Hasta La Ideas

Milan 2014: the second project debuted by London studio Doshi Levien for Danish design brand Hay this year is a collection of mirrors with geometric shapes resembling jewels.

The 13 different mirrors in Doshi Levien‘s Maya series are produced in variations on diamond, oblong, octagon, almond, drop and circular shapes that can be combined to create unique wall installations.

“The shapes are coming from a meeting point between Indian tribal culture and modern geometric abstraction,” Jonathan Levien told Dezeen. “The forms were thought of as jewels for the wall, as constellations or sentences of different shapes.”

Combining the mirrors in different configurations allows the user to create arrangements comprising practical and decorative elements.

“The larger mirrors are designed to offer face-height reflections, whereas the smaller ones are like satellites to accompany the larger mirrors, or to be used in numbers simply to bring glimmering light into the space,” Levien added.

Doshi Levien originally designed the mirrors in 2012 for a room they curated as part of an exhibition called India Art Now at Arken Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen.

The mirrors were installed on a wall opposite portraits of famous Indian icons displayed in similarly shaped frames and were intended to “bring the steely grey sky of Denmark into the space.”

The designers showed the mirrors to Hay, which chose to add them to its collection and now produces them from laser-cut glass set in pressure die cast aluminium frames with a black powder-coated finish.

Doshi Levien also created a chair for Hay with a curving shell that references the shape of a traditional Japanese paper fan.

Both projects were presented by HAY during last week’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile.

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for Hay appeared first on Dezeen.

Milan 2014: Anglo-Indian design duo Doshi Levien has created a lounge chair for B&B Italia based on memories of a trip to the Himalaya mountains in India (+ interview).

The Almora chair aims to recreate the experience of visiting a town of the same name in the Himalayan foothills.

“The idea of the chair really comes from this memory of seeing the snow-capped Himalayan peaks wrapped in a soft, warm blanket,” said Jonathan Levien.

“You are wrapped in the soft warm blanket so you enjoy the mountains but you are warm where you are,” added Nipa Doshi. “It was the idea of really capturing this in a piece.”

She added: “Of course at the end of the day it is a chair, but how do you replicate this feeling of being in the cold air but being warm? So I think that although the chair is open, it is also warm.”

The chair features a two-part conical plastic frame that forms the seat and back, plus a curved oak headrest that appears to balance on top of the frame.

The seat is upholstered in leather while the headrest is finished in shearling. The chair is mounted on a five-spoke aluminium swivel base and the accompanying ottoman has a round steel base and a curved wooden seat upholstered in leather.

The chair is the first product designed by Doshi Levien for Italian brand B&B Italia. It launched this week in Milan during the Salone del Mobile.

Here’s a short interview with the designers conducted in Milan:

Marcus Fairs: Tell us about the new lounge chair you’re showing today.

Nipa Doshi: The chair is called Almora. It is our new lounge chair for B&B Italia: two years in the making and designing. The idea of the chair really comes from this memory of seeing the snow-capped Himalayan peaks wrapped in a soft warm blanket.

Jonathan Levien: What, the peaks are wrapped in soft warm blankets?

Nipa Doshi: No, you are wrapped in the soft warm blanket so you enjoy the mountains but you are warm where you are. And we imagined this chair almost to have the same feeling of warmth and comfort and to use the chair to enjoy the view outside and to sleep in; or equally to be with your children and read stories. It’s a chair very much to be alone in, but also to be with the family.

Marcus Fairs: What does Almora mean?

Nipa Doshi: Almora is the name of this place in India, in the Himalayan mountains.

Jonathan Levien: And where we were staying in the mountains was in this lodge, which had a really nice outdoor space. Indoor and outdoor were connected. We want to feel warm and secure in the place in which we are staying but very much engaged with our surroundings so the chair, in its gesture and form, is very open and it is almost like it is embracing not only the person sitting in it but also the view.

Marcus Fairs: Is the chair really inspired by this village in the Himalayas? Or is it just a nice story?

Nipa Doshi: No, it is really. The materiality of the piece, you can see it is… the shearling, the leather. They are all materials that are very tactile, very human, living materials. It was the idea of really capturing this in a piece. Of course at the end of the day it is a chair, but how do you replicate this feeling of being in the cold air but being warm? So I think that although the chair is open, it is also warm.

