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Circular design with SOMA Studio
82 Plays4 years ago
GUEST / ANA MAGALHAES / SOMA STUDIO
- http://www.somastudiomilano.com/
- SOMA Studio on Instagram
- SOMA Studio on LinkedIn
- SOMA Studio on YouTube
- Ro Plastic Prize
HOST / MATT MORLEY / WELLBEING CHAMPION
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Transcript
Introduction to Episode 33
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome to episode 33 of the Green and Healthy Places podcast, in which we explore the themes of sustainability and wellbeing in real estate and hospitality. I'm your host, Matt Morley, founder of Biofilico Healthy Buildings and Biofit Wellness Concepts.
Meet Ana Magaliez of Soma Studio
00:00:28
Speaker
This week we're in Milano, Italy talking to the Brazilian co-founder of Soma Studio, Ana Magaliez. Soma are engaged in the circular design sector as B2B advisors, trend forecasters, content producers and all-round expert guides for those seeking to improve their knowledge of this relatively new industry that we call the circular economy.
00:00:51
Speaker
We talk about the key principles of this new concept, the product categories in real estate and interiors that are excelling in circular design terms.
Principles of Circular Design
00:01:01
Speaker
We look at take-back programs for used furniture, surfaces made of biomaterials, waste as a design flaw, the importance of collaboration between brands, how nature offers guidance for circular designers, the endless potential of mycelium to replace plastic in future,
00:01:20
Speaker
the eco well-being trend in homes, as well as the role of bifurlic design within circular economy. If you like this type of content, please hit subscribe. Anna is at somastudiomilano.com. Now, and yeah, moi, let's talk circular design.
00:01:37
Speaker
So Soma is a Milan based studio working to help professionals and companies to take action and shift from a linear to a circular economy. And to do so, we strive to raise awareness, provide relevant information and strategies within the circular economy and circular design.
00:01:55
Speaker
And then in terms of services, and always under this umbrella of circular economy and circular design, we offer strategic consultancy for product development, which includes forecasting, transporting, and material research. We also create content such as ebooks, reports, webinars to help organizations raise awareness around the circular economy and circular products and services.
00:02:22
Speaker
And we also create short courses, lectures or workshops in collaborations with companies and educational institutions. So in a way, you're providing a series of consultancy services that are intended to push the industry forward by making it easier to integrate and understand circular design, circular economy principles. Would that be a fair description?
00:02:50
Speaker
Yes, this would be a very good description because we try to raise awareness, educate people and professionals and make it easier for them to apply the circular principles within their organizations and work and projects.
Circular vs. Sustainable Design
00:03:08
Speaker
And how do you define circular design and would you consider it in some ways to be different to, let's say, sustainable design or environmentally friendly design?
00:03:21
Speaker
So I think when we talk about circular design, we need to think about the three main principles of the circular economy, which are designing waste out of products and systems, keeping materials and products in use and regenerating natural systems. So when we talk about circular design, we are dealing with a whole system from production to disposal and therefore with production and consumer waste.
00:03:46
Speaker
And above all, we are talking about restoring natural systems. When it comes to sustainable design or eco-friendly design, which are definitely important concepts, we are talking more about meeting the needs of the present without compromising the future of the planet and the next generation. So we are talking more about minimizing our impact.
00:04:09
Speaker
However, we believe that with climate change and the whole global environmental crisis, sustainability is no longer enough. Because besides not doing harm to the planet, we also need to do good. We can't only sustain the current system. We need to regenerate. And I guess this is the biggest difference between circular and sustainable design. Circular is more about the system, as I mentioned, and regeneration.
00:04:41
Speaker
And therefore, effectively, you're encouraging businesses to take full responsibility for the products that they create rather than produce something, sell it to a client, and perhaps offer some customer service during the in use phase of that product, but then take no responsibility for what happens at the end of use phase. The circular approach
00:05:06
Speaker
includes what happens and how you reintegrate something back into the system when it's no longer needed. Would that be?
00:05:13
Speaker
Yes, exactly. So companies, they need to be held accountable for the waste they produce. They need to allow consumers to return materials and products, which is not really the case, for example, when we think about computers, phones. So they need to think about the whole system, you know,
00:05:37
Speaker
Doesn't matter if they do something with a sustainable material, but in the end, the consumer doesn't know what to do with that when they don't need any more of that product. Yeah, it's very true. And so where are you seeing which product categories do you typically reference as being perhaps like the best examples today of circular interior design? So if you're thinking about real estate and interiors, where are you seeing products that are
00:06:06
Speaker
doing a lot of good and making great progress here.
Circular Economy in Furniture Brands
00:06:10
Speaker
Yeah, so we see that furniture design is taking important steps towards circularity with different approaches. So for example, we see some brands launching take-back programs to allow their clients to return their used furniture.
