© 2010 Transplant / Mathieu Lehanneur.

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Our mission at Nordic Materials is to collect knowledge about material technologies and processes that have the potential to evolve your design and production sustainably, formally and functionally. In our materials updates, like this one, you can read our point of view about a special theme. This time, we bring you the interesting point of view of Mathieu Lehanneur, french designer, who came to visit us in Transplant this summer.

Like a shock absorber, his work dresses the daily wounds we have in our interiors. Welcome in the 4th dimension, where the objects live like robots, using their superpowers to improve our life.

© Mathieu Lehanneur

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Impregnated by his first vocation, medicine, Mathieu Lehanneur took design close to the body, primarily with drugs. Even if a drug is bearer of healing, it has also undesirable effects,  by improving the relationship people have with drugs, he aims to make them more pleasant. This studies project, still alive, is waiting patiently in the Moma, New York, to find a place in the pharmaceutical industry.

What would humans need inside their house, more than the ergonomics? Let’s not forget that our five senses and our immune system make the link with our exterior, and not only the touch through direct contact. Everything which is in contact with us or around us has an effect and affects us. We have needs in heat, light, silence, oxygen and immunity. Study those elements and try to complement them, by emission, absorption or transformation could lead to a perfect balance. Mathieu Lehanneur brings an impalpable comfort, which acts like micro-anaesthesias on several levels of our perception.

Imagining that the indoor is more polluted than the outdoor seems like a misunderstanding. Thinking that our hiding place, our cocoon, our home, is the best shelter we have, is simply a dream. Interior pollution comes from design and designers. Crazy but true, the plastics which compose our furniture liberate harmful gasses. The materials composed of polymers, glass fibers and insulating materials, expire and emit volatile components which take place in our body and poison it. NASA, following the return of its astronauts from the space, found them totally intoxicated by the emissions of the material components comprising the interior of the shuttle.

© Mathieu Lehanneur

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Gardener at heart, Mathieu Lehanneur designed a solution using plants. He takes nature in its raw state for its functional aspects. As with O, the Element transmitter of oxygen containing a green alga solution, he gave birth to Bel-Air (beautiful air). A cleansing filter is associated with a depolluting plant (Clorophytum, Philodendron, Gerbera, Spatiphyllum, or Pothos) and a high tech ventilator. This prototype, was produced in pyrex (infinitely solderable) and aluminum, two materials which emit no gasses. Andrea, the produced product version stimulated our interest because of its components, polycarbonate and ABS plastics; unexpected materials for a cleansing filter. The designer explained us this choice, which goes against the concept of this object:
“The use of aluminium and pyrex would have multiplied the production price the weight and transport cost by 10. The extra weight would have largely increased the carbon footprint of the product. The plastics in comparison, is lighter and on this point of view, are more attentive to the environment. The polycarbonate component used for Andrea was initially destined to produce baby-bottles, but as it was declared toxic for food contact, the stock was in pending, waiting to be incinerated”, explains Mathieu Lehanneur.

In a sense, the use of a harmful plastic for the creation of his filter, was more respectful of the nature than the use of the ideal and obvious green material. As Andrea absorbs its own pollution, his choice doesn’t disturb the function and the utility of the product, but seeks to find it’s sustainable balance. Later, like with drugs (savers and poisonous), we’ll discover the effects of Andrea.

© Mathieu Lehanneur

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We declare our love to Mother Nature, by fear of destroying our cradle, to upset the cycles of the planet or by simple awareness. We remove our pink tinted glasses and discover the world, a little dull. Let’s paint it in green with a branch in the place of a brush, just for fun. We eat green, we wear green, we sit green… and we even speak green. Sustainability, eco-friendly, we use so many words which sounds like a new way to think, is it a religion or a new trend? This way to communicate seems to be the new language of both manufacturers and designers, sprinkled on by marketeers and the media to be served on wood plates, like our buried past. Today we wish to change, but do we take the good turn ? According to Mathieu, there is a desire of simplification of a such complex problem that the designers try to resume only at the surface of the objects:

“Of course, the choice of materials has to be done in an overview of its cycle of production, of use, of life and death. Questions of energy (extraction, manufacture, transformation, recycling, transport, …), water, chemicals, quality (recycled plastics, do they perform as well a the others?), price (unfortunately), …. Yes the products have to be made with the most respect to the environment as possible. Designers follow the flow, by belief or trendy mood and give to their clients those wooden plates, but this won’t save the world. Let’s just hope it will improve a small part of it. The problem today, is when a client wants it to be seen, to develop a sustainable image because it’s “commercially correct”. Mathieu concludes:  “I am alert to never adding a varnish, a blush of sustainability for it to look eco-friendly”.

