Chinese studio Offhand Practice has completed the Mei Yuan Cafe, a glass-walled pavilion in Shanghai that allows visitors to “immerse themselves” in the surrounding park.
Located within the previously inaccessible Mei Yuan Park in the district of Pudong, the slender structure of white steel and glass is designed to have as minimal impact on the existing planting as possible.
“In Shanghai, a campaign to make parks green and open is quietly underway – Mei Yuan Park, originally surrounded by walls, also aims to become more accessible,” explained Offhand Practice.
“We envisioned the cafe as a friendly interface connecting the community and the park, therefore we chose pavilion as the architectural form, hoping to achieve a delicate balance between permeability and shelter,” added the local studio.
“The use of floor-to-ceiling glass, ubiquitous grey bricks, and understated textured paint clearly convey our original intention: to create a shelter where people can immerse themselves in nature,” it continued.
Mei Yuan Cafe’s long, narrow form occupies the northeastern corner of the park, with curved cut-outs around its edges creating space for the existing trees to grow.
At its eastern end is the serving area, while the remainder of its site is occupied by sheltered seating areas that open out onto an external terrace to the west.
The frames for the large expanses of glazing have been concealed in both the slim concrete roof and the brick paving, intended to make the division between indoor and outdoor as seamless as possible.
A curtain track has also been concealed in the ceilings and used to hang large white curtains that allow for greater control over interior shading and privacy.
“Both ends of the glazing are neatly hidden in the ceiling and the brick joints, maximising the field of vision and perception for its occupants,” explained the studio.
Complementing the park’s large trees, a variety of different planting was introduced to provide a backdrop that will change with the seasons.
“Soapberries with jade leaves, lush camphor with incredible crowns, and upright clusters of hackberries – they are the true natives of the land,” explained the studio.
“Every cut and turn in the design is to leave space for them to grow freely, and therefore its final form is entirely determined by these trees,” it added.
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Projects by architects Sumayya Vally and David Gianotten are among this year’s Sydney Design Week highlights, chosen by curators Keinton Butler and Amaia Sánchez-Velasco.
Curated by Powerhouse Museum senior curator Keinton Butler and architect Amaia Sánchez-Velasco, Sydney Design Week this year invited a selection of architects, designers and artists to share their visions of alternative futures.
Titled In Between Worlds, this year’s programme spotlighted diverse disciplines including food, film production and space exploration.
“Our discussions began with a review of current social, political, climatic, and technological challenges globally, but more specifically, we chose to focus on the inequitable extraction of natural resources, culture and data in the Global South,” Butler and Sánchez-Velasco told Dezeen.
“‘In Between Worlds’ refers to the feeling of standing on a threshold, a space where hope and despair converge and where the enormity of the polycrisis exists alongside the immense potential for transformative action,” they continued.
This year’s Sydney Design Week takes place while its organiser, Powerhouse, is undergoing a major transformation, with two out of the group’s four museums under construction and renovation.
Because of this, the event has been significantly scaled back compared to previous years with only nine talks, tours and workshops listed in the official programme.
Read on for six highlights from the design week selected by the curators.
Beyond Architecture by David Gianotten from OMA
David Gianotten, managing partner of Dutch architecture firm OMA, chose to explore the changing role of architects through the prism of the studio’s Potato Head Studios in Bali and Taipei Performing Arts Centre.
The key theme was the importance of “establishing conversations and interactions with multiple actors across different stages of the creative process”, explained Butler and Sánchez-Velasco.
“The understanding of architecture as a mediating field borrows traditional architectural disciplinary tools and means of representation but moves away from top-down decision-making processes,” the duo said.
Recipes as Archives by Sumayya Vally in collaboration with Karima Hazim
In a follow-up talk, Vally argued that architecture should extend beyond physical structures.
Future Prototypes by Colin Gibson
Production designer Colin Gibson created the sets for post-apocalyptic film franchise Mad Max. In a talk for Sydney Design Week, he described his narrative-led design process, which sees him imagine detailed, fictional histories for the worlds he is building.
