk Group’s revenue was around €37 billion and Volvo’s was approximately €34 billion.

These impressive figures aside, the three Nordic giants only rank 145th, 240th and 272nd, respectively, on the Fortune 500 list of the largest companies in the world.

Number one is American retailer Walmart, with revenue corresponding to just over €442 billion, while Apple came in ninth with around €215 billion.

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SOURCES: NORDIC STATISTICS, STATISTICS DENMARK, EUROSTAT, MANDAG MORGEN (WEEKLY MAGAZINE), FORTUNE 500, POSTNORD, CIA WORLD FACTBOOK.

Billions in online sales

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A Nordic region without borders

The combined GNP for the four Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden – totalled just over €1,276 billion in 2015. By comparison, the country with the strongest economy in the European Union, Germany, has a GNP of €3,032 billion. A federation of the Nordic countries would be the fifth largest economy in the European Union.

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RE WA RD FOR R EIN V E N T ING T H E UN

“I have no faith in the future.

Instead, I try to influence it.”

As a Hungarian refugee, he grew up in the shadow of World War II. He has been called one of the world’s best share investors. Today, 89-year-old László Szombatfalvy is spending €52 million to forge a new global leadership.

Text by Kristina Olsson / Photo by Henric Lindsten

When World War II ended in 1945, László Szombatfalvy, a Hungarian teenager, had experienced siege, lost a brother and come to realise that war is the worst possible way to resolve conflicts between states. But now the United Nations would guarantee peace on earth, he thought.

Today, just over 70 years later, László Szombatfalvy is probably not the only person who is disappointed by what the world has come to. However, unlike most people, he is determined to do something about it.

The young man who fled from Hungary after the Soviet Union invaded in 1956 ended up in Sweden. He got a job in Shell’s finance department and eventually developed a model for assessing shares with a built-in risk assessment – a model that later made him a billionaire.

However, he never lost his interest in global problems and risks. In 2012, he placed €52 million in a foundation, the Global Challenges Foundation, which seeks to call attention to global problems and improve the political prerequisites for resolving them. Recently, the foundation announced an international award of $5 million for good ideas for a global governance model.

What works?

“The political system has failed to

adapt to the tremendous growth in global society in the past hundred years. Technology is not all that has developed at breakneck speed; population growth has also left its mark on the ecosystem. Today’s leaders are trying to resolve today’s problems with yesterday’s tools – multinational negotiations that all too often are controlled by national interests.

We need to build and establish a model for global governance to handle the biggest global problems and risks. A model suitable and neutral enough that every country in the world can have faith in it.”

But is that even possible?

“We live in a global society, today, where no walls can protect us from the climate change caused, perhaps, by emissions on the other side of world. We must cooperate to resolve these global problems and understand that ultimately no national society can be safe and thrive in an unsafe and unhealthy global society. That nationalism is a suicide ­ideology.

If we resolved the problem with political power in one go – a global and complete disarmament, international courts recognised by all countries and a global law enforcement authority to guarantee the safety of every

state – we would also be able to resolve the other problems with significantly fewer or possibly no casualties.

Every nation wants to live in peace, and every day we spend nearly $5 billion defending ourselves from each other. That is the greatest waste in the world. And we haven’t paid any consideration to all the human suffering associated with war.”

Isn’t it naïve to think that we can do away with national ­defence, considering the global ­situation today?

“You’re right, it sounds naïve. But calling something naïve or unrealistic is not an argument against it. Universal disarmament would free up tons of resources for resolving global problems, which also benefits justice. So, is it more just that a conflict is decided by the physical or economic strength of the parties or that it is decided by a court?”

Have you managed to ­uphold your faith in the future?

“I have no faith in the future. It is too uncertain to have any faith in it. Instead, I try to influence it.”

Win $5 million The mission of the Global Challenges Prize 2017 is to find a new model for global cooperation in an effort to handle global risks. The prize amount is $5 million – corresponding to €4.7 million.

The deadline for submissions is 30 September 2017; all submissions will then be reviewed by a select panel of experts.

After honouring one or more prize winners in April 2018, the foundation will set about trying to realise the proposals to engender change.

In every way, a notion that is as fantastic as it is ambitious. László Szombatfalvy wants to change the way the world is governed.

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In the small mining community of Coober Pedy in southern Australia, climate change is causing extreme weather conditions. This has forced parts of the community to live where they work – underground. They have organised themselves as people tend to do: with flats, bars and a church. Elsewhere in the world, architects are exploring ways to utilise space underground for housing on a large scale.

B Y M E T T E

Homes of the future

up, out and down

Photo: Getty Images/Marc Dozier

Moving

N E X M A N D

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Un dergrou nd a n d at th e b ot to m of th e s e a

C

Underground flats and cities under the sea. Skyscrapers with vegetable gardens and farm animals on the 30th floor. This is not science fiction, but reality in a few years. In 15 years, 8.5 billion people will be fighting for a share of the world’s available living space, and the rescuers will be the urban planners, architects and engineers with the most humane solutions.

an nearly nine billion people live and thrive together in comfort? It certainly sounds a bit cramped, but it is a scenario that we can expect to see in the near future.

Humanity has become better at surviving and average life expectancies are increasing worldwide. However, this brings huge challenges, for where will we all live in the future? And even more importantly – how?

The Japanese are pragmatists when it comes to tackling social and space problems. After suffering defeat in World War II, the country managed to build itself back up again, and today people are talking about the concept of abenomics, referring to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s bombastic growth policies.

But with economic progress comes a growing and more demanding middle class, and people are literally fighting for space in Tokyo. There aren’t enough square metres for all the people living in the city to keep society’s wheels turning.

People-friendly micro-dwellings

In response, the concept of microliving has developed into a global trend. A necessity for homo sapiens, who find themselves forced to live in layers. Today, however, the humane values are much more prominent – in Japan, as well.

People are making a virtue of necessity and fostering a new way of living.

