Using a strap to tie things together is not a new idea and interestingly many of the products featured in this post have their roots in traditional crafts techniques and ideas. Just strapping a few bits and bobs together this ain’t. Its partly about learning from the past but also out of necessity and practicality, applying a simple device to create a useful functional ethical product.

Simon Hasan has used leather straps to hold integral parts of his work together. The welded box of the cabinet is held onto the oak stand and the cushion on the stool is held in place by the use of leather straps that have been boiled to give them strength.

His work was inspired by reading about the technique of boiling leather (cuir bouilli) that turns soft mallable leather into a much harder material without the use of any resin or other chemical treatments. The strength and durability of the leather is such that this medieval process was used for amour and drinking vessels. Simon has combined this process with another ancient crafting skill that is wood cleaving.

Chairless byAlejandro Aravena for Vitra. Again taking inspiration from the ancient , Alejandro’s strap is an idea developed from the Ayoreo Indians of South America. Aimed at the “modern nomad” its very light and easy to pack down and is meant to by used when chairs are in short supply.The strap takes the strain and relieves the back and legs, and keeps your hands free for reading, eating, tinkering on you laptop etc. I’m sure this will be hugely copied, anyone going to a music festival in the next year will suddenly see them everywhere. They do take a bit of practice so it could be entertaining watching people getting tangled, rolling around…..

Bungee straps, those super strong stretchy bands loved by the camping and trekking fraternity to attach all manner of necessities to the car or bike have also been appropriated by designers .

Blow Sofa by Malafor.  It is an environmental product; made from 100% recyclable dunnage bags, the inflateable bags sit on a frame held together by bungee straps. It looks a little precarious to sit on, but as long as its not over inflated its rather comfy. The bags are paper covered so you could add your own doodled design to them.

 Lukas Franciszkiewicz’ Stool FRNKWZ* also uses a steel frame as its base with a black bungee strap to hold the square cushion in place. The sense of instability from the straps is offset by the structure of the pyramid steel frame – theres a bit of give in it but its not going to slip off.

Mugrosita by Liliana Ovalle took inspiration for her work from the way street vendors in Mexico City held their stalls and tangled bags of merchandise together by straps and knots. The wooden frame of the couch is overlaid with a serise of beanbags secured by ropes.

Autarky by Studio Formafantasma shown in Milan at Spazio Rossana Orlandi follows on from their work mentioned in my Earth post.

Again using natural materials to create the vessels the strap is used to hold things that accompany the meal either spoons, bread or biscuits.

One of the main stumbling blocks to buying any home product is the fear of getting it wrong.  After all, its so much easier to send back that hideous jumper that you thought looked fabulous, than it is to dispose of the sofa you special ordered 3 months ago. With this in mind Mydeco.com have looked into our buying habits and our fears of a interior faux pas. Their 3D planner allows you to build your room to the exact proportions and light sources and you can pretty much add in your existing furniture. From the huge database of  over 75,000 products you’re bound to find something that’s near as dammit to your current sofa or bed.  Its the kind of technology you’d expect to pay for but its completely free. The idea behind it is to encourage us to be a little more adventurous in our purchases, and to stop us making mistakes whether they be an aesthetic disaster or an issue with the proportions of your items.  You can then click through and purchase your items from a vast range of suppliers and (perhaps the area I like the most) a range of independent designer makers through their boutique

Another company to embrace the use of 3D technology is Established & Sons. Launched at the Salone Internazionale Del Mobile in Milan this year, they presented their new own label collection Estd through an interactive 3D screen created by Yoox.com. Four items were presented in an interactive way (Dip Soft Grid, Plan,Butt)that allowed the viewer to discover them, play, move turn and even throw them via a touch-screen. Although this technology isn’t available online yet, you can just imagine them tinkering away to create an Ipad App for it.

In a bid to get in touch with the consumer and take the work  directly to them Tom Dixon has come up with his Flash Factory . Appearing in many locations over the next year products will be assembled according to the customers need and demand. Its an interesting experiment on the inefficiency of our current means of production and delivery whereby products take months to be shipped across the world to the end user. The Flash Factory kicked off in Milan with members of Toms London team creating the Etch light for customers. The Factory then moved to New York for ICFF where willing volunteers created the products, there payment being other Tom Dixon products. In a quote from the man himself “Flash Factory demonstrates Future Industry and the new found power of the designer, able to service world markets with the latest products in greatly reduced time scales.”  Its an interesting concept and people visiting the Factory do enjoy engaging, and chatting and buying the work. Yes I did buy and Etch light – it was only 30 Euros for a bit of design history!

Friend and contemporary of Tom, Piet Hein Eek is also keen to engage the consumer in the process of production, although his factory is in no way portable! Its real and its huge. The concept is to rennovate an old Phillips factory to create a space where products will be made and sold. Its interactive but in the traditional sense, people can meet, talk, watch, create, shop and eat under one roof. Visitors can wander round without losing site of the workplace and offices; and workspaces will be rented to like minded creatives to create a community of production in a space that was once for mass production. Its a wonderfully idealistic response to an economic crisis and I can’t wait to visit it when it opens in October, in time for Dutch Design week.

