Tag Archives: Arup

Arup’s exhibition at London Design Festival showcases a regenerative future where people and nature co-exist

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The London Design Festival is an annual event that takes place in the capital of the United Kingdom. It promotes London as a pioneering design capital globally, and this year the festival celebrated its 20th anniversary! ‘Arup’ was a key partner this year, and was involved in a myriad range of activities and projects. Arup’s Foresight team presented an exhibition on the topic of ‘Regenerative Futures’. The team explored what a regenerative society could look like in the future. They showcased their explorations through a series of props from designers and researchers who work in regenerative design themselves.

“The concept of regenerative design calls for a long-term transformation to combine the needs of people with those of the planet by re-thinking and redesigning the world around us. ” Which is exactly what Arup succeeded in doing – they’ve created designs that help humans and nature co-exist seamlessly.  Other regenerative companies featured in the exhibition were – EOOS NEXT, Blast Studio, Lulu Harrison, Rachel Horton-Kitchlew, Green&Blue, SPACE10, and Studio MOM.

Designer: Arup

Arup and Studio MOM collaborated to create MyHelmet – a mycelium bio-manufacturing. In Arup’s imagined regenerative future -Mycelium has become incredibly popular, and the market for it has even exceeded that of concrete! In fact, the global mycelium market is valued at $6.17 trillion this year and will reach $9.72 trillion by 2070. This helmet showcases the versatility of this material. Mycelium has found immense functionality in the field of fashion, food, product design, and even the built environment industry!

The Blast Studio created the ‘Coral Lamp’ from waste coffee cups! Since the ‘Stop-single-use’ campaigns in favor of banning single-use coffee cups haven’t worked in the past, this waste stream is utilized as a valuable material resource in the future. By transforming coffee cups into beautiful lamps – the reusability and potential of an otherwise harmful material have been showcased.

Designed by Green&Blue, the BeeBrick is a safe urban nesting for solitary bees. In the future, designers consider plants, animals, and large natural systems as actual ‘users’ of their design. According to rules and policies, products such as BeeBrick have to be included in all new builds. These policies now provide habitats for all local wildlife!

In the future, Augmented Reality technology has developed even further – allowing physical and virtual environments to merge seamlessly, through a viewing mode called ‘Mirrorworlds’. Foresight at Arup created these AR glasses which allow designers to interact with nature, and receive feedback in real-time while conducting fieldwork! The developed AR tech allows designers to easily comprehend contextual nature-based data, enabling them to deliver more net-positive outcomes.

EOOS NEXT designed a zero-emissions utility vehicle that is used as a form of transport by commuters every day. It is 3D printed from plastic waste. When they aren’t using public transport, commuters travel using a bike, or an electric small-format vehicle (EVs). This has reduced personal carbon emissions by 60-70%, allowing humongous carbon credit savings for individuals and small businesses.

Foresight, also designed, a ‘Dragonfly’. This Dragonfly functions as an autonomous data collection machine. No one really pays attention to them in the future. They are simply regarded as living organisms busy at work! They are used in nature-based solutions, to collect data, and deliver it to regenerative designers, so they can utilize it for their fieldwork. These dragonflies also monitor changes and alert biohazards.

The post Arup’s exhibition at London Design Festival showcases a regenerative future where people and nature co-exist first appeared on Yanko Design.

World’s first 3D-printed stainless steel bridge links Amsterdam’s past and future in its red-light district!

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Amsterdam is known for its calm canals and winding alleyways, its rich cultural history, and its affinity for all kinds of pleasure. Historical landmarks still charm tourists and residents alike between the city’s canals, while contemporary and sustainable architecture put the burgeoning Amsterdam-Noord borough back on the map. Linking Amsterdam’s past with its future, designers and engineers at MX3D and Joris Laarman Lab developed the world’s first 3D printed bridge over one of Amsterdam’s oldest canals in De Wallen, the city’s red-light district.

MX3D and Joris Laarman Lab collaborated with global engineering firm Arup along with a host of designers and 3D-print teams to develop the robot-welded bridge. Welding traditional steelwork with computational design, the stainless steel bridge symbolizes a linking of Amsterdam’s past with its future. Stretching just over twelve meters in length, MX3D equipped simple, technical robots with purpose-built tools that were controlled by integrated software that the team of designers developed over the span of two years.

Arup, the project’s lead structural engineer, practiced ​​advanced parametric design modeling to streamline the bridge’s preliminary design process. Describing the developmental stages and inspiration behind building the bridge, MX3D notes, “The unique approach allows us to 3D print strong, complex and graceful structures out of metal. The goal of the MX3D Bridge project is to showcase the potential applications of our multi-axis 3D printing technology.”

