UNStudio teamed up with Swiss furniture brand USM to create ‘HomeWork’ — a theatrical installation that explored the shifting boundaries between work and domesticity by exploding the rooms in which this takes place, creating hybrid domestic and office environments hidden within.

In an ongoing project, UNStudio’s futures team are exploreing changes taking place within the world of work, understanding how these affect USM, and identifying opportunities for the USM in to the future.

In a future where robots can occupy much of the current work, will the concept office continue as we know it today?

The boundary between work and life is blurring. Cafés resemble living rooms, restaurants feel like home kitchens, and co-working spaces have replaced home offices. As workers we are increasingly mobile, ready to set up office wherever we are.

Our home and work activities resemble each other more and more. At the same time, the skills we bring to work move ever closer to those we value in our social lives.

We can’t seem to switch off.

UNStudio brought furniture design to an architectural scale, creating the biggest piece of USM Modular Furniture ever built: 1,015 panels, 5,008 balls, 13,318 tubes and 8.9 tons of material.

“ Work rules our lives today more than ever, and technology allows work to invade our leisure time,as digital nomads we are increasingly mobile, ready to set up office wherever we are. cafés resemble living rooms, restaurants feel like home kitchens, and co-working spaces have replaced the home office”

“ Over the past few years, it has become conventional wisdom that automation, along with advances in artificial intelligence, have put us on the path to a jobless future, but all may not be doom and gloom. With the eradication of ‘bad jobs’ we can focus on finding meaning in our working lives. How can we learn more at work? how can we play? …………… UnStudio

Unstudio’s future team created the different environments of a house and links them to the working environment.

The design using the USM modular system as a platform to support a range of domestic and office environments hidden within four floating chambers

The dining room

Imagination : The facility or action of forming new ideas, images or concepts of external objects, not processing the senses.

The bedroom

Empathy : the ability to understand and share the feelings of another

The bathroom

Intuition :  the ability to understand something instinctively without the need for conscious reasoning. Derived from the late Middle English word Intuit meaning ” to contemplate ”

The home office

Too much HomeWork, not enough play?

And with jobs increasingly replaced by artificial intelligence, the qualities which differentiate us from machines shift into focus.

A question posed within each room prompting visitors to reflect on a human quality.

Visitos’ answers will inspire the next stage of UNStudio and USM’s investigation at ” WorkHouse ”  this summer in Berlin.

Find out more about HomeWork here

Frame Awards

The announcement of the Frame Award winners and prize-giving ceremony on the 18th April, was held at the historical Diocesan Museum within Zona Tortona district

In the warm sunlit hour of Italian aperitivo yesterday on 18 April, the Diocesan Museum courtyard came alive with some of the most noteworthy designers and brands exhibiting at this year’s fair.

The Frame Awards Milan – nominated five stands each for Best Use of Colour, Best Use of Light, Best Use of Material, and Trade-Fair Stand of the Year.

The award was presented by Remi Versteeg, cofounder of Space Encounters, Frame Awards 2018 Emerging Designer of the Year.

” The crosspollination of different disciplines in the nominated trade-fair stands is what makes Salone a holistic design fair, not just about furniture,’. ‘UNStudio is expanding what people think of when they think of architecture, and I think it’s an amazing example of what a trade-fair stand should be. ” ………………… Remi Versteeg

Best Use of Material Award

USM by UNStudio

Best Use of Material was presented by the two jury members from Frame; Kuitert as well as research editor Anouk Haegens.

‘We wanted to see how far we could push the structural boundaries of the client’s modular systems,’ says senior architect and associate Ren Yee of the studio’s concept, which actually uses USM products as the construction material of the stand.

‘ In addition to being a strong spatial statement, the design actually embodies the brand and its modularity ”  ……………..Kuitert.

Trade-Fair Stand of the Year

USM by UNStudio

” UNStudio is expanding what people think of when they think of architecture, and it’s an amazing example of what a trade-fair stand should be, ” ………….. Remi Versteeg

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Swiss Week at Superstudio

The USM installation produced in collaboration with A-Project Studio as part of the Swiss Design District at Fuorisalone.it,

Project Credits

judith rasenberg and hagop terzian

UNStudio : Ben van Berkel with Ren Yee, Machteld Kors, Lieneke van Hoek, Alice Haugh, Hagop Terzian

Expo Mobilia : stand construction

Judith Rasenberg : stage design