Asif Khan is a young architect in an enviable position. He’s been hailed by Design Miami 2011 as a ‘Designer of the Future’, written up in the New York Times as one of five designers to watch this year, and awarded a prestigious ‘designer in residence’ slot at the Design Museum – the first architect ever to be given that honour. And all within a couple of years of setting up his own practice.

The Design Museum marks Sir Terence Conran’s 80th birthday with a major exhibition that explores his unique impact on contemporary life in Britain. Through his own design work, and also through his entrepreneurial flair, Conran has transformed the British way of life. As well as this, his design studio and architectural practice have a world wide reach. The Way We Live Now explores Conran’s impact and legacy, whilst also showing his design approach and inspirations. The exhibition traces his career from post-war austerity through to the new sensibility of the Festival of Britain in the 1950s, the birth of the Independent Group and the Pop Culture of the 1960s, to the design boom of the 1980s and on to the present day.

To compliment the exhibition, the Design Museum in collaboration with Blueprint,  has produced a book that features an exclusive interview by Johnny Tucker with Terence Conran and contributions from Deyan Sudjic, Stephan Bayley, Christopher Frayling and Fiona MacCarthy.

Blueprint has 10 copies of the book and ten pairs of tickets for the exhibition “Terence Conran: The way we live now” which runs until 04 March 2012 at the Design Museum. For a chance to win, send us your details including your name, email, contact number and address at info@blueprintmagazine.co.uk

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Architectural Association School of Architecture,
Bartlett School of Architecture,
Birmingham Institute of Architecture and Design,
Brighton School of Architecture,
Bucks New University,
Welsh School of Architecture: Cardiff,
Central Saint Martins,
University of Dundee,
Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL),
Glasgow School of Art,
Goldsmiths College,
Greenwich University,
Kent University,
Kingston University,
London Metropolitan University,
London South Bank University,
Manchester School of Architecture,
University of Nottingham,
Nottingham Trent University,
University of Portsmouth,
University of Plymouth,
Royal College of Art,
Sheffield University,
University of Westminster,

The Panel

Architectural Association School of Architecture

Edward Pearce, Dip Arch, website

‘The toxic garden infiltrates the iron ore resource supply chain in Western Australia, specifically in Port Hedland, in the Pilbara region. Fine iron ore dust, the primary by-product of the industry, cloaks the surrounding townscape. The proposal, a Toxic Garden, is an innovative infrastructure, parasitically leeching from existing industrial facilities. The “Toxic Garden” has been developed through a series of dust and electrical simulations, rather than conventional drawing. The architect becomes a choreographer of effects and phenomena, rather than discreet built objects,’ says Pearce.

Aram Mooradian, Dip Arch, website

Drawing inspiration from the gold trade in Australia and the Aboriginal civilisation and culture that it disrupts, Mooradian says his work, entitled ‘The Comprehensive Atlas of Gold Fictions’, attempts to ‘[examine] the pathologies that we often take for granted, the fictions that we live and shape our futures by, through a catalogue of gold objects. Gold – our most precious resource – is valued above all other things not for its material value but for an entirely virtual one.’

Samantha Lee, Dip Arch, website

The Australian mineral trade inspired Lee’s work, which intends to ‘explores the space of the mining survey as a parallel site for intervention, where I have engineered a seasonal network of mysterious dreamtime anomalies. Anchored around aboriginal sacred sites these mythic objects slowly stalk the contested territory, distorting mining cartographies to generate a new form of landscape representation. These new anomalies of points and numbers, inserted into a purely economic dataset, are the ghosts of aboriginal sacred waterholes which have dried up due to mining activity’.

Bartlett School of Architecture

Bong Yeung, Dip Arch

‘The Lee Valley Super-Farm: Institute of Fresh Fruit & Vegetables in London examines the challenges of food and fuel supplies that the UK faces in economic, environmental and social terms. The project explores potential agricultural technologies that can boost productivity and environmental performance: hydroponic farming and the closed-glasshouse system,’ says Yeung. The project was communicated through exquisite hand drawing and delicate paper models that convey the depth of the complex landscape that it occupied. Yeung’s draughtmanship is testament to the power of architectural drawing.

Erika Suzuki, Dip Arch

Designed in response to the quantity of paper wasted by the City each day, Suzuki’s ‘Her Majesty’s Paper Factory’ aims to provide sustainable production and recycling of paper. ‘The new paper factory directs its attention towards recycling this paper waste, creating a closed loop within the City in which paper is recycled and reused within the Square Mile, and there is no need to transport waste to other destinations,’ Suzuki says.

Nada Tayeb. BSc (Hons) Architecture

‘Deconstructing the conventions of traditional theatre and auditorium layout, this opera house offers a contemporary viewing experience to a traditional performance; dealing with issues of communism, censorship and propaganda. Comprised of three simultaneous audiences watching a single and constant performance, the audiences intermittently circulate to subsequent auditoriums which offer entirely unique viewing experiences. The versatility of the stage and performative spaces serve a didactic purpose of “indoctrinating” the masses as Chinese theatre was believed to furnish good moral behaviour. The theatre acts as a mechanism to implicitly reinforce certain communist symbols and ideologies,’ says Tayeb.

Steven Baumann, Diploma/MA Architecture

Baumann’s work examines the disconnection between humanity and nature in urban buildings. ‘Combing the programmes of necropolis, power station, and orchard, The New London Necropolis seeks to address our relationship with life-cycles in planning the contemporary City of London,’ Baumann says. ‘The programmes intertwine to inhabit the same volume and site utilising their allegorical potential to manage the interdependent cycles of life and death, energy charge and dissipation, and blossom and decay that are housed in its fabric.’

Birmingham Institute of Architecture and Design

Paul Watt, BA Architecture

‘This project creates a solution for spending foreign aid, which can directly affect the people of Stoke-on-Trent and global refugees, within UK shores by creating a global school for 3D printing,’ says Watt. ‘The project celebrates the arrival of large automated digital fabrication; the Contour Crafter, a machine that will change the face of foreign aid, as refugee ‘towns’ will be ‘printed’ within days, not years. Local businesses will educate up to 10,000 refugees over a three-year period, teaching refugees to provide and support themselves using the contour crafter to 3D print fully customized consumer goods, creating novel businesses and social attractions, which will entice consumers and visitors to engage in Stoke’s deprived economy.’

Victoria Crozier, MA Architecture

Crozier’s project creates a possible solution to the stoppage of waste collection by Dagenham Council last year. ‘[The public] set up a rubbish collection scheme and dump waste on land at the coast of Dagenham. The risk of flooding from the River Thames is high and local people react by creating sea walls using the dumped rubbish,’ Crozier imagines. ‘The barrier is a structure which reacts of the force of the changing tide, adapting, moving and growing when a need is identified. The architecture is created based on the knowledge that local people with low skill bases and no funding must resource these found objects [which form the barrier] themselves.’

Brighton School of Architecture

Matthew Jeniec, Architecture

Concerned at the possibility of gentrification in Brixton, Jeniec attempts to create a centre that would increase social interaction and mix cultures and societies. ‘The re-imagined BHC [Black Heritage Centre] proposes a symbiotic relationship between “institute” and “existing” through the utilisation of architecture as a means to facilitate new kinds of “social situations” and experiences within the existing community,’ Jeniec believes. ‘Rentable retail spaces (as part of the Brixton Enterprise Hub) sit within the BHC’s physical territory, allowing local businesses to benefit from the institution’s footfall as well as providing a more locally sensitive means of generating profit.’

Bucks New University

James Uren, BA Contemporary Furniture

‘The Luso lounger is a modern reinterpretation of the chaise longue. It evolved from looking at redundant furniture, and reinventing it to suit the way in which we live today. The addition of a footstool means that there are a number of ways it can be used: as a day bed, lounger, chair, footstool. The Luso lounger is an interesting asymmetrical form that is versatile and makes excellent use of space. The under-frame has been constructed using American cherry; the shell is lacquered plywood,’ says Uren.

Welsh School of Architecture: Cardiff

Angharad Palmer, MA Architecture, website

This project derives a method of settlement planning from analysis of the interdependence of the living components of organic cells. The starting point of the thesis is the notion that each component of the settlement has the ability to generate, store and distribute its own energy to every other component of the settlement. What makes the project fascinating is the way that the energy symbiosis generates such rich spatial and formal pattern. The development of the project through each stage of radical up-scaling is skilful and completely convincing. Diagrams, visuals and models are used beautifully to develop the narrative, and the absence of conventional architectural renderings comes across as a strength, not a weakness.

Ben Hansen, MA Architecture

As it does, periodically, prefabrication has returned to centre-stage in the architectural debate. We turn to it reluctantly, as we know that the most valued buildings are those that define the individual character of places. For this project the buildings are university research labs and the site is in Camden. The proposal is for a very permanent sculptured, concrete plinth with projecting service cores from which the transient accommodation blocks are hung. The form of the concrete plinth is derived from existing and historic contextual lines. It is an engaging idea, one often explored before, but this particular project demonstrates better than most how simple, mass-produced forms can yield rich urban patterns, provided the stage is set intelligently in advance.

Suzanne Prest, MA Architecture, website

A popular brief with students, the health spa demands no great functional rigour, provided the combination of space and setting captures a sense of spiritual harmony. Prest’s project starts from the right place: an abandoned quarry. There should be more projects like this, as these sites are abundant in Wales, overlooked but loaded with potential. The combination of cliff-face carving and embellishment echoes the beauty of Pueblo Indian cliff settlements. The project is expertly developed from its stringent landscape analysis through to its beguiling finished presentation.

Central Saint Martins

Anne Frobeen, MA Design (Furniture)

‘Simple Line chairs were created to help open up the body during sitting, a result of a MA research thesis completed at Central Saint Martins. Entitled Kinesthetic Imagination, the thesis proposes that by engaging the body in the design process, the designer is able to “see” latent design criteria, which might be overlooked using many contemporary design methodologies that are often centered around new materials or manufacturing processes. This project is a direct critique of the way that the design industry often pushes innovation through the use of materials, manufacturing process and the aesthetic that comes along with this,’ says Frobeen.

