Filed under: Brit Insurance Design Awards, competitions, design exhibition, designer, product | Tags: amsterdam, bamboo, bamboo furniture, bookcase, Brit Insurance Design Award, Chair, Charles and Ray Eames, Contemporary Design, Design, design award, design awards, designer, designer furniture, designers, dutch design, furniture, Grassworks, household, industrial design, Israel, israeli design, Jair Straschnow, kitchen, office furniture, product, products, table, wood, wooden furniture
Grassworks by Jair Straschnow is a range of product created from bamboo laminate.
Israeli born Straschnow, moved to Holland in 1999 to undertake a post-graduate course at the Applied Arts Department of the Sandberg Institute. Following his graduation he established himself as a professional designer based in Amsterdam who specialises in public installations as well as series’ of furniture pieces.
Originally displayed at the Aram Gallery in Drury Lane, London – as with Extrusions as part of the London Design festival – Grassworks is a series of production ready prototypes.
And so again as with Thomas Heatherwicks Extrusion, is a sort of “work in progress”
(Which does of course raise the question if displaying prototypes at the London Design Festival is not in fact the best way to guarantee a nomination for the Brit Insurance Design Award 
)
Including, amongst other items, a picnic table and bench and a convertible easy/dining chair, Grassworks is designed to be as simple, space-saving and sustainable as possible.
For all the decision to use bamboo was made “…mainly because it is a truly green material“: As a fast growing grass, bamboo stocks can be quickly replenished without casing any impact on the local environment.
But is perhaps the simplicity of the design that really distinguishes the Grassworks range from other products. Using variations of the traditional dovetail joint, the individual Grassworks elements simply slot together without the need for permanent fixings. Which of course means that they can also be just as easily taken apart again.
We particularly like the Eames-esque easy chair – not least because it flips over to form two different shaped chairs – and the extending trestle table. Both have a lovely flowing, natural form… which we like.
And we think the judges will also approve of both the mix of materials and traditional techniques in a wonderfully fresh collection.
Grassworks by Jair Straschnow
Chances of winning the 2010 Brit Insurance Design Award: very good
Grassworks by Jair Straschnow: Easy Chair
Grassworks by Jair Straschnow: Trestle Table
Grassworks by Jair Straschnow: Bookshelves
Filed under: Miscellaneous, Stockholm Design Week, design exhibition | Tags: stockholm, exhibitions, exhibition, iLike, Stockholm Design Week, photography
Indebted to David Report for the info on the iLike event during this weeks Stockholm Design Week.
Design studio Bernstrand & Co have asked 100 “creatives”, plus allegedly politicians, to take a photo of their favourite product/event.
Design studio Bernstrand & Co will then display them in their studio.
In Stockholm.
So that only those in Stockholm can see them.
Great.
It’s like the internet never happened.
Or maybe it hasn’t in Stockholm
@Design studio Bernstrand & Co – Almost all photos will be taken with a phone that is only as popular as it is because of it’s internet capabilities and functionality.
Let us also look at the pictures on it.
Or at least on a normal computer monitor.
Thanks
But since we can’t make it, it would be good to see what others enjoyed…..
iLike Stockholm - but to see pictures of it we have to go to Stockholm. Ain't technology great.
Filed under: designer, producer, product | Tags: Berlin, Chair, Contemporary Design, Design, designer, designer furniture, designers, dresden, furniture, german design, Home, household, interior, interior design, interiors, Mike Neumann, product, products, sachsen, students, Wink, wood, wooden furniture
As Ron Arad proved with his “Bookworm” bookcase – a good product doesn’t need months of conception, planning and improvement.
Arad mentally “sketched” the Bookworm form on the wall of his new house one evening, and the next day with some of his staff constructed the very first bookworm from steel sheets he had left over from a previous project.
Bookworm is not only one of Kartell’s best selling products but Ron Arad’s most commercially succesful project.
The chair Wink by Dresden based industrial designer Mike Neumann is a further good example. Created as part of a college project Wink was completed in just four weeks. Although not 100% finished – for our tastes the outer frame is a little toooooo raw and requires a little rounding – however, the main concept is finished.
