This month, Italian design brand Alessi opened a new flagship store in Milan on 14-16 Via Manzoni, designed by Spanish designer Marti Guixé. The location is in addition to the existing showroom, which has been the key address for the company for over a quarter of a century. The store is Guixé's third project in collaboration with the Italian brand, having previously designed the Alessi Shop and Museum in Paris in 2008, and the 2011 exhibition Italian Dream Factories (subscribers, click here for our report on it) at the Triennale Design Museum in Milan.
LDF 2011: The Auction Room
Thursday 28 July 2011
A unique exhibition held at The Gopher Hole as part of the London Design Festival will showcase an auction room that is actually up for auction. The Auction Room by Mariana Pestana & Designersblock is an exhibition in which the architecture dictates the curatorial direction, meaning once the type of room they'd like to create is decided, the subject matter follows. In this case, fifteen designers were asked to create the components of a working auction hall - chairs, a hammer, tiles, light switches, tables, lamps, a rug, and cups & saucers. Some of the designers participating in the exhibition include Alex Hellum, Studio 801, Katrin Baumgarten, Harry Trimble, and Yehrin Tong.
The exhibition is open to the public from September 19th through 25th, during which time visitors can pick their favorite pieces and place a bid. Unlike traditional auctions, monetary offers are not accepted forcing interested buyers to get creative with their offerings. Read all of our LDF 2011 previews so far here.
Minimalist Posters of Children's Stories by Christian Jackson
Christian Jackson has created a series of fifteen posters depicting timeless children's stories using minimalist imagery. Contrary to the bright colors and playful aesthetic typically associated with children's fairytales, Jackson's posters bring out the underlying darkness present in these stories. |
HBL Retail: Kitchen Theatre
Russell Hobbs press preview, autumn/winter 2011/12 |
Cooking demonstrations have been widely seen by WGSN-homebuildlife's retail team at the press events this year; reflecting the growing trend for kitchen theatrics within the home.
MyBlockNYC: New York City's First Interactive Map
Wednesday 27 July 2011
MyBlockNYC.com is New York City’s first interactive video map. Users can upload footage taken from their cell phones and cameras that correspond to particular blocks throughout the city. The website currently boasts 1,040 videos that represent 775 blocks.
HBL Exhibitions: Talk To Me at Museum of Modern Art, New York
Augmented (hyper) Reality: Augmented City 3D by Keiichi Matsuda at Talk To Me |
'Talk to Me: Design and the communication between people and objects' opened this week at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, featuring a wide range of objects from around the world by designers, students and scientists, highlighting how different innovations in design have transformed the way we live.
HBL Book of the Week: Making Britain Modern by Kenneth Grange
Published to coincide with the Design Museum's exhibition of the same name (see our previous post), Kenneth Grange: Making Britain Modern (Black Dog Publishing, 2011) provides a thorough retrospective of Grange's 60-year (so far) career in design: from his beginnings as an architectural assistant to his work for brands including Anglepoise, Kodak, Morphy Richards and Parker among many others. Through 160 photographs and a number of in-depth texts, we are shown just how much he changed the way we use objects, to this day.
HBL loves: the book's calibre. Contributors include the director of the Design Museum Deyan Sudjic, its curator Gemma Curtin, design historian Penny Sparke, architecture journalist Jonathan Glancey, and the London Evening Standard's Barbara Chandler in conversation with Grange - who is a wonderfully honest and straight-forward interviewee.
The Big Swim by Tine Bech
The Big Swim (2011) by Tine Bech at Camberwell Leisure Centre; photo by Nicolai Amter |
Interiors by Joanna Lamb
Interiors, Joanna Lamb |
Sven Völker and Nils Völker for MADE
Tuesday 26 July 2011
CAPTURED: THE EXPERIENCE FILM from MADE Blog on Vimeo.
Graphic designer Sven Völker and machine artist Nils Völker teamed up to create this mesmerising installation for Berlin-based design bureau MADE, entitled 'Captured: a homage to light & air'.
WGSN-homebuildlife loves the powerful combination of movement, material and colour. For more, watch an interview with the designers here.
Hemp Chair by Werner Aisslinger
In collaboration with chemical company BASF, German designer Werner Aisslinger has created the Hemp Chair. Inspired by a technique used by the automotive industry, the manufacturing of the chair uses water-based compression moulding to form an eco-friendly, lightweight, yet strong material.
HBL Blog of the Week: Oh Joy!