New York and London are leading the way with square metre prices so high that even people with stable incomes are forced to be content with mini-flats.

Many property firms are touting microliving and developing tiny floor plans with folding beds and tables, suspension racks for bikes, built-in sliding doors etc.

In Hong Kong, a 20-square-metre flat costs the equivalent of $7.5 million, and there is good business in letting storage space controlled by smartphone apps, according to the Financial Times. It is even possible to rent suitcases for

Japanese firm of consulting engineers Shimizu is ready with a solution to one of humanity’s greatest challenges: rising sea levels in coastal areas.

Ocean Spiral is an underwater city where 5,000 people can live sustainably – and with plenty of space.

25 Bulgaria 52 Denmark

Photo: Scanpix/AFP/Yoshikatzu Tsuno

Average living space per capita in square meters

39 Finland 43 Germany 31 Hungary 27 Latvia

Re s p o n s e s t o th e space shor tage

10-squaremeter dwellings Tokyo

68 Luxembourg 41 Netherlands

Humanity prefers living with the masses

There is clearly a need for new ideas and creativity in this area. The UN’s population prognoses estimate that up to 10 billion people will be walking all over each other by 2050. Currently, we are at 7.3 billion. The majority of the growth will take place in Asia and Africa.

But can’t future generations simply settle in the wide-open spaces of the Mongolian plains or the African savannah? There must be new prairies settlers can embrace?

Photo: Getty Images/Universal Images Group

The space we have

15 Romania 45 Sweden SOURCE: Eurostat

Illustration: Shimizu

people who don’t have room to store them at home.

A concept like “social sustainability” is being treated on equal terms with consideration for the environment when planning new housing and urban districts.

American Professor Michael Goodsite is ViceDean for Research at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Southern Denmark. He holds an MSc in constructional engineering and a PhD in climate and atmospheric chemistry.

Michael Goodsite’s bases his teaching of future engineers and research at the university on the development of people-friendly cities.

He is one of many advocates for blocks of flats built as “vertical villages”, where community and green elements are incorporated all the way up to the 16th floor. This vision includes farm animals and vegetable gardens on the higher levels of skyscrapers.

“High-rises shouldn’t be just living and work spaces. They should be thriving ecosystems as a perpetual reminder that no matter how many people we are, we still need to live in and promote nature. This is the best way to ensure that we don’t just build technological megacities, but cities made up of lots of small ecosystems,” explains Michael Goodsite, who has participated in several international initiatives aimed at making the overpopulated cities of the future more habitable. He is also the former Vice-chair of Cost Actions, an EU network work seeking to build “People-friendly cities in a data rich world”.

The professor emphasises that even though the internet now makes it possible for us to work from home, and globalisation means that Swedes and Chinese can be colleagues without ever meeting, we still need daily contact with other people.

“A future city apartment will be workable and liveable, we live and work in the same place. This allows us to conserve resources, for instance on transport,” ascertains Michael Goodsite – adding, however, that people get lonely and unproductive if they sit isolated in their own compartment. There is therefore a need for solutions where the community connected to cultural experiences and nature are integrated into housing complexes.

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The metropolis of Tokyo, Japan, with its 37 million citizens, is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. In the post-war years, the foundation was laid for the enormous growth in population, and the city began experiencing serious space shortages as early as the 1970s. Nakagin Capsule Tower was built in 1972 as a revolutionary style of microliving. At the time, the raw concrete architecture became known the world over as Japanese Metabolism.

The dwelling capsules are just 10 square metres and contain all the necessary functions, even a tiny toilet. The capsules were originally assembled at factories, then hoisted up one at a time and clicked into the concrete core. Today, Nakagin Capsule Tower is partially abandoned, but some of the micro-flats are still let out to tourists through Airbnb.

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Photo: Getty Images/Andrew Watson

Photo: Getty Images/Mark Kolbe

In the Australian mining town of Coober Pedy, residents have accepted the consequences of extremely high temperatures and violent storms.

Everything takes place underground, even the billiards tournament.

The answer is no. Humanity’s strongest trait – and probably our biggest problem – is our need to be together. We always end up bunching together in cities, as that is where the greatest discoveries are made. That is where there is work.

That is where people create an identity by mirroring themselves in others. Many others.

As Israeli historian and best-selling author Yuval Noah Harari writes in his latest book, Homo Deus. A Brief History of Tomorrow, our brains haven’t changed in hundreds of thousands of years, but we have become extremely adept at functioning in and benefiting from living among thousands and thousands of people, and we prefer living with the masses.

“Humans nowadays completely dominate the planet not because the individual human is far smarter and more nimble-fingered than the individual chimp (…), but because Homo sapiens is the only species on earth capable of cooperating flexibly in large numbers,” he writes.

This is why we – and not chimpanzees – build skyscrapers that twist and meander a kilometre up in the air.

Chimpanzees do not like being close to anyone other than their chimpanzee family and closest friends. Humans feel at home among thousands of complete strangers.

Pollution and shortage of space?

Dig yourself a hole

It is one thing to plan and build innovative hous-

ing, but what about how much pollution the building process causes.

Our need for new city dwellings has triggered a climate catastrophe – for instance, the production and use of concrete is responsible for a shockingly large share of global carbon emissions.

Every expert, Share has spoken too – architects, urban planners, engineers – agrees: Sustainability is not just a good idea, but a necessity if we are to continue to inhabit the world, even for just a little while longer.

Ultimately, we may need to turn to means that many of us today would consider drastic. Such as building down instead of up.

Michael Goodsite has no doubts whatsoever that underground dwellings will be one of the responses to the shortage of space and pollution.

“My idea is that we can make better use of underground spaces we’ve already created, like mines, basements, subways systems etc. If we humans are capable of colonising other planets, then we can also create dwellings underground,” says the engineer.

Michael Goodsite knows full well that humans need light, fresh air and space, but he believes that these needs can be met. Furthermore, the excavation process itself will release energy from the soil and last but not least: underground we are protected from natural disasters.

