Innehållsförteckning för November - December 2016 från Frame

Whether it’s a trade fair, a festival or a brand celebration, today’s events go all out to provide visitors with an extraordinary experience. Preferably one that you’ll remember days or weeks later – one that makes an unforgettable impact – because fairs, biennials and design weeks are facing cut-throat competition. From Vancouver to Tokyo, from Cape Town to Stockholm, hip design events are a global phenomenon. And they’re all part of a mad scramble to seize the few crumbs of time that creative-industry professionals allot to such functions. What’s more: established events are forced to compete with newbies in the same city. Take the Salone del Mobile in Milan: many creatives simply skip the mother of all design fairs nowadays and spend all their time visiting the proliferation of mainly…

FRAM3 Travel to Quyang with the digital magazine MATERIALS – Thanks to its rich mineral resources, the city of Quyang in Northeast China boasts some of the largest mining and stone-working industries in the country. Unfortunately, Quyang also ranks high on the list of Chinese cities with serious air-pollution levels, because of the dust generated by these activities. Even though the source of the dust cannot be eliminated, Central Saint Martins graduate Mi Zhang sees a potential solution in ‘mining’ the dust. Combining pine resin, natural local pigments and marble dust from Quyang, she engineered a durable and fully biodegradable material, demonstrating its physical possibilities in a series of abstract vessels. mizhang.co…

What makes you so crazy about glass? Glass is an endlessly dynamic filter for light and colour. It has a chameleonic quality and can take on the characteristics of other materials, although few other substances share the unique attributes of glass. The social nature of a glass-making team is a wonderful bonus as well. My team is instrumental in guiding and focusing my experiments, and the team members are also some of my best friends. In terms of location, what advantages does the Pacific Northwest have over traditional glass centres like Venice and the Czech Republic? Initially, I was drawn to the Seattle area because the glass-making community here is the largest in the country and is quickly becoming one of the largest in the world, second only to places…

The all-white Connesso chair you showed at Milan Design Week referenced work by Le Corbusier. Can you explain how? CAROLINE ERIKSSON: Le Corbusier had a utopian vision of the pure, cleansed, all-white city. He wanted every family to paint their house with white paint from the Ripolin brand, and he wanted the use of this paint to be regulated by law. Others also tried to control people in this way, including Mussolini, but his focus was on white marble from Carrara. So you were exploring a totalitarian vision in which the colour white is far from neutral? Yes. I wanted to make the observer question whether you should just look at the chair or use it as a seat. The big curved armrest is welcoming, but the all-white colour and…

CEO DAVIDE MALBERTI is planning Rimadesiofs 60th birthday celebrations with great enthusiasm. Founded in 1956 by Francesco Malberti and Luigi Riboldi, Rimadesio has its roots in the glass industry and its headquarters in Giussano, Italy, a small town on the outskirts of Milan. The company later shifted gears, ultimately establishing itself as a leader in the design and manufacture of high-end sliding doors and panels. In 2016 . a record year for Rimadesio . the firm reported a whopping growth of 25 per cent. To celebrate both its anniversary and its ongoing success, the company hosted four events, with special guest speakers and adventurers on hand, such as award-winning sailor Giovanni Soldini and astronaut Maurizio Cheli, who embody the companyfs core values: courage and innovation. Although sliding doors are known…

BATHROOMS – In the toilets of hipster cafés – recognizable by chipped bricks, old school chairs, East German industrial lamps above the bar, and tattooed staff with redundant but carefully coiffed facial hair – you’ll often find brass taps soldered to copper tubing. More money circulates in the tap industry annually than in the economy of a mid-size South American republic. Profits are already apparent at the DIY level: in Europe, for instance, the selection of taps found at an average Hornbach store takes up an entire aisle, generally at least 25 m long and reaching from floor to ceiling. It’s interesting to note that a large part of the DIY supply is based on the first Vola taps and mixers, designed by Arne Jacobsen in the early 1960s. He…

