Hasta La Ideas

Dezeen Wire: a new exhibition documenting the career of Terence Conran has provoked a flurry of media interest in the man who founded retail brand Habitat and London’s Design Museum.

In a video filmed at the exhibition Terence Conran: The Way We Live Now, Design Museum director Deyan Sudjic tells The Guardian‘s design critic Jonathan Glancey that Conran is “a serial entrepreneur [whose] energy is extraordinary.” Glancey explains that the exhibition demonstrates how, as Conran developed his empire of stores and restaurants, “his love for hedonism and easy living stayed.”

BBC Radio 4 broadcast an interview in which Conran reveals that he has given so much of his personal wealth to the Design Museum that he is “not sitting on a large amount of capital” – BBC

In the Evening Standard Conran states that the Design Museum’s future home in South Kensington “will be a must-visit place just as Tate Modern has become a must-visit place,” and in The Express he adds that he hopes the current exhibition will be “an inspiration for schoolchildren and young designers to see what you can achieve in the design world.”

See a blog post by Elle Decoration editor Michelle Ogundehin lamenting the decline of Habitat and a previous story in which The Observer’s Rowan Moore suggests that Conran is a more successful businessman than designer.

Terence Conran: The Way We Live Now is on show at the Design Museum until 4 March

Dezeen Wire: Elle Decoration editor Michelle Ogundehin has declared British furniture brand Habitat “as good as dead” in an article on the magazine’s blog, stating “I give it two years max” – read the blog post

Ogundehin says that the retailer, which closed all but three of its UK stores earlier this year, failed to react to competition within the market and “increasingly misunderstood ‘Lifestyle’,” its key selling point. She claims that Habitat has lost its original focus on innovation and simplicity, and rubbishes plans by current owners the Home Retail Group to sell Habitat products at Argos and Homebase outlets, adding that their one remaining interest is to “flog stuff.”

See our previous story on Habitat going into administration.

Dezeen Wire: British architect Richard Rogers has warned that plans by the UK government to simplify planning regulations could lead to unmoderated urban sprawl, “with rust belts and towns joining each other” – Daily Mail

He added: “If the framework is not improved it will lead to the breakdown and fragmentation of cities and neighbourhoods as well as the erosion of the countryside.” Rogers’ concerns about the government’s new National Planning Policy Framework are shared by environmental campaigners who say they don’t offer a clear enough definition of sustainable development.

Richard Rogers was involved in a planning battle in 2009 over his proposed redevelopment of Chelsea Barracks in London – see reports on Dezeen Wire

Dezeen Wire: architecture critic Rowan Moore claims that corporate facilities integrated into the plans for the controversial London River Park would turn it into a “gigantic hospitality suite with a fairly nice walkway threaded through it” – The Observer

Moore describes architects Gensler‘s proposal as “the latest example of a widespread type of the 21st century, the pseudo-public space.” He criticises the design for the walkway and rentable pods, describing them as “offensively indifferent” to their historical surroundings and says the project organisers should learn from New York’s High Line park in order to turn a good idea into a popular public space.

See our previous story on the 35-metre model of the London River Park.

Dezeen Wire: the director of London’s Design Museum Deyan Sudjic claims the museum’s new home at the former Commonwealth Institute will offer a platform for future designers and that Britain can regain its reputation as creative power, “provided we go on investing in design” – The Guardian

Sudjic describes the Design Museum’s original incarnation at the Victoria & Albert museum as “a little like an upmarket squatter in the V&A basement,” but suggests that “contemporary design is now firmly on the cultural agenda.” He claims that Britain must support design education in order to stay ahead of emerging economies, adding that “design is a way to create or safeguard jobs.”

James Dyson also recently wrote an article on the importance of design to the British economy and we previously reported on the Design Museum’s current building being up for sale.