London Design Biennale 2021 Participants

The Pavilion of the African Diaspora (PoAD) was born from the need for a space on the global stage centred on the voices and contributions of people born of the African Diaspora. 

A collective who have been dispersed to countries far and wide, some by choice and others by force. Comprised of three architectural follies inspired by the mythology of the conch and cowrie shells emerging from the sand, the PoAD, designed by renowned luxury product designer Ini Archibong, is a sacred reimagining of the journey of African permanence and resources.

The PoAD will serve as an innovative multi-use educational and event facility, and as a sanctuary to tell stories and create a reality where voices are recognised and respected for the diversity of their timbre. Each structural folly of the PoAD is a symbolic gateway to the past, present, and future in the exploration of Reparations + Representations = Repair & Resonance to energise our sail and carry us on our continued journey onward.

The Pavilion of the African Diaspora is the debut initiative of the Archibong Heritage Foundation.

In Monte Abierto, the designer Cristian Mohaded invites us to the weaving of a shared territory that unfolds from his long-standing relationship with the artisan Lorenzo Reyes and the Simbol, a plant that grows in the north of Argentina.

Monte Abierto is an invitation to experience the making of a shared territory in dialogue. In this installation, the designer Cristián Mohaded examines the resonance of design from his relationship with the artisan Lorenzo Reyes and the Simbol, a plant that grows in the Calchaquí Valleys in Catamarca, a province in the northwest of Argentina, from which both come from.

Between rivers and mountains, shrubs grow wild on the Monte (the bush) forming scattered islands of dense coloured clumps; a desert-like landscape of warm rusty sunsets that Lorenzo visits every three months. “Let’s go to the material,” he says, and from this encounter with the Simbol, relationships begin to be woven.

In summer Simbol fibres are mostly given over to the cows, horses, and donkeys that come to the Monte to feed on them. In winter, however, the cool wind dries the bright, tender green of the plant into shades of sandy yellow. What’s more, according to the minerals of the soil, red and orange spots can appear on the fibres. For Lorenzo, these are not peripheral details but rather nature setting the pace of his practice. "Mother Nature offers us everything, we just have to go to the fields and work with our hands," he says. The Simbol, both as material and technique, thus becomes a technology-memory that stores and transfers a making expertise and a language specific to the Monte.

For almost a decade, Cristián and Lorenzo maintain a collaborative and experimental practice built upon an ongoing process of making agreements, of forming a common language, and of pacts of respect between them, the Simbol, and the Monte. Dialogue appears here as a committed technology towards finding (designing) a shared vision, a shared practice, a shared identity, a shared world. To enter the Monte, then, is not just an invitation to the landscape but to an epistemic orientation and a disposition to see and do things otherwise, a perspective in which the material and the immaterial are mutually constituted.

Monte Abierto is the disclosure of Cristián and Lorenzo’s shared territory and an invitation to their conversation as landscape — a world made through dialogue and a dialogue made world.

DUCkT is a metaphor for our willingness to ‘bend’ to the ever-growing energy demands of mechanical systems in inefficiently designed buildings. 

The inspiration for the Canadian installation comes from a self-reflection of the reliance on indoor micro-climate systems in the building sector at the expense of the wellbeing of our planet. The designers were struck by the overwhelming reality of current climate change predictions, and the urgent need to address the rapid growth in inefficient and carbon-intensive buildings. 

The world’s urban population is expected to surpass 6 billion by 2050, and an estimated 2 billion new homes are projected to be built over the next 80 years. Considering that heating, cooling, and ventilation in buildings currently account for almost 12% of global CO2 emissions, it is estimated that by 2050 mechanical systems’ energy use will grow by 80% generating billions of tons of CO2 into the environment. To keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5oC, current emission levels - including those generated from heating and cooling - need to be dramatically reduced, even with the growth in population and new buildings.

​​​​​​Visitors will be presented with two metal air ducts crossing over the gallery. The exaggerated ducts are made from reflective golden aluminum to induce a sense of awe and splendour, but also to trigger personal reflection towards a common threat.

DUCkT forces the viewer to duck beneath, touch, hear, and feel the objects responsible for our thermal comfort, experiencing both scenarios: the desirable warmth and coolness, linked to the unpleasant acoustic pollution and physical discomfort, as an analogy for our current way of building.