“The visions created in films inform the design industry but also, vice versa,” said Butler and Sánchez-Velasco.
“Film-making and storytelling have historically been complicit in the production of spatial, social and political imaginaries; they have shaped desires, ideas of the future and alternative forms of coexistence, while stretching the boundaries of the possible.”
No Space is Empty, curated by Nathan Mudyi Sentance
Powerhouse Museum head of collections, First Nations, Nathan Mudyi Sentance introduced artefacts from indigenous world-making practices.
These include cool burning, an Australian Indigenous land-management practice that works with fire rather than fighting fire, and the Qoliqoli Tabu practice of reef and marine management where people agree to observe a rolling roster of sanctuary areas.
“In engaging with indigenous world-making practices, we can learn from ontologies and epistemologies that have been often silenced or displaced and that can contribute to imagining alternative forms of existence and how to establish more symbiotic relationships with the environment,” said Butler and Sánchez-Velasco.
Space Architectures, by Melodie Yashar from ICON
Melodie Yashar, space architect and vice president of building design and performance at construction technologies company ICON, shared her perspective on designing resilient homes for off-world living.
Yashar advocates for open-source construction methods to empower communities to participate in the design process and provide them with the tools to adapt to changing environments.
“As space agencies plan human outposts on the Moon and Mars it is becoming increasingly important to consider the ethics of space settlement, so that we don’t repeat the mistakes made here on Earth,” said Butler and Sánchez-Velasco.
Collective Care by Anna Puigjaner from MAIO
Anna Puigjaner, a researcher and co-founder of Barcelona-based architecture office MAIO, introduced her Kitchenless City research on housing blocks around the world. This focuses on collective kitchens that demonstrate various approaches to organising and distributing domestic spaces as a tool for social transformation.
Puigjaner and her team investigate the spatiality of shared kinships to reimagine potential care systems and interdependencies among diverse individuals and social groups.
“Their work challenges care regimes based on unevenly distributed and often invisibilised care labour while acknowledging the multiplicity of body dispositions in social space depending on age, gender, capacity and race,” said Butler and Sánchez-Velasco.
Sydney Design Week 2o24 takes place from 13 to 19 September 2024 at various locations across Sydney. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
As “immersive experiences” continue to proliferate, Shane Reiner-Roth considers the implications for our relationship with architecture and the built environment.
It was not long ago that advancements in OLED displays, projection-mapping and digital signage appeared to be the key to reinvigorating art and architecture, as well as public interest in both of these fields.
In her 2011 book Kissing Architecture, the architectural theorist Sylvia Lavin catalogues examples of “superarchitecture”, which she defines as “architecture in contact with incommensurable forms of time, movement and immateriality that coalesce to produce socially enveloping and therefore political effects”.
We are seeing “immersive experiences” pop up in nearly every city with a tourism economy
The video artwork of “superarchitects”, including Pipilotti Rist and Doug Aitken, is not only projected onto architecture by “kissing” its surfaces, but intensifies architectural effects by allowing the legibility of both forms of media to “give way to the experience of perception itself”.
The ability of superarchitecture to socially envelop audiences, in other words, would encourage the public to slow down their daily pace, pay attention to the finer details of the built environment and, perhaps, even reevaluate their responsibility to one another as they co-inhabit public space.
But we haven’t heard a lot about “superarchitecture” in the 13 years since Kissing Architecture was published. In its place, we are seeing “immersive experiences” pop up in nearly every city with a tourism economy.
Instead of video artists receiving commissions to “kiss” the surfaces of public space, the work of the great painters of the public domain – including Hieronymous Bosch, Picasso and Monet – is cast onto the characterless surfaces of warehouse interiors for a substantial admission fee. Circles are sometimes projected onto the ground as a post-Covid measure, allowing visitors to occupy the same space without the threat of social interaction.
In the hands of for-profit companies, Van Gogh’s Starry Night is no longer a painting to be interpreted. Like Frankenstein’s monster, it is an image to be shocked with a million volts for public consumption. Painterly details, originally so small they require a magnifying glass to be appreciated, are scaled up beyond all subtlety. The movement once implied by gestural brush strokes has been made literal through video animation. The aura is gone, but the buzz is overwhelming.
