Bills Shichirigahama
Chef Bill Granger brings his famously laidback Sydney brunch scene to Japan.
This is post by David Report contributor Kristina Dryza.
Andra bloggar om: australien, café, restaurang, design, inredning, japan
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Old roses in Falsterbo
Every year I’m hosting a rose event called Rosor på Falsterbonäset (Roses at the Falsterbo Peninsula) in my hometown Falsterbo. I’m doing it together with the local nature preservation organisation (where I’m the vice president) and it concerns old roses, one thing I would not like to live my life without. This years event takes place June 26th at 5pm and we start in my own garden.
We will also visit a couple of other gardens which concentrates on old and English roses. The Scania Rose Society is co-organising the event and Monica Bäckström will talk about (and answering questions) concerning roses and cultivation.
If you are not able to come I’m adding some snapshots from my garden which I took this morning. Just let me know if you are in Falsterbo during the rose season (June-July) and a will happily show you my garden.
p.s My cat’s name is Måns…
Andra bloggar om: rosor, gamla rosor, trädgård, odla
The Olde Bell Inn
The essence of what Ilse Crawford and her Studioilse does is identity. They create the the big idea behind a brand its emotional values, and then make them visible and tangible through design.
The Olde Bell Inn encompasses a 16th century Tudor barn for big parties, a Malt House for medium gathering and dining rooms for a dozen or more, with parts of the building dating back to 1135.
Now The Olde Bell Inn has been gently transformed and is the first in a family of modern coaching Inns. Using locally sourced food cooked simply; eating drinking and lodgings. Ilse’s line is ‘Local chairs, local cheese’. 25 minutes drive from Heathrow and within hour of central London. You can say that Ilse is re-inventing the traditional English Inn.
Andra bloggar om: hotell, ilse crawford, design, inredning, möbler, england
Midsummer’s eve
Today it’s Midsummer’s Eve, probably the most important holiday in Sweden. So I thought I should give you some further information around it. As you probably have recognised I believe that regional traditions are supreme and important in our globalised and smoothed out world.
In modern Sweden, Midsummer’s Eve and Midsummer’s Day (Midsommarafton and Midsommardagen) are celebrated from the eve of the Friday between June 19–25. It is arguably the most important holiday of the year, and one of the most uniquely Swedish in the way it is celebrated, even if it has been influenced by other countries long ago. The main celebrations take place on the Friday, and the traditional events include raising and dancing around a huge maypole. One typical dance is the frog dance. Before the maypole is raised, greens and flowers are collected and used to cover the entire pole.
Raising and dancing around a maypole (majstång or midsommarstång) is an activity that attracts families and many others. People dancing around the pole listen to traditional music and many wear traditional folk costumes. The year’s first potatoes, pickled herring, sour creme, and possibly the first strawberries of the season are on the menu. Drinking songs are also important at this feast, and many drink heavily.
Because Midsummer was thought to be one of the times of the year when magic was strongest, it was considered a good night to perform rituals to look into the future. Traditionally, young people pick bouquets of seven or nine different flowers and put them under their pillow in the hope of dreaming about their future spouse. In the past it was believed that herbs picked at Midsummer were highly potent, and water from springs could bring good health. Greenery placed over houses and barns were supposed to bring good fortune and health to people and livestock; this old tradition of decorating with greens continues, even though most don’t take it seriously. To decorate with greens was called att maja (to “may”) and may be the origin of the word majstång, maja coming originally from the month May. Other researchers say the term came from German merchants who raised the maypole in June because the Swedish climate made it impossible to find the necessary greens and flowers in May, and continued to call it a maypole. Today, however, it is most commonly called a midsommarstång. In earlier times, small spires wrapped in greens were erected; this probably predates the maypole tradition, which is believed by many to have come from the continent in the Middle Ages. Others argue that some form of Midsummer pole occurred in Sweden during the pre-Christian times, and was a phallic fertility symbol, meant to impregnate the earth, but as there were no records from those times it cannot be proven, and this idea might just be a modern interpretation of the poles form. The earliest historical mention of the maypole in Sweden is from the Middle Ages. Midsummer was however linked to an ancient fertility festival which was adapted into St. Johans day by the church, even though it retained many pagan traditions, as the Swedes were slow to give up the old heathen customs. The connection to fertility is naturally linked to the time of year. Many young people became passionate at Midsummer, and this was accepted, probably because it resulted in more childbirths in March which was a good time for children to be born.