Revery’s design aims to spotlight Canada’s reliance on artificial heating and cooling systems due to the country’s diverse climate, and the necessity to question its viability in the future. There is an immediate need to address the rapid growth in inefficient and carbon-intensive buildings and to bring answers to some pressing questions: Are we over-using technology just because we can? Are we willing to accept varying indoor temperatures that respond to seasonal changes? Can architecture fundamentally shift away from its reliance on mechanical systems and the vast energy currently required to make buildings habitable? Should we continue to rely on these systems to create comfortable yet ineffective internal micro-climates at the expense of our planet? 

Petr Stanický’s Planes of Perception calls for a reassessment of the human axial bodily experience of space in favour of a variation of other options, allowing visitors to perceive reality in a way in which we have forgotten to perceive it in the course of time.

The spatial network of site-specific installations within the West Wing of Somerset House works with distinctive window openings that in a regular way articulate the entire architectural structure, creating a dominant rhythm that permeates as the constant along the entire ground floor of the palace.

The visual intervention works with the interior on several levels. It works not only with the windows and their distinctive geometrical form (elevated hollow block topped with a volute) but also with the specific light vista, constructed in an almost theatrical way.
 

The object is, therefore, a transformation of the traditional vista from the interior to the outside and seeks to break away from this scheme by expanding the possibilities of perception by the viewer by regrouping space.

Spoon Archaeology is designed as a study, presenting historical references from a museum collection next to contemporary cutlery designs. The installation presents the material and immaterial cultural heritage of the past and present, and invites the audience to resonate sustainable solutions for the future.

Starting January 2021, plastic cutlery — a seemingly worthless object with an anonymous design, yet holder of complex information about its users — will be banned in the European Union. In the past, these everyday tools gradually adapted to the development of human life and have been important actors in our table and eating cultures.
 

In multimedia installation Spoon Archaeology designers Peter Eckart and Kai Linke will display a collection of disposable cutlery, staged as archaeological artefacts, design curiosities, and anthropological witnesses of an era that is about to end.
 

The installation presents the material and immaterial cultural heritage of the past and present and invites guests to resonate sustainable solutions for the future by questioning traditional design culture. The individual showcases will be bundled together in meandering displays and can be arranged flexibly in the room.
 

Additionally, "Spoon Archaeology” will show videos in a loop (e.g. a film with hands as eating tools in different cultures), a double-sided poster and a website that introduce further information on the wide-ranging topics of disposable cutlery and its social and ecological complexity. Ultimately, the displayed objects represent centuries of cultural heritage as well as today’s throwaway society. These artefacts raise critical issues concerning the cultural history of civilisation, sustainability, climate consciousness, the functionality of design, and today’s fundamental problem with disposables.
 

The installation further showcases methods for the critical examination of traditional design approaches, and broadens the view to other cultures. Linke and Eckart do not intend to solely create substitute products, they rather remind the viewer to learn from this collection, take responsibility and develop perspectives for alternative futures.

An enchanted, immersive scene of illuminated, embracing olive trees reflected in mirrors and sounded by sounds of Greek nature, encouraging us to contemplate feelings of origin, connection and separation. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how we view the physical world and our space within it, forcing us to re-evaluate and alter our human relationships, and encouraging us back to our origins for inspiration. Finding those ancestral foundations, this sense of belonging to the world and being part of a larger narrative, is like finding our centre of stability.

Searching for ways the past resonates with the present and future, Prince Nikolaos investigates the natural treasure emanating from Greek soil: the olive tree and its fruit, with its glorious golden hues. Not much has changed in the way we grow and harvest olive trees from ancient times until today.

We have always known the health-protective qualities of olive oil, proving that nature has amply and generously given us everything we need. There are olive trees in Greece which are over 2,500 years old, participating in human history and standing guard, as witnesses, of everything that connects us with our past. 

Exploring how to unite these different concepts in a physical space, the artist creates this immersive tree scene. Visitors can walk through the illuminated artwork and become enveloped in the perennial strength and beauty of the embraced olive trees, like walking through a pathway that connects our past, present and future.

In the almost silent space created by the dimmed light, only emanating from the artwork and its reflection, one can feel the stillness that we felt all this time of forced separation and detachment, while listening to the sounds of Greek nature. This serves as a reminder to be still and listen to nature and our environment, as it resonates through space and eventually, through us. 

Sandtable will use the basis of storytelling to reconstruct the resonance experienced from Hong Kong. Captured in sand, visitors’ written strokes will be projected in the installation, forming an archive of resonance on site and online.
 