To be or to look green, that’s a question!

©2010 Transplant / Mathieu Lehanneur Pyramid of Age in Transplant.

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The 14th of August 2010, Transplant opened the exhibition of the first Ideal Lab´theme; Longer Participation. Longer Participation is locating design taking as a departure point the social challenge of the western world, that the elder generation might become bigger than the present working generation. After a life of working, and with little experience of using modern communication tools, motivated elders can get isolated. The exhibited designs in Transplant is proposing ways of reintegrating this valuable knowledge in our society.

The exhibition can be viewed Tuesdays to Fridays 12h-14h until the 30th of September  2010 (outside these times, visits by reservation only). The full exhibition catalog is available for downloading (pdf).

©2010 Transplant/Opening Longer Participation

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The opening of Longer Participation attracted a wide audience. The senior visitors had the opportunity to contribute to the “Sensing Dale” project with more personal stories that were added to the dedicated blog. Inspired by the presented results, the audience opened up a frisky discussion around the urban development of the town centre. The exhibition shows projects of:
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©2010 Transplant/Sensing Dale Workshop with Charlotte Grum

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The process and the results of the “Sensing Dale” workshop with Charlotte Grum/ artist/ Denmark
The workshop results can be followed on the Ideal Lab´Longer Participation Blog.

©2010 Transplant/age pyramid Norway by Mathieu Lehanneur
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©2010 Transplant/age pyramid Fjaler and Europe by Mathieu Lehanneur

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The “Age of the World Pyramids” of Fjaler, Norway and Europe by Mathieu Lehanneur/ designer/ France.

An Age Pyramid is a snapshot of the inhabitants in a specific place at a certain year. You can find yourself in the pyramid and see large social shifts and events. Mathieu Lehanneur who first developed the Age of the World Pyramids for Issey Miyake with the ceramic producer Vallauris, developed three new models for the Longer Participation exhibition; the demographic pyramids of Fjaler, Norway and Europe in 2007. The Fjaler and Europe models are presented as rendered images in the exhibition, while the age pyramid of Norway, which was produced by Shape in CNC production, is exhibited as a sculpture.

©2010 Auger&Loizeau/Afterlife

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The “Afterlife” by Auger & Loizeau/ speculative designers, UK.

The design presented are personal versions of how to use ones own residue energy in an object post mortum. The designers, James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau, held a lecture about the project in Transplant in July. You can read more about the lecture here…

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©2010 Erwin Olaf

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The photo series “Mature” of Erwin Olaf/ photographer and movie maker/ The Netherlands.
“Mature” is a series of 10 photographies. All of them are visible in the exhibition catalog which is available for downloading as pdf below.
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The exhibition opening was covered by the local newspaper.

More projects within the Longer Participation theme will be developed until the end of the year 2010. The present exhibition will be open for visitors until the 30.09.2010.

Ideal Lab´Longer Participation is funded by:
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Ideal Lab´Longer Participation is supported by:

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You can download the catalog of the exhibition in English as pdf here.

© Happy Metropolis Suspended monorail of Wuppertal, Germany / Photo: Dietmar Fritze.

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Transplant is a special venue inside the Saint-Etienne International Design Biennial 2010, in France. There will be a permanent retransmission from the Design Centre to the Biennial during the two weeks of the event. Live conversations between designers located each in one location will occur three times during this period. The themes discussed will be Ideal Lab’ and it’s next themes Precious Food and Empathic House.
The venue is the 20.11.2010-05.12.2010. Precise live times and more information is coming soon.

© 2010 Kvik kitchen promotion picture.

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“Everybody has the right to a cool kitchen” -states the slogan of the danish company Kvik. They are part of the Swedish group Ballingslöv, one of the leading companies in kitchen and baths in Scandinavia, as well as Great Britain. Kvik was based on sound reason, deep respect for their customers and, not least, a willingness to embrace change.
Inspired by the landscape and contemporary building, Kvik chose Transplant as the scenery for showing their collections in the next advertising campaign. In August a team of 6 people will transform the Transplant wing into a kitchen space, which is of course … cool!

