The Röhsska Museum prize committee for the Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize, which is donated by the Torsten and Ragnar Söderberg foundations, has decided to award the Finnish designer Harri Koskinen.

The prize of SEK 1,000,000 is the largest design prize in the world.

The prize committee´s reasoning is as follows:

“Harri Koskinen is one of the foremost designers now occupied with the task of continuing the Nordic design tradition. His extensive, wide-ranging body of work has a unique, austere design that is consistently expressed with clear Nordic roots in its demands for good function and simplicity of form, as well as in the choice of materials. These elements combine to create lasting value. At the same time as he enjoys successful partnerships with design-intensive companies around the world, he is also participating in the renewal of his homeland’s design industry.”

Andra bloggar om: design, designer, harri koskinen

The other day I presented my three best moments from this years Milan Design Week; Maison Martin Margiela, Senseware and Richard Ginori @ Taste Lounge. Not for the furniture though, which would be obvious at a furniture fair/design week, but for the ambience and the creativity. Today I’m posting a series of snapshots from the Milan Design week 2009. I have to admit that I didn’t spend that many minutes checking new products this year. I mean, haven’t we seen it all before? The colour of the year is green, or black, or white, or red… So I decided to look for something else. Maybe to find what’s important and relevant? The little things that make a different. What’s luxury (other than a new cool chair), what’s culturally connected to our way of life?

I don’t know if I got all the answers, but still I found some good ideas here and there. I didn’t look for design out of a business perspective this year. Or maybe that was exactly what I did?

Here we go.

The Established & Sons shantytown look-alike exhibition.

Moroso exhibition with African theme by Stephen Burks. Stephen is by the way doing great work bridging third world countries with the design industry. Check out Aid to artisans.

Tree with flowers in old warehouse.

Nice and creative chaos at Rossana Orlandi.

Patricia Urquiola exhibition in the Visconti palace with great respect for the famous ballroom.

Blown up minimalized crystal at the Arik Levy exhibition for Swarovski.

A lot of blackboards in the Tom Dixon stand.

Graffiti - to be, or not to be…

Nice wrapped up decorative elements together with old books at Boffi.

Staff with long experience at Rossana Orlandi.

Myself as graphic figure holding camera in the Canon show.

Fabrics. Very tactile.

Crystal Lexus.

Giant outdoor fabric lamps at Montenapoleone.

Jellyfish projected in the Canon show.

Inside the Established & Sons shantytown.

A metaphor for all brands that need to be fixed?

Andra intressanta bloggar om: milan design week, foto, milano, möbler, inredning, mässa

Panasonic entrance.

David Report has been using the free social messaging utility Twitter since 2007 but we have been a bit slow on updating… Things is about to change. So if you are a Twitterholic you can now more regularly follow our thoughts around design and life. CLICK HERE!

Milan Design Week is the epicenter of design for a couple of days in April every year. Thousands of companies, journalists, designers and hang-arounds meet up and interact around design in all kind of shapes and materials. I have to admit I’m getting a bit bored to look at chair no 25 on a single day. These days my eyes are looking for something else. The unpredicted and the unusual; the experience that makes a difference. I couldn’t care less when it comes to just another average designed product. Do we really need it? Probably not. Quite often it is unfortunately just a waste of time and money. But you will of course also be able to find a couple of really nice exhibitions that make the trip to Milan Design Week worthwhile. It could be a detail here and there, a product, an idea, a concept, a colour or just something different. My three main moments this year were Maison Martin Margiela, Senseware and Richard Ginori @ Taste Lounge.

Maison Martin Margiela introduced its concept of interior architecture through an installation called “Mat, Satiné, Brilliant”. Have you ever visited any of their stores around the world you felt the environment and atmosphere recreated by the use of a variety of creative expressions of their identity and philosophy. It was a truly great experience.

Another good moment at this years Milan Design Week was Senseware; a Japanese exhibition that explored how we in the best way could use new attractive high-tech materials. The exhibition director Kenya Hara describes the title Senseware like this: “matter that stirs the human creative instinct and awakens the desire to make things”.

Finally I would like to point on the Richard Ginori @ Taste Lounge exhibition by architect and designer Paola Navone. The exhibition offered a nice break of comfort and relaxation for bodies and minds. It was a good break from the busy Tortona area and something complete different from the boring Superstudio Piu (what are they up to by the way?). 

I will post some other images from Milan Design Week in a separate post within a day or two.

Andra intressanta bloggar om: design, mässa, utställning, möbler, martin margiela, milano, kreativitet

Here follows a couple of projects by Swedish designer Monica Förster that will be launched at the Milan Design Week 09.

Cappellini presents in cooperation with Liljeholmens  and designer Monica Förster, a unique candle for the 2009 Milan design week. The stearin candle has a stylish character and is even more beautiful in formations or in pairs. The candle is 75 cm long and fits most standard size candle holders.

This upholstred lounge chair has a light organic structure. The charactere is created by a quilted pad on the inside of the chair. Legs in satin dull chrome finish. 

The world’s first ergonomic office chair for women called Lei by Officeline.

Andra bloggar om: design, mässa, möbler, inredning, monica förster, milan design week

Here follows a couple of projects by Richard Hutten that will be launched at the Milan Design Week 09.

