Inga Sempe’s Ruche bed for Ligne Roset was a last minute change. “I thought this was going to be blue!” she said as she bounced onto the bed shown at  Maison et Objet. A quick change  had been made to a softer feminine nude tone for the room set. As you can see from the image Inga left the bed unmade!

Also at Maison Object the Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec display had their Slow Chair for Magis in brighter ice cream pink.

The theme continued into Milan where any number of chairs appeared in fleshy tones through to deep raspberry.

Bouroullec’s Quilt chair for Established & Son was updated in a faded pink.

Stefan Diez Houdini Chair mixed pink with dark leather.

Floris Schoonderbeek’s Axe chair also has a pink version.

Patricia Urquiola’s Klara Chair for Moroso was amongt many pink pieces on the Moroso stand.

Comet Chair Gunilla Allard for Lammhults comes in a range of pinks from soft light through to raspberry.

Maarten Baas used very fleshy tone of pink for his Clay range at Spazio Rosana Orlandi

Home accessories have also had the pink treatment Established & Son’s new Serve tray is edged in raspberry.

For textiles pink is an accent. Seen here Sebastain Wrong’s Zig Zag rug for Established & Sons, and finally Studio Makkink & Bey for Hay Studio who’s rug also appeared on the Vitra stand.
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Jaime Hayon’s Multileg Table for BD Barcelona Four different wonderfully weighty wood turned legs made of Alderwood.

Boca Do Lobo’s Royal Dining Table transforms from  traditional  chippendale legs at one end then blasted into a vectorised future at the other. The vector pattern continues across the table top mixing old and new pattern with very high traditional quality.

As you can imagine there were plenty of fabulous legs at Milan this year.

Floris Schoonderbeek’s Axechair Chair uses a traditional axe handle from Swedish axe maker Gränsfors as its legs.  Set into a cast iron chair base it  maintains the connection with the axe.

Thomas Schnur Rubber Table is inspired by the humble sink plunger and made entirely of rubber. You could stick the whole table onto the wall… but then it wouldn’t really be a table. It might me of more use outside on an uneven surface as each of the rubbery legs are bendable.

The final set of super legs from Milan I’ve shown before but are worth looking at again and were from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago

I’m looking forward to seeing the final set of legs in the flesh at next months London Design Festival

Bambi Table by Norwegian designer Caroline Olsson is an adjustable two-height table with legs that fold back underneath, the joints inspired by the movement of the knee joint. The table will debut at 100% Design as part of the 100% Norway stand from September 22 to 25, 2011.
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There’s a bit of a blur in the distinction between art and design. Functional products and merchandise can’t be classed as art can they?  Both go through a creative (and sometimes torturous) process  and then get tangled up in methods of selling and the exchange of money. Art and Design products use the language and methods of each other to do exactly the same thing to sell, to engage with an audience and to confront us with another way of seeing, making and living. And this language and process is even seeping into the high street; stores offer  “a range of carefully curated products” displayed in an almost gallery style by a named artist or designer.  Meanwhile in a bid to connect with a wider audience Art galleries shift from their intimidating surroundings to Fairs and Markets. Within all of this is the need to reflect a changing world, with Art, Design, and down the the business end Retail, all responding to a changing expectation from consumers; they’re wanting an experience, an emotional reaction, not just a passive presentation of products and work. So to provide the unexpected Art goes to the market Design goes to the gallery. You could even argue that retail’s love of the pop-up is like the underground art event. With all this borrowing from each other its difficult to see where art and design differ, collectors have become attracted to both further blurring the Art Design debate.

Last week Frieze Art fair popped up  in London and generated tens of millions of pounds of Art sales in a tent in Regents Park. You could not only see the work of  the artists  but also meet and even get temporary tattoo by one of them. Here’s David Shrigley tattooing I love O’s onto a willing participant.

At the same time as Frieze Super Design, now in its 4th year offered a smaller design alternative ; a show that brings together galleries and their limited edition pieces by some of the most innovative designers.  Super Design borrows the style and presentation of the art show to allow us to critique the work in the manner of a work of art . But its not art and its not really pretending to be art.  That’s not to denigrate the work on show here.  It simply has a function that art does not need to play. Art has no practical function; it grabs us on another level and draws on a range of  emotional reactions, amongst them the ability to shock. One of my favourite “reactions” from Frieze last week was another visitors exclamation “Ughhh! What is going through these people minds!?!”  Now to me the little animations we were peeping through holes to view were not that shocking at all; but it just shows how we all have our own thoughts on what art is.What Super Design does show is how designers have been experimenting, pushing the boundaries of what is functional, and playing with our curiosity  by appealing on a playful, aesthetic and emotional level.

On a playful level here is the work of  Marcus Tremonto,  he showed a number of his electroluminescent film lights, but here is his more mischievous work he did with Kidrobot’s Munny character.

