British design company Twentytwentyone is organizing an auction where 40 world-renowned designers have created an unique design on an organically produced tote bag. The Bags of goodwill has been devised by Twentytwentyone to raise awareness of the importance of sustainability and fair-trad practice. All the proceeds will go to the Fairtrade Foundation.
Stockholm based designer Damian Williamson have signed his bag using thirty three stainless steel poppers. The bag can be fastened if necessary. Photo credit: Rasmus Norlander
Designer and architect Eero Koivisto Eero Koivisto talks about the Designboost event which I’m organizing in Malmö 17–19 October. The theme for this year is sustainable design. Eero Koivisto will be one of the speakers at the lecture day (or Boost chat day as we prefer to call) it on October 18. This day is open to the public and you can order your personal ticket here. At the moment we have an early bird offer running. So far the following speakers are confirmed for the Boost chat day: Jennifer Leonard, Brent Richards, Kristina Dryza, Satyendra Pakhale and Eero Koivisto. More speakers will be announced in a few days.
Sam Hecht and Kim Collin runs the design studio Industrial Facilitywith Ippei Matsumoto as senior designer. I think they make clever designs and I like their rational and sufficient products a lot. There is a clarity in every design solution. Recently I found the Ten Key Calculator with a nice retro 60/70s style plastic fantastic look at their webpage. It’s USB enable and made for IDEA international. At the same time as it reminds me of an old school calculating machine it has a sharpness of the future.
Below is another example of the ongoing trend where designers are entering the art world. This time it is a sculpture by Barber Osgerby that will be on display at The Old Royal Naval College in London 15 - 30 September during The London Design Festival. It seems like my “Designers that want to be artists” series will run for a long time… Read my bulletin Vulgarism for more thoughts about the ongoing convergence between art and design.
With an innovative combination of design and materials, the honeycomb structured extendable K-bench allows to be shaped according to one’s need. The poetic of origami blends with modern materials in a perfect mix of tradition and modernity. The bench is only 16 cm thick when contracted. It is assembled in no time with big paperclips and can take many forms. The bench is made out of 250 pages of polypropylene and comes in 6 colours; white, grey, orange, translucid, pistache and light blue. UV-treated it is ready for indoor and outdoor use. At the picture above a series of K-benches have been put side by side in a long row.
The Desert Lounge Weekend will take place in Marrakech October 19-21, 2007. In an exotic setting you will experience great music from artists and DJ’s like Bryan Ferry, Dimitri from Paris and Claude Challe global nomads, charity and fine food and drinks. Daytime the surrounding are buzzing with commerce and Morrocan life and at night the skyline and rooftops of the medievial buildings create an exotic “thousand-and-a-night” atmosphere. In an spectacular ancient palace garden in the centre of the Marrakech Medina filled with carpets, pillows, torches and tents you will party and enjoy yourself together with old and new friends.
Would you like your personal piece of art on the wall above? Send your entries to the competition Up against it which is a public art competition. The wall with a size bigger than 60 m2 is situated in Deptford, London and can be seen by more than 2000 commuters a day. Deadline for entering the competition is set to 23/4/2008.
The video shows the work by Bjarke Ingels group when they constructed a Lego tower of more than 250.000 pieces. The work took five weeks and will be presented at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York. You can see part of the final result below. I will soon post some further images that shows the architectural sketches that has worked as raw model for the Lego construction.
The car industry is preparing for the big “environmental friendly” fight at this years car show in Frankfurt. The one thousand exhibitors expect almost a million visitors to the stands. It’s good that the car industry finally would like to be environmental friendly (because of the ongoing ecological trend I suppose…). Their efforts are in other words very focused on technology (as always), different fuels and carbon dioxide. What’s totally missing on the agenda is some good old honourable design thinking. Will any of the cars of today be around year 2027? I have a sports car myself that is designed back in 1967, still as accurate as when it was new. That’s sustainable and environmental friendly design. Today people sell their cars after a three years lease as “damage control”. How environmental friendly is that? I would like to see timelessness, new materials that push the envelope, storytelling, sensorial experiences and cultural awareness. Today, most cars is just a technological masculine machines and the car designers sometimes seems to live in a parallel universe. Who will be first with cars like everyday tools, that really attract people and addresses their needs? Cars that can be personalised according to your own desires.
Here is a short video about the event Designboost which I’m organising together with my associate Peer Eriksson. Designboost takes place in Malmö October 17th – November 17th and consists of workshops, lectures/debates and an exhibition. The lectures and debates on the 18th plus exhibition which starts on the 19th are open for the public. There will be a lot of interesting personalities to listen to. We will start to present and write about them in the Designboost blog in the next coming days. Did I say that the theme for year one is sustainable design?
Sorry for the somewhat grim look by the way. I blame the strong light and an early Monday morning…
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