A historic building has a soul, a personality and a past that you have to take into consideration WALKING INTO Brönnums Hus Office Club, located on Kongens Nytorv, a public square in Copenhagen, is like entering a boutique hotel. Yet the listed building, built in 1866 and initially divided into private apartments for members of the city’s elite, offers not beds, but desks. Work meets hospitality at this so-called office club. It was Danish real-estate company Karberghus that had the former ticket-sales area and ballet school of the Royal Danish Theatre converted into a complex with an entrance-level cocktail bar and an ‘office hotel’ – four floors of serviced offices for today’s increasingly independent, desk-hopping, space-seeking workforce. Occupants can choose between flex spaces and rooms for permanent accommodation. Both options…

NEW YORK CITY — ‘Letting the product sell itself in a series of dedicated listening rooms,’ is how Partners & Spade’s Anthony Sperduti describes the design for the Sonos store that just opened in SoHo, a neighbourhood in the the heart of New York City. Founded in 2002, Sonos is committed to creating the best in home audio systems, and the SoHo flagship – the brand’s first appearance in NYC – illustrates its aim: to have ‘peerless audio transform the home’. Partners & Spade set out to provide customers with a superior home-listening experience in a rather limited 390-m2 retail space. The team installed seven small, cabin-like listening rooms in the store, each with its own props and personality. Custom furniture by Partners & Spade plays to ornamental shelf items…

THE BATHROOM isn’t just plumbing any more. And it’s definitely no longer the most embarrassing room in the house. It has become domestic space that we want to show off, if not linger in. You could call it the new living room, because it has become just as entertaining, is better for your health and is dedicated only to you, the you that no one else sees before you get dressed in the morning. Forward-looking bath brands – such as Duravit, which last year introduced the setagline ‘More individuality. More comfort. More you.’ – have been collaborating with international designers to offer ever-more ‘furniture-inspired’ designs with decorative detailing and silhouettes, much like the furniture found in the rest of the house. Versatile, multifunctional products encourage ‘individual bathroom design’ with materials…

TECHNOLOGY – Google’s DeepDream steps even closer to reality with Design 2.0, a project by Eddie Olin. By generating a feedback loop with a scanner and a 3D printer, the British creative led his computer to develop ‘its own visual language’, the result of random alterations that occurred as he printed up to eight scans of a single object. Olin gradually mutated images of Gerrit Rietveld’s furniture designs, ultimately making 3D-printed reproductions of the Dutchman’s simple rectilinear pieces, now transformed into jagged, polygonal blobs with minutely rippling surfaces. Viewers looking for a human presence in Olin’s work eventually come to the conclusion that what they are seeing are nonfunctional representations of Rietveld’s chairs. eddieolin.com…

PROCESS – Forget the labels on your post that warn of fragile contents. The Journey, a series of packaged objects designed by London-based Ying Chang, celebrates the pummelling of goods during shipping. It includes tools that encourage damage – of a vase, for example – and, in so doing, create unique patterns on the object’s skin as it travels from one destination to another. Shipping time, the final step in Chang’s design process, records the history of the trip in seismographic blemishes. Among the tools devised for The Journey are crayons that scribble colours on the surface of a boxed vessel and sharp-edged ‘grater’ panels that trap the contents and remain alert for the inevitable attack. During the trial run, an instrument of impairment accompanied each unsuspecting object, which was…

MATERIALS – The latest instalment of Mathieu Lehanneur’s Liquid Marble series assumed centre stage in the restored and redecorated Norfolk House Music Room at the V&A during this year’s London Design Festival. The monolithic slabs of hand-polished marble that highlight the French designer’s series demonstrate the transformation of a dynamic yet ephemeral moment into a solid, permanent object that relies on algorithmic 3D modelling for its sculptural quality. The result resembles the gently rippling surface of a calm sea. In its museum setting, resting lightly on a 30-cm-high pedestal, the piece took on a severe black hue, forming an arresting contrast to the ivory walls and baroque golden ornament of its stately surroundings. mathieulehanneur.fr…

