“What do you imagine the world will look like in 2025?”
This is the overarching question of “FutureScapes”, an open collaboration project by Sony Europe and non-profit sustainability organisation Forum for the Future that brings together a range of expert thinkers, designers, futurologists, writers and the public to explore the opportunities and challenges we will be facing over the next “decade+”.
And the Future starts now: the project examines the impact and contributions technology will make on our daily lives – and the steps we can take today to live more sustainable in 2025.
Starting in November 2011, four technology concepts were explored in an initial ideation phase that concluded in the recent announcement of 4 concept partners. The team, mentioned below, will work on a digital platform, a product, a place and a philosophy in the coming months:
- Platform: The Internet of Things Academy “turns complex data into simple useful building blocks” / Concept Partner: Superflux
- Product: Wandular “a multipurpose modular device that evolves with you over your lifetime” / Concept Partner: Engage by Design
- Place: Hyper Village “a self-reliant ‘hi-tech x hi-nature’ rural community based in the developing or developed world and underpinned by the highest spec software and hardware” / Concept Partner: Pipeline Projects
- Philosophy: The Shift “explores the relationship between technology and wellbeing”/ Concept Partner: Forum for the Future
Staple City - Artist Peter Root builds a Metropolis entirely out of Staples
This deserves an Olympic medal for patience and endurance in this Staple Marathon: Artist Peter Root created an entire new world, Ephemicropolis. This miniature megalopolis is composed of myriad clusters of staples stacks of different heights, ranging from a full stack (4.5 inches tall) to a single staple. Stacks of staples can be aggravating to deal with since they tend to break at any hint of pressure. Built in a financial building on Guernsey, an island in the English Channel, the installation took over forty hours to complete. Root composed the installation with over 100,000 staples, breaking the various stacks to different lengths, and then placing them with steady hands.
LivingSculpture 3D Module System
Berlin-based Christopher Bauder from WHITEvoid teamed up with Philips to create the LivingSculpture 3D module system. Made using Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs), an exciting light technology, the sculpture consists of tons of small mirror-flat panels that seem to undulate and flow like the ocean overhead.
#LONDON2012 INTERVIEW —Thomas Heatherwick, Designer of the Olympic Cauldron
The honour to light up the 2012 Olympic Cauldron was given to seven young athletes, ending speculations and bets which single British celebrity might be the chosen one.
Comprising of 204 copper petals representing the competing nations, the pedals were carried one-by-one into the Olympic Stadium by each nation. Here, its designer Thomas Heatherwick speaks with dezeen’s Marcus Fairs about one of the most secretive projects he’s ever worked on.
Heatherwick’s other work include the internationally renowned Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2012, the Rolling Bridge in Paddington and London’s new red double-decker bus.