And is delightful.
With subtle overtones of Gerrit T. Rietveld’s Rood blauwe stoel meets Jean Prouvé’s Cité, Wink can be viewed as a slatted mattress support slung between two trapeziums.
And looks wonderful.
And judging from the close-up photos, the quality of the craftsmanship aint bad either.
As we say Wink was a quick student project; albeit it one with the potential for greater things.
Great!
Wink by Mike Neumann
Wink Chair by Mike Neumann
Wink by Mike Neumann .... detail
Filed under: Brit Insurance Design Awards, competitions, design exhibition, designer, producer | Tags: Brit Insurance Design Award, british design, Chair, Contemporary Design, Design, designer, designer furniture, designers, Extrusions, furniture, Heatherwick Studio, Home, home office, industrial design, interior, interiors, london, london design, london design festival, office furniture, product, products, Thomas Heatherwick, Thomas Heatherwick Studio
Without doubt the ugliest and least aesthetic nomination, Extrusions by Thomas Heatherwick Studio should, in our opinion, be considered more a “work in progress” than an actual product in its own right.
Born in London, Thomas Heatherwick studied at Manchester Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art in London before establishing his own studio in 1994. Based in Kings Cross, London Heatherwick Studio is a conglomeration of architects, designers and engineers who have worked on a range of architecture and public art projects. Many of Heatherwick’s architectural works focus on finding new solutions to problems and experimenting with materials.
As wonderfully demonstrated by Extrusions.
Premiered at the Haunch of Venison Gallery during 2009 London Design Festival, Extrusions is the worlds first single component metal furniture piece extruded by machine.
Extrusion is, basically, forcing material through a pre-formed cross section “die” – think of it as a mould through which the raw material is pushed, and you won’t be that far away.
Macaroni, for example, is produced by extrusion.
Heatherwick’s benches were, however, produced on the worlds largest extrusion machine – a machine normally used for producing components for aircraft – and represent the first prototypes of a 100m long bench that should be finished in the course of 201o.
And they look like it. A sort of Ron Arard meets Frank Gehry meets a case of very agreeable St Emillion.
But that is not the point.
The point is that metal extrusion offers a new method for furniture production; and for all furniture production wth materials that would normally be too brittle to work.
And that is the strength of the project. It pushes the borders of what is possible and forces new ways of considering how one constructs furniture
In years to come the first benches will be worth more money than an average aluminium miner earns in a lifetime; but they may just be the first step to developing furniture that he can afford.
Extrusions, Thomas Heatherwick Studio
Chances of winning the 2010 Brit Insurance Design Award: very good
Thomas Heatherwick Studio Extrusions
Several Extrusion examples from Thomas Heatherwick Studio
Filed under: designer, producer, product | Tags: babies, baby, baby furniture, Belkiz, cardboard, Chair, children, Contemporary Design, Design, designers, Feedaway, furniture, high chair, Home, household, kids furniture, kitchen, portable furniture, recycle, recycled, recycled cardboard, recycled furniture, recycling
Thanks to the boys and girls @inhabitat for posting this portable recycled cardboard high chair.
Of late there has been several foldable, cardboard products on the market – but what we particularly like about the Belkiz Feedaway is the fact that it is designed with a purpose in mind; in contrast, most of the other designs have had the feel of simply being attempts at recreating “conventional” chair designs in cardboard.
And while the designs were without doubt good and practical…. they lacked purpose.
As opposed to the Belkiz Feedaway.
Sturdy and durable, the obvious advantage of the Belkiz Feedaway is that it can be folded; great if you don’t have much space at home – and even greater if you want to pack it in the car when you go off to visit some elderly relatives for the afternoon.
We’re not that sure about the dodgy, pseudo-hippy flowers that have been printed onto the box.
But can overlook them on account of the other obvious advantages the Belkiz Feedaway presents.
Great!
Belkiz Feedaway
Belkiz Feedaway ... folded
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Accueil Lamp, Arnaud Lapierre, Contemporary Design, Design, designer, designer furniture, designers, france, french design, furniture, Home, home office, household, industrial design, interior, interior design, interiors, Lamp, led, led lamps, lighting, office furniture, product, products
The French.
