Milan 2014: Dezeen has teamed up with designjunction to create a free map of showrooms, boutiques, pop-up shops and department stores offering discounts to Visa Premium cardholders during the Milan furniture fair.
Some of Milan’s best shops have collaborated to run a series of offers as part of The Visa Shopping Promotion from 7 to 13 April 2014, exclusively available to Visa Premium Cardholders.
Included in the map are Italian menswear specialist Ravizza, furniture and design company Raw Milano and new department store Brian & Barry.
To access the map, visit www.thedesignjunction.co.uk/map. The map is compatible with mobile devices, tablets and desktop computers.
Milan 2014: these hand-blown glass bubbles by Dutch duo Studio Thier&VanDaalen that delicately spill out of their wooden frames have been created to house precious objects (+ slideshow).
Each design in Studio Thier&VanDaalen‘s collection can be used as a cabinet, light shade or vessel. Wenge wood frames appear to struggle to contain different shaped glass structures within.
The basis for the Round Square Cabinet range was “the fascinating effect of a floating bubble which adapts to its surroundings until it snaps,” explained designers Iris Van Daalen and Ruben Thier. “We had the dream to capture these temporary beauties in a tendril frame.”
To recreate this idea, the studio teamed up with Dutch glass blower Marc Barreda.
Wood has traditionally been used as a mould in free-hand glass blowing, but not as a permanent fixture for the glass to sit inside.
The frame was created first, then the glass was gently blown to swell through the gaps.
“The glass will mark the wood forever during blowing, therefore the wooden mould and its object in glass match perfectly together,” the designers said.
The Round Square Cabinet comes in a variety of sizes. A low rectangular frame features a gold fish bowl-shaped piece of opaque glass.
A taller variant, akin to a side table, features a piece of glass perched on top of a stand inside the frame.
The largest iteration of the cabinet has two frames stacked on top of the other. Inside, glass with a blue hue appears to be escaping the upper frame through the sides.
The collection will be on display from 8 to 13 April at Ventura Team Up exhibition in the Ventura Lambrate district during Milan’s design week.
Here’s some information about the project from the designers:
Round square glass bells to show your precious objects
When blowing soap bubbles in the air Iris & Ruben had the dream to capture these temporary beauties in a tendril frame. The fascinating effect of a floating bubble which adapt to its surrounding until it snaps, was the inspiration for a new series of objects in glass combined with wood by Studio Thier&VanDaalen.
They came up with the idea to blow a round bubble of glass in a square frame made from wood. To challenge two ancient handcrafts; free glassblowing and fine woodworking. Fascinated by the two different materials with their own unique properties and treatments; when combined, they have to deal with each other.
Wet wood is commonly used as a mould in free hand glassblowing. But never as a definitive part of the end object. Iris and Ruben saw this as a beautiful element to use in the end result. The glass will mark the wood forever during blowing, therefor the wooden mould and its object in glass match perfectly together. With this new method Studio Thier & VanDaalen created different objects, to show your precious objects.
During the Milan Design Week 2014 we launch this new evolution of our showcase cabinets: Round Square. Our dream finally came true, “soap bubbles” made from glass blown in wooden frames! Come and see it in real life, from the 8th until the 13th of April at Ventura Lambrate Team-up (B on the map). We called AIR Collaboration.
We worked at ‘Van Tetterode Glas Studio’ together with Marc Barreda to blow the glass pieces in wood.
Materials: glass & Wenge Variations: cabinet, light object, vessel etc. Size: diverse Year: 2014
Milan 2014: London design duo Glithero will present a range of textiles that have been woven using organ punch cards in Milan next week (+ slideshow).
Commissioned by the Zuiderzee Museum and the Textiel Museum in the Netherlands, Glithero‘s Woven Song project creates fabric using punch cards that would normally feed music through a mechanical organ.
“The music is on a punch card called an organ music book,” the studio told Dezeen. “A Jacquard loom is also fed information using a punch card so the music code from the organ music book is directly translated onto a punch card compatible with a Jacquard Loom. This new punch card is then used to weave the fabric.”
The book music is made from sheets of perforated thick cardboard lengths, which usually specify the notes to be played on the organ. Air passing through these holes determines the notes generated from the organ pipes.
When the sheets are fed in to the mechanical loom, hooks drop through the holes to change the direction of the threads and create a pattern that is determined by the song.
The studio worked with weaver Wil van den Broek and master organ maker Leon van Leeuwen to produce the fabrics. The hues and type of yarn were chosen by Glithero and the colours reference the craftsmen’s workshops.
Glithero will present the fabrics and a film installation of the weaving process in an exhibition entitled Made to Measure in Milan next week, situated at Via Privata Cletto Arrighi 19 in the Ventura Lambrate design district.
Jaime Hayon designed the Analog to highlight the importance of tables as a central meeting point in the home and office.
“The table is an underrated piece of furniture,” said Hayon. “In my eyes, the table is the heart of the home, the heart of the office, the heart of the restaurant.”
The designer teamed up with Republic of Fritz Hansen to create a piece of furniture that can easily fit in any of those spaces.
