Hasta La Ideas

“Each Under a Fiver item is a testament to an un-global culture, a testament to local needs and interests. Communities around the world continue to require things that serve their local needs, and often design plays little to no part at all.”

In Usefulness in Small Things, Industrial Facility’s Kim Colin and Sam Hecht share their “Under a Fiver” collection, first presented at London’s Design Museum alongside “Some Recent Projects,” an exhibit of the firm’s own work. The premise of the collection is simple. As Hecht puts it in his introduction, “As I continued to travel, I made sure to wander through any local hardware stores, pharmacies or supermarkets I came across, finding low-cost objects (all are under five pounds) that told me something about where I was.” The resulting array is a delightful antidote to the image-based work so popular on the Internet, a real force in the decline of attention paid to the experiential elements of objects and spaces.

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