Hong Kong is a nexus and a vessel for resonance between multiple cultures: if captured in words, it would be a co-authored, dynamic book of interactions, transcending time, and cultural differences.
 

Visitors are invited to develop stories, dreams, and speculations on the histories and futures of Hong Kong as they encounter the urban legend of Ah Kwan Showing the Way, a fantasy concocted by early British colonialists. Combined with the materiality and notion of fortune-telling rituals, the audience will play a game of Chinese Whispers with this local legend as the basis, each day regenerating the past and producing a ‘fortune’ for the future.
 

Captured in sand, visitors’ written strokes will be projected in the mirroring sites and recorded over the duration of the exhibition to collate an archive of resonance on- site and online. The pavilion, therefore, presents an alternative archive, documenting the multiple, interwoven, non-linear histories of Hong Kong, and encouraging collective speculation beyond the rhetorical narratives of the city’s future.

An investigation into how the indigenous community faces shortcomings in their modern domestic space. The pavilion invites the audience to immerse in the inhabitant’s imagination to resonate inclusive design and social equality. 

In public housing, design acts as an agency of power. Architecture has the power to persuade inhabitants, and to manifest a certain ideology. Within disinvested communities and spaces in urban areas, there is a discrepancy between the designed space and the way it is perceived by inhabitants.

The universal design of public housing often disregards the communal culture and the inhabitant’s psychological needs. In architectural practices, the boundaries between private-public, production, and living space has collapsed. This can be perceived by an outsider as a failure of design, where the design has not been informed properly by those who will inhabitant it. 

On the other hand, there are informal designs formed by spatial patterns which are practiced collectively across Indonesia. These resonate with the global housing crisis and challenges faced by indigenous communities. As an agency of politics and culture, design needs to promote inclusivity and social equality.

The pavilion portrays home as a transient space. The installation explores the fluidity of space, creates an impression of doubling space, where boundaries are blurred between real-imagined space and a virtual-physical space. The pattern ‘doubling’ can be seen in how the installation juxtaposes site-specifically in Somerset House’s interior, using the projected screen to show the interior of public houses. 

Within these illusory interiors, there are seven fragments of narrative which tell the audience about the uncanny situation of where the design failed to accommodate the inhabitant's innate needs. Each of these narratives are performed by the installation through audio and video. The story resonates with the struggle to live in a modern building. For the audience, installation will be a multisensory: the 360-degree environment will invite them to imagine the inhabitant’s perceived space.

Israel's pavilion will explore the perpetual tension between Globalisation (Networking) and Nationalism (Capsularisation), how they overlap and ignite each other, leading us to an imminent boiling point.

While in the past decades the world has undoubtedly moved towards globalisation, breaking of stereotypes and barriers; in recent years we have witnessed a re-emergence of efforts to isolate nations and "re-ignite" a sense of national pride. Ironically, the very same entities that promote globalisation are those which amplify ultra-nationalism, thus stimulating a resonating, everlasting tension.
 

Social media makes an excellent example of that tension: while we are all linked together in the world's largest network, algorithms study us and filter our feed to comply with various variables. The overflow of information leads to apathy and confusion while social media's easiness has made us translate our ideologies into facile slogans.
 

The Boiler Room is a space of self-exploration which visualises global and local processes as well as the networks they form and suggests that any imbalance between the two may lead us to a boiling point. 

A pavilion of friendship,  Reinventing Texture pays homage to the ancient Japanese art of Washi paper-making and papier-mâché through a sensory experience that connects Tokyo and London.

Reinventing Texture is an experimental immersive installation that resonates with traditional and modern urban textures, objects and sounds in the cities of Tokyo and London, in response to COVID-19. It is also a pavilion of friendship, connection and shared innovation between Japan and the UK, at a time when travel has been restricted and physical barriers reinforced. A homage to the ancient Japanese art of Washi paper-making and papier-mâché, “Reinventing Texture” celebrates texture without touch, and is a poem to the two cities and the spirit of invention in Japan that still resonates with its history.
 

The project began at a London café in 2019. Through his role as Assistant Professor in the experimental Kuma Lab at The University of Tokyo, architectural designer Toshiki Hirano had worked closely with interdisciplinary curator Clare Farrow on developing “Bamboo Ring” by Kengo Kuma for London Design Festival at the V&A Museum.
 

Amongst the sounds and smells of a bustling café, their discussion turned to material traditions and innovations, and Hirano shared photographs of his own work – playful, unexpected juxtapositions of materials, colours and textures, layered with philosophical thought. The images stayed in Farrow’s mind and resulted in the Biennale invitation, to reinvent texture through sensory experience. A few months later, the pandemic changed everything, including Hirano’s plans.
 