Which materials are you researching? CHRISTOPHE GUBERAN: I’m interested in all sorts, especially the very familiar ones like paper, wood and textiles. I like to explore the possibilities that new technologies offer for using or combining their properties in fresh ways. Currently, I’m working with an interaction designer. We’re developing our own machines and processes, which will enable us to experiment and interact with various materials. I’m also collaborating with Skylar Tibbits on active materials at MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab, which has grown quite a bit in recent years. You studied industrial design at ÉCAL, and now you’re predominantly a researcher. Is product design a secondary concern? I’ve chosen to dedicate a few years to research, but I have kept my designer’s standpoint. My goal is to use the results of…

What do you hope to achieve during your residency at the Design Museum? RAIN WU: I have set out to challenge the traditional exhibition. My goal is to establish a formula that has a stronger resonance with gallery visitors. My background is in architecture, so I often think about wondrous places. I want to re-create this feeling into memorable moments for audiences. Without giving too much away, what can visitors to London’s Design Museum expect to find there? They will experience an installation through the senses that are usually silenced by our visually dominated world, namely smell, touch and sound. Is that why you use food as a storytelling device? When it comes to food, our survival instincts tell us to examine before we eat. I see food as the…

IF YOU’RE A HUSBAND-AND-WIFE graphic-design team living in sunny Queensland, where do you go when you want to expand your practice with products and furniture? For Joel and Kate Booy of Studio Truly Truly, moving into the world of the three-dimensional meant travelling farther than Australia’s design capitals, Sydney and Melbourne. The Netherlands beckoned and, specifically, Design Academy Eindhoven. ‘It has this hands-on approach,’ says Joel, who was attracted by the school’s conceptual, manual, physical and materials-led programme. Having worked for some time exploiting the rich potential of graphics, language and communication with considerable success, the Australian duo wanted to branch out into other forms of design, in hopes of creating ‘objects that have expression’ as well as function. ‘When we design, we’re interested in making things that work in…

BORN IN MANCHESTER, Liz West grew up in Yorkshire and studied at the Glasgow School of Art, where she began working with coloured light in her final year. Ever since, she has been crafting luminous, immersive installations that explore our physical and psychological relationships with colour. Recent pieces include Our Spectral Vision for the Natural History Museum in London, where, inspired by the collection, she filled the space with a rainbow display of dichroic glass: ‘It creates colour as butterfly wings do, by reflecting light.’ How did you get started with light and colour? LIZ WEST: When I was working obsessively with dripping paint, I started to film it to capture the moment when it was still wet, and I had this eureka moment – it was the light reflections…

Moooi Spaces 2008 Amsterdam 2015 New York City 2016 London and Tokyo SHOWROOMS 13 worldwide EVER SINCE his appointment as CEO of Moooi in 2015, Robin Bevers has played the cool and composed Yin, aptly balancing art director Marcel Wanders’ enthusiastic and expressive Yang. An encounter with the pair is all it takes to realize that their synergy is what’s catapulting the Dutch brand to cities far beyond the Netherlands. Wanders believes that the ‘opposites’ in their personalities explain ‘why we can do what we do. We are organized and we’re chaotic. We allow ourselves to be chaotic in the context of order – and not the other way round.’ Officially opened in 2008 as a gallery, Moooi’s 700-m2 showroom-cum-brand store in Amsterdam’s famous Jordaan neighbourhood encapsulates the type of…

FLORENCE — Italian café chain Vyta Santa Margherita makes its Florentine debut in the former first-class waiting room of the Santa Maria Novella train station. The intervention, headed by architect Daniela Colli of Collidanielarchitetto, seeks to consolidate the identity of the listed building with the venue’s contemporary luxuriance, creating a unique and engaging customer experience. Lavish archetypal materials forged into sleek, linear forms acknowledge the station’s rationalist aesthetic while presenting a fresh interpretation of Art Deco. The main attraction, a pink copper volume in the shape of an inverted L, is lined with bar stools on one side, while providing the patisserie on the other side with a rear wall and canopy. The striking volume comprises rectangular units whose thin, alternating combs establish a harmonic sequence of voids. Hypnotic, mirrored…

