Hasta La Ideas

Dezeen Studio we’ve been back from Milan for a week now and have fully recovered from filming a TV show every day for Dezeen Studio powered by Jambox at MOST.

Here’s a roundup of the highlights from MOST at the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia, which took place among the ships, fighter jets, submarines and canons of the museum from 17 to 22 April, plus another chance to see the daily movies we made. 

MOST instigator Tom Dixon set up a mini-factory among the museum’s steam trains where two sheet metal machines were punching and folding chairs that Dixon either gave away to visitors or used to furnish the Spring Table restaurant upstairs.

He also presented a show of lighting design called Luminosity and furnished our own Dezeen Studio. We made several interviews with Dixon throughout the week (see below) and you can watch him introduce MOST here.

Faye Toogood created a soothing pavilion in the hall of a cruise liner, where guests moulded small clay sculptures before giving them over to attendants in white as contributions to a central collaborative sculpture. Watch Toogood talk about the installation in Saturday’s movie.

Also surrounded by ships in the Air and Water Building, Yves Behar launched his redesigned SodaStream Source system for making fizzy drinks at home and created a bar and chandelier made of 550 disposable plastic water bottles. Watch him demonstrate the SodaStream in Thursday’s show.

New French brand La Chance showed two versions of their inaugural collection: one in vibrant colours and the other in more subdued tones. See our interview with the founders in Friday’s movie.

Dezeen Studio was located at the entrance to MOST, where we made our daily TV shows. We roamed around MOST filming interviews and product demonstrations with exhibitors, interviewed surprise visitors to the studio, took the pulse of the furniture fair and wider design scene with guest journalists, reported from exhibitions all over the city and even broadcast weather reports.

Look out for longer versions of these interviews on Dezeen soon but for now here are all the daily shows in one place:

On Monday we went behind the scenes at MOST to show designers and brands including Faye Toogood, Jambox, Tom Dixon and La Chance rushing to get everything ready.

In Tuesday‘s movie Tom Dixon showed us the restaurant he created in a former monastic dining room at the museum, and Johanna Agerman-Ross from Disegno magazine popped into the studio too.

Wednesday‘s film featured MoMA curator Paola Antonelli’s tips for the best shows in Milan and Tom Dixon showing us the mini-factory he set up at MOST, plus reports on the Scandinavian design scene and Hacked Milan at the city’s most famous department store.

Zaha Hadid popped into Dezeen Studio for Thursday‘s show to give an architect’s take on the design fair and talk about her Secret Garden project – you can now watch the full-length interview with Hadid here. Yves Béhar demonstrates his redesigned SodaStream fizzy drinks system, Guardian critic Justin McGuirk discusses the arrival of hacking culture in the design industry and curator Rossana Orlandi tells us what’s different about this year.

Japan was high on the agenda on Friday with Pecha Kucha founder Mark Dytham popping in to the studio to talk about the scene in Tokyo and Elle Decoration UK editor Michelle Ogundehin tipping Japanese design and manufacturing as the hot story at Milan this year. We also spoke to new French brand design brand La Chance and New York designer Dror.

In Saturday‘s movie we spoke to Faye Toogood about curing visitors with clay, Sheridan Coakley of SCP about upholstering a chair every day on their stand and Joseph Grima, editor-in-chief of Domus magazine, about collaboration, open design, crowd-sourcing and hacking.

Sunday‘s movie rounded up  some of the other things that had been happening during the week, including the MOST party on Wednesday night, a tour of Carpigiani’s Gelato University and The Great Stamp Giveaway where 400 lucky visitors got their hands on a free Tom Dixon lamp.

See all our stories about MOST here.

MOST

National Museum of Science and Technology,
Via Olona 6, 20123 Milan, Italy
Entrance through Via Olona 6

Dates: Tuesday 17 April, 10AM – 9PM Wednesday 18 April, 10AM – 6PM
Thursday 19 – Saturday 21 April, 10AM – 9PM Sunday 22 April, 10AM – 6PM
Press Preview: Monday 16 April, 3PM-7PM

www.mostsalone.com

In anticipation of the upcoming 2012 D-Crit Conference, “Eventually Everything,” Core77 is pleased to have the opportunity to explore the breadth of SVA’s design criticism MFA program through a series of Q&As with a few members of the graduating class.

Barbara Eldredge will be presenting “Missing the Modern Gun: Object Ethics in Collections of Design” during the fourth and final panel of the day-long event, “Man, Machine, Morality,” on Wednesday, May 2nd. See the full schedule of events here.

Firearms are absent from all American collections of contemporary design, in spite of their importance to design history and their enduring significance in the culture at large. Even when they are discussed in a design-historical context, it is all too easy to ignore the moral implications that color our perception of guns. Why can firearms be displayed in art, history, and military museums, but not in design museums? What does moral good have to do with the Museum of Modern Art? Many design collections effectively serve as object-based ethical codes revealing how to live a “good” life. Nonetheless, exhibition of a firearm within a design museum has the potential to open a new branch of discussion about guns, design, and morality.