The show owes more to theory behind Critical Design offered by London based design duo Dunne & Raby.  Designers have been pushed into creating products that conform to functional requirements and the means of mass production. Critical Design challenges this conformity and encourages experimentation on every level. As Dunne says “One of its roles is to question the limited range of emotional and psychological experiences offered through designed products. If you decouple design from the mass market, what do you get? A change of attitude and approach. So the role of Critical Design is to make us think and to raise awareness , expose assumptions, provoke action, spark debate – a way of looking at design and re imagining its possibilities beyond the narrow definition presented through the media and in shops.”

Grey Derivations by  Maarten Baas for Mitterrand+Cramer Design is a response to the edition process in relation to the production process. The man hours spent creating each piece and nuanced changes from the method of production made the notion of each being an edition nonsense. Apart from the desk light which can be created using a mould the other5  pieces in the series are unique. This approach has given Baas the freedom to create work in a spontaneous intuitive way  in his studio in the Dutch countryside.  The desk shown here would never be allowed to go into mass production, it wouldn’t be allowed in a shop. Once the desk is closed the two red front legs become horns poking out of the lid -you can just imaging the “health and safety” issues! Using design as a means of self expression doesn’t mean that work has to be handcrafted and exclusive. After all it was Baas who sold the cheapest design product of the Milan fair with his 99cent Iphone app.

Studio Makkink & Bey showed their De Amersfoot Chair. An advocate of Critical Design here are Jurgen Bey’s thought on the idea. “Critical Design is an area where I feel comfortable because I think it’s important to make your voice heard through design. Its not about being against things but about staying critical, particularly in the case of sustainable design. It’s about finding the right balance with progress. To change someones views you need to make them more curious . Its what I like about being a designer. You’re allowed to question things. Its not an exact science and there’s a big area where you can move quite freely and come to your answers. If you rethink things, the answers are about what you can do and how you can do it. You have your questions and ask what if….?’ Then you follow where this takes you.”

Dimitri Vangrunderbeek’s Lacquered Steel Cabinet (pictured below). Figures have been cut out of the steel and stride across the surface of the work casting shadows as light hits the piece. You get the sense of the figures moving as you walk past the piece.

Gareth Neal’s Urban Picnic transforms the ubiquitous bench. We’re familiar with the design but the only hand treatment we usually see on it is hand carved graffiti not intricate marquetry. The piece was a response to the question of “The Great British Weekend” and was originally displayed as a pop-up urban picnic in the east end of London

Art Deco  by comparison to its younger sibling, has been unappreciated; I say sibling but really Art Deco is more of the grand dame of Modernism. I’ve been sitting on this Art Deco piece for months but with the re-opening of a true grand dame of the period the Savoy Hotel,  its seems timely to post this.

So here are a few products that have either been re-issued or have features  reminiscent of  the period.

Lee Broom One Light Only. Launched last month at the London Design Festival the work is inspired by Art Deco jewellery and also decadent 70’s photography. Stylists from the 70’s weren’t averse to referencing the Wiemar years (think of the film Cabaret) so you can see the connection. The use of facets and gold are certainly Art Deco 

Himmeli Chandelier by Paul Loebach  for the new American lighting manufacturer Roll & Hill

The inspiration for the piece actually came from a traditional Finnish craft of making Christmas ornaments but I certainly feel that the geometry, facets and particularly use of the glass lanterns gives a certain Deco-ness to the work even though the intention lay elsewhere. That said; Artek (mentioned below) is a Finnish company and the classic chair uses a traditional bent wood technique  -so there is a connection of sorts!

Two Art Deco classic were dusted down, re-issued and re-worked earlier this year. I doubt they’ve ever been out of production but the were both given the attention they deserve.

Artek re-issued the 1936 Armchair 400 by Alvar Aalto but in a new spectacular Missoni cover. The chair was shown a Spazio Rossana Orlandi amongst the eclectic mix of beautifully designed products that span all eras of design history.

Vanity Fair by Poltrona Frau is a reissued classic from 1930. An original that spawned a thousand copies it seemed appropriare that little minatures were dotted about the stand to emphasis its classic status.

Glas light from  Diesel  and  Foscarini is a work that has a more of an industrial Deco feel. Although personally I prefer the rather wonderful original examples you can find over at Skinflint Design

Finally still on the industrial tip heres Tom Dixon Pressed Glass Light Bead . The glass has been produced in a factory more used to manufacturing industrial glass. It was launched last year as part of the Industry Collection.

There was a time when you either used synthetic materials or natural and which ever path you followed the two should never be mixed.  The idea that something natural should be tainted by dare I say it….plastic! No no no…..But why? We don’t have to be so polarised in our treatment of materials. And well; plastic in its various forms isn’t a new material is it?  It’s moving into the realms of collectible antiques and with that we are also becoming well aware of its durability. Apparently there is huge mass of plastic floating in the Pacific stubbornly refusing to decompose. Perhaps one day this floating mass rubbish will be recycled, up cycled and converted back into something useful again. I like to think that its become home to a whole range of sea creatures evolving in their own weird way but in the mean time here are some designers who have more logical thought process as regards mixing natural with synthetic.

