SuperFarm at Salone Satellite 2011

on 10/5/11

The Trend Boutique have previously featured Hafsteinn Juliusson's 'Growing Jewellery' as part of the 'Rurban' direction in our Spring Summer 2012 'Harvest' trend. Here is Hafsteinn's recent collaboration with Joana Pais and Rui Pereira, two other Master students of SPD Scuola Politecnica di Design for the Salone Satellite’s “50 + 50” exhibition, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the major furniture fair worldwide, Salone Internazionale del Mobile, 2011 edition.

Provoked by the question “What will be the role and meaning of design in 50 years?” Hafsteinn Juliusson, Joana Pais and Rui Pereira bet on its power to change behaviours and lifestyles rather than producing new objects.

SuperFarm fits perfectly in to our Rurban trend; the concept suggests a new way of cultivating and consuming food and teaches us how we can integrate and interact with nature in our towns and lives.

SuperFarm by Hafsteinn Juliusson, Joana Pais and Rui Pereira

The trigger for their concept is a quote from the movie The Social Network: "first man lived on farm, then he lived in cities, now he lives online".

So what's next they ask. SPD designers believe that farming the city and playing an increasingly active role in food production is the next frontier. By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth's population will reside in urban centers. Its total number will increase by no less than 3 billion people. New land will be needed to feed them according to today’s traditional farming practices.

What can be done? They offer up an installation that is simultaneously iconic, ironic and illuminating. The collateral effect of SuperFarm is the creation of a new urban ecosphere, an extensive green network developing throughout the city. It changes the face of entire neighbourhoods by redesign dismissed areas and by using rooftops and facades of our buildings to grow gardens that thus become our urban lungs.

^{SuperFarm by Hafsteinn Juliusson, Joana Pais and Rui Pereira}

Customers need to move and physically work at the supermarket in order to produce and earn their food, promoting awareness of health and nutrition. They need to burn calories before being able to buy new food and assume new calories; they need to understand a sustainable and ethical approach to human nutrition before just eating healthy.

There are six different areas to the installation, each promoting areas of a farm. They are: a greenhouse, courtyard with live animals, mindmill, fishpond and milking area, and a supermarket with a variety of food products.

^{SuperFarm by Hafsteinn Juliusson, Joana Pais and Rui Pereira}

"In the sophisticated atmosphere of the Salone del Mobile filled with a number of new products, SuperFarm is the low-tech, added-value alternative addressing people with basic messages, joyful colours and the friendly atmosphere of traditional weekly markets. Red and white sunshades, windmill, authentic hay bales, big baskets to pick up real tomatoes and other familiar presences help evolving again the urban species into apostles of a revolutionary green mindshift."

^{SuperFarm by Hafsteinn Juliusson, Joana Pais and Rui Pereira}

Visit our Spring Summer 2012 'Harvest' trend here: http://www.thetrendboutique.co.uk/spring-summer-2012-guide-to-the-season-harvest-trend-report/a

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