RIO DE JANEIRO —Rio 2016: an event riddled by the complexities of social injustice, tourism, security issues, traffic chaos, virus fears and doping scandals, not to mention sports achievements, celebration, national pride and – hospitality. Making a positive contribution to the Olympic Games with a compass of cultural activities, over 30 hospitality houses opened their doors in Rio de Janeiro. Designed with a diversity of intentions in mind, blurring the lines between national identities and branding strategies, a few stood out not only in content, but also in form. The bold though predictable formula behind Canada House had the nation’s flag as its main visual reference, a display of red and white and the country’s familiar maple leaves. The space, which provided comfort to Olympians and their kin, was the…

KENYA HARA WANTS US TO THINK about how we will live in the future. After organizing the first House Vision event to great acclaim in Tokyo in 2013, Hara – product designer, creative director at Muji and head of the Kenya Hara Institute, a design thinktank – curated a second show this summer. Under the theme Co-Dividual: Split and Connect/Separate and Come Together, House Vision 2 featured 13 full-scale houses by the likes of Kengo Kuma, Sou Fujimoto, Atelier Bow-Wow and Shigeru Ban, whose designs proposed new ways of living. To reach their solutions, they partnered with industry giants in various sectors – such as Panasonic, Muji, Toto and Toyota – to reimagine home and living environments. Each house responded to the event’s objective of ‘thinking about how to create…

What being an art director of one brand does for a designer’s relationship with other companies is an interesting question FURNITURE COMPANIES have become acutely aware of the importance of communicating their universe in a holistic way, using events not simply to display new items, but also to showcase their brand DNA. That's why big names in the furniture industry have been busy appointing high-profile designers and architects as art or creative directors – positions intended to safeguard the legacy of their brands and fine-tune them for a new era. We have seen several such appointments in recent years, featuring some very prominent names, including Hella Jongerius for Vitra, David Chipperfield for Driade, Patricia Urquiola for Cassina, Vincent Van Duysen for Molteni&C and Dada, and Piero Lissoni for De Padova…

Bathrooms today are about much more than just hygiene – they’ve become domestic spaces. What role do new products and materials play in this? TOM BURKE: People realize that there’s no point in wasting precious real estate. The bathroom is no longer a simple white box, and designers and consumers are looking for products that will make bathrooms differentiate from the plain, functional spaces we’re used to. Design centrepieces that make an impact are incredibly popular. The average consumer is becoming more informed about design and materials. People like to buy into a product that has a story and an element of craftsmanship to it. What makes the barrier-free home so attractive? Barrier-free homes are appealing because they let the light in. We’ve seen lots of examples of bathrooms in…

IF YOU CAST YOUR MIND BACK to our visit with Bette in Frame 105, you may recall that managing partner Thilo Pahl was about to meet a designer in Berlin to discuss plans for ISH 2017, the biennial showcase for bathroom innovation. We can now reveal that the mystery designer was Dominik Tesseraux of Tesseraux+Partner, whose relationship with the German bathroom-furniture company has its origins in a rather one-sided correspondence. ‘When I opened my design agency, I sent Bette a letter. I continued to send one every year for about a decade,’ Tesseraux tells me. ‘Eventually, I got a reply inviting me to a design competition. We started our presentation by saying that most of Bette’s products had too many details and that there was no clear design language. We…

THE DIETARY BENEFITS of cow’s milk might be a moot point, but Tessa Silva-Dawson makes a strong case for its design potential. ‘Milk contains high levels of protein, necessary for the production of casein plastics,’ she says. These plastics, which were popular at the start of the 20th century, were made from powdered milk but were soon replaced by oil-based polymers. As part of a materials investigation at London’s Royal College of Art, Silva-Dawson updated the process, using fresh milk sourced from Hook & Son, an organic dairy farm located in the county of East Sussex. It turns out that quite a bit of milk is wasted in the separation process required to make butter and cream, and Hook & Son was happy to provide Silva-Dawson with the otherwise discarded…