Oh Joy! |
Oh Joy! is one of the most established design blogs out there, founded by graphic designer Joy Deangdeelert Cho back in 2005 and now read by upwards of 18,000 people each day. WGSN-homebuildlife highlighted it as one of our top ten North American blogs last year, and it continues to inspire us on a regular basis.
HBL loves: Oh Joy! is great for tabletop inspiration, and for following the continuing connection between fashion and design. We also love Joy's obsession with food, which results in regular mouthwatering posts on the best snacks she's made, eaten, or seen lately.
Fleet of the Future in San Francisco
by BMW
Monday 25 July 2011
San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART as it's known to locals, has selected DesignworksUSA, the design consultancy and subsidiary of BMW Group, to re-design the city's traincars and metro-rail experience. The project is said to complete by 2017.
Mobility concepts at the Bezalel Academy graduation show
CUB- Compact Urban Bump Car (2011) Ayelet Fishnam, courtesy of Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem |
Lucian Freud: 1922-2011
Working At Night (2005) © David Dawson, courtesy of Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert |
The art world last week paid tribute to Lucian Freud, who died on Wednesday 20th July aged 88. The figurative painter was world-famous for his portraits, which during his long career included sitters from Queen Elizabeth II to Kate Moss.
Freud's studio, meanwhile, was a place which chronicled the artist's career visually - due to his habit of wiping excess paint from his brushes directly onto the walls.
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
Friday 22 July 2011
Lavida shelves and boxes at Furnitex 2011, Melbourne |
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
HBL Retail: Nousaku at Gyre, Tokyo
Nousaku at Gyre, Tokyo; image courtesy of Shin Suzuki |
HBL Retail: ByAlex
Thursday 21 July 2011
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
Wednesday 20 July 2011
"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
Tuesday 19 July 2011
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 |
Etsuko Ichikawa: drawing with glass
Monday 18 July 2011
Artist Etsuko Ichikawa uses molten glass, kiln-heated to 2100°F, to create abstract patterns and drawings. Ichikawa explains: "It is a way of capturing a fleeting moment and eternalizing it, and it gives the viewer the opportunity to see a gesture".
Aesop Grand Central opens for business
Friday 15 July 2011
Australian skincare brand Aēsop have opened a branch in Grand Central, New York, which continues their innovative approach to VM: products are displayed on stacked back-issues of the New York Times.
Helen Dumkow at New Designers
Thursday 14 July 2011
Huddersfield University graduate Helen Dumkow's final project explores the material potential of the everyday elastic band. On display at New Designers Part 1 in London earlier this month, Dumkow's explorations involved twisting, stretching, adding pattern to, hanging and shredding the abundantly discarded material.
ECAL graduates 2011: Art Direction
White Knights by Federico Berardi |
WGSN-homebuildlife visited Switzerland last week to attend the ECAL graduation show. Our full report on the themes to emerge from the show will be available to subscribers later this week - in the meantime, here are some of our favourite pieces from the renowned design school's Art Direction graduates.
HBL Analysis: Multifunctional furniture in the versatile home
House by Modern Cabana |
For the first time in almost 15 years, the size of new homes being built in the United States is shrinking and suburban McMansions are making way for smaller homes in urban settings. More and more people are gravitating towards city centres and smart growth efforts in urban planning are in full swing all across America.
The Nolitan by Grzywinski+Pons
Wednesday 13 July 2011
Manhattan-based Grzywinski+Pons have designed the Nolitan, a new hotel located on Kenmare Street. This new 55-room boutique hotel is true to its name, occupying the Nolita neighborhood in New York City. For most non-New Yorkers who don't know (and more than a few New Yorkers for that matter), Nolita stands for "north of Little Italy," a downtown neighborhood known for its eccentric style and nightlife.
HBL Book of the Week: Room With A View
In 2009, renowned Dutch design school Design Academy Eindhoven started looking for an apartment in which to hold inspiring discussions and host international guests; they were hunting for 'a room with a view'. This resulting publication of the same name charts the process of finding such an apartment, furnishing it, and staying true to the values of Dutch design throughout.
HBL loves: that this small publication, complete with floor plans and full listings for the pieces used, provides so much insight into how we use spaces, both to work and to live. For more information, click here.