00:06:27
Speaker
Ikea is doing that in the US so their clients, for example, can return Ikea furniture, get a discount on new purchases while the brand turned used materials into new resources.
00:06:41
Speaker
Another approach that some brands are using is modular design, which allows for repair, remanufacture and recycling. For instance, we see that with sofas and sleeping systems. A very good example that we spotted at the London Design Festival in 2019 is Sofa for Life from a Scottish design company that's a modular sofa that you can repair so you can extend the life cycle of this piece.
00:07:11
Speaker
And also recently at the Milan design week, we saw the costume or the large sofa by matches with the same idea of modeling design. Another interesting take on circular furniture is the emergency of companies renting office office furniture instead of selling. So.
00:07:30
Speaker
Furniture becomes a service with companies having the possibility to rent and then return them after some time. And then these pieces can be used by other companies or can be remanufactured or recycled into new materials. So this is very relevant nowadays for the circular economy because we are talking about services and not ownership.
00:07:55
Speaker
And we also see some remarkable innovations when it comes to surface design. We have now stunning tiles made of plastic waste coming from our oceans or from textile waste from the fashion industry. We also see surfaces using biomaterials like mycelium and innovative technologies to recycle vinyl floors. So yeah, we see a lot of steps forwards into circularity within different products.
00:08:25
Speaker
If we look at it from the other side then, where do you identify the problem areas? What are the sectors or the products within interior design as an industry where you're seeing the most work still to be done? So the examples that you might reference for when you see, look, here there's clearly an area that's a long way behind those great examples that you just referenced.
00:08:52
Speaker
Yeah, actually this question was a bit difficult because my partner and I, we were thinking about it and we realized that we see innovations everywhere in different products categories from furniture, tiles, textile, lighting and so on. But we still see that there is much more to do to transition to a circular economy.
00:09:16
Speaker
But in our opinion, what is really missing overall is more collaboration between different players. Because when we talk about the circular future, this future is only possible when we consider the whole system from production to disposal. So brands must collaborate with each other, with designers, with consumers. So for instance, one company's waste can be another company's resource.
00:09:41
Speaker
And as we were mentioning earlier, a company must be held accountable for their waste. What is really not happening with computers, phones and smart appliances for homes.
The Role of Collaboration
00:09:52
Speaker
So I think we need to work further to collaborate because collaboration is key for the circular economy and it's not so easy to do that between brands or brands and consumers and designers.
00:10:09
Speaker
So it's an optimistic message in that you can see the solution and we have a way through and a circular approach is really the way to resolve the issue of creating all this waste. But do you think perceptions of waste are changing now? Even that word waste, do you think brands are starting to see, perhaps distinguish between waste as an unwanted material and perhaps starting to see
00:10:36
Speaker
ways to turn it into a resource or is that still a very minor piece of what's happening in the industry today?
00:10:43
Speaker
Yes, definitely. So with the rise of the circular economy and circular design, we are turning our attention to nature and in nature there aren't landfills. So nature basically doesn't generate waste simply because it turns everything into resources. So materials flow in circles and one species waste is another species food. So more and more designers and architects are seeing waste as a design flaw in a human-made concept and invention.
00:11:09
Speaker
So this is changing their approach to waste from organic waste to industrial waste. Everything now can be repurposed. In fact, since 2019, Rossano Orlandi, who is a Milanese design gallerist, runs the International Prize competition that's called the Raw Plastic Prize. They also participated in the Milan Sign Week.
00:11:31
Speaker
And this price is dedicated to the reuse and recycling of plastic. So although we must replace plastic, the price shows once again that we still need to deal with the plastic waste that we already produced and is available to us.
00:11:48
Speaker
So all this waste is becoming a very valuable resource. And this is happening not only with plastic, but with all kinds of industrial waste. And as I said, even organic waste. So definitely waste is being challenged lately by designers and architects. Do you think you see a strong potential for biomaterials then as an alternative? So just moving away completely from
00:12:18
Speaker
plastics or even recycled plastics and finding more bio-based materials as an alternative route forward. Do you see potential in that? And if so, how far do you think it can go? I think biomaterials have a lot of potential. Of course, it's something that, you know, we still need to explore more and manage to produce in large scale because some materials, you know, some many designers, they are experimenting with all kinds of biomaterials.
00:12:47
Speaker
With some materials, there are not enough support to make them more scalable. But I think that's the future, because again, it's looking at nature to find solutions for our problems. And I believe this is the best way to deal with climate change and all the environmental crisis and waste.
Biomaterials and Their Challenges
00:13:09
Speaker
And one of the materials, the biomaterials, that is really a great material and has been explored a lot lately is mycelium.