FRAM3 Check out Baiamonte’s mesmerizing sound installation in the digital magazine SOUND – Trained in graphic design at HEAD Genève, Julien Baiamonte seeks to bridge the gap between the rational and irrational in his work. His latest project, Vocal Chords of Spirit, investigates the relationship between technology and the occult. Modelled after 19th-century spirit trumpets – horn-shaped speaking tubes that were used in séances to channel voices from the ‘other side’ – the installation consists of two rotating plastic sculptures that form a tangible representation of sound waves. The eerie feedback they generate by simultaneously playing and recording an ambient soundscape is akin to electronic voice phenomena. Their circular movement distorts the audible frequencies of steel vibrations and wind echoes. julienbaiamonte.com…

TECHNOLOGY – You probably heard the term ‘infrared’ in that science class you attended aeons ago – but did you understand what it meant? The Chochin heater, designed by Kodai Iwamoto, is your chance to dig a little deeper. You might remember that infrared light waves, like radio waves, fall outside the visual spectrum. That fact is the key to infrared heating, which is produced by light invisible to the naked eye. Chochin resembles a traditional lantern and generates heat via infrared radiation, but with a twist. Carbon fibres incorporated into the eco-friendly appliance’s filaments produce twice the heat of infrared radiation without carbon and use only half the electricity. Aimed at the Japanese market, where central heating is not the norm, Chochin can be hung on the wall, tucked…

FRAM3 Be dazzled by Oscar Lhermitte and Kudu’s Moon inside the digital magazine TREND – Light is a subject of investigation for young designers who enjoy exploring the distinction between the functional and aesthetic qualities of luminous objects. In many of their works, mechanics are a defining aspect, enabling the creation of intriguing effects with high optical impact and often adding to the appearance of the lamp in question. Intended as more than a light source, these luminaires are both sculptural and functional. oscarlhermitte.com kudustudio.co onnoadriaanse.nl taktproject.com…

Your Semi-Human Vase fuses nature and culture. What potential do you see for a design-related approach to science? HONGJIE YANG: Collaborations between science and design can be really inspiring, especially for the designers and scientists involved. Scientific research brings about so much innovation, but the emerging discoveries often elude our grasp. I’m interested in finding alternative aesthetics that can reflect current conditions, raise questions and provoke. People can be quite critical of the results, but that’s exactly the reaction I’m looking for. The Primitive Collection suggests that labgrown human material is a source of new opportunities for designers and artisans. What moral implications might this entail? Moral ideas within a society evolve over time; it’s an ongoing process. The world needs daring people who are not afraid to provoke. Sometimes…

The way I design is through making; I can’t design hypothetically MAX LAMB: It’s quite hard to describe a typical day, because one of the trademarks of my practice is that nothing is really typical. There is no timetable or schedule. That said, I’m generally late to bed – about 2 a.m. – which means I’m late to rise. I try and get e-mails out of the way early or when I’m in transit. I do them on my phone; I find it much quicker, I write less and I’m less precious about it. I’m a designer, and I want to be creative in the broadest sense of the term, so the more time I spend making and the less time communicating the better. You have to learn to be…

PARIS — ‘There’s an interesting echo between jewellery and architecture,’ says OMA partner Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, discussing the project his office realized for Italian luxury jeweller Repossi on Place Vendôme. Jewellery in architecture – an intersection that Laparelli defines as two disciplines investing in the human body – is exemplified by the Paris store. Repossi is a jewellery house whose work under artistic director Gaia Repossi links the minute scale of jewellery to the more environmental concerns of architecture. OMA quite literally mirrored the brand’s philosophy, mediating architecture and display through a series of kinetic elements that refract into smaller, individual experiences. The concept, says Laparelli, is based on ‘architecture that is not just a backdrop but something activated by the interaction of people’ – never merely reflecting, but offering…

