Spotted on Design Week online...by Angus Montgomery
'The Design Museum has launched an international search for an architect to work on the Commonwealth Institute building in west London, which is set to become the new home of the museum
The practice appointed would work alongside Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas’ practice OMA, which is developing plans for residential buildings around the CI building, now renamed the Parabola.
The Design Museum is seeking a design team, led by an architect and also comprising a structural engineer, an mechanical and electrical engineer, a construction design and management co-ordinator and a catering consultant to work on the museum fit-out within the Grade II*-listed building.
This work will include creating temporary and permanent exhibition spaces, education, event, catering and retail spaces, an auditorium and associated office storage, circulation, back-of-house areas, plant, and plant-related services.
The deadline for submissions of interest is 4 December, and a design team is expected to be announced in February, ahead of the Design Museum’s move from its Shad Thames home, which could take place in 2013.
Plans for the Design Museum’s move to Kensington were approved by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and English Heritage in September.'
Monday, November 16, 2009
Were wishing on a...Toby Howes new laminated chair design
Spotted on Contemporist Blog an elegant rocking chair design 'Wishbone' by designer Toby Howes who talks about his new piece below....
'I like to use different materials when designing new pieces, to give me an alternate view on shapes & textures, & this one started life as a couple of pipecleaners! It’s all about the lines &, from the side, you can see every curve mirrors the others to give an unusual silhouette for a rocking chair. Originally, it was constructed completely out of maple but, by adding the walnut into the supporting curves, the two-tone now draws the eye through the chair’s lines.
The shorter than usual rockers mean it doesn’t take up as much floor space & the design can be ‘au naturel’ or upholstered to your taste. Although the design is contemporary, the woods used can be changed to fit in with a more traditionally furnished home as well &, I’m told, the wishbone is especially comfortable for nursing mothers.'
Dimensions 900mm high 550mm wide and 1100mm long. Materials: Maple and Walnut...
'I like to use different materials when designing new pieces, to give me an alternate view on shapes & textures, & this one started life as a couple of pipecleaners! It’s all about the lines &, from the side, you can see every curve mirrors the others to give an unusual silhouette for a rocking chair. Originally, it was constructed completely out of maple but, by adding the walnut into the supporting curves, the two-tone now draws the eye through the chair’s lines.
The shorter than usual rockers mean it doesn’t take up as much floor space & the design can be ‘au naturel’ or upholstered to your taste. Although the design is contemporary, the woods used can be changed to fit in with a more traditionally furnished home as well &, I’m told, the wishbone is especially comfortable for nursing mothers.'
Dimensions 900mm high 550mm wide and 1100mm long. Materials: Maple and Walnut...
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Whatever floats your boat ......what a corker of a seat...
Seen on Seeking designers website
Designer Daniel Michalik of DMFD discovered the natural flexibility of cork allows it to form fantastic, complex shapes no other material can match. At over 72 inches long, Cortiça is a full-size chaise longue with a place for head, heels, and everything in between. The pliability of the material allows the user of this lounge to rock gently from side to side or on her back with a great degree of stability. The result is a sensation of floating, weightlessness and total support. And the best part? The Cortiça also floats like a boat.
Designer Daniel Michalik of DMFD discovered the natural flexibility of cork allows it to form fantastic, complex shapes no other material can match. At over 72 inches long, Cortiça is a full-size chaise longue with a place for head, heels, and everything in between. The pliability of the material allows the user of this lounge to rock gently from side to side or on her back with a great degree of stability. The result is a sensation of floating, weightlessness and total support. And the best part? The Cortiça also floats like a boat.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Starck reality ? ......Design week's Adrian Shaugnessy comments on the recent T.V show
Spotted design week online November 2009...
Philippe Starck’s recent TV show has been the subject of derision in the design world, but there was wisdom among the buffoonery, says Adrian Shaughnessy
'Philippe Starck is a bona fide genius, and his BBC Two show - Philippe Starck’s School of Design - was a brilliant ad for design. There, I’ve said it, and it feels good. Of course, I realise this is heresy. In Design Land it has become obligatory to savage the show. Stephen Bayley said it shared the same genetic code as Opportunity Knocks. And in the civilised pages of Design Week, Starck has been called ‘an idiot’ and the ‘worst type of stereotypical designer’ (Letters, DW 15 October).
Designers will debate the merits and demerits of Starck until the cows come home tinkling their Starck-designed bells. Yet despite occasional bouts of buffoonery, the great Frenchman emerges from the show as a well-formed receptacle of good sense and design wisdom, and I can’t help wondering how many of his critics could survive the scrutiny of a TV crew and ratings-hungry producers.