Jonathan Levien: There has to be a starting point to every piece and for us it is a feeling. It is what do we want to evoke in the piece. We don’t come from a functional perspective. It is more from a sculptural point of view and that means thinking about the space in which it is going to be used and dreaming about that. But then of course that is only part of the project and the other part is what is the materiality of the chair? What is the technology, the structure? How are the parts composed? We are hiding the technology, we are trying to create a sense of overlapping forms and floating components and hide the technology. There are many strands to it and for us it helps to start with a dream, with a place, before it takes shape.

Marcus Fairs: You are an Anglo-Indian couple and a lot of your work up to now has featured identifiable Indian motifs or forms. But this, if the story hadn’t been explained to me, I wouldn’t of thought of India and the mountains.

Nipa Doshi: But in a way I think it is not about India but about the mountains and I think it is more about nature. Almora was more a fictitious place; it could be Switzerland and the Alps. It can also be just looking at your garden. Many of us, even if we live in a city, have a very narrow view where we can have nature so it works in a home so the idea was very much about the experience you want to have in a home rather than a place as such.

Jonathan Levien: But, it is true also that the cultural aspect in our work is not as ostensible in this design in that you cannot see so clearly a partnership of Nipa and Jonathan in this design. It is not expressed in terms of a design-meets-a-decorative-graphic approach but I think it is very much a coming together of Nipa’s sense of visual identity and my ability to translate that into three-dimensions.

The post Doshi Levien’s Almora lounge chair for B&B Italia
feels like being “wrapped in a soft, warm blanket” appeared first on Dezeen.

Milan 2014: the intricate embroidery of this rug collection, by London studio Doshi Levien for Spanish rug maker Nanimarquina, combines traditional techniques with spontaneous compositions (+ slideshow).

The Rabari Collection features three carpets made from 100 percent New Zealand wool. Each one has been handmade in India using traditional hand-knotted and hand-woven Sumak techniques – a method that produces finely woven, durable material.

“At the very beginning of the project, we decided to create a series of rugs that evoke the sensual and shiny world of the tribal folk embroidery of India,” explained Nipa Doshi from Doshi Levien.

“We already had in mind intricately hand crafted embroideries made by the Nomadic community of the Rabaris from the Kutch region,” Doshi told Dezeen.

The collection was designed in partnership with Barcelona based Nanimarquina, who specialises in manufacturing rugs in countries with long-standing traditions of craftsmanship including Nepal, Pakistan and Morocco.

An embroidery workshop in Ahmedabad, a town in Gujarat, India that is owned by one of Doshi’s relatives was given the task of creating the carpets, employing 25 highly skilled craftswomen.

“They were all experts in hand embroidery, working with glistening mirrors, silk and cotton thread and metallic sequins amongst other non-precious materials,” said Doshi.

The result is three different styles of rug – two beige and one black – that feature a combination of straight lines, spots and different colours. They come in three sizes, ranging from 170 by 240 centimetres to 300 centimetres by 400 centimetres.

The black variant features a series of lines criss-crossing across the surface. At some of the junctions between the horizontal and vertical lines, multicoloured discs are attached and swirling lines of fabric trace their way across the surface at random.

One of the beige rugs features a lattice of darker colour fabric with rows of dots. In the middle of the design, a series of diamond, teardrop and rectangular shapes are arranged next to a streak of blue and a spade symbol with an S-shaped trail woven into the fabric.

The second of the beige carpets features a grid that creates a series of rows and columns, which occasionally include coloured dots.

“We wanted our collection for Nanimarquina to reference the unfinished embroideries like studies of different techniques in progress, as they gradually emerge over time,” said Doshi.

“The spontaneous compositions of the rugs embody the serendipity and freedom to improvise inherent in each step of a handmade piece; joyful, irreverent and unique.”

The Rabari Collection is due to go on show at Salone del Mobile in Milan next month. Doshi Levien will also be showing the Shanty for BD Barcelona, a cabinet designed to resemble the eclectic range of materials found in shanty houses.

Photography is by Albert Font.

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homage to tribal Indian folk embroidery appeared first on Dezeen.

This white cratered moon is actually a densely filled ice cream cake created by London designers Doshi Levien for Häagen-Dazs.

Each Ice Moon is pitted with smooth craters. Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien say they were inspired by Georges Méliès’ 1902 silent film Le Voyage dans la Lune, Armenian surrealist Léon Tutundjian’s relief work of 1929, a childhood Bollywood song and the near-spherical shapes of early ice cream bombes. “The moon idea came from many different places and has elements of fantasy, adventure and imagination,” they say.