And on a final note on Design Democracy (and self promotion….) If you would like to nominate me, or any other design bloggers from the UK  (we need more of them!) click through here  http://blog.mydeco.com/2010/05/13/mydeco-design-democracy-blog-awards/  I’m looking forward to seeing other UK bloggers views and adding to my blogroll so if you’d like me to nominate you… let me know!

Folding Plug by Min-Kyu Choi. I remember seeing this design at the Royal College of Art last year and immediately loving it. Its such a great move on from the bulky plugs we’re used to. Inspiration came from the anomaly of having a wafer thin laptop and an oversized plug, as he says here.  ”When people carry laptops with U.K plugs in a bag, it always causes problems such as tearing paper, scratching laptop surfaces and, sometimes, it breaks other stuff. The main problem is the UK standard 3-pin plug is not considered in the process of designing for mobility. My intention of the project was directed to make the plug as slim as possible and follow the British Standard regulation at the same time.”

I’m sure this design can be adapted for the varoious international  plugs and he has already developed a USB version. It will be interesting to see the product through into production and in its various guises across the world.  Its also astonishing that the design of the UK plug has hardly changed since 1946.  Little wonder that his radical redesign has won the Brit Insurance Design of the Year.

Desile Chair by Christian Desile for Vange  This is quite a beautiful graphic work, it looks wonderful folded down and hung on a wall. But the practicalities of the chair are also rather stunning. Its made from bamboo, a sustainable environmentally friendly material. And packed  down 100 chairs can be stored in a 2 metre stack. Its a chair that works in both in the home and for commercial use.

Robert Haslbeck’s Under-Koffer table Inspired by a rather more humble but functional trestle table table, Roberts version is less cumbersome. Easy to set up and pack down, once folded the table looks like a suitcase. The supporting frame slides up as the table is folded to create the handle. I rather like his choice of muted colours for the table top. 

Sanna Lindström and Sigrid Strömgren’s Grand Central Folding Coffee table. Inspiration for this came from the New York street map. Its an ingeniuos use of a traditional paper fold, and also a refreshing change to see a folding table that has a round top.

PEGA have created a range of vinyl decals or wall stickers that unfold to perform different functions. Influenced by origami; as its always useful to go back to the masters of folding when creating a folding piece, the work only reveals its function when opened. The light switches on and casts its shadow when the lampshade is pulled out.  The radio emits sound when the gramaphone trumpet is pulled out. The scent diffuser releases a puff of fragrance when the perfume bottle is pushed.  

Drawn from Clay by Atelier NL is a fascinating delve into the process of converting soil into usable pottery. As students Nadine Sterk & Lonny van Rijswijck, the pair behind Atelier NL, visited traditional workshops in Peru and Brazil where they saw artisans create vases from the earth around them. Taking this idea back home, they travelled around the Netherlands collecting natural clay and producing cups in  a variety of different colours and textures unique to the deposits. This work led the pair to being invited to continue their study by Jurgen Bey and Rianne Makkink on their farm in Noordoostpolder.

Working with local farmers they collected stories and buckets of clay from the parcels of land. “A bucket of soil is anonymous, but stories told by the farmer who works the soil gives the ground identity” 

The result of their work is a range of tableware, a homage to the vegetables that were once cultivated in the earth from which they were produced. 

Further work with Royal Tichelaar Makkum  has produced a  range of plates and bowls are available in six different types of local clay. Again the colour variations of the product are result of the chemical components of the clays used.

Baked by Formafantasma – Andrea Trimarchi, Simone Farresin. The collection is not strictly speaking from the earth, but the materials used certainly are. Commissioned for an exhibition during Dutch Design Week  on the theme “Getting Lost” the duo went back to their Italian roots for inspiration.

“To get lost during a design process is a beautiful luxury – it means you can follow your intuition and curiosity without aiming for a clear result. For this project we looked back at our design “memorabilia”: ideas, pictures and techniques we left behind.”

The Sicilian folk festival Salemi features architectural decorations created from flour based material. Baked expands on this, using  natural ingredients; flour, coffee, cocoa and spinach combined with salt, shellac and spices. A complex mix they experimented with to create durable pieces. 

 On a more commercial tip JIA international have produced a range which also seeks to connect the the clay with the end use of the products. The range has been named after the clay that has been used. ”Zisha”, also known as purple clay, is natural clay unique to China, found around Taihu in Jiangsu during the Northern Song Dynasty (1000-1200 A.D.). When fired, the purple clay assumes a fine and sandy texture that retains the temperature of the tea held inside longer than ordinary ceramics. Microscopic pores of Zisha absorb the fragrance of tea, keeping the tea’s freshness from spoiling. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, tea connoisseurs have considered Zisha teapots indispensable.

