On top of the world

HAVANA’S SMALL CARS
Every little helps
Cuba

Havana’s traffic might be best known for its brightly coloured classic cars – stately Chevrolets imported from the US before Cuba’s socialist revolution in 1959, boxy Soviet-made vehicles that followed during the Cold War and an array of antique Fiats, Minis and others. But increasingly, commuters are opting to use a new crop of small electric vehicles (EVs). These include dinky electric cars, tricycles and cargo trucks, as well as electric bikes and scooters, which are all accelerating the shift from the classic to the contemporary when it comes to getting around.

“It is only very recently that people realised that it’s much better to have some kind of electric vehicle in Cuba,” says Mark Manger, a professor of political economy (with a speciality in contemporary Cuban history) at the University of Toronto. “Because you don’t have to rely on the infrequent deliveries of fuel or contend with volatile gas prices.”

Demand has also been fuelled by these vehicles’ relatively low price tags. “Another big selling point is that these EVs require such little maintenance,” said Manger. “Importing parts to repair a classic car in Cuba is extremely difficult; people often have to improvise and make replacement parts themselves. So it’s much better to have a relatively new electric vehicle.”

Their diminutive size means that they can be plugged into a domestic socket and charged with ease. The distance that they can cover is a draw too. “You can drive 100km on one charge, which is sufficient for wherever you need to go in Cuba,” says Manger. A recent change in import laws means that private individuals can now import electric cars. China’s canopied three-wheelers by Onebot and Lesheng’s four-wheeled, two-seater models are particularly popular, while similar four-wheelers are produced by Japan’s Kimura.

Domestic production is ramping up too. Some 23,000 EVs were manufactured between 2020 and 2022, according to government figures. At Vedca, a miniature-vehicle maker based in Havana, the growth in demand has accelerated the development of new lines. These include miniature tractors and industrial vehicles designed for heavy lifting, which are currently in their testing phases.

“The demand, as is usual in Cuba, has come from a mixture of opportunity and necessity,” says Manger, noting how EVs have allowed many of their owners to insulate themselves from the economic headwinds of the past several years. “There is often pressure on Cubans to solve their daily problems on their own. That is why so many people are making the switch.”

CHURCH BUILDING
Divine interventions
Denmark

The Danes are among the least religiously observant people in the world, with just 2.4 per cent of the population attending church on a weekly basis. Across the country, rural churches are empty, making a recent church-building boom seem all the more improbable. More churches have been built in the past 10 years than have been deconsecrated and two more are under construction in Copenhagen.

One of them is in Ørestad, on the island of Amager, which is adjacent to the city centre. “We are building new churches because the demographics are always changing,” says Eva Ravnborg, a partner at Henning Larsen architects. The firm designed the new DKK78m (€10.45m) building, which broke ground in October, as well as other churches, including Højvangen in Skanderborg, in southern Jutland.

Previously, community events took place in a separate hall or basement but if a church is to be used for yoga classes and jazz concerts, the main space must be as flexible enough to allow for improvisation. “There will be no fixed furniture in Ørestad – not even the pulpit,” says Ravnborg. “The priest can preach from any corner and they will do it at eye level, not raised above the congregation.” The hope is that this approach will enable churches to remain full. “They need to be relevant for another 50 years,” she says.

Ørestad is among the most culturally diverse districts in Copenhagen so, while churches used to be designed to inspire awe, this one, built from timber, has a different remit. “Traditionally, churches had a very closed exterior. If you want to keep churches alive, you need to open the doors wider. You still have that sense of being connected to something bigger than you; the changing light during the day keeps you in contact with the natural world.” 

Churches may not be the biggest earners for architecture studios but in terms of job satisfaction they offer a fulfilling project. “Churches have a complexity and purpose. It’s very rewarding to work on a space that touches people,” says Ravnborg. “It’s a building that shows how much atmosphere and emotion a space can evoke.”

HIGH-RISE REVIVAL
Back from the brink
Thailand

Listening to live music is a favourite pastime in Khon Kaen, a city in the northeast of Thailand – and the best seat in town is at the top of a tall building. Last year, music venue Kaenkaew Live House opened on the 28th floor of the Khon Kaen Innovation Centre. The 300-seat space has since hosted Thailand’s top musicians, from Slot Machine to Burin Boonvisut. Rock bands and pop stars performing to a full house marks a significant improvement on the building’s former tenants: wild bats and a few nesting birds.

