Hasta La Ideas

Beijing Design Week 2011: a menu charting the water footprint of different dishes was presented to diners at a Beijing cafe during design week.

The how much water do you eat? menu displayed silhouettes of existing popular dishes at the Tian Hai cafe alongside a calculated breakdown of water used to produce the ingredients for each.

Information boxes in the booklet explain why roast duck uses the most water and why candied banana uses very little.

Elsewhere in the menu, graphs illustrated the water consumption of China compared with the global average and a chart showed customers the water footprint of an average person.

The Beijing Design Week event was a prelude to another that will take place at World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 and was curated by Helsinki Design Week founder Kari Korkman and design consultant Jane Withers.

A research group at Aalto University produced the information.

See more projects from Beijing Design Week here, including a pop-up teahouse with a heat-sensitive colour-changing table, and see our snapshots from the festival on our Facebook page.

Here’s some more information from the festival organisers:

Wonderwater Café at Tian Hai

The Wonderwater project is a series of events that will be seen and experienced in and around Helsinki in 2012.

The masterminds behind the concept are Helsinki Design Week’s founder and producer Kari Korkman and consultant, curator and design journalist Jane Withers who is also a member of Helsinki Design Week’s advisory board.

For Beijing Design Week, Helsinki Design Week and Aalto University Design Factory will bring a preview of the project to Dashilar with Wonderwater Café, achieved through a collaboration with the local Tian Hai restaurant.

Among other things, Tian Hai’s menu will be redesigned such that customers will be able to see how much water goes into producing the ingredients of many of its most popular dishes, so as to to raise awareness of the water footprint and inspire the visitors to consider the environmental effects of locally and globally produced and distributed food.

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Well Done by Bruketa & Zinić	Receipt redesign by BERG	Stamps by Richard Hutten

Beijing Design Week 2011: Beijing architect Naihan Li presented crates that unfold to become a collection of furniture at a pop-up disco lounge for Beijing Design Week.

The largest crate at Concierge in Dashilar Alley folded out into a mini cinema and karaoke box, while others became chairs and tables.

Other crates from the collection conceal folding sofas and beds, while some contain dressing tables, kitchens and wardrobes.

One of the wooden storage boxes folds into a table football.

Lee teamed up with curator Beatrice Leanza as part of the collective think-tank BAO Atelier to create the Concierge installation for the festival.

Folding stools from the collection were also on show at the WUHAO teahouse during the week – see our earlier story here and see more stories about Beijing Design Week here.

Another range of furniture designed around packing crates was presented by Dutch designers Studio Makkink & Bey in London last year – see more about this project in our earlier story.

Here’s some more information from the festival organisers:

BAO Atelier for Beijing Design Week 2011

Architect and designer Li Naihan’s latest series of home and office furniture The Crates (2011) is inspired by the volatile and exuberant spirit of a contemporary urban habitat like Beijing and its epic detournment of building construction, decay and regeneration.

Li’s mobile creations accommodate with poetic comfort the moody impracticality of globe-trotting, and always on the move lifestyles.

Sofas, beds, bookshelves, workstations, and foosball tables pop out of their own shipping shell to form a unique spatial language that is whole with a ‘total’ concept of dwelling.

Wooden crates become carapaces to contain the body, objects and memories we carry with them: situational freeplay and sculptural abstraction blend here to make room for a design practice which is intrinsically relational and open-ended.

In this occasion, a brand new all-in-one media box is going to be presented, inclusive of a mini- cinema, a dj deck, lights and karaoke appliances, multimedia screens and a seating area.

Concierge is developed in collaboration with Beatrice Leanza, curator and co-founder with Li of Beijing-based studio BAO Atelier, a creative lab integrating curatorial, editorial and design production to promote new encounters and transversal research among the visual arts, design and architecture.

This special installation materializes an inexistent part of an actual building dubbed ‘The House of Leaves’, a semi-private/semi-public residence located on the edge of the 5th Ring Road in Caochangdi village.

Drawn upon an intimate image of both action and reflection, this serendipitous space represents an antechamber of no definite time or spatial confines, a public retreat and an interior garden activated by a politics otherwise known as ‘meeting’.

Daily talk-shops and presentations are accompanied by impromptu cooking sessions kindly provided by local food lovers.

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Crate Series by Makkink & Bey	Authentic Wood by Le Corbusier	Woodware by Max Lamb

Beijing Design Week 2011: here are some pictures of an exhibition curated by Beijing Design Week‘s creative director Aric Chen, where the childhood possessions of a Chinese actress were arranged beside illustrations of piecharts and explosions.

Zhou Xun’s humble furniture and objects were interspersed between household items from local residents at the Silent Heroes exhibition, which was located in the festival hub at Dashilar Alley.

Each object on show was chosen to reveal something beautiful about everyday life in China. Items included a rusty bed, a set of bamboo steamers, wooden chairs and an emerald green tiled floor.

Suspended plywood screens adorned with the sketches by Chinese illustrators Ray Lei and Chai Mi surrounded the exhibited items.

See more stories from Beijing Design Week here, including our roundup of highlights.

Photography is by Eric Gregory Powell.

Here’s some more information from the festival organisers:

Silent Heroes: Objects, as told by Zhou Xun

Exhibition offers an intimate look into the actress’s life, and the richness to be found in common things.

BEIJING – Part of 2011 Beijing Design Week (BJDW), Silent Heroes: Objects, as told by Zhou Xun, is one of the highlights of Dashilar Alley, a series of exhibitions, talks, workshops and pop-up shops concentrated in Beijing’s historic Dashilar neighborhood, just south of Tiananmen Square.

