Ziegert | Roswag | Seiler Architekten Ingenieure was founded in 2003 and is based in Berlin. Their core competency is the use of natural materials, especially earth, in construction. Their projects range from a timber firehouse in Brandenburg, a white earthen home in Berlin's Westend and a bamboo-and-earth school in Bangladesh to historical monuments in the Arabian Peninsula and school projects in Africa.

This project, financed by VEBS – Verein für Entwicklung, Bildung und Selbsthilfe e.V. (Society for development, education and self-help) is an extension of a school building out of earth and bamboo to meet the increasing space requirement due to the rising number of students.
2 earthquake-resistant and climate adapted bodies have been planned, consisting of a heavy earth cube in the ground floor and a light bamboo structure in the upper floor. The construction works have be done by local craftsmen who have been trained in the specific techniques.

This construction has received the Holcim Awards Gold 2011 Asia Pacific.
Comment of jury: "The jury commended this project because it contributes to all of the competition’s “target issues” in a convincing way. Through engineering and design, a traditional building technology has been upgraded with effective low-tech measures. Bamboo is used in an innovative way, demonstrating the potential in construction of this fast-growing and widely available material, which also counters deforestation. The propagation of the new construction methods amongst the local population aids the establishment of local businesses and improves the economic situation in this rural area. All materials are locally sourced and can be processed with low energy requirements.
The new construction approach shows the rural population an affordable, high quality and durable alternative compared to widely-used, but higher-cost and less environmentally-compatible construction materials. The combined earth/bamboo structure allows two-level buildings which reduces land use. The low-tech but sophisticated approach creates the potential to develop a unique local architecture, and transfer the approach to many other regions, particularly in less-developed countries."

The earth was mixed with straw by water buffalos and made usable. The first layer of cob was piled up and cut. The second layer was built, with window recesses.

Half of the bamboo poles, needed for the bamboo ceiling spanning over 5 metres, were pierced. In doing so, all inner walls of the poles were pierced with a metal bar.
Afterwards, the tubes were put up straight und filled with Borax – a salt solution.
It stayed within the poles during 14 days. This kind of treatment is known as the least harmful one for the environment.

The lintels for windows and doors was made of 5 bamboo poles wrapped with straw and formed part of the fourth cob layer.

The ceiling structure consists of a triple-layer of bamboo culms with the central layer arranged perpendicular to the ones above and beneath. They were fixed with steel dowels and laces. An overlay of planking made of split bamboo culms was placed on the central layer and filled with a straw-earth mixture as the floor finished of the upper level.

The bamboo elements were constructed in special mounting devices that allowed a measure of pre production and meant the components only required assembly. The beams forming the veranda were already complete and most of the first floors structural elements were prefabricated.

'Korea Design' is an exhibition showcasing the best in contemporary Korean furniture, lighting, product and textile design through the work of fifteen companies and designers.

Stool for Child by Kyunglae KIM 
The Stool for Child is designed using natural materials. The legs are made of natural oak or hard maple with a seat in sustainable anti-bacterial coconut foam.

In the past, Korean design has too often been associated with electronic goods, TV's, mobile phones and other ephemeral consumer products, but is now starting to gain international recognition for a booming design and craft sector.

Lion Penseur lamp by i-Clue Design  
The Lion Penseur lamp was designed as an accent light to provide light against a wall or
ceiling. This type of indirect lighting tends to be hidden away out of sight, but the Lion Penseur is specifically designed to turn the lighting fixture into a design statement.
Lion Penseur is made of leather.

The exhibition, which includes product, furniture, lighting and textile design, gives insight into what Korean design means today. Whilst countries like Sweden, Spain, Italy etc have well established design scenes of global repute, other countries, like Korea, are proving to have vibrant creative industries that are starting to reach international audiences.

Crack Bowl Pendant Lamp by Jaemin KWON    
Jaemin Kwon was trained as a fine artist. His Crack Bowl Pendant Lamp uses unprocessed elm which is dried and split, showing off the natural characteristics of the wood.

Looking through the work of these different companies, one can identify a number of common themes, the most prevalent of which is the driving force that design isn't just about aesthetics, it's about a desire to re-evaluate the role it plays in our lives and to create products that are sustainable, skilful, beautiful and individual.

Tension Bentwood Chair by Dohoon KIM   
The Tension Bentwood Chair is made using wood's inherent tension and features a series of curvilinear shapes. Made of ash, the chair is available in three different designs, including a side chair, wing chair or with a wide back as shown above.

Ta-rae Lighting by Design Virus
Ta-rae Lighting is inspired by the spool of threads on industrial sewing machines.The lamps can be clustered in groups to create a bold statement.