Jan Rose, MA Product Design, website

‘The Knitting Craftsman is a response to the ongoing trend of amateur craft making and professional rapid prototyping, resuming this craft technique to see what craft can teach us in the light of the present capacities of industry,’ says Rose. ‘Craftsmanship is a valuable tool for pushing forward innovation in manufacturing process and material production, therefore material and process take the lead in design thinking. Reusing knitting as a future manufacturing process is a critique of mass production, extensive consumerism and people’s perception of materials.’

Jessika Strataki, MA Communication Design (Digital Media), website

‘The Word Machine processes sentences from a database. It then attempts to map meaning in three-dimensional space using a set of rules of interpretation. The Word Machine will place the selected sentence in an angle in all 3 axes (x, y, z), each of which has been assigned its own meaning parameter of polar opposites,’ Strataki says. ‘The X axis stands for macro versus micro, Y axis for quantitative versus qualitative and Z axis objective versus subjective. The machine measures the meaning of the sentence by adding up the total of the key words within it, which have a specific predetermined measurement. These are defined in a growing Word Machine dictionary.’

Niloufar Afnan, MA Furniture Design, website

‘Inviting Surfaces begun initially through a four year length photography research on the cultural resilience of the Lebanese people, and grew from this research the development of contemporary furniture pieces,’ Afnan explains. ‘The collection of works questions the different possibilities of medium and form that can correspond to the associations of a table and chair. It is an exploration of new possibilities to fulfill common associations such as a seat, table surface or legs. To what extent does it affect our cognitive understanding of furniture? And how does it allow us to perceive solutions for broken objects?’

University of Dundee

Lewis Benmore, MA Architecture, website

New Nature: A Shifting Paradigm challenges the disengagement between humankind and a landscape in flux. It provides the portrait of a fragile coastal region, Walton-on-Naze, as a complex environment made through both endogenous and anthropogenic influences. For centuries man has adapted to this shifting landscape however recent attempts have been made to control the natural process of erosion. The architectural response entails a series of structures comprising a seawater desalination plant, which aims to re-establish a community within the fragile ecology that exists on the site. The physical manifestation of the plant engages with the backwaters, forming a symbiotic relationship between industry and nature.

Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL)

Brynjar Sigurðarson, MA Product Design, website

Sigurðarson’s project consists of a group of objects designed around an imaginary hunter. The items include a stool partly made from hardened leather, which becomes rigid when it contacts hot water. Another is a backpack designed specifically for hunting. The vague animal shape of the backpack is designed to attract animals to the backpack, unaware of the intentions of the hunter. Collectively, the objects Sigurðarson has designed form a group of extraordinary hunting tokens.

Glasgow School of Art

Daniela Corda, BA Jewellery and Silversmithing

Corda works in non-precious metals to accentuate the effort of craft as opposed to the value of the material, and her use of synthetic stones accentuates this question of reality. Corda says: ’My work is an expression of my passion for philosophy, cosmology, alchemy and time. I am fascinated by the ever-thinning line between illusion and reality, and so I aim to create a realm of curious instruments that are beautifully pseudo yet undeniably wearable. The symbol of the brain is a predominant theme within my pieces and I use it to represent the evolution of the zeitgeist.’

Goldsmiths College

Kristina Cranfield, BA Design, website

Cranfield’s project, Ownership of the Face, questions the modern attitudes towards identity. ‘This project is part of an explorative journey that initially stemmed from observations of my own face. During my process I revealed interesting and unexpected pathways, which explored the human face as a representation of individual identity, yet it is subject to constant change and modification according to social environments,’ says Cranfield. ‘By studying how the face is manipulated, advertised and used as an image of corporate identity, I design processes, experiments, and devices to conceptualize my investigation in real world contexts.’

Matt House, BA Design

DITTO is a series of objects that reassesses and lampoons ideas embedded in others while providing a critique of design classics. ‘Copying is fundamental to development and social interaction, yet it is viewed negatively in education and creative fields. With new media, reproduction is engrained in culture, allowing us to embrace this phenomenon. How do individuals respond when you reiterate, reprocess and reclaim their property? We are the generation that remix, parody and re-enact. Go and henceforth copy,’ espouses House.

Greenwich University

Adam Shapland, Dip Arch

‘The scheme explores the relationship between the “event” and the city through the subversion of performance in “everyday” experience and situation. It questions the notions of theatre through thresholds between the backstage of the performers dwelling spaces and labyrinths of the school and the stage of the high wire, subverting the mundanity of the emphasised “journey to school” as an exposed event,’ claims Shapland. ‘The structure itself is projected as a device, exploring a temporal facade which dynamically shifts its state to act as a secondary blanket of performance determined by primary instances.’

Adis Dobardzic, Dip Arch

Dobardzic’s project is a therapy tower designed specifically for American author Paul Auster. ‘The tower reacts to the emotions and progress of the therapy process, which is reflected through the skin and structure of the tower. As he [Auster] journeys along the levels of the tower, he is confronted by spaces that ask oneself to dwell deep into his past, whether it be through catching ones reflection in the water well, psychoanalysis occurring in the Freudian therapy space or writing about past events in the empty room,’ Dobardzic says. ‘As the occupant discloses his past the tower too starts to shed its layers. It begins to vibrate, cables swing relentlessly from the building breaking fragments of the concrete fins, as a gust of fresh air swirls through the tower.’

Leo Robert, Dip Arch

This project attempts to find a solution to a future problem: ‘By 2050 it [the Thames Barrier] will be superseded by the Thames’ expansion as a result of global warming,’ says Robert. ‘The proposal is a series of towers that cluster around strategic flooded (or soon to be flooded) areas, concentrating on the Thames gateway. These towers respond to tidal and storm surges with a series of seawater antennas providing communication between clusters offering potential for a large scale network. The towers are operated by currents and separate seawater into salt and fresh water through a desalination and salt raking process. The fresh water is stored in a giant tank, and the salt flushed through an archive room located at the top of the tower.’

Sohail Sarwar, BA Architecture

Sarwar’s three projects tackle three very different subjects. The first is an interesting study comparing two similar establishments on Brick Lane, one a carefully arranged exhibition of artefacts, the other a shop containing second-hand goods. Sarwar assesses the oddity of two neighboring buildings that are so similar in content but not in purpose. The second project deals with designing an abstract guild for the former speaker Michael Martin whilst the third is a set of designs for a canoe-making school on the bank of the Thames.

Kent University

Alex Jackson, MA Architecture

Geotrails Network has been developed to secure a long-term sustainable economic and environmental future for the Dungeness Romney marsh area. The concept focuses on principles of Eco/Geotourism, in the form of interactive education, exploration and participation. The Geotrails Network Hub provides a visitor centre and educational tool for both the immediate community, and those visiting the area. It provides the opportunity for locals and visitors to become involved with the ongoing initiatives such as research and habitat creation.

Matthew Gisbey, MA Architecture

‘Unwrapping the Cloister’ proposes a scheme to construct a Benedictine monastery on Romney Marsh in Kent. Explaining his process, Gisbey said: ‘Provision for the austere and regimented lifestyle of a monk was the primary concern when considering the design. Factors such as the scale, access and existing use of the surrounding environment have also been taken into consideration in order for the monastery to sit comfortably in its proposed location.’

Kingston University

Agi Haines (website) and Laura Pratley (website), BA Graphic Design

Pratley and Haines designed alcohol containers in the shape of fuel pump nozzles. Their idea was to raise awareness of drink-driving and its dangers. ‘It is an issue that, as students, we are very aware of,’ the pair say. Casts were made from a nozzle found online and their bottle designs, combined with the foreboding labels, intend to ‘force the consumer to think responsibly about the choices they make.’ Pratley adds: ‘The idea is that when someone is about to pour themselves a drink, the bottle will remind them that they might have been planning to drive later on and give them a moment to pause for thought and reflect on the consequences of their actions.’

Ben Lambert and Jack Llewellyn, BA Design Interaction

Designers Lambert and Llewellyn devised their website in response to the Japanese tsunami crisis earlier in 2011. Keen to bring together as much information as possible: ‘The idea was to create an information sharing network that aims to bring together people with useful skills worldwide to create the most effective information resource possible,’ Llewellyn said. ‘The website allows contributors to add content, from Twitter feeds up to custom-designed maps, or specialist applications… Aid agencies told us that, in some parts of the world, official news sources are mistrusted by the authorities. The great thing about this site is that it’s entirely moderated by the members themselves.’

Hannah Shipley, BA Graphic Design, website

‘Brand Medals is a modern-day representation of how people value success by the hierarchy and the amount of brands they own. Brands are similar to military medals as they are worn with pride as symbols of achievement. In this case the more highly regarded brands are higher up the display cabinet and have more elaborate ribbons. This project combines wry humour with a serious critique of consumer culture, calling for us to reassess the relationship we have with material possessions,’ says Shipley.

Jonathon Warren, BA (Hons) Product and Furniture Design

Warren’s drain designs were inspired by his observation that many people walking through London do so with their eyes to the floor, whether it be looking at a mobile phone or a map. Warren then tried to design alternative signposts that were not above eye level. The drains themselves mesh well with the existing London signage and suit the calls for less street clutter from London Mayor Boris Johnson.

London Metropolitan University

Lauren Campany

West Everton Community have suffered 18 pub closures in the past 2 years resulting in private drinking, depression and antisocial behaviour. The landlords were key members in the community who knew people who attended pubs and sent them home when they had enough. This no longer exists. The mobile pub designed aims to look at a new model of a public house. Designed from a readily available shipping container the pub will be transported, to the neighbourhoods of empty pub sites, where it will house an archive of local history, a hairdressers, stage, and a drink station.