Many recently developed live-performance venues have additionally been designed to flood the senses by affixing LED screens to reductive volumes, minimising architectural massing to an obligatory secondary character.
Seamless, wraparound screens may soon dethrone the flat screen of the movie theatre as the primary urban-entertainment venue
In Las Vegas, for instance, the Madison Square Garden Company recently spent a whopping $2,300,000,000 on the Sphere, a dome designed by Populous whose only architectural significance is that it is the largest spherical building in the world. Technologically, however, the Sphere is a marvel: a 160,000-square-foot (15,000-square-metre) LED screen – the highest-resolution one in the world – wraps around its interior.
The 17,000 ticket-holders are encouraged to look upwards, rather than at one another or even the musicians performing on stage. When the Grateful Dead performed at the Sphere during their weeks-long residency, with tickets starting at $145 and steadily going up from there, who was the star of the show: the Grateful Dead, or the Sphere?
Though its 580,000-square-foot (54,000-square-metre) LED screen exterior most commonly serves as a digital billboard for any company able to fork over $450,000 for four hours of screen time, it has occasionally been handed over to at least one video artist, Refik Anadol.
But like the first silent movies, whose depictions of dreams and magic principally served to demonstrate the capabilities of the new visual medium, Anadol’s swirling animations were largely advertisements of the Sphere’s technical prowess. The distinction between theme parks and urban venues is rapidly dissolving as more versions of the Sphere begin to pop up in major American cities and beyond.
Cosm, a technology company specialising in planetariums and science centres, has recently opened up what are essentially walk-in televisions in Los Angeles and Dallas with a 1,500-person capacity. For several times the price of a beer at a sports bar (and, in some cases, several times the price of a seat at a sports stadium), one can instead get “immersed” in live basketball matches.
The seamless, wraparound screens which, Cosm claims, make you feel “like you’re courtside at an NBA game or traveling to a world beyond your own”, may soon dethrone the flat screen of the typical movie theatre as the primary urban-entertainment venue, especially given that more people are opting to avoid crowds altogether by streaming movies at home.
In these “immersive experiences”, Van Gogh, Anadol, the Grateful Dead and basketball stars all play second fiddle to screen devices
For those in attendance without an interest in football, the technological spectacle is likely enough to keep them occupied. In these “immersive experiences”, Van Gogh, Anadol, the Grateful Dead and basketball stars all play second fiddle to screen devices that, through their scale and technological sophistication alone, have the power to occupy our attention any time we turn away from our phones.
They count on us being so consumed by the changeability of screen devices, and so desensitised to the relative stillness of everything else, that they become the eternal flame to our moth-like attention while burning a hole in our pockets.
And as soon as these screens are no longer noteworthy, ceasing to be “immersive” enough to justify astronomical ticket prices, they will respond by becoming more spectacular, more engrossing, more pulsating, until the built environment that surrounds them seems unbearably inert by comparison.
Shane Reiner-Roth is a writer, photographer, curator and educator. He is a lecturer at the University of Southern California and is studying for a PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles. His writing has appeared in Dezeen, The Architect’s Newspaper, Architectural Record and Architectural Digest.
The photo is by Tan Yang Song via Shutterstock.
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A garment clad with iridescent wooden sequins is among the projects on display at the Designs for a Cooler Planet exhibition at Finland’s Aalto University, demonstrating innovative applications of cellulose.
The university is known for encouraging its students to collaborate across disciplines – a tradition highlighted in the exhibition, where students studying arts and sciences have joined forces to push the boundaries of their research.
While a range of biomaterials feature in the show, the following four projects from Designs for a Cooler Planet are united in their use of cellulose, the dominant substance found in plant cell walls.
Helsinki Design Week concluded on Sunday, but the exhibition will remain on display at Aalto University until 3 October.
