Category: Dutch Design

Dutch Design (19): Third Pod Hotel Concept for Amsterdam Revealed: CitizenM

Early 2008 will see a third (the others being the Qbic and the Yotel) Pod Hotel, CitizenM Hotels, opening at the Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.

CitizenM Schiphol Airport Amsterdam

The 230 rooms (pods?) counting hotel is presently under construction.

Under the “Affordable Luxury” slogan:

CitizenM has partnered with internationally renowned architects Concrete, and European design giants Philips and Vitra to offer “affordable luxury for the people.” Rooms are friendly and functional and feature: a super king-size bed fitted with luxurious linen and pillows, a wall-to-wall window for plenty of natural light, a flat LCD television, Philips technology and ambient lighting, a rain shower and other luxurious amenities especially developed by a famous ‘nose’ (also responsible for creations of Commes des Garcons and Viktor and Rolf).

Citizen M Room

Inspired by accommodations on luxury yachts and private jets, citizenM built its own factory in order to realize its high quality hotel rooms. In its vision, no detail was left ignored: each room is 14 square meters – each of which has been carefully thought through to offer the height of functional design.

Their website is full of information. It even has a community building module. I would say this an industry example of how to announce your concept and/or hotel opening.

The one Amsterdam Schiphol Airport Hotel will be the first of many CitizenM hotels if they succeed tol roll out the concept as shown on this map of their plans:

CitizenM Map

The founders and executives of CitizenM are innovative visionaries, who have taken their well-rounded experience into realising CitizenM hotels. They are: Rattan Chadha (founder and former CEO of Mexx, director and partner of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts), Jan Wulf van Alkemade (hotel specialist), Tom Bas (former member of the board of directors of NH Hotels and Golden Tulip) and Michael Levie (former Executive and VP of Operations of various international hotel chains: Sonesta and NH Hotels). These are names to reckon with.

Here is the Video:

Blogged in the City is a Dutch language Blog about Hotels and E-commerce by Thomas Dieben who has a hotel background and is an E-commerce consultant who first picked up this news.

In the CitizenM Press release there is more information.

Dutch Design (18): The Hague Post Stamp

The Hague Post Stamp
The Hague Post Stamp

Do you do snail mail? I still do!. And my first job today will be running to the Post Office to acquire a good stock of this new post stamp issued by Royal Dutch TNT Post in a series “Beautiful Netherlands” , which did a much better job than the The Hague Municipality itself when it launched its city marketing logo ( see my post Den Haag City Logo Launch).
Thanks AD

Dutch Dutch Design (17): Nuna4 ready for competition in the Australian World Solar Challenge.

World Solar Challenge
The World Solar Challenge

The Panasonic World Solar Challenge will start October 21, 2007 in Darwin Australia.

World Solar Challenge Map
World Solar Challenge Map

The Australian Panasonic World Solar Challenge is a bi annual 3000 km solar car race from Darwin to Adelaide in Australia since 1987, so this year it celebrates its 20ieth anniversary. The challenge is for student teams from universities and colleges to design and construct the fastest vehicle that is propelled on solar energy only and can endure the 3000 km distance. The 2007 challenge counts 45 entries from 21 countries.

I Love Nuna4
I Love Nuna4

Along with other solar cars, Nuna4 will be competing under extreme weather conditions, having to navigate between other traffic on the road – with the notorious and dangerous Australian road trains – as well as avoiding kangaroos and other obstacles.

Nuna4 003

The competition will be fierce this year. The US team of the University of Michigan even managed to secure a very high budget for the construction of its solar car with the specific aim of dethroning the Dutch Nuna 4 team of students from the Delft University of Technology who won 3 prior editions of this race in 2001 (team Alpha Centauri and average speed of 91,8 km/h), 2003 (Nuon Solar Team with Nuna II and average speed of 97 km/h), 2005 (with Nuna 3 and average speed of 103 km/h) in a row. You can understand why I am proud to be a Dutchman with these results.

Nuna4 Wind Tunnel Tested

The team has successfully come through the wind tunnel testing sessions. Its top speed is reported to be over 140km/hr. It is a really professional operation!

Team Nuna4 consists of four Aerospace Engineering students: Susan Luijten, Hjalmar van Raemdonck, Oliver van der Meer and Demian de Ruijter. The Design Engineering Department is repreented by Joep Steenbeek, Tine Lavrysen and Ivo Hagemans. Mechanical engineer Rabih Alzaher and Electrical Engineering graduate Paul Beckers are also on board. Stefan Roest brings an unusual perspective to the project from his Shipbuilding studies and will be the team leader. The team members have either completed their Bachelor’s degree, or are about to do so in a short time.

Apparently Nuna4 is in the process of revamping its website. It is clear that the development of the car had their first priority.

More Nuna4 photos are available on Flickr Nuon Solarteam

A Nuna4 video with Dutch Language comment showing recent tests at the Dutch Trucker DAF test course:


Nuna4

I wish them lots of luck!