Nicolo Spino

Spino’s took his designs for hybrids of benches and plant beds, which he created as part of his university course, to the Milan Public Design Festival. The multifunctional pieces of furniture were formed solely from reclaimed materials in Milan and serve as a good example of eco-friendly design, which is only becoming more popular in the 21st Century. Spino was also able to gain work from this exposure, earning freelance work for a furniture shop in Milan this summer.

London South Bank University

Anurag Gautam, Dip Arch

Gautam’s project looks at how cargo airships used for transporting and constructing tall timber towers could revolutionise the way we design and construct our cities. Gautam says, ‘Modern construction methods are inefficient, time consuming and they congest our road networks. These methods formed the tall monolithic towers of steel and concrete as symbol of economic boom for the 20th century after the world became scarred by two world wars. Today we face an environmental and economic crisis and we need to revise our understanding of how we construct our tall urban icons. 21st century towers could be made from a new revolutionary timber based technology that mimics concrete: Solid engineered timber. Its financial and environmental properties could make it a symbol of 21st century construction. It has the potential to change the meaning of architecture.’

Daniel Schinagl, BA Architecture

‘The bank of the River Thames is one of the most photographed places in the world. The majority of these photos are uploaded to Google Maps. These documents together create a virtual space as a result of the observation by separate individuals,’ says Schinagl. ‘This is a collective memory, a virtual space to which anyone can have access. This is an interpretation of the Gestalt phenomenon in the physical, human environment. We do not see our environment in its whole presence, although a place or spot can be described and defined in an objective or subjective way, too.’

Manchester School of Architecture

Harry Mulligan, Dip Arch

By utilising a disused canal basin in Milan for the location of his design, Mulligan describes his work as an attempt to regenerate the Milanese canal district. ‘Integral to the scheme are a host of environmental systems including a homeostatic double skin façade admitting diffused daylight throughout the exhibition spaces,’ Mulligan said of his design. ‘The skin reflects a mapping of the current fashion institutions within Milan, creating an aesthetic derived from the fashion industry of the city itself.’

Maryam Osman, Dip Arch

A peculiar mix of an IVF clinic and a pleasure boat ride, Osman says her building ‘derived from the essence of pleasure and purpose as sexual escapism.’ Osman attempted to blend the two separate ideas without making them one singular place, including a pair of crossing staircases where for a brief moment the inhabitants of the two sections of the building are close.

Nottingham University

Jack Sawbridge, Dip Arch, website

Denis Diderot called for ‘Liberal Art’ to learn from ‘Mechanical Art’, for making to take precedence over the made. Sawbridge’s work focuses on design through the practice of making to inform the production of the object. This project, entitled Diderot’s Workshop, is sited on the French-German border. The language of tension and tuning is represented throughout the structure by a system of looms that are weaving the countries’ flags. Sawbridge’s work was exhibited in the Architecture Room at the RA’s Summer Exhibition this year.

Marialena Tsolka, BA Architecture

‘Bensalem’s Hydra’ was selected by the Royal Academy of Arts for inclusion in the architecture room at its annual Summer Exhibition. The project proposes a hydroponic landscape embodying the crossover between architecture, geology and science, and projecting the gap between the architecural skin and the structure: a hybrid effect that becomes the common ground of nature and machine. The original drawing is more than 2m in length and took Tsolka six weeks in total to produce, first drawing in pencil, then digitally manipulating the image before rendering it by hand in ink. Tsolka drew inspiration for the work from Gaudi, Calatrava and HR Giger.

Nottingham Trent University

Joe Oliver, BA (Hons) Graphic Design, website

‘The work I displayed was for a New Scientist magazine supplement entitled Ten Scientific Objects that Changed the World. Instead of simply illustrating the objects as they are, I wanted to portray the story behind each object, aiming to keep each illustration as simple and as clear as possible… while still allowing the viewer to read the meanings for themselves. Also, I think choosing the right colours is vital, especially with vector illustrations like these. The wrong shade could prevent the whole composition from working,’ says Oliver.

Kenson Lai, BA (Hons) Graphic Design, website

‘EYE ARE GRAFIK DESIGNER-ERRR is a project of quips that illustrates some of the generic clichés and honest truths I have observed in my years of a graphic design education. It came from frustration that graphic design is a tool for communicating but instead churns out waves upon waves of visual fluff instead of inspiring and different ideas. The book humorously pokes fun of said fluff others create but also the clichés my own work suffers from. The unavoidable nature of this seemed to be universal but never voiced, which became the basis of the project,’ says Lai.

University of Portsmouth

Natasha Butler (website) and Joshua Kievenaar (website)

RIBA silver medal nominees Butler and Kievenaar’s ‘Bridge of Alchemy’ project sees a number of structures built into and beneath a rock face in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains. The complex buildings are stacked with Moroccan tradition and culture to entice travellers. Astounding amounts of detail are squeezed into every drawing and the effort and inspiration behind the designs are admirable.

University of Plymouth

Oliver Blanchard, BA (Hons) 3D Design

‘Together the Breakdown Beacon and Guide, aim to protect motorists with limited mobility and others in a roadside breakdown.Currently, motorists are instructed to move away from their vehicle, however for some people this is not an option. Motorists who cannot leave their vehicle are forced to sit and await rescue, leaving themselves at grave risk of a fatal accident. The Breakdown Beacon changes this. The Breakdown Beacon is an innovative inflatable warning, which allows stranded motorists to alert other road users of the potentially dangerous situation ahead. Once slipped over the window, the activation cord is pulled, inflating the illuminated beacon to a height of over 2m,’ says Blanchard.

Royal College of Art

Bethany Wells, Dip Arch, website

Following a series of interdisciplinary live projects throughout the year, in collaboration with the Transition Network, this thesis project speculates how the area around Finsbury Park, north London, could become occupied, activated, amended, infilled and embedded with a new educational network. The Fairground Collective proposes an alternative model for higher education, activating underused spaces within the urban environment, and using the high street as an informal urban campus, bridging education, design practice and community action.

Robert Ware, MA Architecture, website

‘The Repository of the Eternal Now is an addition to St Paul’s Cathedral which builds itself in real time using data from the 41 Stock Market sectors that the Church of England invests in. This data is then embodied in the physical towers, which grow in relation to the sector’s success. The repository has a stark, securocratic exterior with a dynamic interior richly adorned with intertwining iconographies,’ says Ware. This beautifully presented project balanced the politics of the C of E’s investment policy with the exploration of technologies that would allow the realisation of the repository. Ware developed a 3D printer that could represent the data he harvested as physical data objects, which in turn informed his architectural proposal.

Helen Moore, MA Ceramics and Glass, website

‘Working with the language of colour, glaze, mass and multiple, my practice aims to create a dynamic and hypnotic feast for the senses. Inhabiting the context where analytical, sensual and material intertwine, this current body of work marries simple abstract forms with the richness of ceramic surface, through visually stimulating and tactile “wallscapes”,’ says Moore. ‘Each wallscape captures a metaphysical space where scientific and poetic, tangible and intangible, logical and creative converge. Connecting the seemingly disparate facets of my own consciousness, they seek an expanded understanding of the emotional and metaphorical capacity of colour within an analytical framework.’

Malene Rasmussen, MA Ceramics and Glass, website

Rasmussen’s two projects, ‘If I Had A Heart, It Could Love You’ and ‘Fire Walk With Me’, share themes and the same level of technical quality. The juxtaposition of fine, polished ceramic flames and ominous snakes draw in viewers. Of her pieces, Rasmussen said: ‘I want my work to look like a very skilled child could have made it, clumsy and elaborate at the same time. My intention is to create compositions that have an underlying story and mood.’

Ilona Gaynor. MA Design Interactions, website

Referencing Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s ‘Black Swan’ theory on the importance of unpredictable events, ‘Everything Ends in Chaos is an attempt to artificially construct a financial Black Swan,’ explains Gaynor. ‘Positioned in hindsight, and told through a series of fragmented hypothetical narratives that have undergone various financial assessments; from investment bankers and insurance brokers to loss adjusters and risk strategists, drawing upon the practice of insurance with the means to investigate and underpin the moment at which economical fact becomes fiction and vise versa.’

Kevin Grennan, MA Design Interactions, website

Grennan’s bizarre collection of pictures examines the evolution of robotics. ‘Much current research into robotics is focused on the creation of anthropomorphic robots – machines that look and appear to behave like humans. Although there are valid reasons for this research (and a good deal of egotism), I believe that this approach is fundamentally flawed,’ Grennan explains. He says his work aims to explore the edges of anthropomorphism and ask if this approach really is the way we want to relate to future machines.

Lisa Ma, MA Design Interactions, website

Researching passengers facing extended delays, Ma tried to find a way to entertain and occupy them. Ma’s alternative is a bike ride tour around the outskirts of the airport. ‘The project creates a dialogue between the visitors passing through and local residents that were deeply affected by but rarely in direct contact with goings on inside the fences of the airport,’ says Ma. Her hope is that the experience ‘brings together two disparate communities and leaves entertaining and memorable experiences for the passengers and a new form of activism for the protesters.’

Marguerite Humeau, MA Design Interactions, website

‘Back, Here Below, Formidable’ aimed to recreate the sound of extinct animals – such as the woolly mammoth pictured here – by reconstructing their vocal tracts. The major problem is that this part is made from soft tissue and so doesn’t fossilise. Only the bones of the long-dead animals have been preserved through time. These beasts’ bellowings were recreated by extrapolation from living descendants. New larynx and vocal cords, windpipes of estimated length and diameter, and artificial breathing produced by an air compressor brought them to life again.

Alexander Groves, MA Design Products, website

‘The Sea Chair Project’, which has the funding to become a fully-fledged ‘floating factory’, aims to collect and recycle waste plastic in the ocean. Plastic, mostly 2mm diameter plastic pellets of which Groves say there are 13,000 per square mile, will sifted from the water using a ‘sluice-like contraption’, with the plastic later reformed into comfortable plastic chairs for the local fishermen. Groves and his team plan to make the chairs in time for display in Milan next year.

