Designersblock Milano 2011; Hirako, Smile Experience Design Lab
Next week sees Designersblock take a whole clutch of designers to Milan, to be part of Ventura Lambrate.
Smile Experience Design Lab is made up of professor Kazuhiko Yamazaki of Chiba Institute of Technology, Japan and 16 of his students. The group has designed products from the inspiration of ‘invisible information’ such as Memory, Nature, Sound, Air and Time.
Lovely Legs table lamp, Furniture Magpies; Helpful electrial lowtech companion, Peter Böckel
Peter Böckel graduated in 2011 from the University of Applied Science Coburg, Germany. At Designersblock 2011 in Milan Peter will be showing a collection of several furniture pieces under the title MissingLink. The collection consists of four objects which are based upon the idea of the convergence of form, function and meaning.
Furniture Magpies has already appeared on the ARTS THREAD Blog and is made up of four recent MA Furniture and Technology graduates from Bucks New University, Sivan Metzer, Nessa O’Reilly and Sua Lee. The team specialise in regenerating old furniture, creating one off and limited edition pieces breathing new life into otherwise discarded items; striving to retain the character and story of the furniture, allowing the user an insight into their items original identity.
Spade seat, Nic Roex; Plate 21 by DBO, The New English
Nic Roex graduated from Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague (KABK) in 2009. At Designersblock, Nic will be showcasing the Spade seat. ‘Where the spade once stood for arduous work like digging and moving sand, gravel and dirt, it is now used for relaxation. This would seem to be a great contrast, but the solution is more obvious than it might first appear: the spades have the same contour as your bottom. By placing the spade on a frame with this in mind, the spade assumes a new function: a sitting surface. The solution is already there in the existing form of the spade!’
The New English from Staffordshire in the UK reinvent traditional painted ceramics, commissioning designs from contemporary designers, artists and illustrators to decorate ceramics using the traditional methods that have been used for hundreds of years in the Potteries in and around Stoke on Trent the heartland of British ceramics manufacturing.
Metal Spinning table and lamps, James Shaw; Rough and Ready, Vanja Bazdulj
James Shaw graduated from Kingston University in 2010 and at New Designers last year James won the 100% Design Award for his Metal Spinning range of table, light and dustpan and brush. In addition, James will also be showing his House Blackboards.
Vanja Bazdulj graduated in 2010 with a MA in Furniture Design from London Metropolitan University. Vanja’s Rough and Ready is an experimental furniture collection inspired from exploring the potentials of the imperfect, unpredictable, the flawed, the unfinished `finish` look aesthetics and independence in working process. Thick sheets with different densities are assembled with rope and tightened into place; a flat surface becoming a furniture piece by using rope tension. The range currently consists of Easy Chairs and Sidekick stools.
КАФАНА, Academy of Fine Arts Belgrade; My Form Follows Function Sofa, Daan Mulder
КАФАНА is joint project of the Design Department at Academy of Fine Arts Belgrade. Kafana (Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia), kafeana (Macedonia), kavana (Croatia) are terms used in the former Yugoslav countries for a distinct type of local bistro which primarily serves alcoholic beverages and coffee and sometimes a live band. The students were given 10 weeks to analyse traditional Balkan taverns, space organisation and functionality of furniture, together with ways of use and communication within the space. They then had to design objects (with limited resources and techniques) for today’s social gathering: chairs, tables, dishes, lights, interior details, all wrapped in the appropriate ambiance of a modern tavern.
Having graduated from the Wood and Cabinet making College of Amsterdam, the Dutch designer Daan Mulder then studied at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague (KABK), graduating in interior architecture in 2010 with a final project Club Wave. The My Form Follows Function Sofa, Mulder’s latest creation epitomises the philosophy of this young design promise, whose motto is to ‘integrate dynamic curves with extreme functionality’.
Designersblock will be at Ventura Lambrate, Via Privata Oslavia 8 April 12017 2011.
Smile Experience Design Lab
Peter Böckel
Furniture Magpies
Nic Roex
The New English
James Shaw
Vanja Bazdulj
КАФАНА
Daan Mulder