Nature’s destructive forces are exactly what a small community, Coober Pedy, north of Ade-

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Mich ae l G o o dsite , profe ssor

Illustrations: Bunker Arquitectura

laide, Australia, is trying to shield itself from.

Michael Goodsite brings up this example as proof that an address underground can be preferable and even cosy.

The residents had worked in the opal mines for generations, but due to extremely high temperatures much of the year, 80 per cent of the residents have now moved underground in cooler rock caves, where life unfolds just as it would aboveground. They have even dug out a church with room for large services.

Another example is the overpopulated metropolis of Mexico City. According to the BBC, a firm of architects there has launched the idea of the “earthscraper”, a block of flats for 5,000 people that cuts 300 metres down into the earth like an inverted pyramid. The light will come from a glass structure at ground level and fibre optics on the lower levels.

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“If we humans are capable of colonising other planets, then we can also create dwellings underground.”

The prairie of the future is the bottom of the sea

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In Mexico City, there is a serious shortage of space, especially downtown, where the historical buildings are being preserved.

This has resulted in a fantastic proposal to build a 65-storey “earthscraper” under the central squares in the city. The building is shaped like a pyramid, only pointing downwards, of course.

Humanity’s resourcefulness and ability to invent new solutions comes to light in the way we live and organise our lives. This occurs in smaller contexts, like in Coober Pedy, and on a grand scale, such as in a proposal from the Japanese consulting engineering firm, Shimizu, which plans to build a city of 5,000 residents under the sea.

Shimizu’s specialists have designed an underwater city to address the problem of rising seas in the world’s coastal areas. The city is called Ocean Spiral, and is designed like a giant corkscrew that stretches down 75 storeys underwater. At the top, there is a spaceship-like dome with flats, offices, shops, theatres and more, and the idea is for the entire construction to be self-sufficient with energy and food.

The residential area at the top of the dome will naturally be watertight and protected from natural disasters like earthquakes, which are a major problem in Japan.

The firm’s technicians, in collaboration with the University of Tokyo, have even come up with an ingenious energy solution: Icy water is pumped up from the bottom of the sea and thermal energy is produced when the cold water meets the warm surface air. At the same time, the seawater will be treated to make it safe to drink, and there will be large basins for aquaculture and hydroculture.

One of the biggest challenges, however, is the building material itself, which cannot be concrete.

But a solution has also been proposed for that: the Japanese are in the processing of building giant 3D printers that can handle the job. If they succeed, the Shimizu Corporation estimates that the underwater city can be built for around $26 billion.

A shortage of space and pollution have created a new building concept, the vertical landscape, which seeks to replace barren skyscrapers and bring fresh air to the big cities.

Nanjing, in eastern China, “only” has eight million residents. In China, that makes it a medium-sized provincial town. But thanks to its location on the Yangtze river and function as a vital economic driver for centuries, the city – which is characterised by concrete high-rises – has a serious pollution problem.

Italian architect Stefano Boeri, who comes from another industrial city, Milan, has a plan to plant huge forests in the middle of Nanjing’s most claustrophobic districts. But where will the space come from? The answer is found hundreds of metres up in the air.

Boeri Studio’s forests are vertical. Thousands of trees and hanging plants will cover the facades of the housing and commercial high-rises.

Besides being decorative, the vertical parks will also serve a function: to filter the smoggy air and convert it into oxygen.

Stefano Boeri’s project is not the realisation of a hippy’s urban farming dream. He is one of many urban planners who think of vertical forests as the lungs of big cities. A necessary and beautiful organ donation.

Illustration: Stefano Boeri Architetti

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Ve r t i ca l fore st s in met ro p olise s Green skyscrapers around the world

In Milan, these types of housing high-rises are already being covered with vegetation that has been hoisted up in a vertical position to bring new life to residents as high up as 100 metres.

The clinical skyscraper design is being paired with green environments, thus improving the quality of life of residents, but also removing CO₂ from the air.

Green skyscrapers are an international trend.

You have to think in terms of villages, social communities and gardens, rising vertically instead of taking up space horizontally.

The Danish-Swedish firm of architects, C.F. Møller, has designed a 24-storey housing block in Antwerp’s Nieuw Zuid district along the Scheldt River, which seriously challenges the traditional high-rise concept.

The building is designed as a vertical village, but instead of living isolated from each other, the residents share facilities, winter gardens and landscape architecture – vertically.

In this computer-generated image, which is also featured on the front cover, we see Nanjing, one of China’s most polluted cities. There, new building principles are being utilised to give residents clean air. Projects in the works include a green skyscraper to beautify and purify the city centre.

Photo: Stefano Boeri Architetti

Green fingers

The flying gardeners Milano

Italian architect Stefano Boeri is a specialist in towering vertical forests. He designs highrises overgrown with plants and trees. I his hometown of Milano several projects have already been completed, and even though the trees and bushes are not yet fully grown, it is easy to get a sense of the forest taking shape.

Bosco Verticale, the vertical forest, is cared for by a team of so-called flying gardeners.

Professional climbers and botanists, who are hooked up to 300 metres of rope attached to the roof of the skyscraper, rappel from balcony to balcony trimming and pruning the vegetation as they go.

An award-winning short documentary has been made about these daring gardeners.

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Microliving is already the basis for living for many people all over the world, and it will become ever more common within the next 15 years. Ikea is very well-aware of this.

The aim is to create an existence within very little space – mini-dwellings that meet needs such as: How do we fit a kitchen into a 10-square-­ metre room? Where can we sleep if the floor space is occupied by a dining table and chairs? And it isn’t just underprivileged families who are being forced closer together. The middle class in big cities all over the world are watching the square metres disappear from under their feet.

Ikea’s catalogue, published in almost biblical numbers, presents clear solutions to this problem – every year. In fact, 80 per cent of their customers already live in big cities, and that figure is on the rise. At the same time, more and more people will need to exist in less space. Ikea has a wealth of experience from the Asian markets, where consumers have been living in micro-flats for decades.