Inspired by German philosopher Walter Benjamin’s writings on urban space, and Japanese artist Tomoharu Makabe’s 1970s work “Urban Frottage”, Hirano became a collector walking in the streets of Tokyo, photographing textures and objects that could be transformed using innovative digital scanning and fabrication technology, into moulds for a hand-crafted, papier-mâché wall relief.
 

At the same time in 2020, Hirano was also running virtual Photogrammetry workshops at the Royal College of Art in London for MA Interior Design students, who donned their masks and become collectors of urban textures too. They also made field recordings for the immersive and interactive sound collage created by MSCTY Studio in Tokyo and designed by KP Acoustics.
 

There is a haunting quality to the soft-layered, creamy-white Washi relief, which plays with multiple scales, myriad textures and projections like illuminated watercolours. Created by technology, but also by Hirano’s meticulous layering of paper by hand, “Reinventing Texture” is a journey without touch, yet still a meeting of people and cities.

An immersive, interactive healing environment supporting first responder mental health and wellbeing.

When New York City became the epicentre of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Studio Elsewhere worked alongside their scientific and clinical partners at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City to deploy their Recharge Rooms to support frontline worker mental health and resilience. Over the past year they have expanded these environments to support the hardest hit hospitals in New York City.

These multisensory healing environments are grounded in Studio Elsewhere's research practice to support brain health in collaboration with neuroscientists, clinicians, patients and caregivers. 

The sea has given Norway its name - the northern way. Norway’s digital contribution to London Design Biennale 2021 will bring you closer to the ocean, the fjords and rugged coast. They will present how ocean-based inclusive design provides ripple effects for people, the environment and business.
 

The Norwegian government aims for Norway to be universally designed by an action plan ensuring that all citizens can participate in society. “By designing for a diverse group of people, we can create more innovative and user-friendly products, services, buildings, environments and societies that are ultimately better for everyone,” says project manager Victoria Høisæther. 
 

Through a digital event, Norway will this year focus on how inclusive design resonates with nature and how it impacts people’s lives. Audiences are invited on an immersive journey above and below water, to challenge views on inclusion. The digital tour will travel from the most southern point of Norway to the far North to experience marine life, amazing architectural constructions and the sustainable possibilities of designing with nature.
 

Key speakers from selected projects will widen your horizon in a narrow fjord, feel warmth in the freezing swell and get elevated by diving deep. The Ripple Effect of Inclusive Design are proud to present established visionary marine life services, underwater architectural endeavours and innovative solutions all connected to the ocean and waterways – the northern way.

Poland explores the ways in which textiles are used to reflect the rhythm of seasonal changes in domestic interiors. It recalls bygone rituals through an artistic installation, seeking inspiration for contemporary climate-responsive design.

Living between centrally heated apartments and air-conditioned offices, we have become indifferent to the nuances of nature’s changing cycles. Contemporary design can help us tune into the seasons again. Conceptually rooted in Polish textile designs from the pre electricity era, the installation recalls domestic rituals that allow us to cultivate our relationship with the natural world and react more attentively to its continued changes. It is not only what we design and produce that resonates in nature, but also that nature resonates in us.
 

In manor houses, aristocratic mansions and peasant cottages of pre-modern Poland, textiles were widely used as seasonal clothing for architecture. They helped adapt domestic spaces to the twelve phenological seasons characteristic of the Central European climate zone. Their cyclical appearance in domestic interiors allowed for conscious participation in the cycles of nature – in celebrating the passage of time, with an enhanced sense of immersion in the circadian rhythm, and the sequence of light and darkness. 
 

As a result, ‘The Clothed Home’ functions as a resonator, helping residents feel the pulse of the natural world. By clothing a room of Somerset House, the installation sets out to offer visitors a similar, multi-sensory experience. The history of Polish domestic textile design researched by the architectural duo Centrala is presented in a contemporary interpretation by artist Alicja Bielawska. The textile installation, produced by local Polish artisans using traditional weaving techniques and natural fabrics, and in a colour palette inspired by year-long observation of a particular Polish landscape, will encourage visitors to join in and experience the seasonal rhythm of nature before it fades away completely.
 

The curatorial concept of the Polish exhibition has been chosen via a nationwide competition organised by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute to select a proposal that would present Polish design thinking in response to the Biennale theme, Resonance.