Currently open to the public, the bridge was unveiled by Her Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands. Ushering in a strengthened bond between the possibilities of modern technology and a reverence for the city’s architectural integrity, the new bridge in Amsterdam’s red-light district stands as a link between the past and the future.

Designers: MX3D, Joris Laarman Lab, & Arup

Using advanced parametric design modeling to streamline the bridge’s initial design process, engineers programmed software to control the 3D printer’s construction and direction.

Amsterdam’s 3D printed bridge merges classical architecture with modern technology.

Constructed offsite, the bridge was transported on a boat to its final destination.

Weaving through Amsterdam’s canals, the bridge was ultimately brought to its final destination in the red-light district.

Her Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands unveiled the project’s debut in ode to Amsterdam’s rich cultural history.

This air purifying bus stop reduces pollution, kills viruses & can be integrated with urban architecture!

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This design is basically a giant air purifier that meets a bus stop and BOOM, we have a chance at cleaner, greener cities. CAPS 2.0 is a smart bus shelter that filters polluted air, rids it of airborne allergens while killing viruses, bacteria, and fungi within seconds. Designed by Charis NG in collaboration with Sino Inno Lab and Arup, this city air purification system can be swiftly integrated into our new normal. It has been proven to reduce pollution exposure by half, remove 99.95% of PM0.1 airborne allergens, and kill viruses, bacteria, and fungi within seconds!

The first prototype was made in 2015 and then the second-generation system (patented) is now on a mission to protect the city folk with advanced spatial filtration and sanitization technologies. The improvement in air quality will have a direct impact on the health if the city’s residents while also encouraging more people to use public transport because of increased cleanliness around the entire experience. CAPS 2.0 is essentially a purifier that takes the form of a bus shelter so that it can draw in large quantities of surrounding polluted air to work with. It creates an air curtain from the underside of the canopy which shields the people while simultaneously generating air currents within that space to purify the air. The polluted air is internally purified thanks to its dual protection technology, Plascide air sanitizer, and multi-HEPA filters that all work together to removing harmful suspended particles and eliminates coronaviruses.

CAPS 2.0 is a smart city solution that aesthetically fits with urban architecture. It incorporates all the technological innovations in a modern and sleek design like multiple air purification and sanitization systems, real-time display panels, solar panels, and more while also serving as a bus shelter. CAPS 2.0 is a testament to how connecting like-minded partners, designers and developers can accelerate innovative solutions for real-life challenges!

Designer: Charis NG

This sustainable architecture concept is a flexible, scalable, living organism in itself!

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Mitosis is the division of a cell into two identical ‘daughter cells’ and the purpose of this process is to grow as well as replace worn-out cells. Now that we have brushed on the biology bit, let’s move on to the sustainable architectural structure Mitosis which is also inspired by the process mentioned earlier as you might have guessed by its name! Amsterdam-based architecture firm GG-loop collaborated with Arup to design a modular building system that focuses on regenerative sustainable living and urban development.

Created with biophilic principles and parametric design tools, the hypnotizing prefab timber modules we see will be optimized to be flexible and scalable. This will let the building continue expansion with time in several different urban settings while accommodating the changing times which often results in changing needs. The ability to expand the structural hub is where the building gets its name from. Mitosis can be used for a wide range right from creating communities with off-grid, single-family homes to high-density, mixed-use zones in cities. GG-loop’s pilot project Freebooter was the foundation for Mitosis and is in itself an award-winning pair of prefabricated, cross-laminated timber apartments that were completed last year in Amsterdam.

Just like flexible organism evolves to adapt to different settings, Mitosis will also be able to do that with its individual, rhomboid-shaped modules that are stacked together to create shared outdoor spaces and private terraces. The outdoor areas would be filled with enough plants to make a lush green cover which will allow the residents to reconnect with nature while offsetting the urban heat island effect – pretty ‘cool’, eh? These plants will also elevate the air quality levels, especially in cities while encouraging sustainable living practices of urban farming and community gardens. The terraced build provides ample natural light to both plants and apartments. The greenery will also help the existing wildlife of the area to continue having their space and coexist with the residents.

“Mitosis adopts the 14 principles of biophilic design and articulates the relationships between nature, human biology, and the design of the built environment. Its construction is organic and flexible, providing large areas of urban and vertical farming, greenhouses, wildlife corridors, and integration of habitat creation, that encourage shared outdoor activities among residents,” said the team in their project statement. The unique concept aims to give its residents an outdoor space along with the amenities needed to participate in environmentally friendly communal activities. Mitosis gives social interaction and community building as much importance as it does to create a sustainable living environment. This promotes the overall health and well-being of the residents and it is something only a few architectural projects look at once they are done adding a garden or a gym – the physical space is tied with our emotional space, and GG-loop creates an environment that promotes the growth of both sustainably.

Designer: GG-loop