The white moon consists of a pistachio biscuit base, layers of macadamia nut ice cream and meringue and a coating of raspberry ice cream. The orange moon has crunchy chocolate at the bottom, layers of nutty ice cream and salted caramel and a coating of vanilla ice cream.

“Our concept is almost spherical, so the ice cream has to be moulded in two separate parts and then put together without seeing the join,” explain the designers. “We love the ephemeral nature of ice cream and design to be eaten; we never had a design meeting before in which we ate the prototype.”

We previously featured an ice cream parlour in London with a raw concrete interior and another laboratory-style parlour where the ice cream is frozen with liquid nitrogen.

We’ve also published an in-depth report about the cross-pollination between the worlds of food and design – see it here.

Other projects by Doshi Levien we’ve featured recently include an armchair inspired by Le Corbusier’s designs for the city of Chandigarh and a dressing table made up of geometric elements.

See all stories about ice cream »
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for Häagen-Dazs appeared first on Dezeen.

Cologne 2012: London designers Doshi Levien installed a vision of their dream home at trade fair imm cologne in Germany last week.

Top: bathing concept visual
Above: courtyard

The Anglo-Indian husband and wife team were given a platform of 180 square metres to present their ideas about the home using their own designs for brands including Moroso, BD Barcelona Design and Richard Lampert, plus other products on show at the fair.

Above: salon. Photograph is by Alessandro Paderni.

Envisaged as part of a dense urban neighbourhood, the model home centres on a courtyard. It includes a workshop/shop where residents can trade with neighbours and an exercise room for activities like yoga.

Above: dining table for Stilwerk Gallery

Rooms are connected so that the bedroom can be used alongside the living room for entertaining guests, and the kitchen and bathroom share a cabinet.

Above: exterior

See all our stories about Cologne 2012 here and all our stories about Doshi Levien here.

Photographs are by Constantin Meyer unless stated otherwise.

Here are some more details from Doshi Levien:

Concept/Das Haus

“It started with a conversation about how you define the home and the vision came together, drawing on a fragmented collage of memories, real and imagined. This is our dream of the perfect home, uniting very plural points of view. This is not a singular, purist approach; we wanted to keep very open to different ideas,” says Jonathan Levien.

Above: concept drawing, plan

Das Haus is all about domestic activity and redefining traditional spaces, structuring the house into functional zones, eating, sleeping, bathing, dressing, socialising and working. The relationship between these spaces is also crucial; making the transitions and connections from each zone was an essential aspect of Doshi Levien’s design. “Its important for us to challenge clichéd notions of what is a bedroom, kitchen or bathroom. Every part of the house connects and redefines,” says Levien.

Above: concept drawing, side view

This is very much an urban space, inspired by cities that team with life like Tokyo or Mumbai and houses that develop over time, absorbing different identities and influences. “This is a very evocative space that will get people thinking. I like the idea that our house is sensual and layered, rooted in reality but closer to the notion of a perfect house, one that is never complete,” says Nipa Doshi. Ultimately Das Haus is an optimistic and positive vision for the future.

Above: exterior, entrance

Exterior

Doshi Levien’s vision of a perfect house is rooted and enmeshed in the socio-economic fabric of its urban neighbourhood. This is not a stand-alone house to be admired as a monument from the outside, but a space that is sandwiched between other buildings and reveals different aspects of itself depending on where you arrive from. In this sense it is inspired from mixed use neighbourhoods of Shanghai, Mumbai, Tokyo or Rome.

“We worked with intersecting volumes of the kind you might find in industrial buildings to create fragmented spaces. We’re thinking of walls of different degrees of transparency and frames with mesh-like coverings, rather like Indian jaalis.”

Above: exterior, shop

Exercise/wellbeing

This more or less empty space is simple; the architecture becomes the props that you need to exercise so a wall is for aiding balance, a floor for stretches. An uninterrupted view out onto the courtyard with its lush greenery adds to the tranquility and space.

Above: exercise/wellbeing

This house is all about a sensual, refined appreciation of our material environment. “The light cast by the jaali (latticed screen) casts shadows with a visual sensuality.” Pieces featured in this space designed by Doshi Levien include: Rangoli cushions for Moroso

Above: dressing

Dressing

This is not just a room for dressing, it is also a space to curate and celebrate clothing and other personal treasures, displayed in a large transparent display box. Central to the space is Doshi Levien’s new dressing table for BD Barcelona, which, like the house escapes the restrictive notion of what should go where. “This is a room for enjoying the ritual of dressing.”

Above: dressing

Pieces featured in this space designed by Doshi Levien include: Dressing table for BD Barcelona Design. Impossible wood chair for Moroso.