Air Spheres for Gallery Plusdesign. Soft molecule-like structure makes a surprising bench. 

Playing with tradition - runner for I+I. Hand knotted wool runner where east meets contemporary.

Sexy-relaxy  with light. The first industrial version of the well known Sexy-relaxy chair, this time with light. 

Aperativo for Royal Leerdam. A series of glass dildo‘s on a champagne glass stem, to celebrate special moment

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

Here follows a preview of a couple of new projects at the Milan Design Week by Claesson Koivisto Rune. Seems like the trio has been working very hard! There are actually even more projects than this…

Haven by Paola Lenti

Hillside by Arflex

Delta by Arplex

Parapu the pulper chair by Södra

Slowride by Busnelli

Pets by Busnelli

Olive by Swedese

Doodle by Tacchini

Boxplay by Swedese

Andra bloggar om: design, inredning, möbler, claesson koivisto rune, milano

German based designer Konstantin Grcic will launch the chair Monza, a new chair for Italian brand Plank, at the Milan Design Week.

Andra bloggar om: konstantin grcic, design, stol, möbler, inredning

Stephen Burks and his New York studio Readymade Projects have been retained by Moroso to coordinate and design the upcoming Moroso showroom exhibition during this year’s Milan Design Week. The exhibition, entitled “M’Afrique C’est Chic” by Stephen after his recent trip to Senegal, features African artists Soly Cisse and Fathi Hassan, photographer Mandemory, and architect David Adjaye’s “African Cities” research project alongside new designs by Ayse Birsel & Bibi Sek, Phillipe Bestenheider, Tord Boontje, Stephen Burks and Patricia Urquiola.

Stephen Burks has been working with third world countries for a long time. Here is a movie by Designboost where Stephen talks about his work in South Africa through Aid to Artisans.

Andra bloggar om: design, möbelmässa, moroso, möbler, stephen burks

True innovation requires an open mind, a willingness to embrace new ideas – or to create a completely new way of thinking. That principle is what led to the creation of the Ross Lovegrove-designed Bamboo, a new addition to the Biomega line.

The Milan Design Week will set the stage for Biomega´s world premiere of the Bamboo, the exceptional new bike designed by acclaimed Ross Lovegrove. From 22nd to 27th of April the Bamboo bike will be presented at: Design Library, Via Savona 11, 20144 Milano from 10 am to 10 pm.

On Thursday 23rd, Ross Lovegrove, Jens Martin Skibsted, founder of Biomega, and a group of fellow designers will take some of the world’s most beautiful bikes out for a ride - inviting you and all bike enthusiasts with a bike of their own to join them in experiencing Furniture for Locomotion at it’s best.

This spectacular bike ride will start off at the Design Library at 11am and end the same place, where there will be time to have a bite to eat and a drink while discussing the designs of Ross Lovegrove and Jens Martin Skibsted.

Bamboo will be on show at Design Library all week offering the perfect backdrop for getting your photo taken with this amazing design icon. This is an opportunity not to be missed: The guest with the best Bamboo photo of the week will have the honor of winning this ground breaking piece of art, signed by Ross Lovegrove himself.

The Bamboo

When properly prepared as on the Bamboo bike, fast-growing bamboo is stronger than steel, with a wonderfully natural radiance. This intricately finished yet highly functional bike was co-developed with the expertise of Brazilian bamboo specialist Flavio Deslandes, and is handmade in Denmark exacting Biomega standards. Combined with Biomega’s low-maintenance shaft drive, the Bamboo is the ideal personification of the desire to reintroduce the wonder of the natural world into today´s urban environment.

Ross Lovegrove

Ross Lovegrove is truly a pioneer of industrial design. As co-founder of Lovegrove Studio in the Notting Hill area of London, the Welsh-born designer has exuberantly embraced the potential offered by digital technologies. However, he blends his love of high tech with a belief that the natural world had the right idea all along: Many of his pieces are inspired by principles of evolution and microbiology.

Delightedly crossing categories, Lovegrove has worked for clients as varied as Apple, Issey Miyake, Herman Miller and Airbus. His personal artwork has been exhibited at MoMA inNew York, the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Design Museum in London. Lovegrove’s astonishing objects are the result of an ongoing quest to create forms that, as he puts it, touch people’s soul. Lovegrove was presented the world technology award by TIME magazine and CNN in November 2005.

Biomega

Imagine the ideal city. If you’re like Biomega, that city is clean. Peaceful. Stunning. No less energized than the urban environments in which we currently thrive, but more focused, more pure, and in tune with the natural world. That dream is what drives Biomega in the creation of our urban-landscape-changing bikes. Their goal is to create a paradigm shift in the way society imagines transportation. To compete directly with cars by constructing bikes that are so beautiful that they imbue our cities with new meaning, even as they make us healthier, happier and more connected than a car ever could. Simply put, the bikes – and the trendsetters who ride them – have the ability to transform the world into a more beautiful place, and to blend our dreams for the future with the needs of the present. Biomega bikes are meant to usher in a new age in city living. All it takes is one look – and one ride – to understand the difference we can make, as bike, rider, and style become one.

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bloggar om: design, cykel, miljö, milano, ross lovegrove