Markus Kayser, MA Design Products, website

‘In a world increasingly concerned with questions of energy production and raw material shortages, this project explores the potential of desert manufacturing, where energy and material occur in abundance,’ Kayser says. ‘In this experiment sunlight and sand are used as raw energy and material to produce glass objects using a 3D printing process, that combines natural energy and material with high-tech production technology,’ Kayser concludes: ‘Solar-sintering aims to raise questions about the future of manufacturing and triggers dreams of the full utilisation of the production potential of the world’s most efficient energy resource – the sun. Whilst not providing definitive answers, this experiment aims to provide a point of departure for fresh thinking.

Oscar Lhermitte, MA Design Products, website

‘Over time, society has developed a complex rhythm that demands we live in an environment artificially lit twenty-four hours a day, preventing us from experiencing the natural lights coming from billions of light years away,’ says Lhermitte. ‘The Urban Stargazing project focuses on bringing back the stars in the city sky by recreating existing constellations and adding new ones, narrating old and contemporary myths about London. Twelve groups of stars have been installed at different locations in the city, and can only be observed by the naked eye at night time. The brightness intensity is so subtle that one might not even notice them.’

Liam Reeves, MA Ceramics and Glass, website

‘As technology advances, the ways that we perceive, understand, and influence the world around us are also changing. The concept of craftsmanship itself is transforming; skill in using digital media has become comparable to skill in manipulating molten glass or other materials,’ says Reeves. ‘This work uses the tradition, technique and language of glassblowing as a lens through which to explore the effect these kinds of technological advance have on the way that we interface with our environment, and ultimately their inherent transience as innovations are superseded in their own evolution.’

Sheffield University

Neil Cooke, MA Architecture

This project aims to promote the reuse of heritage sites for touristic and regenerative use in Blackpool, as a reaction to the council’s tendency to denigrate old buildings in the pursuit of modernity. It proposes an airship mooring station at the top of the Blackpool Tower, with an elegant hotel added to the rooftop of the existing base; restoring its ballroom and circus wings and creating a vibrant ‘street life’ around a central atrium, with views straight up through a glazed screen to the tower itself. In contrast to the complexity of the tower, the 52-room hotel (matching the 52 passenger capacity of the airship) is all about legibility and clarity.

Toby Knipping, MA Architecture

‘Repurposing Ruin explores the past and future of St. Peter’s Seminary in Cardross – a modern monastic ruin. The aesthetics of decay are celebrated in a programme that brings together process involving Wood, Whiskey, Fire & Water,’ says Knipping. ‘A single malt scotch whiskey distillery and woodworking educational facility bring new layers of life and overgrowth to the brutal structure and the arboreal estate that it occupies. The project imagines a remote heterotopia where the commanding ruin acts as a backdrop to industry and activity that connects local desires with national significance that will ultimately contribute new layers of archaeology…. Space and Light becomes Substance and Shadow.’

Westminster University

Kenzaf Chung, Diploma Architecture, website

The idea of Chung’s ‘Breathing Platform’ is to ‘create a breathing platform which will rise with the rising sea levels, providing a possible habitation for human society in the future. The breathing platform will be a sustainable form of living, having a factory for seafood processing and a factory for container manufacturing at the highest level with dwelling spaces, growing places and social functions below water ready and waiting for use when the sea level rises and floods the town of Whitstable.

Andrew Cumine, Diploma Architecture

Cumine’s project, ‘Royal Laundry’, involved the designing of ‘a Royal Laundry facility for all the textiles and tapestries housed in Madrid’s royal palace,’ Cumine explains. ‘The laundry exhibits the monumental scale of the domestic by exposing the domestic scale of the royal. The codes and processes of cleaning organize sorting, washing, drying and repairs into viewable territories, and re-curate the royal treasures and the royal everyday.’

David Charlton, Diploma Architecture

‘Plaza de la Luna is an accidental square, the result of civil war bombing. The random disappearance of two city blocks in central Madrid exposed four ordinary street elevations to unexpected status,’ says Charlton. ‘The bomb crater created an opportunity for a 4-storey underground car park, except that the absent topography had to be arti­ficially reinstated above its flat roof to join up the marooned entrances and rooms on the periphery… The project imagines a partial u-turn, excavating back to the car park roof as a datum for a new strategy.’

Keir Alexander, Diploma Architecture

Alexander’s work depicts the renovation of one of Madrid’s more famous squares. ‘The design thesis was realised in two parts: the first, an analytical unpicking of Madrid’s famous Plaza Mayor, an outstanding example of a grand baroque urban gesture,’ explains Alexander. ‘The project then imagines applying such urban ambitions to a contemporary setting, in the bohemian district of Malasaña. A project conceived by modern egalitarian principles rather than by the conceits of kings.’

Rowan Sloss, Diploma Architecture, website

‘Told across several books of text and images, in­cluding The PARADISE Guide to Ávila and The Instaurative House, the PARADISE project – a research hotel, a retreat, a garden – is a concrete proposal for a place that will exist in the mind as much as in steel and wood,’ Sloss says.

The Panel

Thanks to our critic panel, who each year take the time to visit the shows and select the best work.

Alex Warnock-Smith, website

Esme Fieldhouse, website

David Howarth, website

Torange Khonsari, website

Alyn Griffiths, website

Paul Kelsall, website

Ajmir Kandola, website

Michael Hudson, website

Graham Modlen, website

Nelly Ben Hayoun, website

Johnathan Adam, website

Veronica Simpson, website

Steve Townsend

Natre Wannathepsakul

and Jean Wang

The plaid pattern covering BedCrate imitates that found on pyjamas

This project, The Crate Series, first planted itself in the consciousness of Studio Makkink & Bey in India. Architect Rianne Makkink witnessed the humble crate defining all measure of everyday environments for inhabitants of the cramped cities, and wondered how this might be tested in her own familiar surroundings. Upon returning to the Netherlands, Makkink, along with product designer Jurgen Bey, began an exploration into furniture units that could generate human scale as well as personal autonomy. ‘We have created a landscape for living and working,’ Bey states proudly. The exhibition resembles a Hejduk-esque theatre set and includes different blends of antique furniture and shipping crates, which reinvent the functional objects of our domestic lives.

The works appear deceptively raw at first glance. Soft materials wrap around the hard wood on only those introspective surfaces that are touched. BedCrate encloses a raised sleeping area, with the private interior covered in fur and leather; the material extends to a square on the floor just at the point where the rousing resident steps out of bed.

A Rotterdam warehouse played host to Studio Makkink & Bey in the creation of the Crate Series. A time constraint of two months (before the lease ran out) highlighted the necessity to pack away the furniture in containers, ready to decant elsewhere. ClockCrate is the most obvious depiction of the temporal balance between work and leisure. A 19^th-century clock chimes as a work apron hangs on a hook to the left and pyjamas to the right, marking the abrupt transition from labour to relaxation.

The importance of temporary combinations that change according to the situation led the team to devise multi-functioning objects. VacuumCleanerCrate, with its ornate tea set, acts as a place for refreshment but the inclusion of a vacuum cleaner, to clean up the crumbs, flips the piece into a work tool. Paradoxically, this Crate solves a problem that it created in the first place – revealing it as a unit of research rather than one of furniture. Through latching onto the mechanisms of existing furniture and appliances, the designers have entered the project as much into a discourse on Duchamp’s readymades as one on sustainable design.

VacuumCleanerCrate wears a colourful skin of thread

Makkink confesses to being frustrated by the politics of architecture, particularly at an urban scale, owing to the constraints of any commission. She remembers the freedom of product design upon first collaborating with Bey in 2002, transferring her skills and knowledge as architect to the most intimate of spaces.

Each piece in the Crate Series is thoughtful and imaginative, and sits happily in the gallery as products of an engaging process. The titles brand the units as functional objects, not pieces of art, as if preparing them for mass-production, with the reinterpretation of transport crates challenging the greedy consumption of consumerism. It’s an exhibition that demonstrates furniture design as firmly within the realm of architecture. The Crates are instinctively spatial: they self-consciously contain functions within particular spaces, but, equally, experiment with the blurring of boundaries between activities. Studio Makkink & Bey has crafted miniature pieces of architecture, which playfully toy with how our household objects might define and deconstruct the balance between work and play.

The Crate Series, Spring Projects, London NW5 – until January 14th

The perforated urethane back of SAYL is supported by a Ytower instead of a frame allows for maximum upper body movement

Creating something new for Herman Miller could well rank as one of industrial design’s more formidable challenges. Just look at the heritage. The Eames Aluminum Series, first produced in the late 1950s is still  a desirable (if pricey) office option. The Aeron, created by Bill Stumpf and launched in 1994, shows no sign of losing its appeal; at about $1,000 (£640) a pop, the company has now sold more than six million of the mesh giants, accruing a few billion dollars of profit for the company. Jeff Weber’s Embody, meanwhile, was brought to the market in 2008 and – in spite of its six years of development and the heft of Herman Miller behind its launch – hasn’t made much of a ripple on the collective design conscience. May it serve as a cautionary tale.

On top of this sheer weight of success is the contradictory fact that the office chair offers up two problems, one physical and one cultural. First, it has to combine structure and comfort and, equally, it has to reflect the interests of its times, and the changing landscape of contemporary office life. The Aluminum series did this brilliantly, the progressive edge of its extruded aluminium frame and the clean lines of its structure representing a post-war environment where machinery was making a better world. The Aeron was the ultimate yuppy accessory – a status symbol that created the impression of being filled with more engineering per square centimeter than your black Beamer and taking up not much less space, as aggressive as the times that launched it.