Above: dressing

Salon

The Salon is a social room reserved for receiving family and friends in a slightly more formal capacity, the idea here is to play with notions of hospitality and the generosity of sharing. It is equally a room to relax and read or do nothing at all.

Above: salon. Photograph is by Alessandro Paderni.

With this in mind there will be lots of small side tables for food and drink, generous reading chairs and daybeds for lounging.

Above: salon. Photograph is by Alessandro Paderni.

“We love the French ceremony Le goûter, when the afternoon lull sets in and you mark a moment of rest with tea, coffee and cakes.” Pieces featured in this space designed by Doshi Levien include: Paper Planes for Moroso, Capo chair for Cappellini, Camper lamp prototype.

Above: salon

Sleeping

The bedroom is not just for rest, it is also a space for socialising with close friends, of exchanging ideas in a more intimate environment. Inspired by this the bed becomes a combination of sleeping and socialising platform, where you can sit and hold court. The bed is layered with many different fabrics, again celebrating the ritual of preparing a bed, sensual and layered, like the house.

Above: sleeping. Photograph is by Lutz Sternstein.

“We like the idea that the entire bedroom could be a bed, which turns the bed into a kind of platform. And why shouldn’t the bedroom be used during the day as well? Maybe as a place for intimate socialising or laying out your clothes.” Pieces featured in this space designed by Doshi Levien include: Bed for Das Haus

Above: sleeping

Bathing

The bathing space is a personal spa using Ananda designed by Doshi Levien for Glass Idromassagio. It takes inspiration from traditional Moroccan hamams. A cabinet between the bathing area and kitchen celebrates the idea of taking different elements of each room and blending them, grinding salt into scrubs or using yoghurt to cleanse faces.

Above: bathing

“For us wellness is a means to physical wellbeing so that it has to do with bathing and the kitchen as well, and that’s why there is a direct link between these spaces and a shared cabinet.” Pieces featured in this space designed by Doshi Levien include: Ananda for Glass Idromassaggio, Display cabinets for Das Haus.

Above: bathing

Kitchen/Pony wall

The space itself is more like a market kitchen, full of equipment, a bustle of activity and plentiful food. Art is an essential component for Das Haus: a large multi media mural by Pony explores the whole ethos of the house, revealing all the different areas, and illustrating how they come together.

Above: kitchen/pony wall

This visionary screen wall is an exploding hologram of activity and space. It brings together the connected ideas and cultures of Bathroom, Kitchen and Workshop as vital organs of Das Haus. Like day-dreaming through the kitchen window, your gaze is filled with familial memory fragments — from the past and the future — of ancestral knowledge, technological tools and tacit skills. Noisy and comforting, you find yourself in a place full of love and learning, joy and hard work, surrounded by the fecund instruments of wellbeing.Design by Pony

Above: kitchen

Workshop/Shop

Part utility room, part workspace, part shop; this draws on the fluid proximity of all these elements on the streets of Tokyo and Mumbai. So there is room here for home maintenance, to make useful things and encouraging creative engagement. This space is also for selling and buying from passing traders, an opportunity for commercial interaction between the home and neibourhood. This is also a space for children. Unlike other houses, there are no defined spaces for children here, acknowledging that children rarely observe boundaries, instead follow their curiosity.

Above: workshop/shop

“The workshop isn’t necessarily a space for making things, it’s also a place where kids can play and the family can get together to do activities.” Pieces featured in this space designed by Doshi Levien include: Kali wall cabinet and bathroom range for Authentics.

Above: courtyard

Courtyard

Escaping the traditional notion of the dining room, Doshi Levien asked themselves, where do we like to eat? The most important aspect was a good view, so the central courtyard, private and protected from the elements, was the ideal place for eating. Doshi Levien designed a table for Stilwerk Gallery in Germany that appears to be in two parts, responding to the way parallel activities are often carried out in the same location. In the courtyard, plants and herbs provide a link with the kitchen. There is also a pipe for showering outdoors, washing feet and watering plants.

Above: courtyard

“This is an inner world. In this house, you really do face inside from wherever you happen to be, towards the courtyard where the dining table is and all the activities of the house converge.” Pieces featured in this space designed by Doshi Levien include: My Beautiful Backside for Moroso, Charpoy for Moroso, Impossible wood chair for Moroso, Manzai table for Stilwerk Gallery, Children’s Rocker for Richard Lampert, Camper hanging Lamp prototype.

Above: courtyard