HBL Events: London Design Festival highlights

Amidst a week of frenzied design activity, glass artist Kate Maestri's pieces were a calm and contemplative highlight of 2010's London Design Festival. Inspired by iconic examples of London's architectural history, including the Barbican and the National Theatre, Maestri uses two key components, colour and form, to create stunning yet simple wall pieces which hold the gaze.

HBL Trend Analysis: Sun Loungers

Royal Botania

Homebuildlife has taken a look at the newest and best in outdoor furniture. Trends in sun loungers range from cocoon to rockers to mixed use, and though it's getting chilly in New York and London, HBL trends analyst Heloisa Righetto will be the first to remind us that it will soon be summer in Brazil!

HBL Kids Lifestyle: Tokyo Baby Cafe by Nendo

The Tokyo Baby Cafe is located in the up market Omotesando area of Tokyo and is described as a parent and child cafe. Designed by Japanese designer Nendo, the cafe is a place where adults can a spend time with their children and socialise with friends without worrying about those around them.

HBL Tradeshows: +Chae Young Kim at 100% Futures

Korean designer Chae Young Kim exhibited her collection of digital textile designs at 100% Futures in London last month. Generated using very fine 2D vector lines combined with hand drawings, the grayscale prints create the illusion of soft and tactile knits on hard surfaces and fabrics.

HBL Events: Geoffrey Mann at Lab Craft, Tent, London

Natural Occurrence series, Glass and Rapid Prototype's made in car paint and nickel plated resin, 2010

Scottish artist and designer Geoffrey Mann has used soundwaves to create a series of warped objects called Cross-fire. The objects are made by using the soundwaves created during an argument across a kitchen table to alter the physical forms of the tableware caught in the middle. Cross-fire was exhibited at Tent London as part of Lab-Craft, the new British Crafts Council touring exhibition that features 26 makers who combine the hand, mind and eye and technical mastery of tools with cutting-edge digital technologies.

You can watch the full Cross-fire video on Geoffrey's website here.

Contact
www.mrmann.co.uk

HBL Colour Analysis: Vintage Pastels

WGSN product shot, Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market

A key colour palette at the US vintage markets this year were Vintage Pastels, an array of greyed-out tones seen across the country. Light pink, green and blue were seen faded to a nearly neutral shade.

HBL Tradeshows: Rocio Moreno at Decorex, London

The striking luminous colour of Spanish designer Rocio Moreno's tie-dye hangings stood out vividly on her stand at Decorex in London this week. The collection of hangings and silk brocades are produced in India on manual looms, using traditional techniques. The weavers that Rocio works with are unique, in that they continue to work the complex technique of brocade by hand, with the same methods used since the 15th and 16th centuries in Venice and other eastern countries. This type of silk cloth is loomed with a double-warp and specially treated silk, which results in the fabric's extraordinary beauty and lustrous satin finish.

HBL Think Tank: 12th Venice Architectural Biennale

Hylozoic Ground: Philip Beesley Architect Inc. at the Canadian Pavilion

To balance the widespread sense of delicacy and minimalism at this year's Venice Biennale, there was also an emerging trend for eclectic, organic, almost monstrous architecture. The British pavilion was titled Villa Frankenstein but the standout piece was Hylozoic Ground for the Canadian pavilion. This was an immersive, interactive environment made of digitally fabricated components fitted with sensors that flickered, twitched and crawled of their own accord.

Subscribers who wish to see the full report can do so by clicking here.

HBL Retail News: Paperchase Online Store

Paperchase, the UK contemporary stationery and card retailer, has relaunched its website with a new transactional online store. The new store allows customers to browse categories including occasions and events, home and travel, arts and crafts, collections, gifts, stationery, cards and gift wrap. Those outside of the UK are not to worry: online products can be delivered internationally.

For WGSN-Homebuildlife subscribers, find the full retail report here.

A Violet Maison

Arcade

This year's Maison & Objet was a colourful one, but tints of purple stood out as the colour of the season. We saw violet coloured ceramics, textiles and glassware and hues ranged from aubergine to light purple. WGSN-Homebuildlife has a full report of the show online, but here's a taste of the purple haze we saw in Paris this month.

Drop by Paul Cocksedge at LDF

One of the more attention-grabbing exhibits during this year's London Design Festival is Drop, a giant, magnetic brass coin by British designer Paul Cocksedge. Drop will be on display for the duration of the festival on London's Southbank, overlooking the Thames. WGSN-Homebuildlife met with Cocksedge to find out more about the project and the ideas behind it.

Displaced artists transform Guangzhou’s Xiaozhou village

Left: Jiang Ping; right: Zi Yun Tang



Xiaozhou, a small village in the Haizhu district of Guangzhou, southern China, is the seemingly unlikely setting for a community of innovative artists, who adopted the village as their refuge when they were driven out of the city centre in 2002 by rapid urban developments.