TURIN — In today’s retail world, it seems there’s only room for a future that embraces bricks-and-mortar blurred with e-commerce, next-gen technology, and ramped-up, rockstar special effects. Think of it as ‘flagship meets mother ship’. Centuries away from the hype, however, is an elegant 1600s palazzo at the heart of Turin, Italy, which houses luxury fashion boutique Lagrange 12. Milan-based design practice Dimore Studio, responsible for the fit-out, is clearly not into starry-eyed futurism. Indeed, the studio’s Emiliano Salci and Britt Moran are known for their focus on an aesthetic that blends past with present, vintage with contemporary. As Lagrange 12 shows, Salci and Moran are connoisseurs of mood. Their stylistic language draws art, design, architecture and fashion into an intimate conversation that goes beyond past eras and current styles.…

FRAM3 A visit to the digital magazine discloses even more footage from the London Design Festival THE HISTORY OF THE DESIGN FAIR is complex, and its future promises to be even more so. Recent years have witnessed a proliferation of such events and their not-so-gradual evolution into an annual circuit eagerly followed by designers, journalists, curators and bloggers. As the phenomenon blazes on, leaving not scorch marks but seedlings for even more fairs and festivals in its wake, it seems like a good time to review the development of this spectacle and to contemplate its future. The roots of today’s design festivals – prime examples being Milan’s Salone del Mobile and the London Design Festival (LDF) – reveal a long history of expos, biennials, world’s fairs and more. Lacking any…

KALDEWEI started in 1918 as a small family business specializing in the manufacture of raw materials for the enamel industry, eventually becoming what it is today: a leading company in the bath and shower sector. Kaldewei’s pivotal moment came in the early 1970s, when third-generation CEO Franz-Dieter Kaldewei decided to have design play a more important role in the business. Before long, Kaldewei was enlisting the help of heavyweights like Italian outfit Sottsass Associati and Phoenix Design Stuttgart/Tokyo. More recent collaborations – led by marketing and PR manager Arndt Papenfuß – demonstrate the company’s continued drive to push the limits of steel enamel through the power of design. Franz-Dieter Kaldewei started commissioning external designers in 1973. What prompted this new direction? ARNDT PAPENFUSS: In the early ’70s, Franz-Dieter – father…

bathrooms today are about much more than just hygiene – they’ve become domestic spaces. What role do materials play in this? ELI FEIGLIN: The use of natural materials has become part of a leading trend. Reflecting this trend, Caesarstone's Supernatural Collection – inspired by the forms and patterns found in nature – has proven successful as a surface for countertops, walls and floors. The materials are durable and able to withstand wet environments, while retaining the quality and beauty of natural stone, features so typical of Caesarstone products. What makes the barrier-free home so attractive? The increasing popularity of an open or semi-open bathroom in or bordering on the bedroom is partially influenced by the hospitality industry, which tends to merge private areas with living spaces. How is Caesarstone adapting…

PERHAPS AN OFFSHOOT of DIY culture, the Do It At Home trend continues to turn domestic space into spa and vice versa. Influenced by everything from the Japanese tea ceremony and the Roman bath to Turkish hammams, Nordic saunas and sci-fi futurism, brands are transforming space once devoted merely to hygiene into environments for luxurious self-improvement, suggesting that we can be responsible for maintaining our own mind-body balance — no chatty masseuses, no noisome locker keys or ill-fitting slippers, and no appointments to make, except with oneself.…

Achille & Pier Giacomo Castiglioni Active in urbanism, architecture and product design, the Castiglioni brothers helped make Milan the design capital it is today. Between the 1940s and Pier Giacomo’s death in 1968, they created a variety of products for brands like Kartell, Flos and Alessi. They won countless Compasso d’Oro awards, including one for lifetime achievement. Among their more influential works are two iconic lamps, Arco and Taccia, both examples of the duo’s rigorous design process and pursuit of aesthetic elegance. We wouldn't dare change an object without respecting the designers’ achoices FRAM3 Hear from Achille Castiglioni himself in the digital magazine 1958 The Castiglioni brothers make the first prototype of the Taccia lamp A DESIGN ICON IS TIMELESS, but the technology first used in its manufacture is not.…