Each new collection is based on very thorough – yet uncomplicated – research. Ikea’s design team simply visits people in Tokyo, Copenhagen, Mexico City and elsewhere.

“We study and collect concrete knowledge about home life. It is undergoing significant changes around the world, as urbanisation takes hold.

Eighty per cent of Ikea’s customers live in cities,” says Viveca Olsson, a Swede based in London, who is Creative Leader for Ikea Range & Design.

“The future is urban, and the majority of residents in cities will live in small flats.”

Viveca Olsson explains that Ikea’s designers are

Student housing in containers is an idea that will soon spread across the world. You take old shipping containers, for instance from Maersk, and place them in undeveloped spaces in cities, thereby creating a new housing culture for the thousands of students in need of a roof over their heads.

Microliving and recycling all in one.

The Urban Riggers student housing concept was designed by Bjarke Ingels Group.

working with, among other things, the “fluid design” trend. This means that rooms are no longer limited to their traditional function. Instead, a kitchen can flow into a bedroom, the bedroom can become a dining room and so on.

On Ikea’s website, for instance, you will find a story about six young people living together in 40 square metres. A ticking bomb, you might think. However, Ikea’s researchers have visited students living under such conditions and show how it is possible with smart bunk beds, curtains, ladders etc. Furniture should be collapsible, stackable, relocatable …

The creative head at Ikea explains that they also see an increased awareness of sustainability among their customers, making the designers’ job that much more challenging. Families, which in past generations lived in large houses or flats, do not have lower living standards, they just need to fit everything into much smaller spaces.

“For example, we’re working with the ‘conscious downsizer’ profile and exploring what this means exactly for this consumer’s daily life,” explains Viveca Olsson.

Ikea operates with four parameters: It must be easy, sustainable, the flats must be flexible and, not least, these small homes must be oases that counteract the stressful life in the big city. The principled and conscious person living in a small box. That is the lifestyle of the future.

Photo: Urban Rigger

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Living large in little sp aces

Photo: Getty Images/Nigel Waldron

The Oslo Opera House on Oslo Fjord combines high culture with popular culture, an essential element of the quality of life in the community. Any passer-by can sit on the building’s roof and enjoy the view of the water. The Oslo Opera House was designed by Snøhetta.

Conquering th e N o rd i c wa te r fro nt s Populations in the four Nordic capitals are rising and there is a need to conquer new territory for people’s everyday lives. Former industrial waterfront areas are therefore being transformed into contemporary blocks of housing, allowing new values to evolve.

A city near a sea, sand, bay, fjord, inlet or river has always held special status in people’s minds. From the first homo sapiens, who pushed off from the Eurasian continent in hollowed out tree trunks and miraculously arrived in New Guinea. To today’s residents in the world’s metropolises, who enjoy sunny days with their legs dangling over the side of the quay.

The four Nordic capital cities, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki and Copenhagen, wouldn’t be what they are today without their seaside locations. Navigation, progress and freedom are all words that are historical linked in this context.

And now, we add identity as well. In the words of Kjetil Trædal Thorsen, founder of internationally recognised Nordic architecture and design firm Snøhetta: “Oslo Fjord is an inlet surrounded by land, and the identity of the residents lies in watching the ships from their flats and houses – watching them sail out into the world.”

His point is that people who have a view of the sea and ships feel connected with the rest of the world like part of one giant organism. It creates a sense of bonding in a globalised and fragmented information society. Zen in 2017.

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Photo: Norwegian Labour Movement Archives and Library/Arbeiderbladet

The Nordic ports used to be workplaces filled with heavy industry and shipping traffic to and from the whole world. Here, cars are being loaded at the Port of Oslo in spring 1957.

In 1887, however, there wasn’t as much meditative power on the waterfront in Oslo and other big cities. Industrialisation was going full steam ahead, and waterfront life for the dockworkers was a wind-blown struggle for existence.

Back to architecture and design firm Snøhetta, which currently has 50 ongoing projects all over the world – from New York to Saudi Arabia.

One of the company’s greatest creations is situated on Oslo Fjord, the Oslo Opera House. Why is it interesting for the people moving to the area?

Because the award-winning building is more than a cultural landmark – it is an example of the new social patchwork trend in architecture, which highly praised by Swedish and Finnish urban planners. Anyone can walk around on the roof of the Opera House, and in so doing, bring high culture down a notch.

The key tenet for contemporary urban planners is that the waterfronts of the future will to a greater extent comprise a more diverse population to keep the areas from becoming too elitist and cold.

“Everyone should be able to live, work and congregate here, teachers and businesspeople alike.

We’re working to break down the patterns and divides between people, which have built up over time,” explains Kjetil Trædal Thorsen.

All hands on the roof – of the Norwegian opera house

As economic success took hold – with products like oil, grain and fish being transported to other parts of the world – it had significant human costs. Some people grew wealthy thanks to the expanding trade, while others were pushed further down the status ladder. This became distinctly clear in waterfront areas along fjords, such as in Oslo and Helsinki, where expensive mansions line one side of the water and working class tenements line the other.

Floating urban district on Oslo Fjord

Illustration: Sweco

Norway’s coasts are in danger of flooding as the seas rise in coming years.

There is therefore a need for fresh ideas for new ways for people to live.

Consulting engineering firm Sweco’s master plan is one of the more visionary proposals: By 2070, 180,000 people will be living on four islands in Oslo Fjord. The project draws on experience from building oil rigs and cruise ships.

There are huge plans for the future residents along Oslo Fjord. Or rather out on the fjord. Several leading consulting engineering firms have launched plans to build floating housing islands in the middle of the inlet.

The ideas seek to address the rising population and subsequent shortage of space, as well as yet another climate problem that will affect how we

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Photo: Scanpix/Kontraframe

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“We’re working to break down the patterns and divides between people, which have built up over time.”

