{"id":118578,"date":"2022-09-27T17:38:14","date_gmt":"2022-09-27T16:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centmagazine.co.uk\/?p=118578"},"modified":"2022-09-30T15:05:41","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T14:05:41","slug":"living-designs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.centmagazine.co.uk\/?p=118578","title":{"rendered":"Living Designs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dearest London, our city layered with life, history and a plethora of stories, material noises visions and sounds. It’s that time of year as we build up to the holiday season when this Grand Old Lady has numerous festivals and fairs. Mid-September sees London Fashion Week followed closely behind by London Design Week which then blends into Freeze Art fair and Raindance Film Festivals. What treats did she have in store during the design festival? It seems that materials and emotions, heritage and sustainability were key this season. Find out more in Living Design<\/em> here<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our city is known the world over for its history and heritage known and seen so recently and marked by so many across the world of the passing of a globally respected Queen London can often be seen for its past yet its future is just as vital in world leading importance. This sprawling hubbub is a creative minefield with new ideas popping up on every corner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This season’s design festival did not disappoint with many ideas steeped in emotions that drive us. After Salone de Milano where the emotive connection between person and design was very much a theme, this certainly carried forward in our city’s design show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We asked furniture designer Lara Bohinc a few questions about this idea. Why is designed so tied to emotion from your perspective? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“we respond to everything we see on a subconscious emotional level whether we like it or not. For me, it is important that my pieces have a connection with a user, as this makes them more valuable and more important. The visual language of the piece should ideally trigger something in our brain that either reminds us of an emotion, an event or a person” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And how do you feel this has changed for you over the years?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Since the pandemic and during that period of isolation I wanted my pieces to become something that would make you feel loved and cocooned; and also something that would entertain you. I guess in a way my view has changed and I wanted to create pieces that would make me and others smile”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Big Girl Armchair Bohinc Studio<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Brompton Design District programme curated by Jane Withers Studio theme was “Make Yourself at Home”. This saw designers reflect on the places we call home and the role of design in transforming these spaces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extended is a new series of mirrors by Studio Sanne Visser. The mirrors reflect our sense of comfort and belonging in the hairdressers and barbershops where we get our hair cut; homely spaces of familiarity, sensitivity and relaxation. The eight custom-designed mirrors are made using human hair rope and recycled mirror glass. The materials were collected from eight barbershops and hairdressers in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea as part of Sanne\u2019s residency at the Design Museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Martin Gamber and friends bring \u2018No Ordinary Home\u2019, an experimental show loosely centring around the idea of an object to hold a plant. These \u201cvessels\u201d and their plants create an extraordinary living space with dripping jungle vines alongside dried grasses side by side with spiky fluffy cacti growing next to neon flowers made from borosilicate. In this space this group together to create intimacy, coherency, understanding and conversation despite the distinct approaches of each artist. The shared framework for the show was a set of rules: to make an object to hold a plant and to make this using existing elements from their studio archive, revisiting materials and techniques from old ideas. This re-evaluation of studio leftovers (experiments, samples, partially made elements, failed works, moulds) encouraged each designer to reappraise their past and approach the plant holder from their own design aesthetic but with a common goal of uniting everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Martino Gamper & Friends – No Ordinary Home photo by Andy Stagg<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Bethan Laura Wood was invited to make a collection for 1882 Ltd., she drew on the ceramic history of trompe-l’\u0153il decoration used for food vessels. Highly popularized in the 18th century and inspired by the increasing exchange of foods across the globe and the aspiration for ‘enlightenment’ through scientific exploration and cataloguing of nature. The trend of theatrical dining merged into a wonderous world of creating hyper-realistic ceramic replicas of fruits and vegetables. Some vessels even replicated the shapes of whole animals, used to often house contrasting