Midsummer is one of the only pagan holidays that are still celebrated in Europe (if not the only). In Denmark and Norway it is referred to as the eve of St. Hans but it’s only in Sweden that it has kept its original name. Midsummer rivals Christmas as the most important holiday of the year due to the copious amounts of alcohol consumed.
Text from Wikipedia.
P.s If you are unmarried, you can pick seven different flowers and put under your pillow on the night of Midsummers day. The one you will dream of will be your beloved…
Andra bloggar om: midsommar, sommar, midsommarafton, traditioner
Categories: Lifestyle
Aesop by Studioilse
Studioilse’s design of the Aesop shop translates the company values through a loving restoration of the historic fabric, paired with modern and clean interventions. As in all her work Ilse Crawford with her Studioilse has added a lot of emotions to the interior. Simple and modern design.
A central ceramic sink to emphasise the ritual of cleansing.
Brass - the material of Mount st.
Fit for Mount st: a gentleman’s armchair tailored in tweed.
Original pitch pine floor - “poor man’s parquet”.
Andra bloggar om: design, arkitektur, ilse crawford, inredning, skönhet
Whitecapri bags
Whitecapri is a new label for bags and accessories from Berlin. The first collection Matchpoint is an homage to the great movie “Match Point”.
Andra bloggar om: väskor, accessoarer, mode
The Ace Hotel Portland
The Ace hotel Portland: what a boutique hotel should look and feel like.
This is post by David Report contributor Kristina Dryza.
Andra bloggar om: hotell, resa, foto, design, inredning, portland
To consume or not
I just read some comments to the latest David Report bulletin called “I shop therefore I am” in “The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption”. It’s a year-long book-as-a-blog experiment in why we choose to consume, or not, written by India based Gaurav Mishra. In a very clear and comprehensible way he is putting together a couple of important trends that in one way or another describes how our consumption pattern are about to change:
- From conspicuous consumption to conscious consumption.
- From brand-consciousness to background-consciousness.
- From synthetic to organic.
- From mass-produced to hand-crafted.
- From global to local.
- From short-term to sustainable.
- From fashionable to durable.
- From valuing things to valuing insights.
- From fitting in/ standing out to being.
- From buying more to buying less.
- From doing more to doing less.
- From multi-tasking to down-shifting.
- From buying to sharing/ exchanging.
- From owning to experiencing.
- From having to giving.
Sounds quite attractive to me… What do you think?
Andra bloggar om: shopping, konsumtion, trender, kultur
From Virtual Future to Real Life
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.
Andra bloggar om: vetenskapsfestivalen, göteborg, dataspel, samhälle, media
New bulletin - I shop therefore I am
I’m proud to announce the new David Report bulletin called “I shop therefore I am”. In this issue we are looking into the world of consumer culture from different point of views; ethical, social, political, economical and humanistic.
Shopping has turned into a lifestyle. We consume as leisure and a way to pass time. But at the same time many are realizing that the power of consumption is stopping us from finding true and sincere happiness; and that shopping often works as a substitute for something that we’re missing in life. At what point does the accumulation of material goods become less fulfilling and more stressful and overwhelming?
Our consumption grows in the same pace as our economic growth. Studies shows that in hundred years we consume eight times as much per capita as today. Can our globe take such a strain? The power of consumption is being questioned and there’s a change in attitude and way of life. We don’t want to be consuming goofs, we want to be considered aware and responsible. It is all about WHAT we buy and WHAT we choose to invest in, the world we live in will be the result of those choices.
In the future consumption will be more about experiences and services than things. Perhaps giving will be more important than having. Are the companies, who survive on our consumption, prepared for this transition?
The David Report bulletin no 9 “I shop therefore I am” also offers insight on the subject from strategist Kristina Dryza and Zen-Buddhist Sante Poromaa. On top of this an interview with Mathilda Tham, guest professor at Beckmans school of Design. THIS LINK takes you to the new bulletin (and yes, it’s free!).
Andra bloggar om: kultur, shopping, konsumtion, handel, hållbar utveckling, csr
