Design studio Nendo with more than 100 project lauched. Prolific design studio Nendo has launched over 100 products during the past year, Oki Sato who found it  10 years ago, explained that he is currently working on almost 400 projects.

The Tokyo-based designer has a one-year retrospective exhibition of the studio’s vast output that took place during Milan design week. Nendo’s team of roughly 30 designers and interns has produced over 100 products for 19 brands over the past 12 months, many of which were presented in the showcase.

Sato, with 37 old, base he’s design process and sped up by the studio’s three 3D printers, which enable him to create quick prototypes overnight and send ideas to locations around the world. Nendo Works 2014-2015 presents a year’s worth of work by the studio’s founder Oki Sato at Milan’s Museo della Permanente.

The nine new ranges for manufacturer Glas Italia are displayed across the museum’s ground floor. These include frosted glass cuboid tables with rainbow colored edges and furniture with dark surfaces that appear to be slipping off.

One of Sato’s favorite designs from the range is a table called Clear Shadows, which has a glass top patterned with snowflake shapes that aren’t visible unless inspected closely. But, Nendo has been awarded the Designer of the Year title for this year’s Maison&Objet and creator of a “chocolate lounge” at the Paris trade fair.

Following a prolific 2014 – which saw Nendo design ranges for Disney as well as eyewear, umbrellas, furniture, shirts, and interiors – the studio founded by designer Oki Sato has been named as this year’s recipient of the Maison&Objet Designer of the Year accolade. Nendo was asked to design a lounge for visitors to the upcoming edition of the biannual furniture and interiors show. The studio has also created a range of nine chocolates molded into unusual shapes within a 26-millimetre cube.

The Chocolatexture collection includes treats with pointed tips, hollow interiors and rough textures. One of the cubes is constructed from a frame of chocolate sticks, while another is formed into spikes. A limited edition of 400 boxes will be for sale at the lounge, where visitors will be able to sample the sweets.

The space will be furnished with Nendo’s previous seat designs for brands including Cappellini, Desalto, Glas Italia, Emeco, Offecct and Moroso.

 Japanese designers Nendo also have created chocolate pencils for Tokyo patissier Tsujiguchi Hironobu, where the pencils come with a sharpener so chocolate shavings can be grated on top of pastries and desserts. The Chocolate-pencils is a collaboration with patissier Tsujiguchi Hironobu, the mastermind behind popular dessert shops like Mont St. Claire and Le Chocolat de H. Tsujiguchi created a new dessert based on his impression and Nendo designed new tableware for them. Based on this idea, the “chocolate pencils” come in a number of cocoa blends that vary in intensity, and chocophiles can use the special “pencil sharpener” that comes with a plate to grate chocolate into the dessert.

 Read more at: http://www.nendo.jp/en/

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The elite of Switzerland’s apprenticeship system compete once a year to become the best in their field. It’s a showcase for a career model that other countries are taking note of, but one that also needs to keep evolving.

“How long have I got?” shouts an apprentice baker as she squeezes dollops of cream into a mixing bowl.

“20 minutes!” comes the reply from a figure in the crowd. The teenager is one of many competing to be crowned the best Swiss apprentice in their field of work at a four-day championship of apprentices, SwissSkills, in the capital, Bern.

Around 155,000 people, mostly teenagers, have turned out to watch the star chocolate-makers and fashion designers of the future sweat it out under the sharp eyes of the judges and huge crowds.

Around two-thirds of young people in Switzerland choose to become an apprentice, rather than following a purely academic route to their future career. From bakers to butchers, cleaners to tilers, there’s an apprenticeship for almost everything it seems.

Popularity with employers
“The apprenticeship training system, contrary to many other systems abroad, is not a dead-end road for young people,” professor Stefan Wolter, managing director of the Swiss Coordination Centre for Research in Education (SCCRE) told swissinfo.ch.

Wolter is referring to the range of options that apprentices can take up once they have finished their training. They can continue their education at a tertiary level or go on to a university of applied science, for example.

With an average youth unemployment rate in Switzerland of 3.4% in 2013, other countries are keen to see if the Swiss model is something they can adapt for themselves.

Around the time of the SwissSkills event, Switzerland was also host to the International Congress on Vocational and Professional Education and Training, which attracted education specialists from all over the world.

Among those present, an entourage from the United States’ with “second lady” Jill Biden, a community college teacher with a doctorate in education. On a visit to manufacturing firm Bühler, she said she “was impressed to learn that 80% [of apprentices] continue to work at Bühler after training, and other companies also benefit, creating an echo effect”.

