As part of the Milan design week 2012 in April, SPD Scuola Politecnica di Design presented the exhibition 'OUT NOW. Stories of Ideas and Matter'.
The exhibition brought together different ideas and views on the subject of design and production, and intersected these with the work of eleven international designers trained in the school in recent years. How can we interpret the role of designers? The exhibition allowed us to follow the paths of a young generation of designers who have left the classroom and experienced the possibilities of the field as creative apprentices.
'Voi' design by Kostantia Manthou and Manuel Torres, modular storage container, prototype Poliform, 2011 A small architecture that grows in space as it transforms. Voi reinterprets a classic Poliform piece of the late eighties, the IO wardrobe by Paolo Piva.
'Tab' design by Isaac Piñeiro, Nadadora Studio, collection of stools and coffee tables, production Sancal, 2011 Family of stools and low tables inspired by the beehives made from hollow logs, called trobos, very typical of northern Spain. All the pieces are hand made from a bent sheet of natural chestnut veneer.
'Mariù' design by Luis Arrivillaga, suspension lamp, production Made a Mano, 2012 Ceramic lamp with cold enamel coating. It creates an interplay between positive and negative surfaces which is more evident when illuminated. Mariù interprets the space according to a principle of creative disorder generated by the disk of the diffuser.
'Wired' design by Alessandro Stabile with Alessandro Gnocchi, stackable chair with tubular metal frame, production Belca, 2012 The product doesn’t require any investment in industrial equipment and uses accessible technologies.
'Lateira' design by Rui Pereira, decorated clayware, production Show Me, 2011 An homage to the nearly extinct canned fish industry via another traditional Portuguese handicraft: decorated pottery. The sardine can is transformed into a proud, ready for serving delicacy: a manifesto of the craftsman/designer dichotomy.
'Scooby Doo' design by Giorgio Bonaguro, table lamp, production La Lampe, 2012 The piece chooses a classic language and a minimalistic architecture in tubular metal that supports the glass diffuser. A study in contrasts between the rich material palette and the simplicity of its lightweight structure. 'Tweety' design by Giorgio Bonaguro, table lamp, self production, 2011 A simple and intuitive design made up of two parts, the lampholder and an ecofriendly polycarbonate sheet bent into a loop. Without using screws or joints for easy assembly, the bulb is suspended, like a bird in a cage.
Lampshade Bulb for Booo Front was inspired by the long life of a LED lamp. Its burning time of almost ten years makes it possible to create a lamp you never need to change the bulb of. The inner dome softens the light and creates the illusion of a lamp without a bulb, blurring the boundary between lightsource and lampshade.
Chameleon Cupboard for Porro A colour changing cupboard. The new Chameleon unit is a magic volume, constantly opening on itself like the game of the Chinese boxes, changing appearance and revealing new finishes. To be used as a container for the bedroom or the living, it consists of a central wooden crate, covered by leather layers, which used as hinges, allows it to turn and be revolved, changing its colour and look according to the specific mood.
Surface Tension Lamp for Booo A bubble is brief, and bursts at your touch. But while it lasts, it catches the light and reflects the room like a multi-coloured temporary structure. Front wanted to create a constantly changing lamp that combines the most ephemeral of lampshades with a LED light source that will last for 50000 hours. In the time it takes the LED to burn out, the lamp will have had 3 million different globe shades.
Gentle Chair for Porro A chair in the shape of two joined arches. Made of wood and upholstered leather.
Doodle Sofa for Moroso We doodle absent mindedly - doodling is a kind of half-conscious creative work. It is both a distraction, and also thought to help you concentrate on whatever you are doing at the same time. All three members of Front used doodles they had made during design meetings to create the sofa's pattern. The decoration is a kind of by-product of Front's creative process, inscribed onto the folded half circle of the sofa's form.
Gaëlle Gabillet and Stéphane Villard, from the French Studio GGSV based in Paris, are presenting their new lights at the Gallery Cat Berro.
Both pieces of furniture and display cases, these lights act as small curiosity cabinets highlighting the beauty and strangeness of their subjects.
When turned off, the bulb and socket disappear beneath an opaque black tinted glass. When lit, the bulb gradually reveals itself behind a soft veil, never dazzling. The base is made of blackened oak and the bell of blown glass.
The designers have chosen to present construction debris. Under these bells, they become specimens of a strange preciousness.
These lights question what is to be looked at: the object or its
content? Where are we supposed to be focusing our attention in this day
and age?
The Velvet Gallery is organizing on the occasion of the 26° Puces du Design, from May 10 to 13, an exhibition dedicated to Quasar Khanh, pioneer of inflatable furniture.
The Khanh family, 1968 - Archives famille Khanh
On this occasion will be presented the collection 'Aerospace', the first line of inflatable furniture ever designed with rare pieces from an old stock and the "Quasar Unipower" concept car designed in 1967.
'Aerospace' collection - Photo Mike Jayet for the Velvet Galerie 2010
Quasar, whose real name is Nguyen Manh Khanh, was born in Hanoï, Vietnam. He arrived in Paris with his family in 1949 and studied engineering at the prestigious Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1957, he married a young fashion designer; both will mark their time and form a creative and avant-garde couple.
In 1967, he developed the very first line of inflatable furniture, the collection "Aerospace" which will instantly become a standard of design.
Model 'Apollo', Aerospace collection, 1968 - photo Mick Jayet for the Velvet galerie 2010
In 1968 he created the car 'Quasar Unipower' foreshadowing of a purely urban vehicle, rolling glass cube, designed for mass production. It will ultimately be produced in only six copies but it will have left its mark on the seventies with its innovative and futuristic aspects.
The 'Cube', Paris 1968 - Archives famille Khanh
His 'Chesterfield' sofas, 'Apollo' chairs, 'Relax' lounge chair and other inflatable lamps ... were manufactured between 1968 and 1972 in the suburbs of Paris, in a beach toy factory. They were made entirely by hand like pieces of haute couture, and for some, the assemblies were made with metal rings.
This institutional recognition continues up to now: pieces of the collection 'Aerospace' appear in the collections of the greatest museums in the world - Centre Pompidou, MoMA, Vitra Design Museum...
Exhibition: Quasar Khanh, le pionnier du mobilier gonflable Les Puces du design Bercy Village, Paris 12° From May 10 to 13 2012
The latest lighting collaboration between Design House Stockholm and Form Us With Love is based on a simple idea. Three glass pendants are blown in Bauhaus shapes - a circle, a rectangle and a triangle.
At the heart of Form Pendants is the idea of consumers becoming involved in the design process. Form Us With Love may design the lamps, but it is the consumer who designs the installation.
Photography by Jonas Lindström
The basis consists of three blown glass forms borrowed from the light bulb, but refined to a beautiful abstraction in white with a spatial sensation.
The lamps are intended to be grouped as installations, encouraging users to explore the interplay between shapes.
The collaboration between Form Us With Love and Design House Stockholm has been focusing on lighting; first the 2007 Cord Lamp, then the 2009 Work Lamp, and now the 2012 Form Pendants.
Photography by Jonas Lindström
Form us with Love is a Swedish design studio located in Stockholm. The trio met on a course in product design at Karlmar University, and consists of John Löfgren, Jonas Pettersson and Petrus Palmér.