For all things ceramics Slipcast -The Ceramics Blog is an excellent read.

Shown at Stockholm Furniture Fair 2010 Paul Smith has taken a series of wood frame chairs and recovered them with stunning floral digital prints. We’re used to seeing this kind of “brown” furniture upholstered in floral damasks of different eras. The fabric not necessarily matching the era of the furniture. They’re the inherited pieces passed down or sold on for the next owner to recover in their own way. Smith has just done exactly this, but in an exaggerated form. Detailed, close shot, naturalistic images with saturated colour as opposed to the stylised rather more dainty fabrics of old. 

Reglo by Sophie Hedderwick. Having majored in both weave and experimental textiles Hedderwick’s work  reinvents traditional pieces by combining ancient techniques of weaving with sophisticated new material.  “it is an ancient art that can be endlessly re-invented and interpreted to produce new and exciting forms, although a 2D craft it can be rendered as almost sculptural in form depending on the materials used.  My work is now a fusion of the 2 disciplines. In the last 5 years I developed this experimentation further using wire with lights which adds another dimension to the weave. Also in this project I am weaving off-loom which is a challenge for any weaver. The idea was to produce a new weave structure that was strong enough to sit on without using a traditional woven seat style” .Using reclaimed vintage chairs Hedderwick has  re-woven the seat base with bright electo-luminescent wires that light up for 5,000 hours. New work currently in development will be shown in Milan this year at Designersblock at Zona Isola  

Richard Hutten -Playing with tradition for I+I Milanshown at Object Rotterdam 2010. Richard has taken a complex Persian rug design and stretched the pattern out. Prior to computers we’d find this quite a shocking treatment of the design.  Now we’re all used to whizzing down a web page and dragging the pixels along with us, it doesn’t seem peculiar at all.  

“For already many years I had the idea to do something with traditional oriental carpets. I have an antique Persian carpet at my home, which I still find the best carpets to have. The idea behind the carpet was to build a bridge between the old and the new, east meets west. From this starting point I looked at various ways to give a reinterpretation.

In my previous work I also used existing forms which I than reinterpret. For the carpet I did research in the various patterns available. Than I came up with the idea to stretch the carpet a certain point. I found out it’s very important where to start the stretching. On the traditional side I kept the fringes, on the contemporary side I made a clear cut.”

Portmanteau After Thonet by  Mathieu Lehanneur. Mathieu has taken a familiar coat stand and gone a little wild with the hangers. I’m  guessing but the advantage over the original may be that it can hold a little more. I seem to remember my parents old fashioned version was always so completely covered,you wouldn’t know what was under the mass of coats. Its certainly a witty remake of a familiar piece and I hope it will go into production. Apologies for the photo, I think I was a little phased out by Maison Objet at this point and as it is a proto-type I can’t find better images at the moment.

Float by Benjamin Hubert for Unique Copenhagen. The lamps are hand-turned out of Portuguese agglomerate cork blocks, the waste bits from the production of wine stoppers. Even the high volume of waste from creating the lamps can be converted back into blocks and turned again.  The cork emits a wonderfully warm glow when lit and the simplicity of the shape suits the agglomerated pattern of the material. http://www.benjaminhubert.co.uk

Cobu  Suspension Lamp by Giorgio Biscaro “I have always been fascinated by cork. It’s obtained from a plant whose life is not interrupted by this extraction, and this for me would be sufficient to declare it a great material. Moreover, cork has great qualities of insulation and mechanical resistance, so I thought it could be perfect for a lamp. The cork base in fact, sustain a glass screen, trough which the cables descend. The light is not direct, but is deflected by the ceiling and the colour of the cork warms this light in a special way. I played with different shapes and finishes, so you will find clear glass, smoked glass and varnished glass to choose from. I tried to endow this lamp with a strong sense of deja-vu, like recollection of bottle glasses, because I wanted it to be a warm, friendly, reassuring object.” http://www.seemantic.com/

 Plug by Tomas Kral is a range of products that transform the image of a simple cork bottle stopper. The principle of PLUG. The work is around the connection between glass as a hard and compact material and the cork, perfect porous material.The glass parts were done using free glass blowing. The cork parts were made out of the sheets of agglomerated cork which were milled using CNC. The corks parts used the marks from the CNC milling tool as a part of theirs construction. The idea is to build 3D objects by milling using 2D drawings. The objects function are simple. Side table, lamps, boxes, bowls. The idea was to put more attention on the connection between glass and the cork. 

Cork range by Hetta There’s nothing particularly radical about the range its just a  well done contemporary update . Simple graphic prints on tableware, its a no brain-er. Ahh the simplest of ideas ….one of those  why didn’t I do that… www..hetta.se 

Incidentally, to my shame I wrote this post accompanied by a screw top bottle of red….