Stubborn.
Têtu.
Very few other nations are so fixated with their language as the French.
And while you have to admire the passion for the cultural heritage; it doesn’t exactly help commerce.
And so while @designmilk highlighted Arnaud Lapierre’s absolutely delightful Accueil Lamp.
We can’t expand because a) Arnaud’s website is in French and b) Accueil Lamp, apparently, recently won an award. But the award site is only in French….
And so we can’t confirm that.
Fortuitously Arnaud does at least present his biography in English.
And so we know that he is an industrial designer, mainly focused on object, furnitures and space design, art direction and design consulting.
We know that he has a master’s degree level II in industrial design from the ENSCI-Paris Institute for advance studies in industrial design.
And we know that Accueil Lamp is a touch of genius.
For that one doesn’t need a translation.
It’s a lamp.
Which can also be used to store things.
Brilliant.
And with it’s lovely retro-George Nelson charm and soft flowing form, is a wonderfully descriptive object that should fit into any space; be it domestic or office.
And judging from the photo with the Eames House Bird the size and proportions are also very nice.
Accueil Lamp reminds us, at least visually, an awful lot of the gorgeous lacquer Wajima Collection Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec presented in July 2009.
But obviously we don’t know what Accueil Lamp is constructed from.
Although it does appear to be an LED lamp.
Assuming LED is French for LED.
Accueil Lamp by Arnaud Lapierre.
Génial!
Accueil Lamp by Arnaud Lapierre
Accueil Lamp by Arnaud Lapierre with Eames House Bird
Accueil Lamp by Arnaud Lapierre ... lovely
Filed under: Brit Insurance Design Awards, competitions, designer, product | Tags: Brit Insurance Design Award, Carbon Fibre Chair, Chair, Contemporary Design, Design, design award, design awards, designer, designer furniture, designers, furniture, household, Japan, japanese design, office furniture, product, products, Shigeru Ban, TENAX
“I wanted to make a chair that was lighter than Gio Ponti’s Superleggera, so light a child could pick it up with just his little finger”.
So describes Japanese architect Shigeru Ban the motivation behind his Carbon Fibre Chair.
Born in Tokyo in 1957 Shigeru Ban initially studied at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and subsequently at the Cooper Union School of Architecture where he completed his Bachelor in 1984. Following his return to Japan he established his own practice. Although much of Ban’s work has unmistakable overtones of two of his favourite architects, Mires van der Rohe and Alvar Aalto, it is his experimentation with “non-traditional” materials that sets Shigeru Ban apart from his contemporaries. Best known for his work with cardboard tubes and paper Ban has created buildings as varied as Issey Miyake’s Design Studio Gallery in Tokyo, the Japanese Pavillion at Expo 2000 in Hannover and refugee shelters for the UNHCD.
“I was interested in weak materials,” Ban told time.com “Whenever we invent a new material or new structural system, a new architecture comes out of it.”
So with his carbon fibre chair
Weighing in at just 500 grams, carbon fibre chair is constructed as a “sandwich” featuring an aluminium skeleton surrounded by two 0,25mm layers of the carbon fibre TENAX – a product commonly used in aircraft wings, satellite antennas and fishing rods.
So stable, yet light.
Carbon fibre chair originally formed part of the “Tokyo Fibre 2009″ exhibition: essentially a PR event for the Japanese synthetic fibres industry.
In many ways it is only upon seeing carbon fibre chair in profile that one realises the true aesthetic value of the chair. It may resemble Maarten van Severens .03, however not only is the silhouette much finer and more filigree; but just as the true magic in .03 lies in the feather spring structure in the back rest, so is carbon fibre chair more about the construction and the material than the sitting comfort per se.
Although that is apparently also quite high.
And the technological features could just swing it for Shigeru Ban…if the judges go for two similar decisions back-to-back.
Carbon Fibre Chair by Shigeru Ban
Chances of winning the 2010 Brit Insurance Design Award: good to middling.