For more than 20 years the Khon Kaen Innovation Centre was a concrete shell – a victim of the Asian financial crisis of 1997 that brought an end to a booming decade and halted construction across the bankrupt country. Plenty of these stalled projects have remained empty ever since. Most famous is Bangkok’s Sathorn Unique Tower, a windowless riverside apartment block, which is now being used as an advertising billboard to sell luxury products to those stuck in traffic while crossing King Taksin the Great Bridge.

Completing these ghost towers is not on the government’s agenda for now. Nevertheless, Khon Kaen provides a case study for the private sector – and a worthwhile pilgrimage for property owners of old towers. What to do with underutilised high-rises is one of the biggest sustainability issues facing the property industry. The Khon Kaen Innovation Centre’s prospects changed in 2018 when it was sold to Mitr Phol Group, one of the world’s largest sugar producers. The Bangkok-based corporation, a major investor and employer in the surrounding Isan region, spotted an opportunity for a regional HQ in a city-centre location. The project was handed to Heritage Estates, a commercial property developer that specialises in renovating office towers. “For a lot of people in Khon Kaen, the building stood as a constant reminder of what could have been,” says Gavin Vongkusolkit, Heritage Estates’ founder and managing director.

Two Heritage Estates-owned brands have become anchor tenants at the Khon Kaen Innovation Centre: the 120-key Ad Lib hotel and a Glowfish co-working space. “There are so many things that you can do on an operational level to be sustainable but it’s best to use old structures that are already there,” says Vongkusolkit. “No matter how many plastic straws you don’t use, it just can’t compare to reusing all of that concrete and steel.”

Knocking down a building can often end up being cheaper than repurposing it. According to Vongkusolkit, developers who are looking to implement adaptive reuse need to take a broader view of the potential benefits and returns on investment. Once an eyesore, the Khon Kaen Innovation Centre serves as an example of what Thailand’s ghost towers can become and is a symbol of a city on the up. Khon Kaen Airport has opened its first international terminal and a high-speed rail link connecting southern China to Bangkok is due to stop nearby. As foreign interest in Khon Kaen grows, it won’t be long before the first overseas artist takes to the Kaenkaew stage and brings the house down, figuratively speaking.

Q&A
Myles Igwebuike
UK & Nigeria

Based between the UK and Nigeria, designer Myles Igwebuike works in the field of diplomacy as a World Economic Forum Global Shaper. Through his practice, Nteje Studio, he collaborates with artisans in southeastern Nigeria to explore heritage through design – be it to reimagine a workout bench for Technogym or develop his line of sculptural wooden chairs. We talk to Igwebuike about his ambition to scale craft and design as soft diplomacy and how others can learn from his work.

Tell us more about Nteje Studio and working with artisans in Nigeria.
I work with local artisans and young designers. I’m a futurist, a young kid with a lot of ambition who thinks that he can change the world. When I go to Nigeria, I conduct a lot of design workshops and try to move the perspective of these young designers and artists from a space of scarcity to abundance. How can we replace a limiting mindset with a mindset that knows no bounds? My workshops are to do with looking at how we use materials that we have in our environment and within our locality. I am currently researching how to scale indigenous craftsmanship, especially woodwork and sculptures. From personal experience and from information that I’ve gathered on the ground, as well as from a diasporic lens, we need to look at how to scale up manufacturing, simplify it and continuously test materiality. What does it look like to replace and reuse? My dream is to create new economies within the Nigerian design industry.

Where do you position yourself within the design industry?
I like to question what design looks like by using cultural heritage as a vehicle to explore it. And this is not to say that all design needs heritage or nuance. But just making more space for it. My practise is about being around southeastern Nigeria and the social dynamics that can be found there. For example, for the last stool I made, I examined mythology and musical instruments to shape its form. My work outside creating beautiful objects is to nurture a community and explore concepts that bring people together. To reconnect with culture – and not necessarily African culture. The whole point is for you to be of any ethnicity or demographic and feel that you can create your own culture, or connect with it, wherever that is and whatever that is.

CLIMATE CHANGE
Hot on the hail
Canada

A summer in the Canadian city of Calgary involves the annual preparations for a frosty phenomenon: hailstone season. Between June and September, more than 40 showers of hailstones descend on the city and across the province of Alberta, formed by the mixing of cool and warm air above.

