I’m proud to announce that my knowledge company Designboost has released its first annual book named “Designboost 07″. It’s the first in a series of books that in words, pictures and moving media describes the work of Designboost. Designboost is a knowledge company that helps companies and organisations to learn more about design in general and sustainable design in particular and how to use it as a competitive weapon and turn it into a business advantage.

The book “Designboost 07″ is built on the vision “sharing design knowledge” with different texts about sustainable design from Designboost “boosters” and friends. Among the contributors you will find acclaimed personalities like Mathilda Tham - professor at Beckmans College of design, Sean Pillot de Chenecey - consumer insight and brand development, Kristina Börjesson - PhD research associate/Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, Tim Power - architect and Jennifer Leonard - designer researcher and writer/IDEO (among others).

‘Designboost 2007′ also brings forward all the one-liner quotes about sustainable design written by the participants at the main event that took place in Malmö October 17–19, 2007. On top of this different conceptualizations of sustainable design by a range of international design driven companies are presented.

At the end of the book a DVD is inserted with some different films about Designboost and its activities. There is also filmed interviews with all the participants at the 2007 main event.

The book is published by Arena publishing house. If you are interested to get a copy it is available through the internet book store Bokus.

Production: Designboost.
Text editor: David Carlson
Graphic design: Peer Ericsson
Illustrations: Helen Wachtmeister.
Movies produced by Scandvision.
Paper: 150g Artic volume Ivory, Jacket: 300g Artic Glacier
Size: 230×200mm
Printing: Fälth&Hässler
ISBN: 978-91-7843-283-7
Published in Sweden 2008

Press images available here.

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Andra bloggar om: design, designboost, hållbar design, miljö, hållbar utveckling

I just have to tell you that my knowledge company Designboost is featured in the April issue of Italian supreme magazine L’uomo Vogue. As you can see on the picture below it is a full page with the title “The sustainable creativity knowledge”. In the same issue L’uomo Vogue is listing the hundred most influential designers and architects in the world. It’s nice to hang around there with names like Marc Newson and Rem Koolhaas among others!

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Andra bloggar om: designboost, l’uomo vogue, vogue, media

Here follows some further images from the Milan Design Week 2008. This time from some of the exhibitions around the Zona Tortona. The biggest impression was that Superstudio Piu was quite boring this year. Superstudio used to put together an interesting mix of companies all the way back from the time when Giulio Cappellini once discovered the place. Not this year though. Tom Dixon was one of few exhibitors that delivered both interesting pieces and ambiance. Danish producer Mater, who celebrates local crafts and has a serious corporate social responsibility direction, made their Milan debut. Check it out below.

Typical Tom Dixon design in his stand.

The Moooi show was bigger than ever. Maybe a bit washy as well…

The Mater stand.

Elegant Andrée Putman interviewed in her exhibition.

Just some nice roofs…

Swarovski pieces. I’m still a bit confused how they continue to “design-wash” during the Milan Design Week. Why don’t they go all the way and start to be smarter in their shops as well? Last picture shows their lecture arena inside their exhibition. That´s a good try at least. People want knowledge!

The food mobile on three wheels at Ex Ansaldo.

The name sign was the best in this exhibition…

Earlier reports from the Milan Design Week 2008 here, here and here.

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Andra bloggar om: design, inredning, möbler, mässa, trender, framtid, milano

At the same time as Milan is opening the doors to the crowded Design Week, Gothenburg is opening the annual International Science Festival. This year the theme is play in all its forms and well-attended game events are taken place all over the city. But in an almost empty conference hall, far away from the public game activities in Gothenburg or the media spotlight and the well-visited arenas in Milan, I have the opportunity to listen to some of Scandinavia’s most renowned computer game researchers discussing our virtual future.

Game Studies is still a young, but growing, field of research, where we get a new understanding of the area and a hint of future expectations of interface design and possible user groups. Their reports indeed indicates highly interesting facts when looking for patterns amongst the next generation of consumers, such as ways of communicating in relation to the screen while playing, factors that may stimulate the never ending hunt for game rewards, or questions about gender and identity.

Even if the discussion mostly is focusing on the game design development – with questions like why replicating the real world, with structures in economy, religion, market, laws, etc., when we are free to create our experimental world in the virtual, or the facts that we see a growing professional sport field in computer gaming – the most interesting questions would be raised if we could combine the reports with ambitions of developing our society in large.
For example, millions of gamers are playing a considerable part of their spare time to get game points – and higher status in the game community. How can we use this knowledge of the power of motivation when discussing how to change behaviours for other purposes, such as sustainable lifestyle changes?

New interfaces mean new challenges. What is a computer tomorrow? And in what kind of situations do we play? The transformation from leisure to work, from play to industry, takes different shapes, but the trend is strong: We have only seen the very beginning of the impact from computer games – the blooming game era is to come, and in areas we have not yet imagined!

This is a post by David report contributor Hanna Ljungström.