Shimmering Wood by Structural Colour Studio and Anna Semi
Noora Yau and Konrad Klockars of Structural Colour Studio collaborated with fashion designer Semi to create Shimmering Wood – iridescent solid wooden sequins made shiny by their nanocellulose, presented on a black garment.
Similarly to butterfly wings and peacock feathers, the “microscopically small” nanostructures formed by the cellulose create vivid colours when they interact with light.
The sequins do not contain toxic pigments, plastic-based materials or metallic foils, components typically used to create garments with shiny or glittering effects.
When creating the project, Yau sought to balance her lifelong love affair with bright colours with a desire to work with renewable materials.
“I didn’t feel comfortable using these beautiful, shiny colours when they’re created in the traditional way,” Yau told Dezeen at the university. “There is such a huge need in the fashion industry for more sustainable colourants.”
Bubbles with Benefits by Valentin Schwarz, Satu Paavonsalo, Juha Lipponen, Marke Tyrväinen, Ziba Fathi and Jenni Roivas
Bubbles with Benefits is a plant-based alternative to traditional plastic bubble wrap that does not lack any of the well-known material’s cushioning properties.
The biodegradable cellulose-based wrap dissolves in water, meaning that it does not create any unnecessary waste, and can be finished in different natural dyes to “suit any brand’s look”.
“Without changes to the current practices, the global amount of plastic waste is forecasted to triple to over 1,040 million tonnes by 2060,” said the designers.
Textile by Inge Schlapp-Hackl, Herbert Sixta and Michael Hummel
According to Aalto University, the estimated lifetime of a banknote is around three years before it is taken out of circulation. While polymer-based notes can be recycled, cotton-based notes are typically incinerated. Cotton is primarily composed of cellulose.
To tackle this waste, students Inge Schlapp-Hackl, Herbert Sixta and Michael Hummel have created a textile made from these surplus cotton banknotes. This was developed using Ioncell, a technology that converts cellulose into fibres “without harmful chemicals”.
The textile owes its distinctive green colour to its former life as bank notes.
The Roots by Krista Virtanen, Saskia Helinska, Marja-Inkeri Murphy and Illona Valovirta
The Roots is a plant-based leather alternative made of wheatgrass roots, bound by nanocellulose and coloured with natural dyes, which was developed to minimise agricultural waste that would otherwise be composted.
Leftover wheatgrass, created by vertical wheatgrass farming, was salvaged to create the material that can be sewn together to create garments or bags and “feels pleasant to the touch”, according to Aalto University.
Designs for a Cooler Planet takes place from 6 September to 3 October 2024 at Aalto University, Otakaari 24, 02150 Espoo, Finland. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
Agricultural architecture informed this timber house, which architect Roman Morschett has nestled into a grass-filled orchard site in rural southwest Germany.
Named Bliesgau House, the home was designed to celebrate its orchard setting and draw from the rural Gersheim surroundings, with a simple timber structure that sits low in the landscape.
Located next to the street to maximise the private space offered by the rest of the orchard, the single-storey home rests on a concrete foundation and is topped with a pitched metal roof supported by a rhythmic timber structure.
“The design aimed to preserve the orchard’s unique atmosphere while creating a strong connection to the garden,” Morschett told Dezeen.
“To achieve this, we proposed a straightforward timber construction whose materiality, colour and construction are reminiscent of agricultural architecture.”
To protect the plot from the public street as much as possible, Morschett designed the home to have a long form that runs along the side of the street.
“As the narrow plot is flanked by the street, it was an appropriate strategy to build a long structure that separates the public space from the private area to the south,” Morschett explained.
“At the same time, the resulting single-storey design strengthens the connection to the surrounding garden. On a typological level the building is thus reminiscent of agricultural barns,” he continued.
Aside from its concrete foundations, the entirety of Bliesgau House is made from timber, with a spruce structure and a stained larch facade cladding designed to withstand the weather. Larch wood was also used to create the terrace flooring, as well as window frames and parquet flooring inside.
“The structure itself is made of economical spruce whereas the parts exposed to the weather such as external supports, facade cladding, terrace boards and benches are made of more durable larch wood,” said Morschett.
