London Design Festival; Love A Familial Connection

Brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers parents and children, couples in a relationship and of course brand collaborations have always been a big part of design so to celebrate London Design festival here is a celebration of a few of the partnerships some familial some not so. After all the creative process can be a lonely one, so why not get the family involved. Find out more in London Design Festival; Love A Familial Connection Left T4 Collection UMA Objects

Within the sphere of the creative arts, intense familial collaboration can often be a way to kick-start ideas that change the way we live, work and play. Partnerships with this arena often result in passionate collaborations and much of the history of contemporary design cannot be told without mentioning some of its most prestigious couple within the design field. Think of such names as Anni and Josef Albers of the  Bauhaus Institute,  Charles and Ray Eames known as the darlings of contemporary design, responsible for the forever-fashionable Eames Lounge Chair as well as a host of contemporary chairs and storage solutions, and what about Hans and Florence Knoll whose design ethos strove to elevate every object in the room to its full potential, bringing order and beauty to both life and work

Lounge Chair and Ottoman by Eames 

These small handful allows for the celebration of sets of people collaboration at this years London Design Festival, so here is just a handful to enjoy.

Every year in London we have a design festival, partly a show for brands and press and then attractions open to the public. The launch of the first festival took place at Bloomberg on 25 March 2003, created by Sir John Sorrell and Ben Evans.

A show to support design, education, government and London organisations, with goals to promote London’s creativity, to attract top thinkers, educators, retailers, and practitioners. Also to demonstrating London’s position as a creative powerhouse  and how the city contributes to the UK’s reputation as a creative powerhouse. Over 20 years later it is still growing and has served as a model for design festivals and weeks around the world and at the same time brought many international brands into London.

Arthur Goldreich and Tamar de Shalit

So carrying on our story of family design, lets start with a love story.’and an ode to a love story. Tamart is a new design brand founded by the London-based, award-winning architect Amos Goldreich. This new project is in honour of the work and love story of his late parents, the modernist architects and polymaths, Tamar de Shalit (1932–2009) and Arthur Goldreich (1929–2011).

He has chosen to reimagine and contemporise mid-century pieces, into an expression of their synergistic and multi-disciplinary achievements. The company officially launched in April 2024 with a showcase exhibition entitled ‘Tamart: Powered by love’ during Milan Design Week, at Design Variations by Mosca Partners. The display incorporated the new collection alongside an installation of original archival materials.

Highgate Chair central Stool and Clore Lounge Chair by Tamart

Tamart debuts with an initial offering of ten reimagined mid-century wooden furniture products, each piece exemplifying Tamar de Shalit and Arthur Goldreich’s compelling and timeless approach to design: connecting the present with the indelible mark they left on the modernist design scene.

Another company with parental roots is UMA Objects. Founded in Izmir, Turkey by Steph Gallia, it specialises in fibreglass moulded furniture products made in the family factory, Polkima,  who are best known for producing the internal plastic components on our London buses.

Over 30 years ago, Steph’s father founded Polkima, a composite manufacturing company that has achieved global success. While Steph, a qualified architect, was not inclined to merely replicate her father’s role within the family business, she sought to adapt it to align with her own skills and passions. This led to the creation of Uma Objects, a design brand specialising in a collection of custom-made furniture and lifestyle products produced locally. Steph’s father has shared his extensive expertise in producing plastic moulded components, ensuring Polkima’s continued prosperity. Together, Polkima and Uma Objects represent a harmonious evolution for the family business, blending tradition with innovation.

T4 Single-Seater in Red, Big Red Dining Table Uma Objects

Uma have collaborated with Holloway Li since 2022 to create the T4 sofa and Big Red dining table and benches. Both have a bold and distinctive aesthetic made and moulded from high-quality fibreglass and suited to hospitality and residential spaces. 

Husbands and wives in design are also a fixture; take for example Kim Collins and Sam Hecht, working under the banner Industrial facility. Co-founded in 2002 by them their approach reflects both a thoughtful consideration of form and a unique understanding of contemporary life, creating beauty out of utility in the products, furniture and exhibitions they design. Hecht, trained as an industrial designer, while Colin, trained as an architect. The signature of their work is often the understated nature of items that blend seamlessly into its needed surroundings.

Hecht and Colin’s desire is to work for industry in a way that improves the things we live with; to produce something better than before. Industrial Facility, have both a philosophical and pragmatic approach and is considered as one of the most progressive studios in product, furniture and exhibition designers in London.

The next step in their career has been the opening of Future Facility an outgrowth of their influential London-based design studio, Now under the direction of Leo Leitner, Future Facility draws on strengths across many specialisms to envision the next world of intelligent products.

Sam Hecht and Kim Collins by Lucy Shortman

They look to give physical, digital and experiential form to ideas. Researching, inventing, prototyping, curating, and communicating, to provoke and creatively direct and aid clients in evaluating potentials in future products and services. Driven to the removal of friction from technology and human interaction.

For this seasons LDF the company is presenting their latest piece of work within the ASUS and Dezeen in the presentation Design You Can Feel event.

This exhibition is a journey through material, craftsmanship and AI. At its heart is an exploration of Ceraluminum, an innovative material by ASUS, presented alongside work by leading designers and curated around themes that showcase the brand’s approach to design through multi-sensory storytelling.

The exhibition celebrates Zenbook – the new laptop from ASUS featuring the Ceraluminum material, whose light and durable tactility can be used to create designs with a unique and everlasting appeal. Each of the pieces in the exhibition, which span furniture, lighting and installation design, speak to these qualities in different ways. The show explores how material qualities such as form, colour and texture can be combined to create objects or moments that awaken the senses.