Photo: Peter Sørensen

Kjet i l Træ dal Thorsen, archite ct

Copenhagen’s serious growing pains

The two cement silos in ­Copenhagen’s Nordhavn district have been built up on the outside with seven storeys that “float” 24 metres up and contain the building’s offices.

Here, a modern company has moved its offices into a former industrial building.

Zen in Stockholm

On Stockholm’s waterfront, the Norra Djur­gårds­ staden district, officially called the Stockholm Royal Port, is one of the most exciting examples

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If Copenhagen were a growing teenager, the city would wake up every night with achy limbs. In recent years, the flow of people moving to the city has increased so dramatically that there is talk of the largest ‘mass migration’ since the industrial age.

Over just a few years, the population has increased by 50,000 people. By 2025, the city will have to find room for 100,000 new Copenhageners – and 2.5 million square metres of housing.

Copenhagen’s northern harbour district, Nord-

havn, is one of the areas that is expected to make room for 40,000 residents and just as many businesses. The redevelopment project, which is the largest in Scandinavia, has lofty ambitions, both environmental and in terms of urban development. Things are moving so fast at the moment that train commuters on the coastal line can follow the area’s progress day by day.

Nordhavn is home to the most expensive flat in Denmark, nestled at the top of a renovated silo called The Silo. The flat features 388 square metres of raw industrial feeling, including four balconies and a vaulted ceiling worthy of a cathedral. This prestigious penthouse is currently priced at €4.3 million.

The building itself has a manned lobby, its own gym and sea views from several sides. In other words, it is the Nordic equivalent of a New Yorker penthouse.

However, The Silo isn’t exactly characteristic of the Nordhavn project – the idea is to make room for plenty of ordinary people as well. To this end, the developer, By og Havn, has taken pains to reserve many of the tenancies on the ground level for shops, cafés etc. For instance, several supermarkets, speciality shops and cafés are in the works in the Århusgade quarter.

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live near the sea for centuries to come: sea levels are rising all over the world, and entire urban districts and rural areas could be underwater within just 50 years.

Consulting engineering firm Sweco presented the master plan, “The city in the fjord”, inspired

by Silicon Valley’s Seasteading, which bases their floating city designs on the principles used for oil rigs and cruise ships.

Sweco’s proposal is to create space for 180,000 people on four islands in Oslo Fjord by 2070.

Transport on the islands will take the form of driverless elevated railways and “island residents” will be transported to the mainland via an underground metro.

Norwegian environmental authorities agree with UN estimates that sea levels on the coasts could rise up to one metre by the turn of the next century, which could make floating cities instead of waterfront property a reality.

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The Töölönlahti Bay divides the Finnish capital in two. Once upon a time, the bourgeois would stroll along the muddy shore. Today, the area is heavily polluted from the days of industrialisation.

However, new urban districts, bridges and environmental initiatives are helping to paint a brighter future for central Helsinki.

of the mixed use urban development concept – throwing local shops, housing, cultural institutions and remnants from the old port into one big blender.

When this “urban smoothie” is fully blended, the result should be a whole new way to live in close quarters. Thus, allowing Stockholm to grow with a good conscience.

Norra Djurgårdsstaden has been heralded as an environmental profile area, with 20 different research projects taking place at any one time, all with the aim of promoting sustainability and preferably putting a halt to the consumption of fossil fuels by 2030.

C.F. Møller, a Danish architectural firm with offices in Stockholm, is behind the Zenhusen project (literally Zen Houses) in Norra Djurgårdsstaden. These 18 houses are situated at the crossroads of former industrial areas, a nature reserve and the Husarviken Bay. The primary emphasis has been on using high-quality materials that last longer than con-

crete, such as brick, and the roofs will all feature a blanket of wild archipelago vegetation. This living roof of honeysuckle and other herbs and plants will collect rainwater and convert CO₂.

The Zenhusen also have a former gasworks as a neighbour, and while such old industrial buildings in other port cities, including Copenhagen, are often converted into expensive blocks of flats, the Swedes have chosen to make the battered gasworks a cultural institution.

This is another example of the mixed use principle in Stockholm. If the new districts are to be more than just reservations for those who can afford the square-metre price, it is crucial that there is room for everyone. That people can shop there and go to the theatre.

Rescue plan for Helsinki’s bay

Illustration: Cobe Photo: SLS Archives/Gustav Sandberg

Helsinki’s harbour area is an example of the paradoxes that arose in the wake of industrialisation: affluence, but also social inequality and destructive impacts on the environment. The city has had trouble finding the right solutions to create a sense of community and identity around the bay.

The Finns built Helsinki up from a fishing village to a big city over centuries, especially to keep the Swedes and the Russians at arm’s length.

Helsinki is divided by a bay, Töölönlahti, which in the 19th century was teaming with ships from all over the world.

These trade routes to the rest of the world gave the city a huge injection of wealth, but they also left behind another problem – pollution.

In photos from the past, people always appear to be freezing, regardless of whether they are strolling ladies with lace parasols or stocky, weather-beaten dockworkers. It is a cold place.

But otherwise these people had nothing else in common. The bourgeois lived in impressive mansions on one side of the bay and the workers were hidden in filthy tenement housing far away.

Today, the social barriers are more or less eliminated. Now, bridges are being built, also spiritual, and the bay is being cleaned.

Finnish Lundén Architecture and Danish Cobe have joined forces on the grand rescue plan for Töölönlahti. A plan that has come late compared to other Nordic port cities – the municipal government has bickered for years over the design to revitalise the muddy fjord. And it is high time for change, as the area risks becoming a dead swamp.

Today, the facilities around the bay are characterised by high culture, and there is little life during the day, according to the architects, who want to create better cohesion with wooden bridges that literally hold the Finnish capital together.