HBL Exhibitions: Jerwood Makers Open
Flicker (2011) by Farah Bandookwala, photograph by Tomas Rydin |
At London gallery Jerwood Space's first Jerwood Makers Open, works by four contemporary makers are on show - with exhibits ranging from interactive motion-based pieces to a dogged exploration of glaze. WGSN-homebuildlife attended the launch yesterday to take a look.
Sigge by Fanny Aronsen Studio
and Sigurd Falk
Tuesday 12 July 2011
Sigge by Fanny Aronsen and Sigurd Falk
|
Earlier this month renowned Swedish fabric designer Fanny Aronsen launched Sigge, a vibrant fabric co-designed with young Swedish designer Sigurd Falk. The design is a contemporary, reversible upholstery textile with a flowing hand-drawn motif based on a pen on paper drawing which is described by Fanny Aronsen Studio as "sophisticated street art".
HBL Retail: British consumers use loans to invest in property
Sainsbury's loans book shows that one in five personal loans (21%) are being used to pay for home improvements and investing in their homes despite the difficult economic climate.
Home improvements accounted for 20.2 per cent of the total value of personal loans taken out in the UK, showing a slight increase from the 20.1 per cent of the total value last year. However, the average value of a personal loan taken out for home improvements has declined, from £8,827 in 2010 to £8,318.
HBL Blog of the Week: Luxury Now
Luxury Now, the news section of high-end blog Luxury Culture, presents an ever-changing snapshot of the events you should know about in the worlds of design, fashion and architecture. Great for finding inspiration.
HBL loves: its focus on the luxury market - an important sector to keep track of.
HBL Analysis: Mischioff
Swiss rug brand Mischioff have launched a collection of round flower rugs - after the original designs, shown at Maison & Objet earlier this year, proved a hit with customers.
HBL Retail: Tok&Stok sustainable shopping bags
Ave Eva Ave by Joana Lira |
Iconic Brazilian interiors retailer Tok&Stok has launched a collection of shopping bags made from 100% recyclable raffia, available in 8 different designs.
Tiny Houses by Tumbleweed
Monday 11 July 2011
WGSN's US editors love the tiny houses designed by Jay Shafer, founder of the California-based company Tumbleweed. The houses range in size from 874 square feet all the way down to a truly tiny 65 square feet, the smallest of which use puzzle-like configurations to fit appliances, and functional spaces such as sleep lofts and kitchens.
Playground Closes at Dusk: the first outdoor collection by Nacho Carbonell
Spazio Rosanna Orlandi presented Playground Closes at Dusk, Nacho Carbonell's first collection of furniture designed specifically for outdoor use, at Art Basel Design Miami last month. Comprising five pieces, the limited-edition collection makes strong use of Carbonell's signature primal forms and tactile surfaces.
Milk Series by Ellen Thomas
Milk Series by Ellen Thomas |
Kingston University at New Designers
LDF 2011: Tent preview
Friday 8 July 2011
Glass Concrete Bench by Ivanka |
Held at the Old Truman Brewery in East London during the London Design Festival, Tent is a reliable place to find exciting design talent and innovative new ideas. This year's show will see more than 200 companies exhibiting their latest projects; here's a preview of what to look out for this September.
HBL Retail: D&M's Winter 2011 collection
Belgian tableware brand D&M have sent us images of their winter 2011 collection, including new ranges of table linens, serveware and dining accessories.
Design Within Reach Opens Stamford, Connecticut, Showroom
Thursday 7 July 2011
After moving its headquarters from San Francisco to Connecticut in the past year, Design Within Reach has opened its Stamford Studio, located at 711 Canal Street, in the Harbor Point area of Stamford’s historic South End. The studio is the storefront of the building where DWR has its corporate offices.
From Here For Here by Ariane Prin
Pencils made from waste collected at RCA by Ariane Prin |
American Folk Art Museum
Wednesday 6 July 2011
Harriet Rutter Eagleson |
This week is New Yorkers' last chance to visit the American Folk Art Museum in its current form at West 53rd Street, a building designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. The building's new owners, MoMA have yet to announce its plans for the building.
Hampton Court Flower Show
WGSN-homebuildlife has just returned from the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show, the largest flower show in the world, running from July 5-10 just outside of London. Show gardens and conceptual gardens animate the landscape while plant, flower and garden product developers offer a huge array of living ideas for avid gardeners and amateurs alike. Here are the first few glimpses of some key elements at this year's Hampton Court.
HBL Book of the Week: Chroma
Line judge, Wimbledon, London; from Chroma: Celebrating colour in photography |
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