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MDW: Carlo Ratti’s energy-producing urban gardens

Feeling the Energy by Carlo Ratti Associati and Italo Rota for Plenitude as part of the Design Week’s INTERNI Re.Generation exhibition, Italy

Italy – Architects Carlo Ratti Associati and Italo Rato are transforming Milan’s Botanical Gardens into an energy park during Salone Del Mobile Milano 2022.

Feeling the Energy is an immersive installation that uses 500m of digitally bent copper pipe to form a path where people can explore different forms of sustainable energy production and consumption. As visitors wander through, they can explore six areas, including an Energy Carousel, Garden Orchestra, Powering Vibrations and a Solar Garden. Each section spotlights the experience of producing energy using the sun, wind and human movement.

Using the copper pipes, the installation harvests and stores energy during the day, powering water vaporisers that cool down and feed the garden's vegetation. ‘The installation is inspired by the functioning of plant organisms,’ suggests Carlo Ratti. 'As trees in a forest draw energy from different sources and then use it locally where they need it, the long copper tube of Feeling the Energy absorbs energy in its entire length and then uses it in specific points of the installation path.’

Envisaging the future of self-sufficient architecture, the installation breaks down the production of energy into a tangible and community-focused exercise. To read more about how infrastructure will be reworked to produce green energy for neighbourhoods, read our macrotrend Equilibrium Cities.

Strategic opportunity

With sustainability at the forefront of consumers’ minds, how can your brand or business use eco-materials to save and optimise resources such as energy?

MDW: Piro is a scent-diffusing robotic companion

Piro by IDEO and Moooi, Italy

Italy – Human-centred design studio IDEO has teamed up with interior designers Moooi to develop Piro, a scent-diffusing robotic companion for the home.

The scent machines were presented at Moooi’s A Life Extraordinary exhibition, hosted at Salone Del Mobile Milano 2022. The robots, which resemble the characteristics of Disney character WALL.E, welcomed visitors with a synchronised dance routine that concluded with a signature puff of fragrance. Throughout the exhibition, each robot character demonstrated their use in-situ, with mock-ups of home spaces created in collaboration with artists including Cristina Celestino, Andres Reisinger and Julia Esque.

‘The idea was to create something that lives in your house, but as an independent entity [with] no purpose other than to live in your house and be an occasional companion. Part of that was to bring you a gift of love. This would be a little pop of fragrance as a gift,’ says Thomas Overthun, executive design director at IDEO.

In light of the pandemic, our homes have increasingly become spaces of pleasure and comfort. Here, IDEO is showing how future-facing home devices can provide such comfort, alongside a personality that interacts with its surroundings and individuals.

Strategic opportunity

Technology is often about convenience and efficiency. Instead, consider how you can employ technology in service of care, comfort or companionship

A magazine rebranding fit for Uneasy Affluence

UK – The Financial Times newspaper is rebranding its nearly 30-year-old luxury supplement How To Spend It in recognition of consumers’ shifting attitudes to wealth and ostentation.

The title will now be known as HTSI – an acronym that the newspaper wants to be interpreted in new ways, from ‘how to style it,’ to ‘how to steer it,’ or even ‘how to save it’ – a pertinent suggestion at time when people across all social strata are feeling the impact of post-pandemic inflation.

According to editor Jo Ellison, ‘How To Spend It has always been about how we spend our time, and the content of the magazine embraces everything that is good in life. We have no intention of changing that. But we want the title and indeed our masthead to reflect a world with deeper sensitivities.’

In this way, the Financial Times is recognising and responding to the presence of Uneasy Affluence, in which both consumers and brands consciously adjust their products, services and spending to be more socially aware, accessible and supportive.

HTSI by Financial Times, UK

Strategic opportunity

Across demographics, luxury attitudes are in flux. How might you use branding, design and marketing to reflect the new ways in which people want to spend, save or use their wealth for social good?

Stat: Global wellness spending continues to grow

OEM, US

The global wellness industry is showing no signs of slowing, with high spending rates and emerging markets representing new opportunities for companies in this sector. According to research by the Global Wellness Institute, one in every £16 ($20, €18.60) spent by consumers worldwide is on wellness. The sector is expected to be worth £5.6 trillion ($7 trillion, €6.5 trillion) by 2025.

While the US is the largest spending region, accounting for nearly 28% of the global wellness market, some countries in the top 10 according to wellness spending per capita are perhaps unexpected. These include Switzerland at £3,485 ($4,372, €4,072) per person, Iceland at £2,972 ($3,728, €3,472) and Aruba at £2,226 ($2,792, €2,600). With this in mind, wellness brands should adapt their products and strategies to cater for the interests of tourists and local people in these markets.

When doing so, it’s important to consider the lifestyle and environmental nuances that are also relevant to these markets – as we explore in Synchronised Care, there is an ongoing shift towards interconnected wellness that aligns the environments that we live in.