Here a photo and a video of the unveiling of one of its fiercest competitors, the Continuum of University of Michigan:

University of Michigan Continuum Solar Car
University of Michigan Continuum Solar Car

University of Michigan Continuum unveiled

Dutch Design (16): Philips Back to its Core Business: Light

Andrea Ragnetti and Magic Brush
Andrea Ragnetti and Magic Brush
(Photo: Capital Photos / Nils van Houts)

This post was an unattended UFO (Un Finished Object) for a long time.

Not many people realize Philips is one of the few remaining Dutch Multinational Companies. After reorganizing, reorganizing and again reorganizing the company is back to how it started, as a producer of electrical light bulbs.

Via Gizmodo I found the press page of the 2006 Philips Simplicity Event of London where Philips showed the road to future light projects they have in the pipeline.

The picture I choose is that of Andrea Ragnetti showing a wall you can write on with light. Its name Drag & Draw. The entire home becomes a virtual canvas for expression and play for young children, thanks to a magic brush, a magic eraser, a magic wand, and a laser projection bucket.

They forgot to mention that it is an ideal product to get rid of the overhead projectors…and especially the flip overs, the gadgets that hotels tend to overcharge when they rent you a meeting room.

Dutch Design (15): The New Heineken 5 L DraughtKeg

Heineken 5L DraughtKeg

I wasn’t aware it is almost completely new, at least for The Netherlands, as it appears it was available earlier in the USA, in Taiwan and in France: The Heineken 5 Liter DraughtKeg.

We hosted a party last Monday and someone took a cooled Heineken 5 L DraughtKeg with him and installed it. I noted the recent transport didn’t create any frothy problem when using it.

Installation was so easy and natural that it seemed the 5 L DraughtKeg was there already for ages…(off course similar systems are already on the market for ages). Not so: The guy who brought the keg is an early adapter.

Today, after having used 7/8 of the 5 liter keg on Monday, I took it out of the fridge and had another couple of nice draught beers.

What is it?
It is a mini disposable double walled beer keg. The assumption it being double walled appeared to be wrong after I had seen a video where they sawed the keg through.

It is pressurized and comes complete with an easy to install tap. Just tap the keg and draw up to 20 glasses of crisp draught beer.

And with Heineken’s patented Intelligent Pressure System, you can be sure every glass, from first to last will be perfect.

Getting Started:

It comes with a very simple plastic tap mechanism in a blister pack on top of it and picture instructions showing how to use it.

Heineken 5L DraughtKeg Tap

Chill the keg for at least 10 hours in your fridge.

Remove the tap components from the blister pack on top of the keg.

Remove the green plastic closing cap from the top of the keg.

Snap the ring on top of the keg.

Place the mini tap in the center of the ring.

Details:

After first use the beer stays fresh for 30 days when stored in the fridge.

You can take off the tap and re apply it.

You can store it on its site in the fridge.

No froth forming as with the traditional large keg in a tap installation.

Some foaming during the initial pour is normal. It should settle down after that. For best results, the beer should be cooled for at least 10 hours at 2-5 degrees Centigrade (40-45 degrees Fahrenheit). Do not store at temperatures above 35 degrees Centigrade (95 degrees Fahrenheit). Do not shake the keg before usage. Make sure your glasses are rinsed and cool.

Some considerations

There have been miniature beer kegs around for years, but thus far the tap mechanisms were horrible in use and you would hardly ever get the (at least in The Netherlands required) two fingers froth on your beer.

Apparently Taiwan served as a test market and the first 1,000 kegs imported were sold within two weeks (source Nation Multimedia).

Heineken introduced the Beertender in 2004 together with Krupps. Later Philips followed with a similar system in cooperation with Inbev. It sold tremendously, but the disadvantage was that chilling the beer in the beertender took a long time and storing a half used keg was only possible inside the beertender. So I take it that the introduction of this new 5L DraughtKeg will eat the market of this Beertender.

Dutch seafront bars are already complaining that the they sell less beer because of the 5L DraughtKeg (you have 3 to 4 hours of really nice cool beer after taking it from your fridge). The real reason is off course they charge horrible for a glass of draught beer.

Most important consideration: It is much handier than slaving with crates with bottles.

Most important question: Is it sustainable? Heineken claims it is recyclable….

Sources
More on Heineken Com

More multimedia about the DraughtKeg: Party Heineken

More on the USA introduction at Free Republic

DraughtKeg on YouTube:

On YouTube I found this instructive video about how to install the DraughtKeg. I do not exactly know which language it is, can somebody help me out?:


How to use it

This video hilariously addresses the old problems the DraughKeg solves:


What frothy problems it solves

Two Dutchmen hilariously addresses the sustainability problem: What to do with a shed of used DraughtKegs?


What to do with the empty DraughtKeg

It seems the last one is produced by Heineken itself.

The funny thing is that in order to see video on the Heineken site (Yuck a site entirely in Flash) you have to give some proof of your age whereas no such thing is asked by YouTube…..