Why D-Crit? Why Now?

Human experience changes with the incorporation of each new technology whether it is fire to cook our meat or motorized transportation or a device that lets us play Angry Birds. It is important to take a critical perspective on the objects and built environments that help to shape how we think and who we are.

Design criticism exists in all cultures and times; it just isn’t always called by that name. But it affords a means of examining humanity through our interactions with objects and constructed spaces.

You cite the argument (made by the NRA, among others) that “if everyone has a gun, all are protected.” What about the arguments that “if no one has a gun, all are safe,” or “if anyone has a gun, no one is safe”?

I’m glad that you asked! Every time someone told me about the security benefits of universal firearms ownership, I thought of the 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes and his view that, if left ungoverned, people are essentially amoral. Hobbes is perhaps best known for writing that man is a selfish being whose life is naturally “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

He was a major player in the shaping of Western thought. Many firearms owners who talked to me advocated a Hobbesian view that arming oneself was a legitimate precaution against the eventuality of human violence. After all, Hobbes also wrote, “If men are not naturally in a state of war, why do they always carry arms and why do they have keys to lock their doors?”

But I find the anti-gun arguments, “if no one has a gun, all are safe” and “if anyone has a gun, no one is safe,” to be equally Hobbesian and depressing. The assumption underlying all thse statements is that humans are so incapable of self-control and empathy that if they have the opportunity to commit violence then they will use it. So we have to take away such opportunities through heavy government control or being equally armed.

I like to think that the reality isn’t so simple. Carrying a firearm can never ensure one’s safety but neither can the total elimination of firearms. It’s funny to say this since we’re talking about design here, but I think that such perspectives put too much emphasis on the firearms themselves and not enough on the average person’s capacity for moral reasoning. There is a limit to what designed objects/systems can accomplish.

For many people, carrying a firearm provides more psychological security than practical security. It makes them feel autonomous and powerful. Rather than ban firearms outright, a more effective (though certainly more difficult and idealistic) solution would be to better support social and economic structures that empower individuals. The problem isn’t that it is easy to get a gun in America; the problem is that getting a gun is sometimes easier than getting therapy, social equality, and economic stability.

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Desert boots get the high-tech soles in a new LunarGrand collection

As a follow up to the LunarGrand Wingtip, Cole Haan is launching a line of LunarGrand Chukkas at their SoHo store in NYC this week. The shoes sport a nubuck upper that is paired with Nike‘s Lunarlon sole for a combination of classic style and modern functionality. The ribbed soles are incredibly lightweight, deceptively comfortable and use micro-diamond tread for grip that is a cut above leather soles.

While the wingtips come in suede and leather options, the chukkas are outfitted with a soft nubuck leather. Some nice details set the shoes apart, including the rawhide laces that are fitted with metal tips that must be unscrewed to change out laces. Developed for WWII British soldiers in North Africa and made iconic by the likes of Steve McQueen, the chukka has a rare personality that can transition from dress to casual.

Another curious detail is the welted sole—a construction element practically unheard of in the sneaker world. Cole Haan’s elegant logo is printed on the footbed and can be found on the metal lace tips as well. Three eyelets—as opposed to the traditional two—have been given to the chukkas.

Available in both men’s and women’s styles, the shoes come in eight total colorways. The women’s is equipped with a slightly higher ankle and curvier profile, though the two are otherwise comparable. Simplicity certainly dominates the look, although a small amount of broguing on the tongue reveals contrast leather beneath.

The LunarGrand Chukka sells for $298 at Cole Haan Soho beginning Thursday, 3 May 2012. While currently unavailable online, we expect them to follow in the path of the wingtip predecessors and make it to the LunarGrand section of Cole Haan’s online shop.

Cole Haan Soho

128 Prince Street

New York, NY 10012

Though not as comprehensive as CCA’s student experience videos, RISD has released a series of video interviews of their summer program attendees. With this year’s RISD Summer Series batch of courses starting in late June, prospective attendees may want to hear someone’s firsthand experience of what to expect and what that attendee liked about the program. Here’s one of the vids:

Though branded as Continuing Ed courses, RISD’s Summer Series is also open to high school grads looking to get a leg up on next year’s freshmen. Courses in the Art & Design category are spread over Apparel, Architecture, Digital & Media, Drawing & Illustration, Furniture, Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Jewelry, Painting, Printmaking, Sculpture, and Textiles. Check out the full selection here.

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This track by Jordan Mitchell starts off innocently enough, with an intricate repeating acoustic guitar riff. But that’s before a big, dirty synth bass-line drops in and takes the track in a completely different direction.

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