"We need to find new collective mentalities where the ‘new’ will be exchanged with the long-lasting, the inflexible with the flexible, the static with the moveable, the broken with repaired."
This speculative work promotes a more elastic approach to living and examines the changing ways future generations will live, work and travel in the future city. Centred on fluidity and flexibility, the Tele-nomadic Sheltering Unit proposes an urban dwelling that is durable, moveable and designed to oppose the overconsumption associated with urban living. This reductionist and alternative way of living is designed with repairability and flexibility as core values, but also to be imbued with connectivity and symbolism, representing the figure of the future nomad carrying within itself a mix of different nomadic realities and their resulting materialities.
The whole idea of the Tele-nomadic Sheltering Unit is based on a modular structure which can be assembled and disassembled and carried with oneself. Repair and exchange are at the core of the concept. Imagining a future where we live in the open and collective and only own as much things as we can actually carry. The textiles allow different set ups and are shelter and protect from the natural environment. They are also meant to harvest electricity and through this enable to be fully self-sufficient. The small dot-matrix screen attached facilitates communication to other Tele-nomads near by due to cloud connection.
The work consists of a steel structure, two recycled acrylic glass plates, a patterned seating object, resin bricks and a small dot matrix-screen. Amongst these materials are 5 different jacquard fabrics which were developed in collaboration with EE Exclusives in the Netherlands. The textiles have different colorations on each side and are constructed as blanket qualities. The 3D-textures of the textiles were created by using filling yarn and the graphic outlines of the textiles were created by using laser cut techniques.
Tele-nomadic Sheltering Unit has been exhibited during Dutch Design Week 2021 as part of the exhibition Objects For A New Kind Of Society at Dutch Invertuals X Future Laboratory London, during Southern Sweden Design Days at Form/Design Center, Milan Design Week, Design Zentrum Hamburg, Central Museum of Textiles Łódź & Venice Design Biennial.
Dezeen article available here.