As the region’s climate changes, hailstones are swelling in size. In August 2024 a severe hailstorm pelted Calgary with pellets of ice the size of grapefruits. It became the costliest in the city’s history: the repair bill was CA$2.8bn (€1.9bn). The cost would have been even higher without the Alberta Hail Suppression Programme, a group of insurance companies based in Calgary and the northern city of Red Deer. Their aim? To rein in the effects of a hailstorm and lower the cost of the clean-up.

Every summer a fleet of modified twin-engine King Air C90 aircraft take to the skies as a storm begins to form. The planes circle the fledgling clouds and “seed” them with silver iodide to speed up the time that it takes for water in the clouds to freeze. This limits how big a hailstone can become before it drops from the sky. The programme, which costs CA$5m (€3.38m) a year, has cut the cost of weather-related insurance claims by 50 per cent, says the group. As weather patterns shift, this private-sector initiative in Alberta is worth noting by other cities prone to storms that can form in a flash.

AERIAL MONITORING
Up in the air
Finland

You would be forgiven for thinking that the bubble had burst on the airship industry. Finnish company Kelluu, however, remains loyal to the sector. Based in Joensuu, eastern Finland, it operates what the company calls “the world’s largest airship fleet” and has a clear business case, as CEO Janne Hietala explains.

“We operate in a niche between drones and aircraft,” he says. “The former have a short flight time, while the latter are expensive, environmentally harmful and fly above the clouds.”

For what Kelluu does with its airships, clouds are a problem. Its business is imaging and instead of flying people from place to place, Kelluu’s airships photograph the Earth. With state-of-the-art cameras, they can capture incredibly detailed photographs of a wide area. “With just five of our airships, we are able to photograph the entirety of Germany with a level of accuracy that no satellite can match,” says Hietala.

In addition, its cameras can provide hyperspectral imaging, which its clients can use to monitor metrics such as humidity and temperature. The images can also be used to construct detailed 3D maps, or what the company calls “digital twins”. Clients are diverse and range from forestry companies that are keeping an eye on the health of the land and power companies monitoring the state of its lines in remote locations to urban planners who need to know how the traffic is flowing. The market that Kelluu is set to revolutionise is large. According to Hietala, the annual cost of monitoring critical infrastructure, such as electricity networks, is approximately €60bn globally.

“No other technology can achieve the same level of efficiency as airships can,” says Hietala. In an increasingly environmentally conscious world, the fact that Kelluu operates the airships with hydrogen, and thus without emissions, is another factor in its favour.

Hietala likens the company’s airships to satellites orbiting Earth. Unlike drones or helicopters, the airships don’t need human pilots and can be programmed to cover a certain area. “Their flight time is about 12 hours and all we need to do is have a flight-control centre that tracks where they fly,” he says.

But it has not always been smooth sailing, or floating, for Kelluu. It is doing something totally new and regulators are still playing catch-up. “All of our pilots have licences and have been trained to communicate with other air traffic,” says Hietala. “But sometimes the regulators still think that we just fly drones.”

The company’s airships usually fly at a maximum altitude of 150 metres and because of their snazzy silver bodies have startled the occasional onlooker more than once. “Quite often people call the energy number and claim to have seen a UFO,” says Hietala with a laugh.
kelluu.com

Q&A
Celine Sandberg
Agoprene

Celine Sandberg was studying business development when she had the idea to replace petroleum-based cushioning foam that fills our furniture with a new variant made from Norwegian kelp. Today her company, Agoprene, is sitting pretty as its flexible foam provides a green alternative for our sofas and more.

How did you discover this material?
Flexible foam made from seaweed hadn’t been produced before so I went knocking on professors’ doors to pitch my idea but they didn’t think it was doable. I created the first prototypes in my student kitchen with a lot of seaweed, some pots and an oven. The first thing we made was bioplastic, which was quite easy, then a rigid foam. After two years we managed to make it flexible.

How has Agoprene been received?
Companies’ willingness to test out a new material has surprised me. We’re speaking to some of the biggest players in the world who have reached out to us.

