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Daan Roosegaarde is a tall, exuberant man with big, exciting ideas (the Dutch often are). Since establishing his design studio in Rotterdam a decade ago, he has created energy-neutral street lighting, energy-generating kites, an on-demand aurora borealis to illustrate the threat of rising water levels and, most famously, a smog-sucking tower. His latest mission is to dam or divert orbiting streams of space trash; 29,000 satellite bits and rocket pieces which, if left unchecked, threaten to block escape routes out of the Earth’s atmosphere. Or at least wipe out your Wi-Fi for a good while.
In October, his studio launched Space Waste Lab, the first move in a long-term effort to take down, or better upcycle, as much of this orbital junk as possible. To kickstart a space waste expo and symposium, Roosegaarde and his team set up camp at the KAF cultural centre in Almere in the Netherlands and aimed high-powered LEDs at scrap metal orbiting at altitudes of anywhere between 200 and 20,000km (they had spent over a year working with space agencies to develop tracking technology and obtain the requisite safety approvals).
This spectacular light show, with monthly repeats through to January next year, is an effort to illuminate and pinpoint just one per cent of space trash more than 10cm long (pieces much smaller than this, some travelling at a speed of 25,000km/h, can also cause catastrophic damage to satellites but they are almost impossible to map).
The three-month-long space waste expo, put together with advisors from Nasa and the European Space Agency, includes workshops or ‘living labs’. Amateurs and professionals, scientists and schoolchildren alike are encouraged to come along and throw in their own ideas and suggestions.
This story is from the November 2018 edition of Wallpaper.
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This story is from the November 2018 edition of Wallpaper.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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Pas de Deux - Choreographer Wayne McGregor on turning a post-apocalyptic trilogy by Margaret Atwood into a three-act ballet in collaboration with composer Max Richter
Wayne McGregor is the master of creative collaborations. As resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet, a position he has held since 2006, he has translated an eclectic roster of literary, avant-garde and contemporary references into works for the stage, as well as taken the helm on film, TV, fashion and music videos projects, and founded his own London-based studio.
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After a 20-year hiatus, design returns to the Dakar Biennale this year and, for curator Ousmane Mbaye, it comes at a pivotal time. ‘My curatorial practice is based on three aspects,’ he says. ‘A desire to do a design inventory in Africa; to record the materials being used; and to present the current generation of designers in Africa and its diaspora, and see their visions realised.’
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Marcio Kogan has been prolific since setting up his namesake studio in São Paulo in 1978 (it was renamed Studio MK27 at the turn of the century). The 72-year-old architect has since become synonymous with contemporary Brazilian chic, offering a sumptuous blend of raw, textured materials; clean geometric forms; effortless functionality; vernacular design features; and a deep knowledge and appreciation of the rich, tropical modernist architecture legacy of his home country.
DREAM TEAM
A rewatching of a seminal film laid the foundation for JW Anderson's latest collection, a fantastical collaboration with artist Christiane Kubrick