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Andra bloggar om: vetenskapsfestivalen, göteborg, dataspel, samhälle, media

The David Report friend Tomoki Kusakabe visited the E&Y party in Milan the other day during the Milan Furniture Fair and sent me a couple of images which I’m posting below. Among the prominent guests were Jasper Morrison, Harri Koskinen and Ilkka Suppanen. Here’s a quote from Tomoki:

The exhibition is very nice space, clean and quiet…
There is beautiful courtyard behind.
Ilkka Suppanen said, “There is really nice small sound
too, I feel like I am in heaven…”

And here’s the images…

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Andra bloggar om: milano, möbler, inredning, jasper morrison, fest, utställning

Why should a bookcase be fixed to the wall? Linteloo, the Dutch furniture brand, presents Roderick Vos’ design that makes books move through the room. During the Milan Design Week visitors of the Linteloo stand can experience this new and refreshing interpretation of the classic book carousel.

The bookcase is called Nureyev and is 190 cm tall and has a diameter of 105 cm. On four levels of different standard book sizes Nureyev offers space for a lot of literature and other reading matters. But there’s no obligation to put books in it. You can use it for your own memories, putting souvenirs and other ‘things’ in it.

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Andra bloggar om: milano, design, linteloo, roderick vos, bokhylla, möbler

Here’s some further pictures from this years Milan Design Week.

Natural simplicity by Vincent van Duysen and John Pawson at the “When Objects Work” exhibition.

The Milkbar by Finnish producers Marimekko and Artek.

Yours truly at the Egg chair exhibition at Corso Como 10. Which by the way still is one of the worlds best concept stores…

Japanese baths. I was told they are made by three hundred years old trees…

“Seeing the light” in the Bulgari hotel garden. I liked the conceptual idea behind this exhibition a lot. The objects on display in the boxes were the standard ones.

Further images tomorrow from the Tortona Area and Konstantin Grcic exhibition at the Triennale.

Earlier post about Milan Design Week 2008.

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Andra bloggar om: design, inredning, möbler, corso como, arne jacobsen, marimekko, trender, milano

The Milan Design Week 2008 was offering kind of sweet-sour experiences. I started to go to Milan already back in 1988 but I think I’m as curious (and critical) as I was twenty years ago. I do understand that it is maybe an utopia to expect the Milan Design Week to be better and better year after year. However, at least it should reflect current trends from the surrounding world. I’m not sure it really did that this year. But I’m not surprised, the furniture industry is normally comparatively slow. A few years ago you didn’t go to the Milan Design Week if your prime objective was to spot the latest lifestyle trends. But the event is slowly changing from being “just” a furniture fair to a wider design event with representatives from different areas like cars, jewellery and fashion.

Nowadays, at this kind of design happenings, I’m looking more at the overall appearance than on specific products itself. Kind of the total brand delivery. One conclusion was that you could really feel that we are going towards a recession. Anxious businessmen were doing their best to sell as much as possible. Of course this was affecting the total quality of the Milan Design Week. There were definitely a lack of originality and creativity this year.

But I also saw a couple of really interesting exhibitions. One was Established & Sons at Pelota, a former sports arena in Milano’s Brera area. Good show and nice to see how they are experimenting with basic materials and shapes. With a kind of idea-based simplicity as a common denominator. Another positive experience was the Japanese producer E&Y which had a qualitative exhibition with a beautiful natural light.

In the first room of Moroso’s “The little garden of love”, water was pouring down from the ceiling. A show for all your senses. I have added some pictures from the mentioned exhibitions bellow. Stay tuned, further report from the Milan Design Week tomorrow!

First eight images is from the Established & Sons exhibition.

Next two images from the E & Y exhibition, with founder Yoichi Nakamuta.

And finally the Moroso exhibition called “The little garden of love”

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Andra bloggar om: möbler, inredning, mässa, design, milano, italien

I’m off to the Milan Design Week tomorrow morning. As always it will be nice to come to Milan and meet the spring (I’m from Sweden you know…). What interests me most is to see if the DesignArt, or Vulgarism trend as I prefer to call it, from lasts years Milan Design Week is as strong this year. The invitation cards shows that designers like Studio Job and Jaime Hayon (who is responsible for the creation above) is well represented at different shows at town. Also the presence of Meta, the contemporary arm of Mallet, the London and New York antique house shows that Milan follows the trend from Art Basel Miami Beach.

I will let you know in a couple of posts from the Milan Design Week in the next couple of days.

Arrivederci!

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Andra bloggar om: milano, möbelmässa, konst, design, inredning, möbler, trender

Plus House is a pre-fab two-storey house by Swedish architects Claesson Koivisto Rune. It has generic proportions of a traditional Swedish barn house. Instead of windows positioned like regular “holes” along the walls, entire sides are glazed. On the entrance floor both long walls are glazed. On the upper floor the gable ends are glazed. Seen in plan, these two lines of vision straight through the building are perpendicular like a plus sign.

This is the first house Claesson Koivisto Rune has designed for pre-fab manufacturer Arkitekthus. This particular one is placed in Tyresö, outside Stockholm in Sweden.

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Andra bloggar om: arkitektur, hus, boende, claesson koivisto rune, arkitekthus