Hasta La Ideas

In my experience, Australians seem to travel in packs of two or more. Each time I’ve met an Australian, one, two or more of their countrymen are close by. At Dwell on Design this past weekend, I met six in one booth.

The six form Quench, a collective of designers from Queensland, Australia, who all smartly pool their resources, whether they’re sharing manufacturers, or studios, or a tradeshow booth at Dwell. Each represented himself individually, but all together (with their space) confirmed another Australian stereotype of mine: they are fun, engaging, and colorful.

Luxx Box’s Watch Out

David Shaw’s Flow

There was David Shaw’s “Flow” planter, a divider/bench/planter nicely done in white and grey powder-coated steel. Flow is representative of Shaw’s public works design, for his studio Street and Garden Furniture Co. He creates bus benches, bike racks, drinking fountains, etc., with a clean yet classic sensibility greatly needed in public works design (at least in the U.S.).

Luxx Box’s Milk and Tingle

Alexander Lotersztain, with his studio Derlot Editions, and Jason Bird’s Luxx Box brought the playful color to the Quench booth. Derlot had “Picket,” a lovely table with a solid Tasmanian oak top and brightly colored, powder-coated steel legs. The legs are an appealingly chunky, rounded-tube shape. Luxx Box brought the most color, showing a range of colors in the Milk stool, recyclable polyethylene Tingle seat, and Watch Out, a colorful take on the old industrial sconce.

Derlot’s Picket

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Modern life “outdoors” is a surprisingly dominant focus at Dwell on Design, from the entire “Dwell Outdoor” section to “Design Materials” focused on outdoor to a not-insignificant amount of adaptable in/out and outdoor furniture and accessories. So it’s no surprise that designer Joey Roth chose to debut his newest creation there: a terracotta self-watering planter, which he showed as part of the Remodelista Market. Roth has explored making the perfect pot of tea with his Sorapot; he created beautiful ceramic vessels for sound with his porcelain speakers; and now he ventures into the outdoors with the planter.

The new design provides an elegant solution to the timeless problem of providing plants with the appropriate amount of water. Each of the two compartments is made entirely from terracotta, such that the pot is essentially a straight-walled bowl with an enclosed tubular chamber in its center. Plants and dirt go in the outer ring, water goes in the center; over time, as the plant’s soil and roots need it, water naturally seeps from one chamber to the next, through the terracotta. It’s a clever use of the amazing properties inherent in both the terracotta and plants’ root systems.

Of course, these properties have been celebrated for years with the ancient tradition of Ollas, which inspired Roth’s planter. The Olla has been used in the Southwest for years to easily and effectively irrigate plants. An Olla is buried next to a plant, and filled with water it naturally irrigates the plant over time. Roth was inspired by this, as well as moving to a home with a garden in California for the first time.

Roth said that he has done some tests in earthenware, which he likes for its dark-brown tone. But, he’s not yet convinced that it has the same effectiveness in watering as the terracotta, and continues to test it. He said he is also refining the design to elevate the water chamber up from the planter’s base more, so that water won’t seep out from the bottom, but hopes to have the first round of production available by August.

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All photos by Carren Jao.

Commissioned by Dwell on Design, “Screenplay,” designed by LA-based firm Oyler Wu, succeeds in getting one’s attention as soon as you get through the door. Not only does the 21-foot-long, 9-foot high screen occupy prime real estate at the front of the showroom, it mesmerizes with 45,000 linear feet of silver rope zipping here and there, twisting through a series of lightweight steel frames.

Viewing “Screenplay” from the side reveals cavities and a complex pattern of lines.

A photo opportunity not to be missed.

“The wall is designed with the intention of provoking a sense of curiosity by slowly revealing its form and complexity through physical and visual engagement with the work,” says the firm’s postcard pamphlet. Indeed, straight on, “Screenplay” looks to be a two-dimensional, traditional screen; as one moves around it, the piece reveals its three-dimensional qualities with cavities ranging from two to twelve feet.

Named one of these year’s eight new Emerging Voices by the Architecture League, Oyler Wu is known for its beautifully complex, experimental work. For “Screenplay” the firm used the leftover rope from their recent “Netscape” installation created last year’s for SCI-Arc’s graduation ceremonies. “We like to fully explore a material and seeing what it can offer before moving away from it,” says principal Jenny Wu.

Not only is it sculptural but functional as well. Oyler Wu cleverly incorporated seating into “Screenplay,” a tacit invitation to sit down, cool one’s heels and admire the hustle and bustle of the conference. The firm also created additional seating using the same process, which elegantly showed how a big statement piece such as “Screenplay” can be scaled down into sleek furniture that translates well into a forward-thinking home setting. Based on the number of people that sat down and stuck around, the seats were as comfortable as they were charismatic.

Many conference-goers sat and stayed.

The investigations from the “Screenplay” installation exercise also gave way to the smaller scale seating.

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Photography by Glen Jackson Taylor for Core77

There’s so many events and exhibitions all over Milan during the Salone Internazionale del Mobile that you could almost be forgiven for skipping out on the long trek to the Rho fair grounds. Luckily for the organizers we’re in the minority, and the exhibition halls were packed. So packed it was a little uncomfortable at times feeling more like navigating a crowd at the end of a gig than a trade show.

There wasn’t much press-worthy new product launched this year, most companies were content reissuing updates to their classics which could be a reflection on the European recession. In fact, so many of the established design-driven companies focused on their legacies with the use of product timelines incorporated into their exhibition booths that we could have made it a category.

Some highlights included this minimal wall mounted desk/storage unit for small apartments by Core-faves Yael Mer & Shay Alkalay and we’re loving the shadows cast by Sunrise, an outdoor table setting by Ludovica + Roberto Palomba for Driade. As usual, the SaloneSatellite was full of inspiration, especially this stunning bench by student Danah Al Kubaisy as part of a materials and fabrication class at the American University of Sharjah. At the Melbourne Movement stand, Tate Anson’s Tryst Stool was getting a lot of attention with his water-jet cut pattern technique for bending timber, and Thomas Schnur’s Rubber Table was just straight-up awesome!

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Studio Besau-Marguerre’s hand-held greenhouse “Handgepäck”

Design curators and architects Barbara Brondi and Marco Rainó founded the IN Residence program in 2008 to be an annual design workshop bringing together 5-6 young designers and selected students from the 4 design schools in Torino to explore a central theme. Since then, the program has expanded to include a print publication, design talks and regular exhibitions featuring thoughtful and exploratory work around a single theme.

At this year’s Milan presentations, Another Terra: Home Away From Home treated a certain feeling of impending crisis in a playful way. As we mentioned in our previous posts, many designers at this year’s show addressed the uncertain future through their works or processes. Another Terra asked 15 young designers, “If you had to envisage life on some other habitable planet other than Earth, what kind of minimal hand luggage would you take with you?”

Mischer’Traxler’s “Tools – Knowledge – Memory” kit

Studio Formafantasma “Botanica”

As Barbara Brondi and Marco Rainó explain in the EXCLUSIVE video interview below, the theme was inspired by NASA’s recent discovery of another habitable earth. Themes that emerged included bringing tools for creation as in Tom´s Alonso’s “Tools” box and Mischer’Traxler’s “Tools – Knowledge – Memory” kit or packing up plants for agricultural purposes as Studio Besau-Marguerre’s hand-held greenhouse “Handgepäck” or Jo Meester’s self-seeding “Materra” bowls.

Check the jump for more images as well as a second serving of exhibition goodness from Brondi and Rainó’s show on woven objects for Milan’s Plusdesign Gallery.

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