Curated by Aric Chen, BJDW’s creative director, the exhibition assembles common objects from the childhood of Zhou Xun, one of China’s most acclaimed and admired actresses. Through intimate, first-person texts and audio recordings, Zhou shares her recollections of these otherwise unassuming things, which have been borrowed from her family in Quzhou, Zhejiang Province: her great-grandmother’s chair; a set of steamers marked with her grandfather’s unusual name, Meng Qiu (“Dream” and “Ball”); a washstand that became a symbol of romance and family affection; the bed where Zhou learned to dream on her own.

“On the surface, these objects might not appear to be especially remarkable. But through Zhou’s heartfelt storytelling, one begins to see their inherent richness,” says Chen. “I think it’s clear to most people that, as China continues its rush towards newness, something is being lost. We hope this exhibition will encourage a greater appreciation of older things, no matter how humble they might at first seem.”

Chen continues: “It’s not just temples and palaces, and books and paintings, that preserve culture; it’s also the implements of daily life. There’s a beauty and authenticity to be found in the imperfections that come with age, which is why this exhibition’s location in Dashilar is especially appropriate.”

For centuries, Dashilar was the lively, thriving commercial heart of Beijing. While it retains much of its character, the area has in recent decades experienced significant decline. The exhibitions, pop-up shops and other events of Dashilar Alley are part of a broader, longer-term effort to revitalize the area in a way that is more sensitive to its existing buildings, urban fabric, and local community.

Accordingly, Silent Heroes ends with objects chosen from the lives of current- day residents of Dashilar, who have generously shared their stories as well.

Throughout the exhibition, both Zhou’s objects and the Dashilar residents’ are inserted within imaginary worlds drawn by Ray Lei and Chai Mi, two of China’s most talented young illustrators. Alongside the texts and audio recordings, these drawings aim to elaborate the meanings that lend the objects their resonance—giving voice to many “silent heroes.”

“Although life is busy, we still need to appreciate those unassuming objects from our common history, to treasure those ‘silent heroes’ in our lives,” says Zhou. “For me, this was a new experience. And I hope to share more in the future.”

The exhibition is generously supported by Diesel.

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Water Calligraphy by Nicholas Hanna	LetThemSitCake! by Dejana Kabiljo	Water Table Object by Heng Zhi

Beijing Design Week 2011: Beijing studio lasfera presented a collection of furniture including handmade lamps of curled bamboo at 751-D Park last week.

The curved Moolin lamps are created using a traditional Chinese craft of heating and bending bamboo strips.

The bamboo is left unfinished and can be recycled.

The lamps are available in different sizes and proportions.

See all of our stories about Beijing Design Week here.

Here’s some more about the collection from lasfera:

Asian breathe in western furniture design

At the lasfera booth on Beijing Design Week 2011 at 751 exhibition area Italian design and German quality meet Asian inspiration. For customers sharing the passion for exclusive custom-made interior objects, which give a certain “elite touch” to their living spaces and who respect ecological consciousness this young design studio from Beijing, presents a range of innovative furniture items.

You almost feel a breathe of shadow when looking at YING_影 table and chairs,
or MOOLIN, the lamp that looks like a purely handmade sculpture – made of natural bamboo using traditional handcraft techniques to bend the fresh bamboo.

XOO shelving reminds at the light structure of a bamboo. Flexible but steady, this system combines highest requirements in contemporary design and environmental sustainability. Users can realize this individual and extendable shelving system in various forms, functions and colours.

TAI_泰 a glide seat with circulating construction and strong aesthetic characters made out of 100% bamboo material it is a perfect combination for a sustainable product.

YUN_匀 seems to be a float down lamp with a light construction product personality which combines traditional Asian handcraft techniques with an original design approach.

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Brave New World Lamp by Fresh West for Moooi	Leone Series 01 by Lanzavecchia + Wai	A Flip Flop Story byDiederik Schneemann

Beijing Design Week 2011: Vienna architect Dejana Kabiljo has installed a giant sofa made of bagged flour topped with fake chocolate icing at the 751-D Park for Beijing Design Week.

Viennese cakes and pastries were the inspiration for the recyclable temporary sofas, named LetThemSitCake!

The squishy icing is made from a polyol sponge that, unlike real chocolate, does not melt when touched.

Also at Beijing Design Week is a tricycle that writes temporary messages on the road with water – see our earlier story here.

Here’s some more information from the festival organisers:

LetThemSitCake!

Beijing Design Week has invited Vienna- based architect Dejana Kabiljo to contribute to the 751-D PARK DesignHop with her quirky installation “LetThemSitCake!” at 751-D PARK Power Square. Stacked bags of wheat, topped off with an oozing ‘chocolate icing’ resemble an inviting multi- layered sponge cake but are in fact soft and rather comfortable sofas inviting visitors to take a seat.

Art curator and artistic director of Vienna Art Week Robert Punkenhofer said, “’LetThemSitCake!’ Dejana Kabiljo’s installation title, paraphrases a quote commonly attributed to Queen Marie Antoinette.

Instead of cynically ignoring the human condition by invoking the phrase, Kabiljo rather takes a very optimistic approach and associates her work with mouth-watering pastry that reflects the Viennese spirit in its finest tradition.

Using nearly four and half tons of flour as well as 120 litres of fake chocolate icing Kabiljo invites visitors to take a rest on an oversized cake in the shape of a most comfortable sofa. In times of uncertainty and crisis, ‘LetThemSitCake!’ offers a moment of sweetness, indulgence and joy.”

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La Cantine de la Ménagerie de Verre by Matali Crasset	Godiva Chocoiste by Wonderwall	Edible tableware by Rice-Design