It’s true that a great deal of what Starck stands for today - ‘democratic design’ and his insistence on products having a ‘reason to exist’ - is contradicted by his past. I’m thinking of luxury yachts and his beautiful, yet surely inessential, Perspex ‘ghost chairs’. But designers are allowed to change their views, and beneath the Asterix-like bluster and the infelicities with the English language, Starck makes some razor-sharp points about sustainability and the importance of ‘generosity’ when designing a product.
His decision in the opening episode to send his ‘pupils’ on a shopping trip to choose essential and non-essential items was smart. Nearly all 12 candidates failed this simple test, proving at a stroke their unpreparedness for the bigger task of actually designing something worthwhile. If some of them had listened to what Starck told them at this point, they might have lasted longer.
But reality shows rarely have anything to do with reality. They are entertainment, just like any Saturday ratings smash. And it was here, in the game-show aspect of the series, that Starck’s attempt to award a six-month internship to a young UK product designer was at its most vulnerable to criticism and ridicule.
Yet the fault clearly lay not with Starck, but with the programme-makers and the vapid conventions of reality TV. It’s obligatory in these shows to manipulate the action shamelessly to create tension and phoney drama. Starck’s candidates were prompted to parrot the usual insincerities about self-belief and the will to win, and simple tasks that would hardly tax a foundation-year design student were ramped up into TV melodrama.
The show wasn’t helped by the inability of the candidates to explain their thinking. With the exception of one individual (the eventual winner), the wannabe Starckers were woefully inarticulate. But unlike the show-offs and fame junkies that clog up The Apprentice, each of Starck’s candidates seemed genuine in their desire to be a designer - even if some of them are going to have to reconsider their career goals.
In the end, I watched the show for Starck. His moralistic approach to design was refreshing and unexpected. Mercifully, he isn’t the sort of identikit designer with a white board and a fondness for the findings of focus groups. Starck is a visionary - and with that comes a lot of messy baggage and an industrial-grade ego. But he’s not an idiot, and nor - thank God - is he a stereotypical designer. Although I can see a bit of Hughie Green in him.'
Interesting comments but it seems when anybody is put under the spotlight of television the desires of the creation of watchable t.v rather than actual reality must always prevail???
What do you think?
Philippe Starck’s recent TV show has been the subject of derision in the design world, but there was wisdom among the buffoonery, says Adrian Shaughnessy
'Philippe Starck is a bona fide genius, and his BBC Two show - Philippe Starck’s School of Design - was a brilliant ad for design. There, I’ve said it, and it feels good. Of course, I realise this is heresy. In Design Land it has become obligatory to savage the show. Stephen Bayley said it shared the same genetic code as Opportunity Knocks. And in the civilised pages of Design Week, Starck has been called ‘an idiot’ and the ‘worst type of stereotypical designer’ (Letters, DW 15 October).
Designers will debate the merits and demerits of Starck until the cows come home tinkling their Starck-designed bells. Yet despite occasional bouts of buffoonery, the great Frenchman emerges from the show as a well-formed receptacle of good sense and design wisdom, and I can’t help wondering how many of his critics could survive the scrutiny of a TV crew and ratings-hungry producers.
It’s true that a great deal of what Starck stands for today - ‘democratic design’ and his insistence on products having a ‘reason to exist’ - is contradicted by his past. I’m thinking of luxury yachts and his beautiful, yet surely inessential, Perspex ‘ghost chairs’. But designers are allowed to change their views, and beneath the Asterix-like bluster and the infelicities with the English language, Starck makes some razor-sharp points about sustainability and the importance of ‘generosity’ when designing a product.
His decision in the opening episode to send his ‘pupils’ on a shopping trip to choose essential and non-essential items was smart. Nearly all 12 candidates failed this simple test, proving at a stroke their unpreparedness for the bigger task of actually designing something worthwhile. If some of them had listened to what Starck told them at this point, they might have lasted longer.
But reality shows rarely have anything to do with reality. They are entertainment, just like any Saturday ratings smash. And it was here, in the game-show aspect of the series, that Starck’s attempt to award a six-month internship to a young UK product designer was at its most vulnerable to criticism and ridicule.
Yet the fault clearly lay not with Starck, but with the programme-makers and the vapid conventions of reality TV. It’s obligatory in these shows to manipulate the action shamelessly to create tension and phoney drama. Starck’s candidates were prompted to parrot the usual insincerities about self-belief and the will to win, and simple tasks that would hardly tax a foundation-year design student were ramped up into TV melodrama.