“Together with the windows and the parquet flooring, the larch is the primary material of the house.”
“The visible parts of the roof construction and the larch windows were the starting point of the natural colour palette,” Morschett continued.
“By staining the exposed wood surfaces in a patina-like warm grey tone, the house looks as if it has been in the orchard for a long time.”
The home’s main entrance faces the street, while an additional entrance is nestled beneath a pergola that cuts into its footprint on one side, creating a covered parking area that flanks an enclosed storage space.
Inside, the home’s long, single-storey layout allows for a sequence of bright spaces that open onto the orchard. These large, open spaces take up most of the home’s plan.
A strip of the interior on the north side closest to the road is home to smaller, secondary spaces including a dressing room, laundry room and storage cupboard, as well as two bathrooms.
From the main door, a small entrance hall offers access to an open-plan kitchen and dining area. With dark and wooden furniture and pale walls that join to create a neutrally toned interior, the open-plan space is flanked by a large sliding door that opens onto the pergola at the back of the house.
A small pantry sits to one side of the kitchen, while a study at the end of the same corridor is illuminated by a circular window, which pivots horizontally to open and allow natural ventilation through the space.
Also on the east side of the kitchen is a bright living space that extends forward from the house’s rectangular volume towards the garden. Brightened by large glass doors and floor-to-ceiling windows, the living room is set at a lower level than the kitchen.
“The spatial configuration of the communal area creates different levels of intimacy, which is further emphasised by the level difference between the kitchen and the living room,” said Morschett.
Parquet flooring features across both the dining area and living room, which are connected by a trio of wooden steps. The living room is decorated with modern furnishings that fit with the home’s neutral colour scheme.
From the other side of the kitchen and dining room, a second corridor leads to two spare rooms and a main bedroom.
At the back of the house, a long, split-level sheltered porch looks over the garden, decorated with plant pots and lined with larch boards.
“The rationally organised floor plan gains spatial diversity through a pergola to the south, where a long bench extends the living space to the outside,” said Morschett. “The house was to be simple and yet rich in spatial situations.”
“The living area flows around the large covered terrace, which becomes the communicative hub of family life,” he continued. “From here, it is only a few steps to the orchard, which links naturally with the house.”
A sound-emitting egg sculpture and a samurai chest of drawers feature in a series of objects made by designers in collaboration with master artisans from Japan‘s Tohoku region, on show for London Design Festival.
Designers Sabine Marcelis, Ini Archibong, Studio Swine, Yoichi Ochiai, Michael Young and Hideki Yoshimoto all participated in the Craft x Tech initiative, with the results now on show at the V&A.
Each designer was paired with a different artisan and asked to apply their expertise to a contemporary work.
“Craft x Tech is more than an exhibition; it’s a celebration of cultural collaboration and innovation,” said designer and engineer Hideki Yoshimoto, who initiated the project.
“By showcasing these exceptional works, we hope to inspire new dialogues and creative expressions within the design community and beyond,” said Yoshimoto.
Marcelis‘ contribution saw her work with artisans from Akita, who specialise in the Kawatsura Shikki style of lacquerware, to create high-gloss finishes.
Renowned for her colourful Candy Cube furniture, the Dutch designer explored a similarly minimal aesthetic. The use of lacquer gives these pieces their distinctly shiny finish.
Also working with lacquer, American designer Archibong collaborated with Tsugaru-Nuri specialists from Aomori. The result is a sculpture that emits sounds in response to movement.
Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves of Studio Swine created a contemporary version of the Sendai-Tansu chest of drawers, specific to the city of Sendai, which traditionally would be crafted for samurai warriors and merchants.
The British-Japanese duo created a geometric design that takes cues from Japanese block prints and metabolist architecture.
Just like with the traditional chests, the drawers are completely airtight, so closing one drawer causes another to open.
Hong Kong-based designer Michael Young used the ironware techniques of Iwate’s Nambu-Tekki artisans to create tables with intricate legs, decorated with patterns based on cherry blossoms.