The willingness of employers to get involved is one of the key factors to making it work, according to Wolter.

“They do it because it’s profitable for them, but they do it collectively which is important.” An apprenticeship follows a set framework, enabling the young people to apply their knowledge in any company within the industry.

Valentin Vogt, president of the Swiss Employer’s Confederation is convinced that taking on an apprentice “ultimately pays off”.

“We have the government that provides the schooling, we have the enterprises that provide the jobs and we have the associations that basically provide the content of the education. At the end if you add up the cost and if you add up the earnings that you make, you have a net result.”

Any trade can be learnt
Apprentices showcased at the Swiss Skills are the elite of the Swiss system. Some are heading into extremely specific fields.

For most people cleaning is a chore, and certainly not a full-time, dream occupation, but for Anette Lanz, the satisfaction of a clean room has made her turn her “hobby” into her future.

Lanz is in the first year of a three-year apprenticeship as a building cleaner. Tucked away in a corner of the Swiss Skills exhibition hall, she’s happily answering questions from young people. Drawn in by a ride on a floor cleaning machine, they stick around to ask why she does it.

“It’s exhausting but we have a blast! You work in a team, you’re always on the move, you see lots of other worlds of work and you really work with people,” Lanz told swissinfo.ch

It’s an eye-opener for the teenagers that come from all over the country, some to watch the competitions between the top apprentices, some to see what else they could be doing when they make their final choice of apprenticeship.

Martin Dürrenmatt is the reigning world champion hair stylist, after claiming a handful of medals at the industry’s global competition in Frankfurt in May 2014.

“Lots of people knew about me, they read about me in magazines and newspapers…this was great for me!”

The apprenticeship system and the high-profile competitions gave Dürrenmatt a chance to show what he could do to as wide an audience as possible. “It’s a really great opportunity to meet people and form a network.”

“It’s very helpful for any job. At the competitions you learn a lot about techniques…and preparation…how to work in everyday stressful situations…regardless of which job you have.”

A system overhaul
Apprenticeships need to stay in step with the developments of the working world however.

When the vocational training law was revised ten years ago, the aim was to make the numerous different apprenticeships comparable.

“The most important change after the new law, was that [it] allowed us to reform the system much quicker than we did previously,” Wolter told swissinfo.ch

Bringing job skillsets into line with modern practices used to take up to ten years according to Wolter. “We have around 230 different occupations that can be learnt and now they can be reformed and adapted to the different challenges and developments in the occupation – within three to five years.”

Although the number of young people opting for on-the-job training has stayed quite stable over recent years, the challenge of making sure teenagers continue to be interested in vocational training is something education professionals and employers are already thinking about.

Around 5,000 apprenticeship posts go unfilled every year according to Vogt, which he says will be “a problem in the long run”.

“We have a trend in this country that more people try to get into academia, which I think is a problem, because ultimately children don’t get smarter. What’s going to happen is that the level is just going to be lowered – this is not good for the academics and this not good for the professional education system,” Vogt told swissinfo.ch

Making the Swiss system an international point of reference, a set-up that other countries and nationalities emulate, is key for many vocational education specialists in Switzerland, including Wolter.

“30-40% of the top CEOs [in Switzerland] are foreigners, so they have to be convinced that this is a good model.”

 

By Jo Fahy

Source: swissinfo.ch

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Can you be a good Swiss citizen if you don’t know the national anthem or haven’t done military service? Two sociologists decipher a landmark poll that holds a mirror up to the Swiss population.

Fifty years after the controversially censored ‘Gulliver’ survey of the Swiss people (see infobox) carried out during the Swiss National Exhibition in Lausanne in 1964, a group of artists, historians and sociologists have marked the anniversary with a similar act of self-reflection.

Their new survey containing 25 questions covers a range of issues but the basic goal is the same: to examine Swiss attitudes and sensibilities and see whether a ‘Swiss’ opinion or shared common values exist.

So what constitutes a ‘good Swiss citizen’? According to the results of the poll, this notion certainly seems to have been relaxed over the past 50 years.

As the table shows, you are still considered a good Swiss citizen even if you only speak one language, have been naturalised, do not know the national anthem, haven’t done your military service or only get up after 9 o’clock (the famous question from 1964). But most people draw the line if you never vote (only 36% say you are a ‘good Swiss citizen) or if you live on state benefits (56.2%).