© 2010 Auger Loizeau / Participants to Ideal Lab’.

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The english designers team James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau will come to Transplant in July 2010 and make design research within the theme of Longer Participation of Ideal Lab’.

26.07 / Public lecture James Auger & Jimmy Loizeau

The British designer and PHD candidate at the RCA London James Auger, known for example for his work “Afterlife”,  and the design consultant Jimmy Loizeau, who teaches at Goldsmiths and the RCA, will visit Transplant. They will make design research on the theme Longer Participation during their stay. The 26/07 at 17h Auger/Loizeau will give a lecture/session. You’ll be able to participate to the design research project “Afterlife” that will be presented during the lecture. For more info.

© 2010 Culinaire Design / by Marc Bretillot.

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We are happy to present two books just launched about the work of three of our Transplant Coaches. Former furniture designer, now head of the culinairy laboratory at the design school in Reims (ESAD), Marc Bretillot just released his first monography, ‘Culinaire design‘, by Thierry de Beaumont at Alternatives publishing house, which chronicles his projects of the past ten years for the food industry or in the contemporary art world. Marc’s Disappearance performance in Transplant august 2009 is published with four pages. Marc Bretillot is a Transplant Coach on the theme “Food design”.

© 2010 Culinaire Design / by Marc Bretillot.
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Stoffel Kuenen presented in the May 2010 newsletter, just launched his book “Metamorphosis”(metamorphic fashion design), co-writed with Ambra Trotto. This book focuses on the Italian fashion system as an example of a sector wrought with tradition, saper fare and high quality that forms a fertile ground for a human centered application of the latest technologies in all aspects of the production chain, ranging from strategic and marketing aspects, to processes and tools of production, from materials used and sustainable strategies to the skills of the designer. The user literally and figuratively forms the center of the fashion product. Hence fashion products are presented, in which a subtile application of state-of- the-art technologies extend functional, expressive and communicative properties, resulting in metamorphic fashion.

© 2010 / Editor: Stoffel Kuenen / Co Author: Ambra Trotto.

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The products we use shape the way we view the world, the way we interact and perceive it and others. This places a delicate responsibility in the hands of me as designer, as I literally and figuratively help shape the world. Not only do the function, form and behavior of the products do so; the way they are constituted, the materials used, the manufacturing techniques, the place and thus the social circumstances of manufacture, all those in many ways frame the way a user sees himself in this world. Both authors are Transplant Coaches™. Ambra Trotto on the theme “Design & Ethics” and Stoffel Kuenen “Wearable technology & interactive products”.

© 2010 NSB / photo by Ralston & Bau

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NSB and the PLT Innovation Lab’ chose Ralston & Bau to create the scenography and identity for the NSB Leader conference in May 2010. NSB is the public Norwegian train transport company. 200 participants will attend the leader conference and work around service, customer relations and processes during two days. Ralston & Bau are creating the scenography design for the space, including the physical materialization of workstations.

Ralston & Bau especially cherish to work with local clients with international potential. Our new client Sunnfjord GeoCenter from the Askvoll challenged us to create their new profiling: logo, brochure and visual identity. The company is run by a couple, Synne and Einar, passionated about offering knowledge about geology and an immersive medieval food experience. Visuals of both projects will follow soon.

©Transplant Coaches / Truls Paulsen (No) / Innovation strategies

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The Transplant Coaches is a network of specialists who has expertise around and within the design field. Transplant is a competence centre that is a tool in business strategy and product development processes. The Transplant coaches have a thorough experience about a specific topic and contribute as part of a complete workshop or a one-to-one business coaching in one day. The process gives insight into specific issues in a condensed time frame and help to take strategic decisions. All Transplant Coaches have senior expertise and proven experience and reputation in its field.

Transplant Coaches main categories are Design + Prospective / Business / Materials.
The detailed description of Transplant Coaches will be launched the 01th of June 2010 on www.transplant.nu. Please contact us for further information

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© Transplant Coaches / Ambra Trotto (It) / Design + Ethics

© Transplant Coaches / Julien Dossier (Fr) / Green business development

© Transplant Coaches / James Auger (Uk) / Speculative, critical and conceptual design

© Transplant Coaches / Stoffel Kuenen (Nl) / Wearable technologies