The traditional Japanese tea room was the starting point for Japanese artist Yoichi Ochiai, who was invited to work with Oitama Tsumugi silk.
The textile forms a red see-through cube with tree branches suspended at its centre.
The final addition comes from Yoshimoto himself, who created a floor lamp utilising Tohoku’s oldest pottery traditions.
The design combines distinctive glazed elements with precisely cut resin and metal.
Maria Cristina Didero curated the exhibition, which was presented in Tokyo and Basel before coming to the UK for London Design Festival.
“This project is a testament to the limitless possibilities that arise when traditional craftsmanship meets modern technology,” said Didero.
Craft x Tech is on show at the V&A from 14 September to 13 October 2024 as part of London Design Festival. Visit Dezeen Events Guide for a guide to the festival and other architecture and design events taking place around the world.
Looking for a bit of retail therapy, social editor Clara Finnigan dropped into The Hoxton in Shoreditch, to see The Yinka Ilori Objects Pop-Up return to east London a second time.
The pop-up shop showcased British-Nigerian designer Yinka Ilori‘s latest collection in his distinctive, colourful patterned style. Now what to buy…
4:45pm – its coming together
After a busy weekend installing the Design You Can Feel exhibition, the Dezeen team is spending the day filming interviews with the six designers in the exhibition.
Here, Dezeen editorial director Max Fraser is chatting to designer Giles Miller about his Awaken installation as part of the show. Keep an eye on Dezeen over the coming weeks for the films!
4:30pm – more vases
As part of Reclaimed: The Silo Collection, 22 London ceramicists have created objects using an experimental glaze, developed by local practice Studio Omelette and Mexican potter Lucía Ocejo using waste wine bottles from zero-waste restaurant Silo.
In line with the idea of eliminating waste, the resulting pieces are displayed on a scenography made of reclaimed materials including plinths made from wine boxes and podiums made from kiln shelves.
The next step, Studio Omelette founder Cécile Dumetier hopes, is to use the glaze to create tableware for the actual Silo restaurant, run by chef Douglas McMaster.
“For him, it’s like what could we do next?” Dumetier told Dezeen. “Because they’re going through so much wine, so much of this raw material that can be used by so many artists or makers.”
“It’s a call to action: if someone wants to use material, reach out because we would love to provide it and you can experiment and do something with it.”
3:30pm – vase maker extraordinaire
Workshop sessions are now well underway at Making Room, an exhibition in the Brompton Design District curated by Andu Masebo and Mikey Krzyzanowski. The show aims to shine a light on the process of making, with visitors involved in crafting furniture and objects that will be used here throughout the week.
Dezeen editor-at-large Amy Frearson popped in on Saturday afternoon to see the results of day one’s workshops, which included stool-making with Masebo and Krzyzanowski and vase-making with Berlin-based artist Anna Zimmermann.
She ended up making her own vase, a leopard-print-style design that is now on display next to Masebo’s woodgrain-inspired effort.
These vases will come in very handy tomorrow, with Galerie Navy scheduled to host a floral sculpture workshop.
Other workshops in the progamme include hook-making with Mitre & Mondays and a drawing class with Daniel Schofield.
3:00pm – vandalism
Sad news from King’s Cross where the Juicy Booth is closed following an act of vandalism at the weekend. According to designer Annie Frost Nicholson, who created the installation in collaboration with K67 Berlin and The Loss Project, the sensory booth will be open again for visitors tomorrow.
2:30pm – pizza time
Next stop for Jennifer Hahn – zero-waste restaurant Silo in Hackney Wick (with interiors by Nina+Co) to see a collection of ceramics glazed using the many many wine bottles consumed by the restaurants patrons.
Unfortunately, I’m not having lunch at the actual restaurant because journalists don’t have that kind of time or money (and also the restaurant isn’t serving food until Wednesday). So instead, I’m having pizza by the canal. There are worse ways to spend a Monday!
Named Tula after the Sanskrit word for equilibrium, the chairs are made from reclaimed London scaffolding planks balanced on top of chunks of salvaged slate from Delhi.