Yves Béhar is well placed to create a new offering, which responds to very different times: non-hierachical workplaces in a digital world. Where the Aeron makes its presence more than felt, the SAYL should slip, politely and prettily, into any given space.

With the white structural Y-tower that supports its back and the large round plastic key that allows the seat to be heightened and lowered (the arms just rachet up and down), its language is playful and graphic, almost cartoon-like. The perforated urethane back deliberately lets light and air pass through (a clear version is still in development). Add to that the elimination of a frame (Béhar, a devotee of yoga, is vehement that a frame is an obstruction rather than a support and was determined to open up the whole shoulder area for maximum upper body movement) and it’s a chair that barely wants to be there. It takes the basic design proposition of the Embody and refines it to the point of abstraction.

This is not a chair for the complacent executive – it’s only going to cost about $399 (£255), for goodness sake. It’s more a tool for a sprightly worker, who’ll be playing with an iPad before setting off to a meeting on a bike. It’s also a poster chair for sustainability, and in that respect it fulfils Béhar’s wish that it should be ‘symbolic of its time’.

Béhar’s design for SAYL has refined the Embody to cartoonish abstraction. Its simplified form can be assembled without tools

Sustainability is still the biggest buzz word, and the SAYL is a classic Cradle to Cradle product, using the minimum amount of material, having the maximum amount of recyclable parts and being as economic to ship as possible. It will be sent out ready to assemble using no tools, in half-size boxes, cutting down on waste and transport cost. Perhaps the least wasteful part of the chair, however, was in its development. While it took 70 prototypes and 1,000 sketches, the process was condensed into two years – a very short time in industrial design.

Béhar is already known for the ethical and human-centred ideals of his company Fuseproject. It has produced the XO-1 laptop for the nonprofit organisation One Laptop Per Child and the EV charging stations for electric cars, for example. Less of a tree-hugger, though, he is one of a few eco-sensitive designers to be aware that sustainability needs to be sexy.

Béhar’s stylings provide an important dimension to Herman Miller – an air of sensuality that the Embody, failed to, well, embody. When in New York, he shares an office with the equally glamorous David Adjaye (who is designing a new house for Béhar in San Francisco). His socially-minded underwear company PACT makes nice pants – but the whole production process is restricted to within a 100 miles radius. ‘If a project isn’t ethical it can’t be beautiful, and if it can’t be beautiful it shouldn’t be at all,’ he says. It sounds a little preachy  but at least he’s practising it.

The Bello cabinet by Koskinen is Skandium’s first in-house design, which will be launched at LDF

‘The Swedish have a tradition of industry, the Danish have a tradition of woodworking and Finland has a tradition of craft,’ says Magnus Englund, founder of Skandium,

the British-based retailer that specialises in bringing Scandinavian design to the British  market. At the London Design Festival (LDF) this year, the Finnish designer Harri Koskinen will be launching his new range of cabinets, called Bello, for Skandium in Brompton Design District as well as presenting his glassware as part of Hel Yes!, a pop-up restaurant that showcased the best of Finnish design and cuisine for three weeks in London’s East End.

Koskinen’s Block Lamp, for Design House, Stockholm, exhibits this peculiarly Finnish sense of craft that Englund identifies. Designed in 1996, the year he graduated, the Block Lamp was hugely popular. By 1999 it sold 15,000 units worldwide. By 2000, it was in the New York MoMA’s permanent collection. At one point the museum reported it was selling faster than Aalto’s vase for Iittala, considered a design classic. Koskinen has strong ties with Finnish companies Artek, Marimekko, Arabia and Iittala although he has also done work with international firms such as Issey Miyake and Venini.

Koskinen studied at the Institute of Art and Design in Helsinki where his studio is now based. His work is controlled and understated; he provides clear forms with a tight material palette.

His work concentrates on craft, which, as Englund says, is the tradition in Finland. Pieces such as Koskinen’s 2006 Lento range for Artek have a rigour in their realisation that makes them elegant ut seemingly robust. In addition to the new pieces Skandium will be showing a retrospective of the designer’s work  including textiles, ceramics, glassware and accessories.

‘We wanted to work with Koskinen as he came on to the scene at the same time we did. His design language suits us,’ says Englund. Koskinen concurs: ‘I have known Skandium for 12 years. For the Bello range they sent me a brief that was simple and plain.’

Surprisingly given the Finnish emphasis on craft, the cabinets are manufactured in west London by Chris McCourt of Windmill Furniture, which is licensed to produce the furniture of Marcel Breuer and the London Isokon designers, under the label Isokon plus. ‘I believe that the manufacturers are bringing great quality, there are hardly any manufacturers in the UK so it was nice to get them,’ says Koskinen. Britain has always been one of the largest consumers of Finnish design. Artek, the seminal design company that sold Alvar Aalto’s work found the UK their biggest market in the Sixties.

Koskinen, though, is not fully dependent on the commercial determinants of the furniture market. He is now moving into architecture and interest in this transition has been such that he was offered a show at this year’s Venice Biennale, but unfortunately he had to pull out due to his increasingly busy schedule. His company, Friends of Industry, is an avowedly multi- disciplinary collective comprising eight employees, including architects and designers. He has undertaken a conference centre in Billnäs, north of Helsinki on the site of a former mill.

Koskinen has brought in academics from Aalto University in Helsinki to help with accommodation, planning the facilities and generally provide what he calls ‘a more solid base of knowledge,’ but otherwise he is the lead designer on a substantial project. The conference centre will consist of 200 rooms over three floors, covering about 20,000sq m. Koskinen’s architecture will remain true to his design ethos. ‘It’s not going to be “wow” architecture,’ he says. The company have also undertaken a summer house for the same client and a housing development in Japan that will be unveiled in the near future.

In turning his hand to other disciplines, Koskinen is following a rich tradition in Scandinavian design. Arne Jacobson, Bruno Mathsson and, more recently, the likes of Poul Christiansen of Komplot have worked across different scales. Designers have a cultural context rather then simply a professional one. Although the work may not be deemed experimental or groundbreaking, the output tends to retain, as Englund puts it, the sense of craft in the body of work that precedes it.

Harri Koskinen Works, Skandium, SW3, until 8 October

The Hiroshima Chair by Naoto Fukasawa from the Maruni Collection, launched in 2008

It was fate that bought together Japanese furniture brand Maruni and London furniture showroom Viaduct at the Milan Salone del Mobile in 2005. The director of Viaduct, James Mair, stumbled upon Maruni’s stand at the show and was impressed by its 2004 Nextmaruni series, a range of furniture by Japan’s leading contemporary designers.

Unbeknown to Mair, the directors of the Hiroshima-based company then visited the Viaduct showroom. Although sympathetic to Mair’s process of selecting furniture, it wasn’t until four years later that Maruni brought its latest collection to the UK at Viaduct.

Complementing the Clerkenwell showroom’s 1930s industrial building, the clean-cut beech- and oak-wood tables and chairs on show are from the Hiroshima range by Naoto Fukasawa. For Mair, however, this only represents a portion of what he hopes to bring to Viaduct in the future, including the simple, yet varied Nextmaruni series, which first caught his eye in Milan.

Indeed, Maruni has pioneered impressive wooden furniture since it was founded in 1928. Following industrialisation in the 1920s, even before large Japanese manufacturers such as Toyota had been established, Maruni started mass producing furniture at its Showa Mageki Kojo (bent-wood factory) in Hiroshima.

Developed under the slogan ‘industrialising craftwork’, the company’s innovative technology enabled it to bend wood without complicated manual skills. Affected by the economic crisis in the 1990s, Maruni decided to look back to its origins, and began questioning the value and identity of Japanese culture, which had been lost during its rapid economic growth. Studying traditional aesthetic values, the company rediscovered the importance of physical sensations, characterised by the expression ‘haptic’, which has been explored by Japanese designer Kenya Hara.

For a long time in Japan, the texture of wooden architecture has been celebrated through touch and the Japanese style of living: taking off shoes indoors, and sitting and sleeping on the floor. Responding to an increasingly westernized society in Japan, Maruni’s recent collections suggest that chairs, more than other type of furniture, have the potential to heighten our experience of touch, as they come in contact with the body much in the manner of clothes.

This philosophy typifies the Nextmaruni series for which international designers including Jasper Morrison, SANAA and Fukasawa have been commissioned to create chairs that present their own understanding of a Japanese aesthetic. Imbued with each designer’s personality, the result points towards a new approach to Japanese culture.

At the time, the Alcan machine was not big enough to create the L-Shaped furniture Heatherwick had in mind and endless phone calls to other factories came to nothing. But 16 years after the first experiments, he finally found an extruding machine large enough. The particular factory is in Asia and usually makes aluminium products for the aerospace industry. Heatherwick is not saying much more about it than that: he has ambitious ideas about how the technology can be used commercially to create mass-produced furniture, building facades and structure.

The five prototype benches in the Extrusions series are made from the same section incorporating the legs, back and seat. The gnarled end sections have been retained, although the extrusion could have been sliced to create a pristine section.

Moving into the world of private galleries has helped Heatherwick fund ongoing research or the project. The first steel die alone cost £60,000 to make, and every time the machine is used the cost is enormous, as it means stopping the production of items for the aerospace industry.

The only limit to the length of bench is transportation – the factory itself is 250m long and in theory a piece of that length could be made. ‘We could seat 700 people on one piece of metal,’ explains Heatherwick. In the meantime, though, until the right project comes along, he has plans for 2010 to create a sculpture of 100m of the same section that will tangle into a pile of metal, like a mound of spaghetti.

However, what fascinates Heatherwick is not the potential scale of product, but the idea of creating useful things, be it furniture or building structures, out of one single element. ‘It’s a pure idea thing,’ he says.

Extrusions is at the Haunch of Venison, W1S, 17 September-8 November

Vitra and Blueprint present the Audile Interpretation Workshop:  An Exploration into Sound and Environment.