How will Agoprene scale up?
We have a pilot production line where we produce limited sizes for sampling. Our first automated line in Norway is in construction and is slated to open in 2025. It doesn’t make sense to build a few large production lines. We want 100 smaller ones all around the world that are closer to customers and use local seaweed. Next, we want to target the transport and footwear industries.
agoprene.com

FILM INDUSTRY
The bigger picture
Uruguay

Facundo Ponce de León is a man on the move. The president of the Uruguayan Film and Audiovisual Agency has just landed back in Montevideo after a whistle-stop tour of Europe, touting his country at the London Film Festival as the place to make movies in 2025 and learning how the UK and Germany built their national film archives. “We’ve never had a film win a Palme d’Or in Cannes or even be in the main festival,” says Ponce de León. “But we are creating the conditions to get there in the next two or three years.”

Uruguay came on the radar of many film-location scouts during the pandemic, when it became the first country in Latin America to open its borders to working film crews. It might lack the snowy peaks of Patagonia or the grandeur of Lake Titicaca but Uruguay is drawing the big streaming networks and studios with its generous tax and cash rebates. In 2024 there were 35 co-productions made in Uruguay, 12 of which were feature fiction films. In December 2024, Uruguay will host the Ventana Sur, Latin America’s biggest market for film and television, which is usually held in Argentina.

“Our offer to Netflix, Amazon, Paramount and others is that we give back up to 25 per cent of whatever they invest [in making a film here],” says Ponce de León. “If they hire a Uruguayan script writer or directors, even as a second unit, we will give them 5 per cent more.” That was the case with Amia, a slick series with a Uruguayan director on the crew, telling the story of the terror attacks on Israel’s embassy in Buenos Aires in the 1990s with Montevideo’s art deco centre standing in for the Argentine capital.

Uruguay is tapping into its larger neighbour’s stardom. Since Argentine president Javier Milei slashed public budgets, the state’s longstanding backing for cinema has sharply declined but in Montevideo a strategy to support film production is now a part of public policy that’s expected to continue into the next administration. At a tumultuous moment across Latin America, with political upheaval and shaky economies, the so-called “Switzerland of the Americas” looks relatively steady.

There are about 1,000 companies in the audiovisual sector in Uruguay, which international productions can tap into. “The field of people working in media here is enormous, given that it’s a population of just three million people,” says Pablo Casacuberta, a filmmaker and director of Montevideo’s Gen Centre for Arts and Sciences. His business partner, film producer Juan Ciapessoni, agrees. “For many years, Uruguay was a place to leave if you wanted to find investment,” he says. “But now it is becoming an island of stability.”

HOSPITALITY & ENVIRONMENT
Waste not, want not
Bali

When Amanda Marcella joined Indonesian hospitality group Potato Head to help with expansion at its Bali hotel and beach club, she didn’t expect to become obsessed with cigarette butts, used napkins and old bed linen. All now occupy her thoughts: she is the hotel’s director of sustainability. Her purview extends far beyond straws and plastic bottles at the Potato Head’s home in Seminyak. “Here we’re doing something for the planet,” says Marcella, as she takes Monocle to see Potato Head’s NGO, The Community Waste Project, which opened in October next to Bali’s biggest refuse dump.

Bali’s beauty is renowned but it has a rubbish problem. The government estimates that some 52 per cent of the island’s waste is mismanaged, with plastic washing up on beaches and littering streets. The rest ends up in landfill, where the refuse forms huge malodorous piles. Dry weather, plus methane produced by the waste, can trigger fires that cover the island in foul smoke.

In 2016, Ronald Akili, Potato Head’s CEO and co-founder, decided that his company needed to do something. Since then it has reduced the amount of its rubbish that ends up in landfill from 60 per cent to 2.6 per cent. Styrofoam is melted with acid and mixed with powdered oyster shells to make material for containers such as soap dispensers. Used cooking oil becomes candles. And plastic is melted into panels that then become furniture. The Community Waste Project is the next step. Here, pre-sorted rubbish bags are audited, heaps of covered compost take up one corner while melting machines turn buckets of shredded plastic into pallets. Anything that can’t be processed on site is handed over to trusted third parties.