The result are what the studios call “flat-pack moments of rest”, held together completely without screws and relying instead on an elaborate system of tension cables like the kind you might see on a suspension bridge.
A short skip across the street for Douglas Jardim is the Chair of Virtue exhibition at One Hundred Shoreditch, which includes five sculptural chairs created by UK-based makers that celebrate form and design.
The Blob Chair by Sophia Colman is a particular standout.
Responding to the theme of Natural Forms, the chair reflects the components of a red blood cell among other elements of the human body.
Judging from looks alone, The Blob Chair does what it says on the tin. Whether it’s pleasing or not to sit on, however, is a mystery.
The exhibition in Shoreditch showcased the work of seven designers who take inspiration from objects that are no longer manufactured or readily available, highlights include a balancing lighter by Swiss-French designer Julie Richoz of Julie Richoz Studio held down by weights and a whisk-turned-candelabra made from springs by Jon Marshall from Pentagram.
Some interesting object pulled from the Blond Artefacts archive are also on display, including a rather snappy crocodile-shaped grater. It’s as sharp as their teeth!
11:00am– Tuscany in Mayfair
Fresh from Helsinki Design Week, design and interiors reporter Jane Englefield has headed straight to Mayfair’s Gallery Fumi, where Tuscan designer Francesco Perini is presenting a collection of timber furniture.
Nucelo is Perini’s first solo show at the gallery, featuring organic-shaped oak furniture inlaid with materials including veiny marble, smooth onyx and robust steel and brass.
Perini was informed by desert roses – naturally occurring crystal clusters that form in harsh weather conditions (which also informed Jean Nouvel’s National Museum of Qatar in Doha) for the collection.
All of the furniture was handmade in the designer’s workshop in Tuscany
10:30am– LDF bike tour
Design editor Jennifer Hahn is leading a one-person Lime bike tour (sadly not sponsored… yet!) around east London this morning, where there are lots of fun things happening this year.
The first stop was Light in Motion, an exhibition of experimental lighting designs from nine emerging designers and engineers, initiated by London studio Kai Lab.
Many of the works on show play with indirect light, including Sophie Mei Birkin‘s swampy Biomaterial Submersions, which feature foraged plant matter immortalised in a bio-resin, and Duncan Carter’s algorithmically optimised 10,000 Tiny Suns.
A personal highlight was a massive metallic flower, that casts different reflections as it robotically unfurls its petals.
It was created by Heyl & Van Dam for the Ice Melt Tour of American psych rock band Crumb, of which I’m a huge fan (I recommend listening to Ghostride, which will be the soundtrack for the next leg of the cycle tour).
9:30am – the morning after the weekend before…
Following a super buzzy weekend we are back reporting on this year’s London Design Festival (LDF). Dezeen’s design editor Jennifer Hahn, design and interiors reporter Jane Englefield, editorial assistant Starr Charles, social editor Clara Finnigan and editorial intern Douglas Jardim are on the ground in London reporting live.
To stay up to date, follow Dezeen live: London Design Festival, taking place from 14-22 September 2024. Dezeen Events Guide has created a LDF guide, highlighting the key events at the festival. See Dezeen Events Guide for all the latest information you need to know to attend the event, as well as a list of other architecture and design events taking place around the world.
Promotion: global contract furniture brand NaughtOne is offering Dezeen readers the chance to win its newly launched Truffle pouf, which has an organic shape that can be used as a seat or footrest.
By entering our latest competition, which closes on 14 October, one lucky Dezeen reader will win a NaughtOne Truffle pouf in their choice of size, material and colour, described by the company as “an adaptable seating solution with a cheeky charm”.
Designed to have a playful appearance, Truffle has an organic silhouette that functions as a stool or footrest.
“A cheeky yet practical seat and footrest, Truffle pouf brings a playful energy wherever it pops up,” said NaughtOne.
“Intentionally organic in form, its curvaceous profile charms from all sides, while the seamless top offers a smooth, durable sit.”
Its rounded shape comes in two sizes. Version A has a wide and low seat measuring 605 millimetres wide by 400 millimetres high, designed for lounge settings.