00:13:17
Speaker
which forms the root system of fungi. It's really amazing because its fire retardant has excellent insulation and acoustic properties, can sequester carbon, and is biodegradable and non-toxic. So we see mycelium used in lampshades, acoustic wall panels, furniture, packaging, often replacing plastic.
00:13:40
Speaker
Yeah, so I think there is a lot of potential for biomaterials. I even recommend listeners to take a look at the living, a New York-based studio exploring my stadium as a building material in architecture is really amazing. So I really think biomaterial is the future, but of course we need to scale that more. It's interesting, I was talking to an architect from
00:14:09
Speaker
from the Kengo Kuma studio the other day, and talking about the difference between biomaterials and interiors, which is maybe where I might use them, and at an architectural level, so the building material. And in an interior, when it's something like a mycelium acoustic panel, that's much easier for, say, me to use and integrate into a workspace, but for an architect to use bio-based materials, he was saying there's just a lack of the scientific tests that they need.
00:14:40
Speaker
in order to have the guarantees of safety and security in the building materials. So he was saying at the moment that the issue is around those having enough firm evidence and data around the strength or the durability of these materials. And that can often require additional budget from a client to put a material through those tests. And so he's saying that's really why it's perhaps in architecture taking a bit longer.
00:15:06
Speaker
for biomaterials to be adopted, but there's obviously potential there. So I guess, yeah, in interiors we have to lead from the front and then hopefully the architectural use of those materials follows on. I wanted to switch onto a piece you've done as a seminar. And it's really interesting looking through your website. There's obviously, you create beautiful content, first of all, like great design
00:15:33
Speaker
aesthetic language to what you do, but then a lot of the contents also dynamic and videos and webinars online and one particularly caught my eye. It's called designing for well-being. So it's a topic very close to my heart and I think there's so much potential in this theme. Can you talk to us about that? If you call it a trend or perhaps it's just a different way of thinking about health and our environment.
00:15:59
Speaker
Where are you seeing evidence of this shift towards designing spaces for wellbeing?
00:16:07
Speaker
Yes, so in the past years we have seen well-being becoming one of our highest values because it's a value that incorporates many others. So we see even in major design festivals like London Design Week, London Design Festival, Dutch Design Week, that designers and architects are starting to pay much more attention on how spaces can affect our creativity, efficiency and overall well-being.
00:16:37
Speaker
We see many installations, for example, here, Eli Decor did an installation about well-being as well. We see a lot of professionals and brands exploring that. They started to explore neuro-aesthetics, biophilic design, and create spaces for cocooning. Within this context, we see, for example, soft and tactile materials becoming as important as colors.
00:17:04
Speaker
and helping to integrate technology in our homes and also work spaces in a more natural and human way. And the pandemic has great accelerated this trend. And now we have a new sort of well-being that we call eco-well-being, which is about living a more sustainable and circular lifestyle. It's about welcoming the, let's say, the imperfect and impermanent state of things inspired by the Japanese wabi-sabi philosophy that's really strong now as well.
00:17:34
Speaker
And finally, it's about feeling physically safe while we face pandemics and also regarding sectors where we see more evidence. We see this trend very strong in homes, especially, as I mentioned, because of pandemic.
Impact of Pandemic on Design Trends
00:17:50
Speaker
We start to demand much more from our homes, so we need to work, we need to entertain ourselves, you know, we need to do everything at home and yet feel safe and reassured. So Wellbeing is very strong at homes, also work spaces, hotels and public shared spaces.
00:18:08
Speaker
The idea is really to provide people with places to feel safe and reassured, to cope with their very fast-speed digital lives and all the multiple crises we are living, like climate change, health and mental crisis.
00:18:23
Speaker
also brought by the pandemic, accelerated actually by the pandemic, economic recession, and so on. So people really need spaces to feel reassured, calm, and to recharge. So that's why I think well-being is something that will only evolve and improve within design. It's a trend now, but it's not a trend that will fade away, I believe. You mentioned biophilic design as well.
00:18:53
Speaker
I've noticed, obviously, a huge increase in interest in the topic over the last 18 months, really, in the COVID era, but it was already happening before then. I wondered how you see that. Obviously, you, in one sense, are working on the front edge of the trend industry, and part of what you do is anticipating, identifying, and almost codifying, and breaking down the trends
00:19:23
Speaker
in the design industry around you. But biophilic design, do you think that's something that will completely change the way we do or think about construction and interiors and our buildings? Is it one more trend that will one day pass away and we won't really want green walls and plants in our offices and our homes anymore? Or do you think this is a fundamental shift towards a more, let's say, circular and sustainable way of doing things?