Pictured above and seen here is  Rawtation by Adi Zaffran Weisler

“As I was learning the industrial process of plastic rotational molding I discovered the potential for combining raw organic elements in the process. I tried creating a method where the meeting point between the organic and the synthetic is made by the rotational molding process without the need for cold joints or complex adjustments. The manufacturing process uses pruned branches, trunks and foliage combined with plastic which creates the joints.”

TransPlastic by the Campanas’ brothers are pieces that use a combination of plastic and a Brazilian fibre called apui. Left unchecked apui wraps around and slowly suffocates the trees on which it grows. An so with a clever bit of irony and handicraft the fibre is reworked in wicker to “suffocate” the plastic chair. The Campanas’ brothers have continued to work with this fibre combining it with glass for their exhibition with Venini at Waddesdon Manor this year

 Industry Series by Studio Job.  Using a mix of contemporary and traditional  iconography they draw on the same themes and images used for the Gospel According to Saint Job displayed in Milan last year. Tanks, grenades ,helicopters, insects and butterflies, chimneys billowing smoke, skeletons all feature in this homage to the marquetry methods of André- Charles Boulle.  Dispensing with bright colours used in the Bavarian series the inlays look like fossils of an industrial age. Laser cut pieces of white birds eye maple have been set in Indian Rosewood in a symmetrical layout. We expect symmetry in marquetry but the effect here is like the inkblot patterns of Rorschach. Its no coincidence that these pieces are a commentary on the collective psyche and our concerns with the mass destruction associated with industrialism.

The work can be seen at the Carpenters Workshop Gallery and are sold as limited edition pieces starting at over $30,000.   

Curiously it is a fashion designer rather than a furniture designer who has probably done more to promote the craft. Stella McCartney has repeatedly used marquetry and commissioned UK companies to produce work in different forms for her new stores. For her London store Aryma were commissioned to produce a contemporary angel that glides across the wall. The use of colour and complexity of the piece is an eye opener to the versatility of marquetry. 

In her Milan store, the ground floor is covered in oak parquet arranged in a multicolored pattern created by the Israeli designer Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay for Established & Sons. The store opened in February 2010 and had the official launch during Salone del Mobile last week.

Toby Winteringham’s work made with Patternity is another example of colourful geometry. Pictured above is his Shift coffee table made of sycamore with coloured veneer. Its an exciting and bold use of marquetry and a wonderful example of how a traditional craft can be spliced with contemporary graphics. Shift was launched along with the Patternity Bureau (pictured below) at Salone Satellite this month.

 Since writing this I’ve found a rather wonderful blog on marquetry http://www.miartstudioblog.com/ Do please click through and amire the work.

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.  

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.

Do we have too much….stuff? Are our wardrobes bursting at the seams, all manner of clothing bits and bobs tumbling out? I have to confess, I would love to say I have everything neat and ordered, shoes boxed and labelled, but … no, in my dreams! 

Muscle by Giorgio Biscaro is a storage unit that shamelessly flaunts your happiness with organised chaos. The metal top and bottom are joined by elastic threads that you stretch to push your belongings in. There are no doors or sides to hide and contain your mess.   

 ”You can fill the inner part of the container as you like it, even more than what the bases can accept, because even if protruding, objects won’t fall thanks to the elastic wall, recalling a bulging biceps.” For more of Giorgio’s work  www.seemantic.com

 Soft Wardrobe by Katharina Ludwig

Katharina wardrobe does at least allow you to hide the extent of your untidiness  

“The soft wardrobe is supported and shaped by the strength and volume of the things put inside.
Its walls are not hard and supporting, but  soft like the clothes and flexible. They react in a certain way to the content and the way you fill the wardrobe.. Like this it changes its character according to the filling and becomes more alive.” For more of Kathy’s work http://www.kathyludwig.com/

Zak n2 Shelving by Casimir Meubelen.

Ahh the plastic bag…it can be stuffed with a whole host of things and they conveniently expand as we cram more and more in. With this everyday object in mind Casimir have built on the concept – literally. The bags have a sturdy oak frame and the plastic has been replaced with leather, which is perhaps not quite as stretchy but at least it won’t suddenly split and spill the contents across the floor.

Not on the storage theme but certainly a design that’s bursting out at you is Puff and Flock’s Spiky shower curtain. Rather than look at ways to contain the spoils of our over consumption, Elisabeth Buecher looked at how to discourages us from consuming too much. Her work explores the environmental issues of over consumption of water and is aimed at provoking debate rather than a serious product proposal.

The shower curtain allows the user 4 minutes to shower before gradually bursting out at you and leaving you no space left to shower in. So you stop.

Its interesting that since hearing about this design, each time I shower I’ve started to think “how long have I been in here?…. must stop…must stop…”   www.puffandflock.com