PICNIC AT THE END OF THE WORLD

POST PANDEMIC DESIGN SOLUTIONS

The ZPacks Hexamid Tent is the world’s most ultralight home office.

How do we bring a deeper sense of human purpose to our new world while at the same time avoid prioritizing ourselves over the planet? We can’t forget that all life, including the most microscopic and viral, needs to co-exist in harmony with us and that the majority of nature’s vengeance is brought to us by ourselves. In a time of universal social confusion - a major global pandemic, ecologic ignorance and inaction, isolationism, political exploitation and the resulting economic hardships - it is time to rethink and reimagine ourselves and our way of life. This will take enormous courage and discipline. We must invent but technology alone is not the answer. Particularly if it is large scale technology of the kind that only aims to impress Wall Street. We need to return to the fundamental principles of design innovation. Design is the connection between where we are and where we have to go. From streets and buildings that think smart about inhabitants, to avatars that are more than talking heads, to full circle sustainable ideas and simpler yet better solutions; this story includes designers that are proposing new ways of life with our role being one of a participant opposed to a ruler. The time for a design revolution is now.

Above, clockwise from left: Based on cell biology and algorithmic analysis Sabin Design Lab’s ColorFolds are interactive room components that fold and unfold in the presence or absence of people. Ji Xin’s Zero-Energy High-rise takes site-specific light, view and sound elements into account to determine the building’s main design elements. Michael Pawlyn’s Biorock Pavillion takes biomimicry structures from nature to shape architecture and thereby restores fully circular ecosystems and Neri Oxman’s biomorphic wearables are designed to interact with their environment and strengthen the body by generating water, air and light.

Carlo Ratti’s highways can equally become sidewalks for living, playing and farming...

...and his Circular Juice Bar recycles orange peel into drinking cups made from bioplastic.

Below: EcoLogicStudio lets families and communities cultivate and harvest sustainable, high-protein spirulina in their domestic algae garden – a sustainable source of vegetable proteins. Their algorithmically designed SuperTree turns an archetypical tree into a high-productivity photo-bioreactor that uses enhanced photosynthesis to amplify 10x more oxygen than a tree of similar size. Sabin Design Lab’s PolyBrick explores responsive qualities of 3D printed wall materials through bio inspired design incorporating clay and water and Elizabeth Hénaff prototypes personal tools for microbial identification and sampling to better co-inhabit our immediate space.

EcoLogicStudio, BioBombola Responsive Food System

As we move away from glorifying the modernist junkspaces of the urban metropolis towards the embrace of a remote serenity, we need flexible and always evolving shelter. ‘Existing’ needs redefinition, not only socially but economically and geographically. Below, Avatarworld by Miguel Perez is a real-time representation of people moving freely in spaces and expands our current Zoom functions by maintaining spacial movement as an important element of human experience. Prefab, self-sustainable, non-carbon office-homes such as the Koda House by Kodesama can be ordered to go and placed anywhere in the world. Bottom: Carlo Ratti’s Pura-Case is a portable wardrobe purifier that removes viruses from clothes and fabric.

PICNIC AT THE END OF THE WORLD

DAVID KRAMER INTERVIEW

FEMME CINEMA