Thinking

Off-grid technology — To live surrounded by the tranquillity of extreme landscapes, to contemplate rare and unknown ecosystems is now possible: especially in the North, where a new concept of intimacy and minimalist well-being is spreading. Majamaja, the small eco-cabin designed by Pekka Littow, is a pioneering example of a refuge that lands at the water’s edge of Helsinki’s archipelago to accommodate couples and families who love free style. The images pictured, starting from the top, reveal the potential of this minimalist housing unit: with about 23sqm it incorporates all the necessary and useful amenities. On the ground floor: kitchen with a retractable table, living room with outdoor area for bird watching and sleeping quarters on the mezzanine, all in Finnish wood. At the heart of the concept are structural resources with zero miles; solar and wind power with solar panels on the roof (and micro-turbines for back-up) to heat and light the space; rainwater collection and purification systems ensure hygiene and heath standards. Circular and self-sufficient: a dream for the most radical ecologist. “The model installed at Vuorilahdenniemi”, says the designer referring to the habitable outcrop jutting out from the sea that can also be reached by land, “is the first of six cottages to be installed, including a building for the sauna; the idea is to create a pilot project for a village”.

Indoor ecosystems — Mushrooms, linen and clearings as sources of inspiration: Mari Koppanen and Tong Ren’s designs are ‘made in green’, which from prototypes work towards industrial production. Among the projects selected by curator Elina Aalto, for the Talentshop and Protoshop exhibits at Helsinki’s Habitare fair, are two accessories suitable for interiors. Fomes, top left, is a padded stool covered in a material that to the touch feels like suede: the effect, particularly velvety, is achieved by processing Fomes Fomentarius mycelium, from the Transylvanian forests, hence the series’ name. Piha, the pure linen fabric with animalier pattern, designed by the Chinese creative from Henan, brings together the experience gained in Lapuan Kankurit, the historic Finnish brand with a sustainable calling since 1930, the year in which it was founded. A tribute to seagulls, among the most beloved species in Finland.

En plein air conviviality — An image taken from ‘Refuge for Resurgence’ by Superflux, the Londonbased interdisciplinary studio that investigates the overlap between architecture, anthropology and ecology. The work, presented in 2021 at the Venice Biennale Architettura curated by Hashim Sarkis, is an imaginary banquet set up with what would remain on Earth after surviving a climate catastrophe. Tomorrow, the world will be inhabited by multi-species communities that the researchers imagine gathered around a majestic oak table. Will humans, animals, birds, plants, mosses and fungi gather next to one another to celebrate life? Togetherness is the only way to foster hope and overcome fear: the future lies in coexistence.

Total green — In Fiskars, the village home to the Finnish tool company by the same name, the second edition of the Biennale of Art and Design just ended. The scheduled events, curated by Kari Korkman, also included ‘House by an architect’: a call to action for professionals invited to design models of wooden house no larger than 30sqm. A humble and wonderfully modest example is that by the Swedes, Sommarnöjen: a jewel of simplicity designed to be durable and to blend in with nature. When in 2024, Finnish legislation will speed up the development of housing units in this size, the market will cause production and tourism to soar. And summer cottages will become a solution to be replicated at all latitudes.

Carbon-free fashion — What if textile padding were a viable, natural alternative to using (animal and barbaric) methods relying on goose feathers, and promoted instead sustainable agricultural practices like restoring the peatland ecosystems? In Finland it’s possible: Lukas Schuck and Tea Auramo, who study at Helsinki’s Aalto University, have considered this. The completely scalable project, Fluff Stuff, transforms the inflorescences of the ‘Typha latifolia’, a typical plant of the Northern wetlands, into soft cotton: collected by a portable machine that extract it from the spike, it is then processed the with minimal environmental impact. On balance, according to the experts, Finland’s peatland drainage is responsible for almost 60% of agricultural emissions. From down jackets to be worn, to pillows and duvets to keep warm in bed: the fibres of the Typha, naturally covered in a layer of wax, are highly water-repellent, making the material extremely versatile. Peat (and moisture) proof.

Renewables/At high altitude — An idea by an all-female team gave rise to Shine, a portable wind turbine manufactured by Aurea Technologies: an ultra-compact and lightweight device designed for trekking enthusiasts who need to recharge devices, lights and cameras on the summit. It’s a matter of safety. Folded, the kit takes up the space of a 1 litre water bottle, weighs about 1 kg and features a lithium-ion battery: 40 watts for emergencies, storing power in unfavourable weather conditions. “Despite being the second cleanest energy sector worldwide”, says Cat Adalay founder of the Canadian brand, “wind isn’t accessible to most people. We created an opportunity”. The size of a backpack.

Renewables/Offshore — The Oslo-based Norwegian company, Wind Catching Systems (owned by Ferd and North Energy), is working on a truly impressive wind farm project: Windcatcher is a floating platform that supports a lattice frame structure, a sail comprising 126 wind turbines of 1 megawatt. Each of the pictured units is anchored to the seabed via a single point mooring system, meaning a type of manoeuvre that, while keeping the masts in place, allows them to rotate and catch the wind. From seafaring artistry to engineering, the structures are 284 metres high and 344 metres wide, like the Eiffel Tower. This means that the Windcatcher, which carries the largest wind turbines available on the market today, was developed to make offshore wind power accessible and sustainable. A concept that, in times of energy crisis, could be a game changer for wind farms in facilitating access to this energy source.