Version B of Truffle has a taller seat to encourage an upright posture at 475 millimetres wide by 445 millimetres high.
The pouf can be used as a stand-alone furniture piece or mixed and matched with other Truffles to create a collaborative seating arrangement.
It is made from Bio-Pur foam – which is made partly from vegetable oils and organic waste to lower the quantity of fossil fuels compared to conventional foams – and can be specified in a wide range of fabrics.
NaughtOne is a British furniture designer and manufacturer that was founded in Yorkshire in 2005.
It aims to create functional furniture pieces for commercial spaces that come in a variety of colours, fabrics and finishes to improve the creative choices for designers and clients.
Partnership content
This article was written by Dezeen for NaughtOne as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.
In the village of Adelboden in Switzerland, Amsterdam-based Nicemakers has transformed the interiors of The Brecon, a hundred-year-old chalet, into a secluded retreat.
The intention for the 18-room chalet, called The Brecon, was for it to be “like a high-end version of your own home,” Nicemakers head of design Lottie Lorenzetti told Dezeen. The studio wanted the hotel rooms to feel like guest rooms in someone’s home.
“We set out from the very beginning with the intention of not creating another clean, minimal, Swiss hotel aesthetic,” Lorenzetti added.
The client, hotel operator Grant Maunder, wanted to create “a hideaway which feels like a dream home”.
Across the common spaces, 18 rooms and four suites of the boutique hotel, Nicemakers worked with Maunder to fulfil the brief by creating a series of intimate and characterful interiors with a domestic feel.
On entry through a bespoke wooden revolving door, the open-plan lounge space progresses into dining and living areas, featuring a sofa tucked away in a secluded nook.
The interiors throughout are decorated with wooden panelling and integrated bookshelves, free-standing lamps and mismatched mid-century modern furniture.
Mantel pieces and coffee tables display a collection of objects, candles and incense holders, statement one-off ashtrays and magazines that were chosen to add to the domestic feel.
Nicemakers worked with Amsterdam’s Bisou Gallery to select relevant and personal artworks for the walls of The Brecon.
Timber, stone, leather and wool, in an earthy palette chosen to complement the hotel’s mountain surroundings, have been used throughout the interior scheme.
On the ground floor, Nicemaker placed a few casual breakfast tables by an open kitchen to evoke the sense of being a guest in someone’s spacious home.
The spa, which has a sauna, steam and treatment rooms, and the infinity pool on the terrace looking down the valley to the Engstligen waterfalls, were finished at the scale of a generous private residence, the studio said.
The unusual concept for the retreat – in a small town with several more traditional hotels – was executed with a mid-century modern design approach.
The resulting interiors contrast with the traditional chalet style found in Switzerland.
Other unusual design details include the repeated use of crazy paving indoors; in the elevators and entranceway, on bedroom balconies and around the pool area.
“The crazy paving was a hugely labour-intensive design element – it took a long time to lay and needed a skilled person who came from Wales to do this,” Lorenzetti said.
Originally Nicemakers had plans for bespoke mini bar cabinets, bedside tables and the same armchairs in each room.
However, the studio concluded this would have gone against the hotel’s domestic concept.
“You wouldn’t have a mini bar fridge in your own guest room at home,” explained Lorenzetti.
This decision meant that – instead of using the same suite of bespoke elements throughout the hotel – individual items could be sourced and curated for each room.
“[This] gave the rooms a much more collected, rather than manufactured, feel”, Lorenzetti said.
Nicemakers’ design was also informed by some of the original elements from the 1950s and ’60s heyday of the building, which was originally built in 1914.
Textured plaster, the original red mosaic tiles in the stairwell and the mottled glass all draw from the history of the site. A pre-existing fireplace in the spa was also preserved.
Vintage and new items were sourced from all over Europe, especially vintage markets in Italy, the UK, the Netherlands and France.
The mix of patterns and details was intentional.
“[We wanted] to imitate a collected mix of items, to steer away from the classic minimal and clean, expected, Swiss aesthetic”, Lorenzetti concluded.
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