“We see a definite increasing rejection of “bourgeois conformism”, which has been sort of picked apart,” said René Levy, honorary professor of sociology at Lausanne University.

Olivier Moeschler, also a sociology professor at Lausanne University, concurred.

“We see contrasts between a more relaxed attitude towards old traditional Swiss values, but at the same time a kind of addiction to the value of work, while a distancing and great distrust of international finance and institutions like the World Economic Forum (WEF) and UBS but faith in the Swiss franc,” he added.

“Should a working day be less than eight hours? The majority of people say no. So you can get up after 9 o’clock and be a good Swiss citizen, but you have to work at least eight hours.”

The dream job of those polled was teacher, followed by artist. As another rejection of global finance, more refused the idea of working on the stock exchange (56%) than of emptying dustbins (45%).

Around 64% agreed to pay more taxes if the money went towards looking after elderly or disabled people. But most rejected the idea of giving more tax money to development aid, culture or the integration of foreigners (81%).

“We accept support measures for elderly and disabled people but not for modern families, hence the notion of ‘socially conscious conservatism’,” said Levy.
Attitudes towards foreigners remain complex and ambiguous. Around half of those polled said they had one grandparent of foreign origin, while 23% had four grandparents who were immigrants. Those polled generally agreed that foreigners contribute towards the country’s success, but 75% refused the idea of their commune opening a centre for asylum-seekers.

Islam suffers from a negative image. Around 85% of people said it was a religion that oppressed women and 64% said the Quran was less tolerant than the Bible. Only 21% felt Islam was compatible with democracy.

“This is not new but there is a kind of instinctive rejection of immigrants and a withdrawal into ourselves. It’s an old phenomenon. The idea of “overpopulation caused by foreigners” dates back to the beginning of the 20th century and has re-appeared a few times. We haven’t managed to instil in the majority of the population a positive interpretation of immigration. It’s regularly seen as a threat,” said Levy. “If you compare with 1964, Islam seems to have replaced Communism.”

A huge majority (85%) also rejected the idea of joining the European Union in the next ten years.

Meanwhile, a minority (22%) say there is no such thing as a Röstigraben – the imaginary cultural and social divide between German and French-speaking parts of the country. Those who said it does exist believe it can be eliminated by teaching more national languages at school (38.9%), and giving more political weight to Italian- and French-speaking Switzerland (24.9%).
But the sociologists said rather than focusing on a Röstigraben, a more striking finding was the large ‘Polenta-graben’ between Italian-speaking Switzerland and the rest of the country.

“Canton Ticino stands out on a whole range of issues such as a tougher stance towards foreigners and a greater attachment to the notion of Swissness, or classic traditional Swiss values. It’s a problem that isn’t really talked about in the media. But it’s something discussed in Ticino, as they feel threatened from exterior and abandoned by the other Swiss,” said Levy.

So what other conclusions and comparisons can be made between the two polls carried out 50 years apart?

“We’re definitely an ambivalent population, but tolerant and happy with modern concerns and dreams and extremist fringes,” wrote Michael Kinzer, director of Lausanne’s Festival de la Cité, in the introduction to the report on the Point de Suisse survey he co-initiated.

Levy was more downbeat: “The euphoria and optimism of the past has been replaced by a post-modern pessimism. The growth and overheating of the 1945-1975 period [known as the 30 Glorious Years] has turned into crisis, zero growth or decline. The birth of the young generation has turned into an ageing society. The impression that everything is still to be achieved – Expo 64’s slogan was ‘Believe and Create’ – has turned into the idea that everything has already been said and done. And the idea that ‘It’ll be better in the future’ has become a feeling of, ‘It was better before’.

Moeschler was more circumspect: “Basically the country is doing really well. But it seems that the more it goes on like this, the less people seem to want to share with others.”

The two periods and respective zeitgeists also reveal very different attitudes towards the questionnaires. In 1964 the Swiss cabinet censored the Gulliver survey and banned the publication of its results. But today it’s the opposite with vast amounts of information freely available and no censorship.

Should today’s government be worried by the results of the 2014 Point de Suisse poll?

“I think there is sufficient material there,” said Levy. “We see large consensus on certain points like a flexible retirement age or assisted suicide, and heavy scepticism about social inequalities, especially tax gifts for the rich. But politicians don’t seem in a hurry to do anything.”

Despite the gloomy conclusions one important statistic stands out: 76% of Swiss declare themselves to be happy nowadays.

 

By Simon Bradley

Source: swissinfo.ch

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