During the London Design Festival, the spirit of the Boisbuchet workshops will be recreated at Vitra’s base in Clerkenwell. Architect ODA, in association with sound artist Craig Vear and designer Andrew Lock, will explore sonic experience with groups of students and professionals. How much of the world do we experience through sound? When you close your eyes do you become more aware of the world behind you? Does the aural environment change more rapidly than the visual one?

Two one-day workshops will focus on the experience of space through sound; what kind of shapes enhance or restrict, what kind of textures absorb or reflect? Participants will create listening devices that capture, re-interpret and re-imagine the environment, and perhaps generate their own sound in response.

The workshops will take place 10am-5pm, 24 and 25 September at Vitra, EC1. To book call 020 7608 6200 or write to andrew.lock@vitra.com

Zona Tortona 2009

Next week sees the 48th year of biggest event in the global design calendar: the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan. Around 88,000 visitors are expected to pour into the area around Via Tortona in the southwest of Milan during this week of the Salone del Mobile. Originally an ad-hoc happening, Zona Tortona Design – for which Blueprint is media partner – has blossomed into major event organised by Design Partners, a collaboration between marketing experts Maurizio Ribotti and Luca Fois.

We present our Zona Tortona highlights…

Tamawa watch by Hubert Verstraeten

ABC- AUTHENTIC BELGIAN CREATIVITY
Spazio Herno – via Savona, 19 A
As part of an initiative of Design Flanders and Flanders Investment & Trade (FIT), a group of Belgian designers and brands will showcase a selection of their new collections in a single curated space in ZonaTortona Design. For this edition, they will unveil an original product range that denotes the high level of the exhibition. The designers and brands involved in this show are active on the international market in different innovative sectors such as furniture, textile design, glass design, jewelry and tableware.

Ross Lovegrove's Bamboo bike for Biomega

BIOMEGA
DesignLibrary – Via Savona, 11
In ZonaTortona Biomega presents the world premiere of the spectacular and ground breaking Bamboo Bike by Ross Lovegrove – an exceptional and uniquely designed piece of art. We invite all bike enthusiasts to visit the Design Library and experience the Furniture of Locomotion at it’s finest.

Glass Music by Alfredo Haberli

CZECH SELECTION
TRAS – Via Savona, 19
Czech Selection presents design products of eight Czech furniture and interior accessories producers including Krehky by Designblok Prague, Qubus design, Moravske sklarny Kvetna and Process amongst works by designers such as Olgoj Chorchoj, Alfredo Haberli, Jiri Pelcl and Maxim Velcovsky.

DESIGN LIBRARY CAFE
Via Savona, 11
In April, during ZonaTortona Design 2009, the DesignLibraryCafe will extend its opening hours from 6 am to 3 am. Especially for the fair, “Taste away”, a take away menu of high quality food instead of the usual take away dishes, will be available for those on the go.

Vase by Fish Design

FISH DESIGN
DesignLibrary – Via Savona, 11
A presentation of different vases from the collections by Alessandro Mendini (Mendinismi collection) and Gaetano Pesce. These vases will be showcased in parallelepiped display at the entrance of the DesignLibrary.

Forest Collection from Ilio

ILIO
Forcella 11 – Via Forcella, 11
Ilio is inspired by forms of nature, adopting a playful yet functional approach to present new forms. Functionally and intellectually, Ilio presents multi-layered products to people who take pleasure from fine living. Ilio focuses on both high design quality and the best available production standards.

LAGO APPARTAMENTO – TEMPORARY SHOP
Via Tortona, 21
For the first time ever, an exhibiting company doesn’t stay in a hotel but “lives” in a large flat entirely furnished with unusual versions of its own products. The setting is rounded off by out-of-the-ordinary objects designed by students of the Royal College of Art.

LZF Lamps

LZF LAMPS
Magna Pars – Via Tortona, 15
For ZonaTortona 2009, LZF Lamps have been chosen to illuminate the Design Lounge. The models showcased were born thanks to the collaboration of thirty artistans – from painters and sculptors to fashion and graphic designers. The lighting is a result of the combination of two elements: light and sheets of wood veneer. The veneer provides a spectacular effect that highlights its nobility, creating warm sensual atmospheres both in the domestic and contract market. All products are handmade.

Maos Contemporary Art

MAOS CONTEMPORARY ART
Superstudio Piu – Via Tortona, 27
A new concept of contemporary art, dealing with bi-dimensional and tri-dimensional shapes. Mãos’ work focuses on interactivity and happiness – the main idea of the plastic artists.

Avenue Screen, Portugal Brands

PORTUGAL BRANDS
Via Tortona, 32
Portugal Brands is an exhibition of companies selected for their iconic status within the sphere of design, creativity and product quality. A prestigious collection of fabrics and wallcoverings, furniture, lighting and carpets, as well as bespoke services.

Installation by Toshiba

TOSHIBA
Designlibrary – Via Savona, 11
An LED interactive installation that represents light in harmony with human beings and with the environment. The lamp beams a strong light and pulsates like a human being as the visitor approaches.

LINE 94
The design circular – a strengthened transport system for the week of the fair connecting design destinations around Milan, with each stop displaying it’s cultural and design highlights.

© V&A, photography by John Ross

The displays are organised by themes (‘architecture and performance’, ‘the theatre’, ‘sacred spaces’) rather than countries or eras. This is no doubt to emphasise the global nature of the Baroque – although it started in Italy it quickly spread and adapted to existing conditions wherever it landed. The V&A have sourced some stunning pieces – altarpieces, theatrical costumes, children’s toys, jewellery, royal beds, theatre sets and my personal favourite – an extravagant silver chandelier.

However the experience of walking through the exhibition felt sadly sterile. This is a survey, a cataloguing, an inventory of found objects that display Baroque properties, and as such it is a little disappointing. The achievement of the Baroque in the 17th and 18th centuries was its the over-the-top, all-encompassing, genre-defying attitude to space-making and decoration, where every object is a part of the ornate whole. Architects and artists worked together to invent rooms where the walls become sculpture and frescoes give the illusion of neverending space. The Church of Il Gesu in Rome is a perfect example. To remove individual pieces and place them, detached, in the blank space of an art gallery, without context, is to denude them of meaning. It’s taking a scientific approach to an emotional subject.

Frescoed ceiling of Il Gesu

In their press information, the V&A claims, ‘The exhibition reflects the complexity and grandeur of the baroque style’. Well, no. It tells you about it in words, in tidy little panels below each display. But in the end it fails to convey any feeling. Admittedly it is hard to imagine how this could be achieved in a museum: maybe it’s just too ambitious a topic.

So for a more comprehensive and enveloping impression of the Baroque, try watching the BBC2 series by Waldemar Janusczcak. The medium of television is altogether better suited to this purpose – the presenter takes viewers with him all over Europe to the spaces and places of the Baroque, and his unfettered enthusiasm for the subject does justice to its allure.

Konstantin Grcic may be disenchanted by the industry, but his Myto chair, is furniture category winner of the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year, and shortlisted for the overall prize which will be announced next week. Caroline Roux interviewed him for the October 2008 issue of Blueprint

I suppose if you’re going to create an instantaneous design icon, you might as well call it ‘myth’. That’s what Konstantin Grcic has done anyway, naming his new chair, Myto – a corruption of the Greek word mythos. Coming from anyone else, it could seem like an ugly act of hubris. Grcic, however, appears to specialise in the iconic – from the crystalline formation of his Chair One to the minimalist flair of his polypropylene waste basket, Square. With Myto, he is simply adding to the list.

Myto is the world’s second plastic cantilevered chair (if Panton’s is the first), and was launched in Milan in April. Then, Alice Rawsthorn described it in the New York Times as ‘strong, comfortable, stackable, compact and comes in a coolly angular shape that is made from a single piece of plastic using (eco-responsibly of course) the minimum material possible. In short, it’s just about everything a new chair should be.’ Such praise will no doubt be echoed when the chair gets its first UK airing at design furniture store, SCP in London this September.

SCP’s founder Sheridan Coakley describes Myto as ‘a fantastic design exercise’, which can be applied to Grcic’s oeuvre at large. The chair exploits the strength and liquidity of BASF’s Ultradur High Speed plastic, that is normally used in the automotive industry. The mono material object could be seen as a Grcic trademark – aluminium in the case of Chair One, for example; wood in the Missing Object – and he declares himself to be positively inspired by the restraints any given material imposes. He said recently in a conversation with Design Museum director Deyan Sudjic that ‘Authorship is part of good design,’ and this intense use of material is definitely very much part of his authorial language.

Grcic didn’t set out to be the sleek industrial designer that he has become. From school in Wuppertal, Germany, he went into antique restoration. ‘And that made me want to learn making,’ he says. So he went to Parnham College, Dorset, the epicentre of good old-fashioned craft skills, which he took with him to the Royal College of Art. ‘I went into industrial design in a very organic way. Through making I discovered the stage before, planning, and that that’s what I really enjoyed.’

Grcic has worked in Munich since 1992 – although the return to his native Germany from Britain was not part of a greater design. He was sharing a seedy workshop on the first floor of a St Pancras railway arch with Adam Brinkworth, who studied alongside him at the RCA (both graduated in 1991), when he flew to Germany at Christmas to visit his mother. On his return to London, he was turned away as a non-EU citizen – his father is Serbian – and put on the next plane to Munich. By the time he had sorted out his papers – three years later – he was too well established in Germany to move back. It has served him well. ‘There aren’t many international designers in Germany,’ says Coakley, ‘he’s out front over there.’