Susa, by Future Facility.

The exhibition culminates in a specially commissioned piece made from Ceraluminum by Future Facility named SUSA. Through this conceptual design, the studio explores the relationship between the digital and physical worlds and asks how technology and materiality can combine to create calm and tactile objects, ultimately changing the way we experience digital interfaces.

The design suggests how AI technology could become. Unlike common screen based devices, Future Facility’s SUSA deliberately suppresses intrusive entertainment and social media, in what they call an example of “calm technology”, by placing its screen behind a haptic perforated Ceraluminium surface. Think of this new piece of design as everything a mobile phone can do but without the visual fuss of images social media and ‘visual noise’

Future Facility has combined Ceraluminium with technologies such as SenseTM haptic touchpads, to create more tactile objects that are less screen dependant. You can still take a high resolution photographs, watch a film or play a game, but they are presented in a lower resolution.

Another design duo couple are Wilkinson & Rivera, made up of Grant Wilkinson and Teresa Rivera. As a partnership they have a design and manufacturing studio, weaving ideals and practices across creative disciplines. Founded on principles of responsible manufacturing, it uses age-old processes to craft enduring pieces of design.

Left Peonia chair, right Sun and Cane stools, by Wilkinson & Rivera,

At its heart the studio is a collaboration guided by materiality and traditional processes. Striving to create tomorrow’s heirlooms, the work celebrates excellence in craft. The pair collaborate to combine their collective experience in fine art, design, and furniture-making.

In-house manufacturing combined with a collective of makers, experts, and artisans allows the studio to produce high-quality furniture and collectible design.

Next up comes more family layers in the form of Porro. A four-generation family business focusing on customisable modular systems for the house and workspace.  Founded in Brianza, in the small town of Montesolaro, Carimate, the brothers Giulio and Stefano Porro, established in 1925 their first workshop dedicated to the production of old-style pieces of furniture produced for the newborn Milanese bourgeoisie.

The transition to second generation of Porro family, with the cousins Carlo, Arturo and Silvio, marked the turn to Modern style in the 50’s, also thanks to the long and successful collaboration with the architect Giulio Moscatelli, who in 1955 designed the new workshop next to the family house.In the 60’s the transformation in a real industry needed a new productive pole, opened in 1968.

Porro’s designs have found their perfect home in the majestic Coal Office building along the Regent’s Canal. The new London base of the brand will be an exhibition space and office where tailor-made projects can be developed, pushing creativity and craftsmanship to the next level. Think clean lines, exquisite fabrics and graceful linear storage solutions with system that balances innovation and tradition.

The Porro family.

For the third consecutive year, Porro takes part in the London Design Festival showcasing its expertise in architectural design, pure shapes, extremely precise workmanship and material innovation. The new 2024 collection is represented by the new Origata consolle designed by the Japanese designer Nao Tamura.

Origata consolle designed by the Japanese designer Nao Tamura for Porro

A monolithic design, Origata console and bench draw inspiration from the art of making kimonos, the traditional Japanese garment. Similar to how kimonos are crafted from a flat, rectangular fabric that is cut in straight lines and sewn together to minimise waste, these pieces of furniture are created from a single sheet of aluminium that is cut and assembled using screws, maximising the use of material.

Porro, Load-it bookcase by Wolfgang Tolk Origata by Nao Tamura, Denim Pillow

This project combines simple gestures and aesthetic simplification, respect for materials and a propensity for the future. Aslo this festival find Storage wardrobes designed by Piero Lissoni + CRS Porro, Modern + Load-it equipped wall, combining Load-it bookcase by Wolfgang Tolk and Modern writing desk by Piero Lissoni + CRS Porro, just one of the endless possibilities of Porro’s tailor-made project.

Lastly for now, Alex and Carl are brothers by design but not actually related in real life and are known as Sons of Beasley A small batch production furniture making experiment by designers Carl Clerkin and Alex Hellum. The venture is a fresh approach to sustainable design and focuses on repurposing offcuts, breathing new life into discarded materials.

Sons of Beasley are part of the SCP show to celebrate idiosyncratic and spirited design, in a show entitled The Heart of the Matter. SCP has been the unofficial epicentre of the product and furniture design scene in east London for the last four decades, recognised for a sustainable approach to making furniture and a nuanced approach to sourcing product.

The 22nd edition of London Design Festival will include a wide-ranging programme, from workshops, talks and tours to open studios and product launches.Held over nine days, London Design Festival (LDF) will be located across 11 districts spread throughout the capital.

Find out more about www.tamartdesign.com Here

Find out more about www.umaobjects.com Here

Visit www.porro.com/en Here or @Porro London,The Coal Office 1 Bagley Walk Kings Cross,N1C 4PQ, Londo

Find the work of Wilkinson & Rivera and  Sons of Beasley at SCP, scp.co.uk 135 Curtain Road, London 
EC2A 3BX

To find out more about futurefacility.co.uk visit here To find out www.industrialfacility.co.uk visit Here Taking place at Protein Studios in Shoreditch from 17 to 22 September, the exhibition also features an area where visitors can experience the latest ASUS Zenbook series. London Design Festival information for protein studios is here

To find out about Sons of Beasley please visit materialmatters.design/Sons-of-Beasley Here

To find out about www.wilkinson-rivera.com/ please visit Here

For information on please visit londondesignfestival.com

If you enjoyed reading London Design Festival; Love A Familial Connection then why not read London, The City Lesser Knwon here

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