Changes in scale — Marjan van Aubel transforms solar energy into household objects: Ra, for example, is a kind of transparent film that captures the sunrays and renders them on the wall like an artwork (above), while Current Table is a table with a photovoltaic panel-top capable of recharging small appliances. Graduating from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie DesignLAB in 2009, and three years later from the Royal College of Art, she designs to shape a positive future in which sustainability, design and technology cooperate for the common good. Surviving the energy crisis is possible as she exemplifies in her first ‘Solar Biennale’, an event devoted to alternative energies and staged in Rotterdam (until 30 October). Her research focusses on the seamless integration of solar power in architecture and interiors, with the aim of making it accessible. Collaborations with international brands such as Cos, Timberland and Swarovski are also instrumental to the goal by accelerating the global energy transition towards the more widespread use of solar power.

Solar diving — A dynamic meeting place where visitors can experience the sensory nature of renewable energy: the Solar Pavilion is a group project arising from the collaboration between studio V8 together with Kameleon Solar and Marjan van Aubel, who defined the design for the set of coloured photovoltaic panels. It is a ‘smart fabric’ that collects the sun’s power to illuminate the portion of the square on which it is gently laid. The technology, completely integrated in the colours, captures the power of the sun’s rays to illuminate the darkness and provide a unique and immersive experience for visitors. In Eindhoven, from 22 October on the occasion of Dutch Design Week, of which the solar designer is an ambassador.

F r o m a r c h i t e c t u r e t o i n t e r i o r d e s i g n : t h e r e n e w a b l e e n e r g y p r o j e c t e n t e r s t h e h o m e s p h e r e , t r a n s f o r m i n g t e c h n o l o g y i n t o a c r e a t i v e t o o l

What do we know about energy? Where will the new energy landscapes land and with what impact? But also: can energy be tamed? Together with the students of the Technogeography course at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, Martina Muzi wondered about the meaning of this force. “Energy is a system of economic, political and social relationships”, explains the teacher, “and as such it’s responsible for the quality of our lives and the future of the planet”. This consideration touches on the controversy about the use of fossil fuels, then goes further: “The activities of extraction, production, transportation, consumption and control of this type of resource, have very different effects in the world’s North and South. Especially in environmental terms”. While polluting on a large scale, the outcome varies from place to place: in developed countries, it’s positively linked to concepts such as abundance, accessibility and security; in the poorest developing countries, to catastrophic climate fallout. Ugandan activist, Vanessa Nakate, spokesperson for Fridays for Future reminds us of this in her latest book, ‘A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis’, published in Italy by Feltrinelli, once again reports that while we’re all weathering the same storm, we’re not all in the same boat. “Energy, therefore, plays a central role in environmental challenges, because it forces us to address the issue of global pollution in terms of social justice”, Muzi points out. The project tries to contribute, to refocus the practice at different latitudes: from floating wind platforms to portable blades, from photovoltaic parks to solar textiles. Generating clean energy is as important a creative challenge as considering how to reduce the dynamics of consumption. In Finland, for example, the government launched the ‘Energy Renaissance’ programme, a guide to accurately plan zero-impact energy undertakings; it also foresees the simplification of regulations on prefabricated wood, to facilitate the building and installation of housing units under 30sqm. Majamaja, the cottage at the start of the article, is an example of new sustainability that’s accessible and replicable anywhere: intimate because it’s functional, sustainable because it’s self-sufficient; it demonstrates that design and architecture, when they integrate the right technology, are indispensable drivers in triggering the right ecological transition. The intensity of climate change, the precarious status of gas supplies and the resulting socio-economic and environmental inequalities, are so closely linked that a paradigm shift has become crucial. It’s necessary to veer from a model of ‘citymachine’ built on a linear growth system, to a circular evolutionary model of ‘city-organism’. This is also being discussed in Lisbon during the Trienal de Arquitectura (on show until 5 December): ‘Terra’, the name of the exhibition curated by Cristina Veríssimo and Diogo Burnay, is a call to action. We learn to consume less and produce better, to regain the equilibrium lost between communities, resources and processes. “If only we had become aware of the scenarios described fifty years ago in ‘The Limits of Growth’”, says Joseph Grima at the Habitare fair in Helsinki, “perhaps today we’d have a better chance to slow down the impacts triggered by climate change”. The ‘Rapporto sui limiti dello sviluppo’ (Report on the limits of development) commissioned to MIT by the Club of Rome, and published in 1972 by Meadows, Randers & Behrens, already fifty years ago, demanded we consider the concept of prosperity (as discussed earlier by architect Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli in the interview on page 86). “Acting on energy consumption means acting on the materials, because it’s the materials that carry the energetic footprint of what is produced”, says the creative director of the Eindhoven school. Designing today is a truly complex endeavour that requires rethinking the relationship with matter. ‘Non extractive architecture’, the exhibition devoted to redefining the balance between the built environment and nature, is based on this principle: to not only reconsider the role of technology and politics in the material economies of the future; but also the vision of the architect seen as an agent of change. “In the meantime, we begin mapping new forms of matter”, from PoliMi to Aalto University in Helsinki, European research labs are online and exchanging knowledge via open-source methods. “From mushroom-based fabrics to woodworking offcuts to replace stone powder, from paper to certain types of completely natural linoleum: we are the keepers of what nature enables us to share, let’s not waste it. Let’s consider the sun”, Grima concludes, “the energy it releases can be integrated into the surface of objects and shifted across domestic interiors to fuel them sustainably”, a project on which Marjan van Aubel and Pauline van Dongen are working. A truly stellar revolution. —

Light fabrics — Glamorous and chic, the jacket in sun-powered Textiles, a fabric with integrated solar cells designed by Anne Kinnunen at Aalto University in Helsinki. A high-tech experimental project that, thanks to the know-how of three Finnish brands (Foxa, Lindström and Haltian) demonstrates that photovoltaics is a flexible technology that can also be worn.