INVESTMENTS THROUGHOUT THE AGES

Text by Martin Leer Scharnberg

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The tulip bulb In the 1630s, one of the world’s first known economic bubbles developed in the United Provinces (now the Netherlands) – caused by the tulip bulb trade.

It occurred within a period of three years. From 1634 to 1637, the tulip trade in the Netherlands developed into a price spiral, which continued to rise at an explosive rate until the trade suddenly halted and prices took a nose dive. The remarkable economic trend has been popularly dubbed tulip mania or tulpenmanie, as it is called in Dutch.

Haarlem is believed to be the city where the tulip bubble burst. An outbreak of the bubonic plague may have caused people to refuse to show up at a tulip auction.

“This is the greatest bubble story of all time … they call it the Tulip Mania.”

Gordon Gekko, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Semper Augustus was the most valuable tulip variety for its rare white and purple streaks.

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More than 4 billion.

This is how many tulip bulbs are produced every year in the Netherlands, the largest exporter of tulips and home to the world’s largest tulip festival in the Keukenhof flower park.

Tulip price index Nov. 1636 – May 1637

Consummately Dutch.

3 Feb. 12 Dec.

25 Nov.

5 Feb. 9 Feb.

1 Dec.

1 May 12 Nov.

A lack of consistent data from the Netherlands Four fat oxen is one type of payment allegedly made for a single tulip bulb. According to other reports, some tulip bulbs were sold for eight fat hogs, 12 fat sheep and even the deeds to entire properties.

5,000-10,000 guilder is believed to be the highest price paid for a tulip bulb shortly before the market collapsed.

Today, that corresponds to around €60,000-€120,000.

in the 1630s makes it difficult to ascertain the price trend.

This price index was developed by former professor of economics at the University of California, Earl Thompson, based on available data from the time. As can be seen, the tulip market collapsed in February 1637.

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Photos: 20TH CENTURY FOX / Ronald Grant Archive / Mary Evans – PantherMedia – Scanpix

This is general how the tulip is perceived today. However, the tulip actually comes from the Orient, and did not arrive in Europe from the Ottoman Empire until the 1500s.

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Nature eats plastic Our consumption has gradually transformed earth’s environment into one giant global graveyard for the more than 80 per cent of our plastic that is not recycled. But now, nature appears to be serving up a solution: plastic-eating fungi, larvae and bacteria that convert it into useful substances.

TEXT by Sandra Meersohn Meinecke and Oliver Bærentsen / Photos by Barry Rosenthal

It was the huge amounts that most frightened the two Canadian high school students, Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao. Plastic waste lay there like a mess of wasted resources in giant mounds. Some parts intact. Others broken. Small, large and colourful plastic lying around, just waiting to be buried in the ground. Out of sight in the dark soil, the plastic would lay there for thousands of years, waiting to be degraded.

“We were shocked,” says Miranda Wang.

She clearly remembers the day when the two teenagers learned about the huge amount of plastic waste on a class field trip to their local recycling plant in Vancouver.

Was all that plastic really of no use to anybody? Would it really just be buried?

Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao couldn’t forget the plastic graveyard they had seen.

The two high school students were already concerned about make the world cleaner, and every Friday afternoon they volunteered to collect plastic bottles at their school to ensure they were recycled. In class, they had learned how long it would take for nature to break down the bottles.

And they knew that melting the plastic and recycling it required a great deal of resources.

Driven by concern about the enormous environmental consequences – and a strong innovative impulse – the two girls of just 16 decided to figure out how they could dispose of plastic waste. After many hours in the laboratory, they happened

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2017#01

Photo: Livin Studio/Paris Tsitsos

“We don’t want to compete in recycling. We want to upcycle the unusable plastic.”

Mi ra n da Wang, innovator

on a bacterium by chance. A plastic-eating bacterium. A bacterium that eats the plastic that isn’t degradable.

The Canadian girls’ idea of a plastic-eating bacterium is part of an exciting new approach to fighting the huge amounts of plastic in the world. The aim is to get nature – in the form of bacteria, larvae and fungi – to consume plastic.

And there is a serious need for innovation in this area. Every year, $80-$120 billion is lost in the form of plastic, which instead of being recycled is thrown away, buried in landfills or ends up as environmentally dangerous waste in nature. Only 14 per cent of all the plastic produced globally is recycled. The vast majority of this plastic is never collected, resulting in more and more waste, not just at the landfill the two Canadian students visited, but all over the world. The equivalent of an entire refuse truck filled with plastic is emptied into the ocean every year, according to a 2016 report by the World Economic Forum, “The New Plastics Economy – Rethinking the future of plastic”.

Environmental activists and scientists have tried for years to draw the world’s attention to this problem: We need to act now before nature is buried in plastic waste.

Breakdown and upcycle

Luckily for the environment, people are hard at work developing new solutions. Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao have spent the past seven years since that class field trip developing a prototype of a large tank that will serve as a dining hall of the hungry bacteria. The Canadians have conducted countless trials, and today they run the company BioCellection in California, USA. Here, they feed the bacteria plastic waste that has been polluted with chemicals and is therefore unsuitable for traditional recycling processes.

Their technology aims to make plastic that is otherwise unusable usable. First the plastic is treated with chemicals. Then, it is served to the hungry genetically modified bacteria. And finally, the otherwise non-degradable plastic is eaten by the bacteria and subsequently converted into bi-

Miranda Wang

Jeanny Yao

Have discovered a plastic-eating bacterium

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Greenhouse

Optimum heat and moisture conditions

Katharina Unger Is growing fungi that can eat plastic

Fungus eating plastic

Fungi spores

Need for innovative thinking

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On the other side of the world, in Australia, Professor Hayden Webb from the Faculty of Science at Swinburne University is also working with hungry bacteria. He is writing a PhD thesis on how bacteria in the sea can consume and break down plastic. He is certain that in future we will see many more experiments and trials with bacteria that eat our plastic waste. Hayden Webb starts by pointing out that plastic has come stay, and as long as the amount of waste continues to increase at the rates we are seeing today, there will be a need for new methods of breaking it down.

