HBL Retail: Konzepp, Hong Kong

New concept store Konzepp is designed to create a community among Hong Kong's design aficionados. Its founders, renowned Hong Kong film producer and artist manager Willie Chan and designer Geoff Tsui, hope that the space will act as a platform for creatives to meet and showcase their products and ideas.

HBL Tradeshows: Live from Furnitex 2011

Lavida shelves and boxes at Furnitex 2011, Melbourne

WGSN-homebuildlife reports live from Furnitex in Melbourne, Australia, highlighting the three emerging trends from the show:

Industrial lighting: Tough, metallic fixtures inspired by old factories and warehouses

Animal skins: Animal hides are featured on everything from rugs to furniture

French Provincial: Tableware and grained wood furnishings inspired by shabby chic farmhouses

Subscribers can view our full live report here.

HBL Retail: Liberty's sewing school

London department store Liberty are to host a sewing school this September to celebrate the launch of the Liberty Book of Home Sewing. In one of two classes, Nicole Wilson of needlecraft brand Coats will be teaching students to create a frilly apron, using a pattern from the new book.

HBL Retail: Nousaku at Gyre, Tokyo

Nousaku at Gyre, Tokyo; image courtesy of Shin Suzuki

Tokyo's Gyre shopping centre has collaborated with traditional Japanese artisan studio Nousaku to create an installation-cum-exhibition display. On show are examples of moulds used by the studio, a selection of photographs and many examples of its pieces - including the centrepiece of the exhibition, a large-scale wind bell installation in the store's 30 metre-high atrium space.

HBL Retail: ByAlex

Here's a sneak preview of the A Range, the first collection by London-based design brand ByAlex, which will launch this September. The range comprises a stool, coat stand and side table, each of which can be assembled by the user in a simple three-step process.

Kenneth Grange: Making Britain Modern

The InterCity 125, designed by Kenneth Grange in 1976

The Design Museum's latest exhibition, which opened to the public yesterday, celebrates the career of Kenneth Grange - an industrial designer whose name may not be well-known but whose work certainly is. British families grew up with his cameras, food mixers, razors, bus shelters and even a train (the InterCity 125, pictured above). Tourists will instantly recognise the iconic London taxi cab, also Grange's work. WGSN-homebuildlife visited the retrospective this week to take a look.

HBL Book of the Week: Drive

"Man drifting northwest at approximately 68 mph on U.S. Route 101 somewhere near Camarillo, California, one evening in 1989"; from Drive by Andrew Bush

This week's Book of the Week is via one of our favourite design blogs, SwissMiss, and is a collection of photographs of people in the most intimate, and yet public, of situations: driving their car.

Drive by Andrew Bush (Yale University Press, 2008) is the publication of a project called Vector Portraits taken by the artist on Los Angeles' freeways, driving alongside his unsuspecting subjects with a camera attached to the side of his car. Each photo is captioned with the artist's notes of when and where that person was seen.

2011 Green Good Design Awards

Water Park by aldayjover arquitectura y paisaje

Founded in Chicago in 1950, the Good Design program sought to promote modern design to a then traditional public. In 2009, The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Center for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies instituted a separate edition of the annual awards that specifically recognizes global green talent in the fields of product design and architecture.

Cygnet by Aston Martin & colette

French fashion brand colette has collaborated with Aston Martin Works Tailored to create a bespoke version of the Cygnet city car, with the first editions reaching dealerships this month. The new design is available in a limited-edition of only 14, and features Lightning Silver paint with blue styling details by colette.

HBL Blog of the Week: Obsessionistas

Obsessionistas documents the obsessions of collectors all over the world - from saucy British seaside postcards to meteorites, and the more esoteric the better. Each post examines one collection in detail, showing prized items alongside an explanation of the story behind them.

HBL loves: the weird and wonderful collections on display. For example, what drives a person to collect 750 insects preserved in amber?

Latitude Contemporary Art prize 2011: winner announced

An Orrery For Other Worlds (2011) by Andy Harper

Andy Harper has been announced as the winner of 2011's Latitude Contemporary Art prize, in a ceremony at the British arts festival last weekend. Harper receives a £10,000 cash prize and a major commission for next year's festival; read our post on the shortlist for the award here.

HBL Profile: Yemi Awosile Studio

Cork fabric by Yemi Awosile

Textile designerYemi Awosile believes that cork is a material that has been overlooked in the past. She has spent the last couple of years exploring the processes, along with traditional craft and artisan production techniques, that can transform this natural and humble material into something altogether different and very contemporary. WGSN-homebuildlife spoke to her about her material innovations so far.