Carbon Fibre Chair by Shigeru Ban shortlisted in the Brits Insurance Design Award
Filed under: Brit Insurance Design Awards, competitions, design exhibition, designer, producer | Tags: 360° Work Chair, Brit Insurance Design Award, Chair, Contemporary Design, Design, designer, designer furniture, designers, furniture, george nelson, german design, Home, home office, industrial design, interior, interiors, konstantin grcic, nelson perch, office furniture, product, products
Although born in Munich Konstantin Grcic is in many ways an English trained designer. Following a carpentry apprenticeship at the renowned Parnham College, he undertook an MA in Industrial Design at the Royal College of Art in London. After graduating in 1990, Grcic spent a year working for Jasper Morrison before returning to Munich to establish KGID Office (Konstantin Grcic Industrial Design)
Often considered one of the modern masters of minimalism, Konstantin Grcic’s work is typified by its simple, clear, uncluttered form.
Among Grcic’s best known works are his Mayday lamp for flos, the ES shelf for Moormann and his Chair One for Magis.
Konstantin Grcic won the Brit Insurance Design Award 2009 with his MYTO Chair for plank.
But we can’t believe he will do it again, principally because 360° Work Chair is in many ways simply a modern reinvention of George Nelson’s 1964 Nelson Perch.
And so in that sense falls short of the Design Museum’s own claim that the Design Awards are an “annual exploration of the most innovative, interesting and forward-looking new work in design of all kinds”
Reworking George Nelson aint innovative. Or forward looking.
And whereas Grcic’s 2009 winning MYTO Chair could lay claim to being based on an innovative new plastic; 360° Work Chair is a combination of epoxy resin and aluminium. So nothing especially new there then
Conceived as a chair for short burst of work rather than for 8 hours at a desk, 360° Work Chair is a neat idea, nicely executed and is certainly a product for which there is a demand.
And while that may make it interesting for some. It’s just neither a new nor innovative design.
360° Work Chair by Konstantin Grcic
Chances of winning the 2010 Brit Insurance Design Award: very low
360 work chair by Konstantin Grcic shortlisted in the Brit Insurance Design Awards 2010
Nelson Perch by George Nelson ... compare and contrast
MYTO chair by Konstantin Grcic winner of the furniture category at the 2009 Brit Insurance Design Awards
Filed under: Brit Insurance Design Awards | Tags: Brit Insurance Design Award, Contemporary Design, Design, design award, design awards, designer, designer furniture, designers, exhibition, exhibitions, furniture, Home, home office, household, interior, interior design, interiors, myhouseismycastle, office furniture, product, products
A couple of weeks ago we posted the shortlist nominations for the furniture category at the 2010 Brit Insurance Design Awards.
On February 17th the Award Exhibition opens at the London Design Museum, and in advance of that we have decided to take the opportunity to present each of the furniture nominations in a little more detail.
On the one hand a very lazy way to get a series of 12 posts; on the other a chance to give those of you who are unfamiliar with one or the other of the designs and/or designers some reference points and an independent assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the works.
(There should now be a picture with the logo of the Brit Insurance Design Awards – only they don’t appear to have one…. Which is kind of ironic if you think about it )
Filed under: designer, product | Tags: american design, bookcase, books, Contemporary Design, coroflot, Design, designer, designer furniture, designers, dj, etsy, furniture, Gangsta Lean, Home, home office, household, industrial design, interior, Matt Braun, myhouseismycastle, office furniture, philadelphia, plywood, product, products, record storage, records, storage, wood, wooden furniture
A blog is a lot like the history of the European continent.
You think you know it, think you understand it … but it always surprises you.
In this context, as we were preparing the Christian Lessing post, we wanted to compare Lessing’s Collectuer with Gangsta Lean by Matt Braun.
Only to discover that we hadn’t yet written about Gangsta Lean.
Which we quite frankly can’t believe.
Because for us Gangsta Lean is the must have product amongst all must have products.
Leaning record storage boxes.
Need we say more.
We don’t think so; because such as wonderful, ingenuous and beautifully execute product speaks for itself.
Absolute genius!
Gangsta Lean by Matt Braun
Gangsta Lean by Matt Braun ... stackable
Gangsta Lean by Matt Braun .... detail