“There is a huge need for new methods to break down plastic, if we don’t want to drown in waste,” says Hayden Webb.

And there are many indications that he is right. In winter 2017, a whale stranded on the coast of Bergen in Norway. Initially, biologists attempted to help the creature back to the sea, but it quickly became beached again. And again.

When the Norwegian biologists finally had the whale put down and cut open its stomach to study it, they made a surprising discovery: 30 plastic bags.

Whales aren’t the only animals getting sick and dying from plastic waste. North Pacific albatross are dying with stomachs filled with plastic bottle tops. Sea turtles are eating plastic bags because they look like jellyfish. Sea birds become entangled in plastic rings from beer and soda can packs.

But experts agree, we can’t live without plastic.

It is inexpensive to make. It weighs next to nothing. It has a minimal environmental impact during transport. And plastic is extremely durable.

So it isn’t no strange that we use plastic in almost everything. Besides bags, bottles and car tyres, there is plastic in our clothes, dish clothes,

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ological substances that can be used in the textile and cosmetics industries, explains Miranda Wang, adding: “We don’t want to compete in recycling. We want to upcycle the unusable plastic.”

The plastic is treated with UV rays

How plastic is turned into food.

After UV treatment, the plastic is placed in the white containers along with a mixture of seaweed, starch, sugar and fungi. A few weeks later, the plastic is degraded by the fungi, which can then be eaten.

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“The prospects are exciting, if we can gather plastic waste, put it in containers filled with bacteria for a couple of days and convert it into something we can use.”

Notable numbers Every single year,

8 million

TONS OF PLASTIC

makes its way to the sea

H ayd en We bb, profe ssor

If this trend continues, there will be MORE PLASTIC THAN FISH

chewing gum and cosmetics. This is the kind of plastic we can’t see. Known as microplastics.

Our consumption of plastic has increased twenty-fold in the past 50 years, and experts expect a further doubling over the next two decades. This is what makes finding effective ways to break it down so exciting.

Elegant solution

Plastic is a relatively new product. So new, in fact that it is only in the past few years that there has been any real focus on what happens to plastic when it ends up in nature. Consequently, our knowledge in the area is limited. For a long time, the greatest challenge with plastic waste has been determining where it comes from. If that is known, it possible to trace which chemicals the plastic has been in contact with and which substances it is made from.

With BioCellection’s method, that knowledge is no longer necessary. Their bacteria eat everything, regardless of where the plastic comes from or which chemicals it has been in contact with.

Bacteria-eating plastic has exciting prospects, according to Professor Hayden Webb. He would like to see Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao’s bacteria containers become part of future waste management systems. He calls the hungry bacteria “an elegant solution to an ever-growing problem”.

Hayden Webb’s research has shown that plastic in nature does break down eventually. But it takes up to several thousands of years and can potentially cause irreparable damage to nature, sea animals and humans in the meantime.

The challenge is that the treatment the plastic is subjected to before it is served to the bacteria is very costly. We therefore need new methods to prepare the plastic for the bacteria that are easy, green and inexpensive.

“Once we solve that, bacteria and fungi have a huge potential in plastic management. The prospects are exciting, if we can gather plastic waste, put it in containers filled with bacteria for a couple of days and convert it into something we can use,” says Webb.

Larvae and fungi

Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao are not the only scientists working to get nature to eat plastic.

Scientific journal Environmental Science & Technology recently published a study documenting that scientists have found the new plastic-degrading bacteria in the guts of ordinary moth larvae, which are already known to munch on food packaging made from plastic.

In Austria, Katharina Unger, an industrial design, in collaboration with Utrecht University, has developed a method to make ordinary fungi capable of breaking down plastic into nourishing carbohydrates and proteins. Katharina Unger is convinced of the huge potential for using fungi to dispose of toxic substances. She says: “That’s what they’re already doing in nature when they convert things into proteins.”

In Ottawa, Canada, Daniel Burd, just 16 years old, has also discovered nature’s ability to ­consume pollution. In just three months, he ­degraded a plastic bag in a container fill with bacteria from landfills combined with yeast and water. It bubbled for three months and then all the plastic was degraded.

A team of Japanese scientists made the same discovery. They used bacteria from a plastic dump, which speeded up the process because the bacteria were used to being surrounded by plastic particles.

Nobody knows the full scope of the prospects for plastic-eating bacteria. In the USA, however, Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao from BioCellection are working hard on their version of the solution. Miranda Wang expects to be ready to present a prototype of their bacteria tank in collaboration with the University of Arizona within a few months. The plan is for BioCellection to have a system in place at five different recycling plants in the USA by the end of 2020.

The Canadian project has caught the attention of several large companies. Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao have signed contracts with Ikea, Nike and Tetra Pak in which these three companies agree to allow BioCellection process their plastic waste so that something useful can come out of it.

in the seas by

2050

Every year, more than

1 million SEA BIRDS and

100,000

MARINE MAMMALS die due

to pollution in the world’s oceans IN THE NEXT 10 YEARS, we will

create as much plastic waste as we have in the past

60 years

You have ­probably spent about seven ­minutes reading this article.

During that time, plastic bottles, car tyres, bags and packaging corresponding to seven refuse trucks have ended up in the world’s oceans.

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Scientists and artists all over the world are calling attention to our consumption of plastic. “Found in Nature� is a photo series created by Barry Rosenthal. The photographer collected plastic waste on the shores of New York Harbor and organised them by colour and function. The photo of page 53 is from the same project.

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NO -BR E W COF F E E

“I want to hold a share of $35 billion in the market for instant coffee.”

The 24-year-old super-barista, Kalle Freese, wants to revolutionise the coffee market and challenge the major coffee brands.