Coakley – who was led to Grcic by Jasper Morrison, who taught him at the RCA – commissioned his first production pieces. There were the Tom Tom and Tam Tam side tables – cute exercises in volume building in beech and mdf, and the Bishop and Knight tables, with wooden bases and laminated or glass tops. The Prado desk, designed in 1996, a defiantly modern take on a very traditional piece, is something that Coakley is currently considering producing again. With its open sides, it’s perfectly suited to the computer age. Grcic still has one in his Munich studio. ‘Back then, his stuff was apparently too simple for us to make at a price that consumers would understand,’ says Coakley. ‘Now the consumer is better educated and we can produce bigger numbers.’ If you happen to be in possession of an original Tom Tom, then, congratulations. (I’d keep a look out, too, for the Satellite table – an RCA graduation piece produced briefly by Cappellini in which Grcic aimed to unite fine cabinet making with anonymous industrial design.)

Konstantin Grcic is, I think, the only designer I’ve met who only works to commission. Indeed, he is almost  fetishistic about constraint. ‘I envy designers with sketchbooks full of work, but it’s not me,’ he says, as we sit on the back terrace of his Munich studio; it’s here that his five designers and one personal assistant have a group tea break at eleven every morning, a habit that their boss picked up in England. ‘My thinking is precise.

If a client asks for a chair, I’ll propose one, not three. Simplicity and pragmatic thinking, it’s what I do,’ he says, though he also does poetry and lightness pretty well too. He called his company Konstantin Grcic Industrial Design. As soon as he hung a sign over the door, though, he was batch-producing pieces like a craftsman. The act of naming expresses his humour as much as his magical thinking. In his studio, pieces are still worked up as paper, wooden or wire models. Grcic’s hand has touched every piece that finally emerges.

At a time when fellow designers seemed to be majoring in a sort of bulimia, biting off a lot more than they needed to chew, and filling the furniture stores with ever more product, Grcic is famous for turning things down. ‘I think he’s declined more stuff than most people have been offered,’ says Coakley. In spite of which, there are still regrets. A fairly lengthy period with the German electrical company Krups has now ended, though pieces are still in production. ‘It was a new terrain,’ says Grcic now of his time with the company, ‘and I probably set myself too many rules. I trapped myself. If you learn to play the piano, you learn to play by the rules, and it takes a long time to play with feeling. At Krups I never got to the signature that says it’s mine.’ Before he had reached that point, Grcic had fallen out of love with the industry altogether. ‘Its motivation is not good. It throws products at the market. It’s not about creating any lasting value. By the time I could have delivered that value, I was disgusted by how little they care.’

As a designer, Grcic seems to combine craft, technology and politics with ease. If the word Gesamtdesignwerk existed, you might apply it to his work. Few designers are quite so articulate about their metier. His father was a lawyer and, Grcic tells me, 19 years older than his mother. He died while Grcic was a child, but not before he’d passed on his knowledge of his collection of 18th century drawings. These painting studies were an early exposure to process and planning for the young Grcic. The house was filled with antiques, but his mother, who runs a contemporary art gallery, provided 1960s Italian plastic pieces too. ‘A whole generation in Germany wanted nothing to do with the past. It helped the country to rebuild itself, but [that attitude] destroyed a whole lot of culture. At home that wasn’t the case. I want to be contemporary. I want to work with technology, but I’m interested in the history of things,’ says Grcic.

Last year, he curated an exhibition for the Musee des Arts Décoratifs in Paris called Small Talk. Given the run of the museum’s entire archive, he juxtaposed his own work with historic pieces. ‘There was a conversation going on between my plastic bin and an 18th century carved table. Missing Object [a beautifully enigmatic piece formed from one solid piece of oak], which I designed for Galerie Kreo in 2004, was next to a small 18th century desk. Both had very clearly expressed volumes, except one had drawers and veneers and the other was brutalist.’

This year, Grcic is working on a collection of outdoor furniture for Vitra, luxuriating in the complexity that the company can cope with. He is developing a series of furniture textiles for Maharam, non-woven, and very new tech. ‘We don’t know where it will take us,’ says Grcic. And then there’s a new work stool for Magis, loosely based on one that Goethe designed for his own use. Don’t be distracted by the grandiose name of his latest project, Grcic learns his lessons from history rather than myth.

Originally published in Blueprint, October 2008

When Helvetica, a documentary about the ubiquitous and famously functional typeface, was released in 2007, it gained more mainstream success than anyone expected. While it was never going to challenge Spiderman III for box office receipts, the film has been shown at film festivals around the world, won rave reviews – particularly from graphic designers – and gained repeated television showings in America. In the UK it was adapted for Alan Yentob’s arts programme Imagine on BBC1.

The New York Times praised the film’s director, Gary Hustwit, for his ‘knack for finding a universe within a narrow topic,’ while London’s Time Out described it as ‘one of the wittiest, most diligently researched, slyly intelligent and quietly captivating documentaries of the year’ Perhaps the most surprised  by its success was Hustwit himself, who at the time was a 42-year-old, first-time director from California with no formal training in either film-making or design. He describes himself as ‘still learning the language of film’, and yet the film demonstrated audacity in his selection of such an apparently mundane subject matter, and displayed a skilful confidence in its film-making. Helvetica was low-budget – Hustwit puts it as in the ‘low six figures’ – but expertly made; the recurring shots of Helvetica on posters, billboards and T-shirts created a distinctive rhythm and gave respite from the talking-heads interviews with graphic designers. The film was edited by Shelby Siegel who worked as assistant editor on Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain and has now been swept up by Hollywood. The director of photography Luke Geissbuhler worked on Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat movie. Helvetica is about more than the eponymous font: it tells a brief history of typography and in doing so touches on the important ideological rifts in 20th-century design.

Portrait by Gergely Szatmari

Yet the film also has a lightness of touch that never loses sight of the endearing irony in making a movie about a typeface. Almost all the participants seem aware that this isn’t life or death and have fun theorising. Paula Scher blames Helvetica for starting the Vietnam War, while Erik Spiekermann compares his love of fonts to another man’s fondness for women’s bottoms. This good-humoured playfulness from the contributors makes the film accessible to non-professionals and a joy to those in the know. 

Though not an experienced film-maker, Hustwit’s acuity in catering for a niche audience comes from his background in independent music and book publishing. He worked with punk label SST Records in the late-1980s, ran the independent book publishing house Incommunicado Press during the 1990s, and for a brief period was vice president of the media website Salon.com in 2000. Never especially academic – he was twice expelled from San Diego University for failing to concentrate on his business course – he has been restless in his pursuit of creative outlets. In the late-1990s Hustwit became aware of the potential of digital format, easily mass-produced DVDs for independent film-makers. ‘I don’t know if it was something to do with the picture quality or the format itself but I suddenly went mad, obsessively buying DVDs,’ he says.Read more…

He quickly became frustrated by the dominance of standard, studio-produced films. ‘I just thought it would be interesting to have a kind of indie record label for film and release all these quirky documentaries, that I like to watch,’ says Hustwit. He set up Plexi Films in 2001 for this very purpose and it is from its small office in Brooklyn, New York that he works on the editing of his films. After its founding, Plexi almost immediately scored a big success with a documentary made by Sam Jones that charted the decline of American rock band Wilco. Plexi does release films about other art forms, but music documentaries remain the backbone of its catalogue.

While music is his first love, design has always been one of Hustwit’s major concerns. When running Incommunicado, he started using typography and learning about the modern history of graphic design, even making his own fonts for use on book covers: ‘We were squarely in the grunge era of typography so I was making these fucked-up, photocopied letters and then scanning them back in and making fonts out of them.’ Most of these he gave away as freeware on the internet and, as a result he still sees them in use today. One of his early fonts has been used by the New York City sanitation department for their recycling campaign, while another  was used for the posters of Terry Gilliam’s sci-fi fantasy film Twelve Monkeys.

Following the success of Helvetica, Hustwit’s interest in the subject has expanded, and he has now immersed himself in the world of industrial design for his new film Objectified, which will premier at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas this month. ‘It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about our relationship to mass-produced objects and, by extension, the people who design them.’ For the film he has interviewed a huge range of designers and commentators, including Dieter Rams, Jonathan Ive, Marc Newson, Paula Antonelli, and the Bouroullec brothers. For the past year he has explored furniture and product design, getting to understand the issues and the personalities involved. Where the leading figures of graphic design tend to be called giants and geniuses, he has now entered an industry where there are stars and celebrities. Halfway through our conversation his phone rings, but he doesn’t take the call. It was Karim Rashid.

A still from Hustwit's film, Objectified, with Naoto Fukasawa

Rather than using the narrow focus of an individual product – an equivalent of Helvetica – for Objectified, Hustwit is exploring the huge range of industrial design, from furniture and domestic fittings to electronic devices. Though he will touch on the subject of conspicuous consumption and limited-edition design, Hustwit seems more interested in the creative work behind mass-produced items, exploring the methods employed by 3D designers. Without a specific story to tell, it remains to be seen if it can recreate the mix of geeky obsession and humour that made Helvetica such a success. 

In the course of making the two films, Hustwit has discovered some marked differences between the two professions: ‘I think the graphic designers have more of a sense of humour. They have more flexibility and more forgiveness in terms of production. Industrial designers are more like engineers in that way, they’re working with manufacturers and the tolerances are zero. There’s a difference in the creative process, and it breeds different personalities.’ Though he has considerably less background in furniture or product design than he did in graphics, Hustwit is no less admiring of the designers behind everyday items. ‘They’re expressing their creativity through all these different objects,’ he says. ‘Someone like Naoto Fukasawa, I think he’s a poet. It’s not that design has to be expensive or limited edition. Good design can be a simple vegetable peeler, it makes our lives that much better.’

Just like Helvetica, however, Objectified focuses on the individuals and the progress of ideas rather than on technicalities or the development of a profession. Hustwit never appears on camera and his questions are never heard, but it is clear from the responses that he asks direct, even simple questions that elicit honest answers. ‘Documentaries are not about answering questions or teaching people lessons. It’s about getting the audience to think about their relationship to the subject matter, not telling them what their relationship should be,’ he says.