Hanji-plastic Chair by Design Taiho SHIN  
The Hanji-plastic Chair is made of 'Hanji' paper, a traditional Korean paper made from mulberry tree fibres that have a lifespan of over 1000 years. As the co-founder of Design Studio Maezm, he collaborated with artisans to produce this new material to replace toxic plastics in furniture manufacturing. The paper gives the chair its structure while a carbon fibre surface gives it its 'skin'.

Antler Stool by Minho LEE
The Antler Stool is part of the Antler Series, a range of furniture that explores the habits we display in everyday life, like throwing a jacket on the back of a chair. Each work in the series combines two functions in one product.


Exhibition 'Korea Design'
From September 22 to 25 2011
100% Design - London - Stand B60

'Post Fossil: excavating 21st century creation' is a new design exhibition curated by trend-forecaster Li Edelkoort, at Design Museum Holon, Israël.

The exhibition presents the work of over 60 international contemporary designers, illustrating how the design of the future can be inspired by the archaic aesthetics, organic materials and poetic techniques of the past.

"Edelkoort has assembled a selection of future fossils, based on the understanding that one of the best ways to study design is through the analysis of archaeological relics. In contrast to the common perception of future design as technological and interactive, ‘Post Fossil’ enables us to examine the future by gazing back to the past and to re-experience the primal encounter between man, matter and basic forms”. Galit Gaon, chief curator of Design Museum Holon

In the wake of the global economic crisis, the period of glamorous and streamlined design for design’s sake has come to an end. This exhibition seeks to review the value systems constructed over the previous century by showcasing objects by a new breed of designers creating work that challenges and overturns our conventional notions of design. The exhibiting designers are retracing the steps of human history and going back to the primitive roots of the very act of making things. They are redesigning shelter and tools as well as lifestyle, incorporating elements from nature into materials and the creation process.

The exhibition includes works from designers such as Pieke Bergmans (the Netherlands), Nacho Carbonell (Spain), Arik Levy (Israel),Tomás Libertiny (Slovakia), Peter Marigold (United Kingdom), Tanja Saeter (Norway) and Studio Job (the Netherlands) and Boaz Cohen (Israel).

Exhibition:
Post Fossil: excavating 21st century creation
Design Museum Holon, Israël
From January 27 to April 30 2011

This book brings together contemporary graphic design promoting sustainability and the fight against climate change.


Essays look back in time to posters and ideas that set the stage for the current movement (World War Two posters, images of international cooperation, posters from the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s) and address the state of the poster: what is the efficacy and mode of distribution for purposeful, message-oriented graphic images today?

The bulk of the book is given over to a compilation of the best posters on the theme of sustainability by a variety of contemporary artists (both emerging and established), among them Shepard Fairey, Vier5, DJ Spooky, James Victore and Geoff McFetridge. These posters, which have a strong graphic presence and which never rest on the tired slogans of the past ("Save the Earth," etc.), show that graphic design does not passively respond to the zeitgeist--it helps shape it.

The book, which is sustainably printed in the U.S., reproduces 50 of these posters as tear-outs. Also included is a section on action, with documentation of designs at work in the world: on buses, billboards, protesters' placards, graffiti, t-shirts and so on. This movement is about a new form of patriotism, one that exhibits pride of place, but not fear of others.
 
Book for sale on Amazon: Green Patriot Posters - Images for a New Activism
Edited by Edward Morris, Dmitri Siegel.
Text by Michael Bierut, Thomas L. Friedman, Steven Heller
Edward Morris, Dmitri Siegel (Metropolis Books)

Designed in-house by designer Willem Heeffer, Fuse 'Can Lights' are constructed from discarded and salvaged Heinz Beanz cans and Campbell's Soup cans.

With the help of Dublin’s many restaurants and cafés who collect the tin cans, these everyday waste objects are turned into functional pendant lights. The lights celebrate the cross over between popular culture and sustainability.

Fuse 'Can Lights' are on sale at Fuse Finds only.

We invite you to visit Fuse face book page.

Designed by Cyril-Emmanuel Issanchou for the competition Betwin, these low energy houses are prefabricated modules that are installed upon a set of walls and plinths made from locally gathered stones.

The EC*-Cocoons are constructed with timber beams in a double geodesic manner, creating a rigid long-span structure. This form minimizes the exterior surface area and, thus, the heat loss.  The design incorporates several eco-friendly features such as solar panels to warm water and provide heating, off-site wind turbines for electricity, and a heat exchanger on the rooftop which freshens air quality.  The roof allows light to illuminate the center of the home and allows summer ventilation.

The skin of the home wraps all the equipment that is energetically self-sufficient at ground floor level.  The “thermic curtain” on the exterior is a type of space blanket that keeps the heat in winter nights and protects the house from the sunlight in the summer afternoons.

To define the home’s sense of place, the lower level’s wall of stones helps create “the relation between the house and the street and the pedestrian.”

All images © Cyril-Emmanuel Issanchou

Via Archdaily