The show wasn’t helped by the inability of the candidates to explain their thinking. With the exception of one individual (the eventual winner), the wannabe Starckers were woefully inarticulate. But unlike the show-offs and fame junkies that clog up The Apprentice, each of Starck’s candidates seemed genuine in their desire to be a designer - even if some of them are going to have to reconsider their career goals.
In the end, I watched the show for Starck. His moralistic approach to design was refreshing and unexpected. Mercifully, he isn’t the sort of identikit designer with a white board and a fondness for the findings of focus groups. Starck is a visionary - and with that comes a lot of messy baggage and an industrial-grade ego. But he’s not an idiot, and nor - thank God - is he a stereotypical designer. Although I can see a bit of Hughie Green in him.'
Interesting comments but it seems when anybody is put under the spotlight of television the desires of the creation of watchable t.v rather than actual reality must always prevail???
What do you think?
Roll up...Roll up...building bridges with design
Spotted on design week website by Angus Montgomery...exciting bridge design to star at show
'A scale model of Heatherwick Studio’s Rolling Bridge at London’s Paddington Basin will feature at the Lord Mayor’s Show.
The scale model, made from laser-cut aluminium and timber, will comprise 40 moving segments which will roll and unroll dozens of times during the procession on 14 November.
The project is being led by community engagement organisation the Building Exploratory, and involves pupils from Sebright Primary School in Hackney. It has been commissioned by the City Bridge Trust.
Thomas Heatherwick, founder of Heatherwick Studio, says, ‘The City Bridge Trust and the Building Exploratory have introduced us to a new generation of potential bridge builders and engineers in the guise of pupils from Sebright Primary School.
‘We had an incredible response from the children, and it’s been exciting to see this large mechanical bridge taking shape in our workshop.’
look forward to seeing this..
'A scale model of Heatherwick Studio’s Rolling Bridge at London’s Paddington Basin will feature at the Lord Mayor’s Show.
The scale model, made from laser-cut aluminium and timber, will comprise 40 moving segments which will roll and unroll dozens of times during the procession on 14 November.
The project is being led by community engagement organisation the Building Exploratory, and involves pupils from Sebright Primary School in Hackney. It has been commissioned by the City Bridge Trust.
Thomas Heatherwick, founder of Heatherwick Studio, says, ‘The City Bridge Trust and the Building Exploratory have introduced us to a new generation of potential bridge builders and engineers in the guise of pupils from Sebright Primary School.
‘We had an incredible response from the children, and it’s been exciting to see this large mechanical bridge taking shape in our workshop.’
look forward to seeing this..
Keep an eye out for this one...Dieter Rams at Design Museum London..from 18th November
Spotted on Iconeye website by Johanna Agerman, upcoming exibition by Dieter Rams one of the most highly influential designers of last century.
'DIETER RAMS: LESS IS MORE
18 NOVEMBER – 7 MARCH
As head of design at Braun for almost 30 years, Dieter Rams is one of the most influential designers of the 20th century. Before Rams, electric razors were bulky and radios didn’t need a second look, but Rams made electronic products works of art, albeit practical and minimal works of art. Now the Design Museum is holding a retrospective, so that you can take a closer look at pieces such as the SK2 radio and the 606 shelving system for Vitsoe. '
Design Museum, London
'DIETER RAMS: LESS IS MORE
18 NOVEMBER – 7 MARCH
As head of design at Braun for almost 30 years, Dieter Rams is one of the most influential designers of the 20th century. Before Rams, electric razors were bulky and radios didn’t need a second look, but Rams made electronic products works of art, albeit practical and minimal works of art. Now the Design Museum is holding a retrospective, so that you can take a closer look at pieces such as the SK2 radio and the 606 shelving system for Vitsoe. '
Design Museum, London
Design Museum Dieter Rams exhibition press release
Photos courtesy of VADS
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
All about Me!....Spotted down under...
Spotted on Kanchi magazine web site you source for the best in contemporary design and fashion from Australia and beyond some fantastic comments about yours truly.....
Entitled...'In the Chair'...
Entitled...'In the Chair'...
'Sticking to a philosophy of using “minimal materials to create maximum impact” is what makes the contemporary furniture created by designer Kevin Hallsworth so ingenious.
Aptly named Industryindesign; his brand showcases his keen interest in the study of; modern industrial architecture and its related environments.
His designs reflect this industrial inspiration; as he creates high-end bespoke pieces for individual and corporate clients; to suit both the domestic and commercial environments.
These elegant pieces are ergonomic and made in Lincoln, United Kingdom; with carefully selected materials and a heavy dose of beautiful detailing. '
Didnt realise I was so good! .......cheers Kanchi
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