Text by Hanna Jensen / Photo by Justin Kaneps

Last July, 24-year-old Kalle Freese, from Finland, was invited to lunch in the USA. The lunch was hosted by the world’s largest manufacturer of instant coffee, Nestlé. Nestlé’s top execs had heard that a Finnish barista was in the process of revolutionising the concept of instant coffee. Kalle Freese wants to make drinking a cup of coffee a better experience for billions of people – and spend the rest of his life doing it.

Freese and his business partner, Joshua Zloof, are the brains behind Sudden Coffee, a coffee product that is prepared in seconds, but still tastes great. The product is roasted and extracted from the best coffee blends, unlike ordinary instant coffee, which is often produced from poorer quality, cheaper beans. Rather than call it instant coffee, Kalle Freese has introduced the concept of no-brew coffee.

According to Kalle Freese, the term instant coffee suggests poor quality.

Sudden Coffee is sold in plastic tubes and only available online. The secret is that it tastes like coffee brewed by a real barista. And Kalle Freese is an expert have won the Finnish barista championships twice and come in ninth in the world in 2015.

How did you become a coffee enthusiast?

“It started back in upper secondary school in Helsinki, when I would spend my entire lunch break tasting coffee. I would wolf down my lunch in ten minutes and then run over to the best coffee shop in the neighbourhood. Later, I got a job at the small company, Kaffa Roastery. It meant I had to skip school every Tuesday. My music teacher finally asked me why I was never in school on Tuesdays, and I had to admit that I was packing coffee in bags. ‘All right, perhaps it’s your fate,’ he answered. And it turns out, it was.”

Now you live in San Francisco, where you produce a new type of instant coffee in a 33-squaremetre garage. What is your goal?

“I want to hold a share of $35 billion in the market for instant coffee – and a share of $27 billion in the market for specialty products. A cup of Sudden Coffee costs €3-€5 – a price that Generation Y, born in the 1980s and 1990s, is willing to pay.”

The first round of ­investment resulted

P h o t o: S n a p p r.c o

in $500,000, and the second round resulted in $2.8 billion.

What convinced your investor?

“Rafael Corrales, from Charles River Ventures, had read an article in The New York Times about Sudden Coffee. He emailed me saying that he was looking for an investment in what he called ‘a monthly subscription for caffeine’. There aren’t many of those. The email seemed odd, so I didn’t reply until a few weeks later. Then we met and I realised that this was a huge ­opportunity for us. Rafael Corrales visited our factory and it convinced him that we had good employees.”

You’ve received an investment of $2.8 million. What does that mean?

“It means that our lives are a little more fun. I can afford to take a day off every week. We can hire more staff, work with branding and spend money on fast growth.”

What is your primary focus at the moment?

“We’ve been accepted to the Y Combinator Enterprise Accelerator Program in Silicon Valley. The three-month program is a kind of Harvard for ­entrepreneurs. Airbnb, Dropbox and Stripe have all done the program. It gives us credibility, a chance to learn and to network with the inner circle in Silicon Valley. Now people call us back.”

Kalle Freese’s favourite coffee shops in the Nordic countries OSLO

Tim Wendelboe Grüners gate 1

“They were pioneers and the first barista masters of their day. Very strict about where they source their coffee. They bought the Finca el Suelo coffee farm in Colombia to have better control over the quality.”

STOCKHOLM

Drop Coffee Wollmar Yxkullsgatan 10

Kalle Freese and his Sudden Coffee currently sell more than 50,000 cups of coffee every month.

Here, he is standing with the dried coffee.

“When I was in upper secondary school, I had a summer job in Stockholm in 2010 at another coffee company, but spent half my lunch break walking over to Drop Coffee for a cup of coffee. Everything in this little café is made with devotion.”

COPENHAGEN

The Coffee Collective Godthåbsvej 34 B

“A pioneer with a long story.

They only buy the very best coffee and serve it well. My favourite café in this chain is in Frederiksberg, where they also have a new roasting facility.”

HELSINKI

Good Life Coffee Kolmas Linja 17

“In this little café, they don’t overdo it – it’s a genuine and straightforward place. The best coffee and the best local community in Helsinki.”

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I D E A S

T H A T

9

C A N

C H A N G E

T H E

W O R L D

Don’t have time to read the whole magazine? Here’s a cheat sheet with the nine best ideas from this issue of Share. Have we captured your interest? There are 43 more ideas inside.

Text by Karen Gahrn / Illustrations by Freja Hougaard

Heat your home with a server

Vertical forests

Lend out your eyes

Imagine using the heat from a server to heat your living room. A Dutch company is putting companies’ servers in private homes. That way the energy can be used both for computer power and heating.

Milan is looking to the future: a highrise covered with green trees. It looks ­beautiful, but the idea is more than that.

The vertical parks filter the smoggy air, converting it into oxygen.

A sighted helper can see what a blind person is pointing at via a phone camera, enabling them to provide immediate ­assistance anytime and anywhere.

A technology with huge potential.

Nature is fighting back

Underwater cities

Reinventing the UN

Two Canadian students had an amazing idea: to have bacteria eat the plastic waste that can’t be recycled. Who knows?

Nature may one day be our most important weapon in the fight against waste.

A Japanese firm has a vision for a city – under the sea. The city is heated by pumping icy water from the bottom of the sea that produces thermal energy when the cold water meets the warm surface air.

A Swedish investor has put up a reward of $5 million for anyone who can come up with a new way to govern the world. There is still time to participate. The deadline for submissions isn’t until September.

Fathers on parental leave

A waste bin takes the prize

Live in a container

The Swedes began in 1974, and the Nordics top the world ranking lists when it comes to parental leave for fathers. The idea is now spreading to the rest of the world. Even Mark Zuckerberg has done it.

It’s as easy to fold as a Happy Meal box.

It’s sustainable – and so good looking that it actually gets used. A waste bin has won the most prestigious design award in the world.

Maersk scraps 80,000 containers every year. Meanwhile, the number of people in need of a roof over their heads is ­reaching historic heights. Now these worn-out ­containers are being turned into housing.