S(l)OSH Pop-Up – Spa of Algorithmic Knowledge and Mud-

Project Summary

S(l)OSH (standing for ‘ slosh= to move through mud’) is a new Pop-Up Spa situated in Hackney Road, in East London. It is designed as an interactive relaxation area to be experienced through exploring and reflecting within a cavernous space, surrounded by mysterious voids, while soaking in a healing mud tub. S(l)OSH represents a new concept of fun mud house, that tells a different side of the wellness story.

The Spa aims to promote the cleaning and health rituals around the world and invite the users to become aware of the areas in need of healthy kickstarts. The new concept started from the idea that spas and relaxation areas are generally luxurious places to relax and heal and sometimes they are too expensive for the general citizen. S(l)OSH wants to bring healthy hedonism to the city while boosting urban areas that need a little support, while making the cleaning and health rituals accessible and fun to everyone.

Philosophy

Bathhouses, spas and saunas have long been part of cleaning and health rituals around the world. Mud baths have existed for thousands of years, and can be found now in high-end spas in many countries of the world. Mud wraps are spa treatments where the skin is covered in mud for a shorter or longer period. The mud causes sweating, and proponents claim that mud baths can slim and tone the body, hydrate or firm the skin, or relax and soothe the muscles. It is alleged that some mud baths are able to relieve tired and aching joints, ease inflammation, or help to “flush out toxins” through sweating.Opportunity

The design is composed of layers of horizontal wooden planks that follow the mathematical formula of a Scherk’s Minimal Surface geometry of a continuous surface, placed in and around a shipping container. The Spa has been designed after several form manipulation and shape iterations of the initial system, followed by massing of standard bath tubs in a tight space. The proposal stands somewhere between the realms of both sculpture and architecture – a spatial construct where movement through will encourage intimate social interaction, and a full emerge into the relaxation experience.

Physical Description

Visually, the main part of the Spa is composed of three main areas: the reception, the mud baths and the outdoor pools. The spas includes hot mud tubes, cold water plunges, a changing area, shower and relaxation platforms. The structure will be built from layers of horizontal CNC cut wooden planks stacked on top of each other and fixed together. Internally, the bathtubes will have a smooth concrete walls to hold the liquid and make the stay more pleasant for the sitting. Despite being designed to fit in one or two containers, the spa can expand even outdoors and other spaces.

 

Brief 2015 – 2016

We are back after building three projects in the desert!

This year we would like our students to become Entrepreneur Makers, looking for funding opportunities to build projects in the real world.

Have a look at our 2015-2016 briefs and presentations below:

• A4 Presentation Page
• Presentation Slideshow
• BRIEF01: EXPLORE
• BRIEF02: ENTREPREND
• BRIEF03:EXPAND

Entrepreneur Makers Article in the last AD with Joe Leach’s temple for Burning Man

Reflection by Lorna Jackson – Picture by Andrew K. Green

Bismuth Bivouac by Jon Leung – Picture by Toby Burgess

The Infinity Tree by Tobias Power – Picture by Arthur Mamou-Mani

Our Kickstarter campaign is now live

WeWantToLearn.net has a live Kickstarter Campaign. Please help us bring to life three beautiful students projects for this year’s Burning Man festival and receive some exciting rewards such as the T-Shirts shown below with the three digital designs: http://kck.st/1ESCVFb

Left: Infinity Clothing, Middle: Reflection Clothing, Right: Bismuth Clothing

Let’s make it happen – DS10 at Burning Man

Hello WeWantToLearn community,

The academic year finishes very soon but we are getting ready for the Burning Man festival!! After two years of research, we are so proud and excited to finally go to the festival and build the two beautiful projects, Ship Wreck and Fractal Cult.

We will be there from the 19th August until the 3rd September. On the first week we will build the Ship Wreck and the Fractal Cult and at the end of the second week we will burn all the wooden parts and disassemble the scaffolding used on Fractal Cult.

Although we won a grant to pay the materials, we still need to purchase several expensive items such as a generator for the lights, pay for some of the fabrication for the pieces, for food and water on site, the tents…etc…Our aim is to reach £3000 for all of it. Therefore we need your generous help.

You can now donate money on our page using the donate button on the top right of our page or by clicking below

Every pound helps!

Your name and website will be added below the donation button until the end of September. The names will be ordered according to the amount donated. You will benefit from our 1,000+ visitors a day having a direct link to your website.

THANK YOU!

Urban Aquaponics, Internet and Food

“My garden is sending tweets!” Eric Maundu

Just came across this amazing video in which Eric Maundu talks about his start-up “Kijani Grows” (“Kijani” is Swahili for green), a small startup that designs and sells custom aquaponics systems for growing food using cheap technology including arduino boards. Toby and I often talk about “closed loop systems”, this is a great example of one.

“The land in West Oakland where Eric Maundu is trying to farm is covered with freeways, roads, light rail and parking lots so there’s not much arable land and the soil is contaminated. So Maundu doesn’t use soil. Instead he’s growing plants using fish and circulating water. It’s called aquaponics- a gardening system that combines hydroponics (water-based planting) and aquaculture (fish farming). It’s been hailed as the future of farming: it uses less water (up to 90% less than traditional gardening), doesn’t attract soil-based bugs and produces two types of produce (both plants and fish). Aquaponics has become popular in recent years among urban gardeners and DIY tinkerers, but Maundu- who is trained in industrial robotics- has taken the agricultural craft one step further and made his gardens smart. Using sensors (to detect water level, pH and temperature), microprocessors (mostly the open-source Arduino microcontroller), relay cards, clouds and social media networks (Twitter and Facebook), Maundu has programmed his gardens to tweet when there’s a problem (e.g. not enough water) or when there’s news (e.g. an over-abundance of food to share).
Maundu himself ran from agriculture in his native Kenya- where he saw it as a struggle for land, water and resources. This changed when he realized he could farm without soil and with little water via aquaponics and that he could apply his robotics background to farming. Today he runs Kijani Grows (“Kijani” is Swahili for green), a small startup that designs and sells custom aquaponics systems for growing food and attempts to explore new frontiers of computer-controlled gardening. Maundu believes that by putting gardens online, especially in places like West Oakland (where his solar-powered gardens are totally off the grid), it’s the only way to make sure that farming remains viable to the next generation of urban youth.”