Hustwit has the laid-back demeanour of an ex-surfer, but the focus and clarity of an entrepreneur. This mix of pop-culture sensibility and serious-minded curiosity clearly endears himself to the designers he shows on film. Michael Beirut, who was interviewed for Helvetica, praises the way that Hustwit managed to make graphic design seem ‘positively hip’ while also structuring the interviews ‘to create a perfect short course in post-war graphic design.’Meanwhile his production work with Plexi continues apace. The company, which also has an office in London, has put out more than 50 films in the last seven years, and Hustwit is currently overseeing the first authorized DVD release of Andy Warhol’s screen tests. The DVD includes 13 of Warhol’s classic screen tests, including Nico, Edie Sedgwick, Dennis Hopper, and Lou Reed, paired with new soundtracks. ‘Warhol made more than 500 of these four-minute screen test films, and I think they’re some of his most subtly brilliant work,’ he says.

The production of Helvetica and Objectified has, however, ignited a passion for film-making that he intends to pursue for the rest of his life. ‘I do have one other design film that I want to make,’ he says, although he is likely to broaden his subject and maybe one day move into fiction films. ‘I just hope there’ll be more documentaries about design made and released in cinemas. Real documentaries not just quickie television programmes,’ says Hustwit. ‘Because this is a conversation, I expect and hope that other film-makers will answer these films with their own ideas’

This month will see Tomoko Azumi’s design studio hosting the fourth session of Blueprint Open Studios. One of the most exciting designers working today, Tomoko’s background in Environmental and Industrial Design, has lead her to produce practical and spectacularly finished furniture and design products.

Tomoko commenced her working life in an architectural practice in Japan, then in 1995, whilst studying furniture design at Royal College of Art, she formed a practice with her partner at the time Shin Azumi, finally set up her own practice, TNA Design, in London in 2005.

She has received critical acclaim across the international design community for producing efficient yet beautifully simple products and furniture. She has won numerous awards and her work is exhibited in many public collections including the V&A, Brighton Museum and the Crafts Council. Her individual and collaborative work demonstrates her ingenious talent in developing compact and versatile products. Most notable are her current pieces for Digitability at Designmai Berlin this year (see her Twiggy lamp above) and her exhibition last year, ‘10 Ten X’ which won two awards, one of which was for Best Contribution from 100% Design/Blueprint Awards. At the moment her work can be seen featured in an exhibition ‘It starts from Here’ at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, an exhibition of new ideas for a modernist masterpiece.

Tomoko is also an active and inspirational mentor to new designers; she is a Research Fellow at London Metropolitan University, Digital Manufacturing Centre, a staff tutor at RCA Design Products and regularly takes part in the Vitra Summer Workshop.

Her portfolio is a treasure trove of intricate yet simple furniture and products and many of them will be on show in the cool white space of her studio in Clapton, which doubles as her living space. Tomoko will provide us with unique insight into the studio’s current and future projects plus the rare opportunity to see the design process of a new chair from initial sketches right through to manufacturers prototype.

Spaces will be limited so to join in our latest Open Studio send an email to Susan Holder at blueprintopenstudios @wilmington.co.uk. Tickets cost £10, which includes a glass of wine.

www.tnadesignstudio.co.uk

At this year’s Salone del Mobile in Milan, Blueprint’s acting editor Tim Abrahams interviewed Philippe Starck about his new furniture for Cassina. The range, entitled the Privé Collection, is designed to accommodate and facilitate sex. A slightly truncated version of the interview appears below.

Philipe Starck (Ph.S): You want me to explain it? You know, I’m not so interested in ‘design’ by itself for the product, especially now it’s so trendy. I always try to work with a concept, a real idea and later I just apply it, not the contrary.

I have worked on this idea for little more than ten years… If we hope that love is everywhere, we can be sure that sex is everywhere. And if you go to the movie – sex; if you watch tv – sex; open magazine – sex; conversation – sex. Sex is everywhere. And yet, not in furniture. Now, you can see a new generation of sex toys everywhere, you can see even a new generation of sex shop everywhere, but strangely, nothing in furniture. That’s why you have the sex-toy, and you have not the playground to play with. That’s why I said, something is missing, something is not coherent. Why, there is a taboo ? If there is a taboo, I love to break all that!

I was always very interested by the woman. Often, I heard that the woman is a little bored, to make love everyday, the same thing, in the same position, in the same bed – they want some thrill, they want some surprise. But in regular apartment, you have the bed, or, the bed, or the bed, and perhaps, Sunday morning they can try the carpet. But, the carpet is not very good for the back! They do it one time, and after they don’t do it again for three months. That’s why, why not make a collection which can help the comfort for the woman? Because I think the woman can have more pleasure, if she is more comfortable. That was the woman’s part.

Also, for the man: man has changed. Because now, because of the healthy attitude, even some artificial pills, now man can have a much longer sexual life. If a guy can have sexual capacity till eighty years old, still the body is not of twenty years, and the pieces in Privé can help with adjustment in high position things like that.

That’s why, between the comfort of the woman, the comfort of the man, and finally, why not just make things more playful? I design that.

It’s very easy to design something, we can say, ergonomically sexual. But when your grandmother arrives or mother-in-law arrives on Sunday afternoon to drink your tea, it/something like that can be a little embarrassing. That’s why the trick of this collection, the first collection, which speaks clearly about sex, which have really a sexual function, but plays a double language, it’s like the Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde. That means, in the day, we have something very clean, timeless, no imagination; it’s a very simple, well done, good quality, elegant. But – at night, the beast is back and, everything is open. That is the story of this collection, and I think it’s important to make something in that, because sex is everywhere, is everything.

Tim Abrahams (TA): So you say you’ve been developing this idea for ten years?

Ph.S: Oh, more.. because I don’t find the right tuning, the right balance, the right double language, and finally, I find it recently. I have designed a lot, a lot, a lot about that, and it was either too complicated, too much costly, too heavy, it become too much like a machine and when they become mechanical they become expert thing, which a is a little “uh-oh” because, we love sex but we are not professionals! Sadly, we are not porno-stars. That’s why…

TA: Is there a key to that double language, what was the key to solving that?

Ph.S: It’s this: the white and black, day and night, this cocktail of three elements; take Cassina – so chic, so bourgeois, so well-known, like the Queen of England; in this put the technology, with hydraulic things, and finally bring the concept. It is just a proper balance.

TA: Did you need to convince Cassina?

Ph.S: Strangely not. Strangely not. I spoke with a lot of people before… There has been something of a rebirth at Cassina, it’s a new team, new energy and they love it. I was very, very scared, especially with the catalogue.

. . .

Ph.S: I will give you the black catalogue. The Black catalogue comes sealed. With pictures by Jean-Baptiste Mondino.. And after, it becomes a lot more interesting. And that is more interesting than the chair, if you agree… And we used real porno-stars to have a real fuck in the photo session.

TA: Yeah?

Ph.S: Not so bad, eh? It’s the first time we speak like that in furniture business. With the bed, it’s very symbolic.

TA: So how much research did you do?

Ph.S: Three times a day! (Laughter)

TA: So no, but seriously, to what degree is it..

Ph.S: Yes, seriously, three times a day.

TA: Was it an exercise in ergonomics..

Ph.S: Oh, yes yes yes, we have to retake measurements, and try a lot of heights; no no no, seriously, I worked on it sincerely, to see what is useful, what is not, and thing like that. Finally, it’s simple. But just to have a stable arm-rest like that, can change everything.

. . .

TA: I read you opened your first company in 1968 in Paris?

Ph.S: Uh, perhaps, yeah.

TA: It seems to be quite a significant date, quite a symbolic year?

Ph.S: Well, ’69 is better! (laughs)

TA: But that year, in terms of the atmosphere in Paris, making the impossible happen..

Ph.S: Strangely, it is much more personal than that. Because I am very schizophrenic; I never go out, I never speak to anybody, I live on a small island, no car, no electricity, no water, it’s like that. But when I was young, it was a lot worse. And one day I said ‘Okay, either I commit suicide, right now, or I go to a psychiatric hospital, or I must make something.’
And the first thing was to decide to create, because it’s the only thing finally I know how to do, and perhaps I am invisible, but if I create something perhaps people will see me, I shall exist in the eyes of the people in front of me.

TA: And the purpose of the company was. .

Ph.S: Just to oblige me to go out from my dark hole.

TA: Well, it’s worked!

Ph.S: It worked, a little too much! Because since this time, I never had one minute for me, I travel one million kilometres by air, and I am very happy, because as Art Director of the Virgin Galactique we shall go to space but also we shall use the technology to go to Japan in two hours. Perhaps we shall save a little time this way

TA: And so that’s Virgin Galactic?

Ph.S: I am art director, means I manage the spirit of the company, the graphic works, the rocket, the space port… I am excited about the democratisation of space, because before space was owned by military people and now, it’s everybody.

TA: And so where does the first flight go?

Ph.S: Into space and come back, the first one is (whistles up and down)

TA: Wow, so that must be really exciting to be involved with that.. level of technology..

Ph.S: Yes because you know, it‘s interesting because it’s real strong first blood, it‘s no more fashion, not like the mainstream conversation in Paris or at dinner, in the city, its no more Sex in the City, it’s going into Space. It’s a big image.

TA: It doesn’t get much bigger. And how does that, the idea of wide open possibility, the idea of space, how does that inspire you?

Ph.S: Well you know it’s a new thing that interest me, not space but how animals see space, the biology which goes with the astrophysics, the mathematics, the quantum mathematics and thing like that, that’s my DNA. My father had aircraft company; I was raised with this idea. My normal life is in that; the mistake is the design!

TA: Did you work with your father or was it just something that was around?

Ph.S: No it was around, it was just my way of thinking.

TA: Do you think that has inspired your design earlier and this is a natural..

Ph.S: Oh, clearly, clearly. 5f you see a plane, you must create it, if you don’t want this plane go down, you must be rigorous. I try to be creative, I try to be rigorous.

TA: I think that space is a good way to wrap up…