In Forest for Change visitors will be taken through a journey on which they discover the United Nations’ Global Goals for Sustainable Development - an ambitious plan to eradicate poverty, inequality and climate change.

Es Devlin, Forest for Change designer and Artistic Director of the Biennale, was told that trees had been forbidden from the courtyard at Somerset House when the building was originally conceived 250 years ago. When designing this year’s Biennale, Es decided to “counter this attitude of human dominance over nature, by allowing a forest to overtake the entire courtyard.” In subverting the rules of Somerset House’s Enlightenment-era designers, Es and her team considered the transformational nature of forests in literature to create a place of real change: “The UN Global Goals offer us clear ways to engage and alter our behaviour and it is our hope that an interaction with the Goals in the forest will be transformative."
 

Bringing trees into the courtyard at Somerset House for the first time is a bold statement that mirrors the audacious nature of the Global Goals – an ambitious plan agreed to by all nations to create a better and fairer world for all by 2030. 2021 is a pivotal year for the global community to address the most urgent issues faced in a generation, and this forest of 400 trees will show how the Goals are the answer to the challenges we are facing. It will bring to life the solutions needed to tackle climate change, growing inequality and covid recovery and show a pathway towards building a better and brighter future for everyone, everywhere.
 

Designed by Es Devlin, in collaboration with Landscape Designer Philip Jaffa and Urban Greening Specialists Scotscape, the outdoor experience is presented in partnership with Project Everyone, a not-for profit agency founded by Richard Curtis, Kate Garvey and Gail Gallie to further awareness and engagement with Global Goals.

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Design resonates throughout the environment, perhaps no more so than in the materials we build with. In the past year we have experienced the importance of our connection to nature. Through "Unfolding" the Center for Natural Material Innovation at University of Cambridge seek to show a range of creative possibilities when we work in collaboration with nature and natural materials, cultivating the materials we can grow for a built environment in which we can thrive.
 

The world faces a climate emergency, in part because the built environment accounts for almost 40% of carbon emissions. By using engineered timber for buildings, we can leave behind an era of extracting building materials and move towards a future of growing them. Engineered timber has excellent structural properties and is the only structural material that sequesters carbon in its cells while growing. Architecturally, timber lets us create a more pleasant, healthier, relaxed, sociable and creative urban experience.  
 

"Unfolding" examines the potential for using engineered timber for the production of flexible housing. The pavilion explores the ways in which timber can improve the way we live through a light, flexible and transformable structure.  The team use kerfing, a cutting method that can turn flat rigid panels into foldable or curved elements. The technique relies on designing the scoring or cutting patterns to fold or bend the surface to its target geometry. The topology and geometry of kerf patterns, fabrication processes with different equipment and types of wooden panels will be explored, to develop a final installation of folded timber components. The design of the pavilion enables it to transform throughout the month of the exhibition, illustrating various spatial possibilities.
 

"Unfolding" proposes a pavilion that shows how we can build a better and truly sustainable urban future by using engineered timber. It is time to grow our forests, to grow our building materials and to grow our cities sustainably to bring nature back to the places we live.

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InnovationRCA is the Royal College of Art’s award-winning centre for entrepreneurship, helping staff, students and alumni transform compelling ideas into successful businesses. To date it has invested in and built over 70 companies creating jobs, exports and profits.

The InnovationRCA community draws on diverse expertise, experience and interests, with start-up company founders graduating from across the Royal College of Art’s programmes. Through the application of rigorous research and design thinking, the InnovationRCA community is building towards a vision of an environmentally sound and socially equitable future.

Curated by InnovationRCA’s Director, Dr Nadia Danhash, this display features:   

• The Tyre Collective - a clean-tech company spearheading the capture and monitoring of tyre wear, accelerating the shift towards zero-emission mobility.

• Piñatex by Ananas Anam - made from pineapple leaf fibre, Piñatex (pictured above) can be used as an alternative to leather and petroleum-based textiles, and is currently the only vegan and sustainable textile alternative to leather that is commercially available at scale.

• FreshTag – an early stage start-up, FreshTag are developing a novel pH-sensitive colour coding system that accurately indicates real-time food freshness to reduce food waste, and can be used as biofilm packaging or ink on labelling.

• BuffaloGrid – providing access to reliable, free electric charging for underserved energy users around the world, BuffaloGrid’s solar-powered device can charge 10 portable electronic devices simultaneously and provide free access to digital services.