But this is just the start: the facility has a daily capacity of 10 tonnes but Bali produces 1.6 million tonnes of waste a year, with about 15 per cent coming from the hospitality industry. The aim is to make the project replicable. The new waste centre was founded in collaboration with two other companies, with five more paying a monthly waste-disposal fee. All benefit from Potato Head’s expertise, says Isabella Rowell, CEO of The Mexicola Group and a co-founder of the project. Without detailed knowledge of how waste disposal actually works, even well-intentioned measures can go awry. Rowell recalls how her restaurants and bars ditched plastic straws for recyclable ones some years ago only to later discover that the new straws needed a special machine to be recycled and there was no such machine in Bali.

The new project means that their efforts help more than just their image. “Sustainability is a huge marketing tool but realistically, if things continue as is, we won’t have a business any more,” says Rowell, who is clear-eyed about the industry’s urgent need to clean up its act. Bali’s allure will eventually fade if it ends up buried in plastic wrappers and used condoms, so the local government is talking about restricting new hospitality developments in tourism hotspots.

The long-term plan for The Community Waste Project is to turn a profit from charging user fees and selling recycled products. This revenue should cover expenses and further expansion. New partners are being actively sought out and there are even hopes to move into processing domestic waste. Almost no one recycles in Bali but given the opportunity, this could change. Staff at Potato Head are already bringing in some of their household waste and this environmentally minded community has a record of driving meaningful change.
seminyak.potatohead.co

DESIGN
Fresh approach
France

Edgar Jayet, who is just 27 years old, is fast becoming a name to watch on the design circuit. The Paris-born interior architect and designer founded his eponymous studio in 2021 while still attending the prestigious French design school École Camondo. Jayet’s practice now has offices in France and northern Italy. “I wanted to have an international presence and Venice is a crossroads of artisanal know-how,” he says. “I also wanted to integrate the city’s cultural life in the long term.”

Jayet’s works are contemporary creations, made for the requirements of our time and infused with the skills of classically trained artisans. “It used to drive me mad to see a historic piece of furniture and hear people say, ‘We don’t know how to make this any more.’ We are the heirs of this tradition of craft.”

His first collection of furniture design, Unheimlichkeit, takes its name from the Freudian expression for the uncanny. Featuring corner armchairs, a day bed and a folding screen among other pieces, the line takes inspiration from 18th-century cabinet-making and Napoleonic furniture. Jayet called on Venetian textile designer Chiarastella Cattana to create a cotton-canvas panelling for the furniture frames. Bringing a fresh perspective to long-standing traditions of craft and furniture design, Jayet is on the right track to write his name into the long history of French design.
edgarjayet.com

START-UP HOT SPOT
Doing it their way
Yerevan

In the mid-1970s, Apple and HP famously capitalised on the “garage rules”, one of which advised, “No regulations, no bureaucracy.” In Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, the humble garage is still proving to be a launchpad for innovation. In the city’s maze of winding alleyways and mismatched courtyards, rows of single-storey garages have been transformed into hubs of creativity. With their low-rent appeal, garages are drawing young entrepreneurs to start their own cafés and shops.

A pioneer of this movement is Karlen Dilbaryan, who runs the Voch Luys Voch Mut coffee shop from his garage. “I never imagined that my coffee shop would become a model for other projects,” he says. “But the garage has taken on a new life, especially with the recent wave of newcomers and repatriates.”

Indeed, an influx of new residents (following three waves of migration by ethnic Armenians from 2018 to 2023) has helped to spark a rediscovery of these hidden assets. In Kond, Yerevan’s oldest district, garages line Yeznik Koghbatsi street like vibrant market stalls. One of them houses Fem, an Armenian jewellery brand. Nearby, Gini Pig, a pizzeria and wine bar founded by Australian-Armenian repatriate Dareh Kooumchian, attracts an eclectic clientele: start-up founders hash out ideas alongside diplomats, officials and artists in this unconventional setting.

Adding to this vibrant scene is Garaj, a project supported by the Armenian Educational Foundation and the Gyumri Information Technologies Centre. Here, 350 students study for free, coming up with inventions for which they hold full-patent ownership, such as the country’s first cashless vending machine.

Yerevan’s start-up scene has been noticed and, in a vote of confidence for the nation, September 2024 saw the city host the international technology conference Emerge, a valuable gathering point for entrepreneurs and investors.

As Yerevan embraces this blend of technology, artistry and freedom, it is clear that the spirit of “garage rules” is alive and well. In today’s Yerevan, anything is possible and the garage is still where it all begins.