The Future of Biophilic Design
00:19:53
Speaker
No, I don't think biophilic design is just a trend that will fade away. We see biophilic design as part of our journey to reconnect with nature and restore our broken bond with it. We believe that biophilic design can help us realize that we are part of nature, that we have this innate connection and affinity towards the natural world. And above all, that we are responsible. We have responsibilities towards it.
00:20:22
Speaker
So, and in fact, scientists have proved that nature does have a positive impact on us, both psychological and physiological. So we believe architects and designers will continue to improve their take on biophilic design, providing us with new shapes, forms, materials and technologies that bring nature closer to us. So I think this will only evolve, not fade away.
00:20:47
Speaker
And recently we saw again at the Milan Design Week, very interesting options for outdoor kitchens and outdoor furniture, especially the ones designed for public urban spaces. So we also see not only interior spaces, but cities trying to promote more their public spaces like parks where people can interact and be in contact with nature. So we really believe there is no turning back when it comes to biophilic design.
00:21:17
Speaker
I wonder how you see it then if it's something that can connect with and integrate an element of technology. I think one of the things that's sometimes used, perhaps a misunderstanding of biophilic design, is that it's trying to return us to some state of nature and therefore technology is not a part of that vision. It's not a part of that
00:21:43
Speaker
design strategy. But from what you're seeing in Milan and with your view of the European and global design industries, the technology element, how are you seeing that? What potential do you see for that both in, let's say, well-being design and in biophilic design?
00:22:02
Speaker
Well, I think technology is really key for our eco well-being in many ways for biofelic design as well. We see new technologies, for example, that allows for sofa and curtain fabrics to purify the indoor air, improving its quality and also improving our well-being, our health.
00:22:21
Speaker
There are also technologies that make surfaces much easier to clean, which have become top priority to reduce the spread of germs indoors and make us feel safer. So again, we will impact our wellbeing. We also see multi-purpose and easily assembled furniture that accommodate different needs, either at work or at home, and make our routines more flexible.
00:22:47
Speaker
Lighting technology that also is evolving to set different moods in the same space. We also see smart gardens becoming very popular in allowing us to grow our own vegetables and spices, regardless of our home natural lighting conditions.
00:23:07
Speaker
And besides all these examples that we see with technology collaborating with our well-being and improving our lives, we also see that technology can improve the planet's well-being because it helps us manage our waste either at home or at work spaces.
00:23:26
Speaker
technology can turn surplus into new resources, decreasing pollution and so on. So technology is definitely key to help us with our well-being and to improve the ways we work with beautiful design, I believe. So we're not going backwards, we're going forwards, but taking more nature with us as we go forwards into the future and therefore integrating tech
00:23:56
Speaker
in how we do things.
Soma Studio's Role in Circular Design
00:23:59
Speaker
You do talks, workshops, trend memberships. How can people, how do clients and the industry typically engage with you? What are the range of opportunities for someone to connect if they see this as a theme that they need more help with or they're interested in learning more or they just need to increase their knowledge of this, perhaps with a view to doing particular projects at work
00:24:25
Speaker
related to circular design. What are the options from Summer Studio? We have different approaches. For example, we can work with manufacturers, product manufacturers, to help them identify future trends or also doing material research. We recently did that with, for example, an American tile company.
00:24:48
Speaker
We also provide circular consultancy to help organizations on how to implement circular design principles within their products or services. We also work a lot with education. Because for us, the first step towards this transition to the circular economy is really to educate yourself. So we provide content that's relevant within the circular economy and circular design.
00:25:17
Speaker
through companies or educational organizations and so on. We also collaborate with media outlets and we have these products, as you mentioned, trained membership and some e-books and webinars that we do in partnership with an Italian blogger and architect, Italian Bark.
00:25:39
Speaker
And we provide people with the latest news, innovations, and trends in interior and design, which always includes circular news and innovations. So we have many different services, but always within this bigger topic, the circular economy and circular design. It makes complete sense. I think there's so much movement happening in this industry that not everyone can
00:26:09
Speaker
stay up to date, and there's a lot of confusion, I think, still. There's a lot of these, the terms, and a lot of, we don't necessarily know how to go about making things better. And I can see that, yeah, what you do is effectively like a, yeah, you're an educator. You're there to help fill in the gaps and boost understanding, increase understanding of why this matters, but also how, how one can, or how a client or a business can make a difference, right? That's sort of what it's about.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yes, we also like to build bridges between circular designs and companies, between two companies, you know, to manage their waste. For example, we also do reports on events, you know, if a company wants to see what's happening in a particular design fair or festival and they cannot go or even if they go, but they want our insights, we also do that.
00:27:01
Speaker
So yeah, we we consider our self researchers and educators and content creators a bit of everything. Yeah, it's great cool and thank you so much. That was a really enjoyable conversation.