food inside. Bethan has mixed this with the abstraction and optimism of 1960’s party foods, including the mainstay staple of bite-sized cubes of pineapple, cheese and melon skewered by sticks and arranged in an explosive array otherwise more glamorously known as caleidoscopio di stuzzichini in Italian which reflected the decade\u2019s fascination for Sputnik shapes inspired by the space race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bethan Laura Wood – Disco Gourds\u00b7Updated Sep 23, 2022 by Owen O’Leary<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paper is the inaugural furniture and lighting collection of London-based designer David Horan designed exclusively with B\u00e9ton Brut gallery. It sees Horan as a modern decoupeur, layering handmade Japanese paper to create new applied vegan vellum. Informed by the French craft traditions of decoupage and Japanese Mingeimovement, Horan wraps a series of original works including seating, a coffee table and lighting. Horan grounds the magic of Paper in forms as precise as they are architectonic. The geometries contain harmony in ratios evoking Deco and Classical. Paper was conceived via rigorous material experimentation in Horan\u2019s London workshop. It was an exercise inde-composition, andre-composition\u2013of rippingit up, and starting again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Horan worked with Mineo Kato from Japan Fine Papers in Hackney to source the washi. From the discards of the dragon\u2019s Orochi-gami skin, remnants are restored piece-by-piece by the workshop of Kajigase Takashi, before Horan takes it through a final metamorphosis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Paper by David Horan for B\u00e9ton Brut 2022 by Owen O’Leary<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Design is a method of solving certain problems, it is primarily about the function, which is followed by a clear aesthetic form. Design finds its place in war, for example, in the creation of camouflage nets. The net with which the Gropius chair has been upholstered was woven in the original technique, developed by volunteers from the VinnSolard Center, located in Vinnytsia. In Vinnytsia and other cities and villages of Ukraine, with the outbreak of the war, there are many centres where willing locals and people who moved from the North, East, and South of Ukraine are convening to weave camouflage nets for the Ukrainian military. VinnSolard is one of those centres where, from the earliest days of the war, people of various professions worked on camo nets, united by a single goal; victory. Among those who joined the volunteering were Latayko Antonina, art director, a graphic designer from Kyiv, and Bakulina Nataliya, producer and, until recently, editor of ELLE Decoration Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gropius Low Chair Military Edition By NOOM in collaboration with Nataliya Bakulina and Antonina Latayko designed by Kateryna Sokolova photo by Andy Stagg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Designer James Shaw and writer Lou Stoppard explore themes around moving in together. Tastes and desires collide when two households combine to become one. object spread around highlights the mixing of tastes and conflicts when two become one. Showing the role physical possessions, habits and compromise play in our relationships. Shaw\u2019s objects and the arrangement of the display have been shaped by a new short story written by Stoppard, which was, in turn, inspired by the way Shaw\u2019s objects look when placed alongside other furniture. Esoteric habits to do with tea-making or hand towels, which may well have been acquired from our parents or past relationships, are suddenly forced to co-exist. \u0004A physical manifestation of our ability to accept, tolerate, and to love one another. Seedslondon.com. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 Two Kettles, No Sofa by James Shaw – Install Images by Paul Plews\u00b7 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Into Sight by Sony Design was a life-sized media platform installation, playing on sensorial effects that transform simple boundary surfaces into an infinite vista through shifting light, colour and sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stepping into the installation unleashes a unique response; as you venture further inside you will become more aware of unexpected visual and audio dimensions that continuously evolve through your interactions. This project aims to capture and discover new insights regarding the coexistence of physical and meta realities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photos by Andy Stagg<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wastem\u00e2ch\u00e9 is a circular craft material made from gathered industrial waste and carbon-linking ingredients like sea moss. It is malleable and claylike, and air dries hard like stone. Developed out of a need for alternatives to extractive craft methods that take better care of our planet, whilst preserving the therapeutic benefits of hand making. After being soaked in water, it can be reused, reformed and reimagined. Through its application in products, it allows us to question, reframe and lean into society’s veneration of newness. Objects can be reconfigured days, weeks or years later, or can be left to biodegrade. Unburdening future generations. Created by Annabel Maguire from the RCA<\/p>\n\n\n\n