“At the table, we share our greatest joys and sorrows, and at the end of the day, some of the greatest things in life happens at the table.”
The result is a desk that doesn’t conform to any one stereotype in table design.
“It’s neither square, round nor oval but something in between, which supports dialogue and intimacy,” said Hayon.
The Analog’s elongated shape features four wooden legs arranged at diagonals to allow more people to fit around the desk at the same time. The table top meets the legs vertically, connecting the table with its support.
“I have worked a lot with the shape of the table and the way in which it is simultaneously heavy and light, so that it exudes quality,” said Hayon.
The Analog comes as either a six or eight person table. There are five different table top and leg colours and finishes, including oak and walnut veneer.
Glass panels sit at right angles to each other to form two desks, two benches and shelf in this range by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec called the Diapositive collection.
“Diapositive consists of an assembly system of simple glass panels in which the edges are protected with pieces of wood, which distract from the impression of fragility,” said the designers.
One of the desks also includes an ash counter for writing, while the tops and legs are edged in the same wood.
The glass bench features a thin layer of dark coloured felt that forms a cushion on top of the seat.
The pieces are available in dark and light grey, pink, orange, transparent or mixed.
The collection will be presented at the Glas Italia stand at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile fair in Milan from 8 to 13 April.
Milan 2014: a three-metre-long sofa created by Peugeot Design Lab splices together a piece of volcanic stone and carbon fibre to create a mix of the old and new (+ slideshow).
The design arm of the French car manufacturer mined a single block of volcanic stone from the Auvergne region in France. The material is known for its ability to filter water and was created by volcanic eruption 11,000 years ago.
The team worked with stone cutters who created a flat surface to allow the other half of the sofa to be connected. A seat section was then carefully chiseled out of the stone and polished to a shiny finish, in contrast to the rough, dulled edges of the surrounding rock.
The latitude and longitude coordinates marking the origin of the stone have been chiselled into the material.
“The Onyx sofa is an illustration of a new concept that we intend to explore,” said Cathal Loughnane, the head of Peugeot Design Lab.
“Unique pieces of furniture, made to measure, to suit the choice, origin and personality of the customer, but which always respects a common idea.”
The Carbon Fibre section makes up the larger proportion of the sofa. The material was wrapped around a wooden frame before being attached to the stone. This section also has the coordinates of where the piece was made engraved onto the surface. The whole process took 70 days to complete.
“By means of a sharp straight cut, this contrast is powerful, voluntary and assumed in the way we look at the materials and how they are used,” said Gilles Vidal, Peugeot’s styling director.
According to the team, the sofa weighs more than 400 kilograms and is available in other materials.
Onyx will be showcased alongside seven other sculptures in Milan next week. The series will include lamps, shelves, armchairs and tables and contain a mix of materials including quartz crystal and aluminium, black palm and basalt.
Milan 2014: objects made out of lava from Mount Etna in Sicily will be presented by design duo Formafantasma in Milan next week (+ slideshow).
Sicilian-born Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi of Formafantasma experimented with cooled lava from the volcano’s eruption last year to create the De Natura Fossilium collection, made in collaboration with Gallery Libby Sellers.
“When Mount Etna erupted on 20 November 2013, the dramatic event was broadcast by a haunting noise of rumbling stones and a vast plume of dark smoke that completely obscured the sun,” said the designers.
“Mount Etna is a mine without miners – it is excavating itself to expose its raw materials.”
After the eruption, the lava cooled and solidified into dark grey basalt rock. Formafantasma collected samples of the rock from Etna and nearby Stromboli, which they melted and blew to create glass, wove into fibres for textiles and milled into various shapes.
“When we experimented with the melting, mouth blowing and casting of lava, the research and tests took a really long time,” Trimarchi told Dezeen. “The difficult part was to understand the right cooling time of the material. We had thousands of tests made that just cracked during the cooling time.”
The pieces were used to create stools, coffee tables and a clock with linear forms that reference the work of Postmodern designer Ettore Sottsass.
Paired with brass elements, the rock has been cut to reveal strata and textures formed as it cooled quickly.
A crater of powdered stone forms the base of a circular clock, which has brass hands that turn inside the depression.
Sections of the tables and stools patterned by the air holes formed in the rock are held in place with brass plates and secured with threads.
The glass was mouth-blown into vessels or moulded into boxes shaped like the dwellings at the foot of the volcano.
A black mirror suspended on a string over a brass frame is balanced using a chunk of rock.
Formafantasma’s collection will be shown at Palazzo Clerici in Milan city centre from 8 to 13 April.
Here’s some more information sent to us by the designers:
“When Mount Etna erupted on 20th November 2013, the dramatic event was broadcast by a haunting noise of rumbling stones and a vast plume of dark smoke that completely obscured the sun. After the smoke, black earthen debris began showering down over the villages and cities within the immediate vicinity of the mountain. From the highway through to the Greek theatre in Taormina, everything was covered with black. Mount Etna is a mine without miners – it is excavating itself to expose its raw materials.”
Studio Formafantasma, in collaboration with Gallery Libby Sellers, present De Natura Fossilium – an investigation into the cultures surrounding this particularly Sicilian experience to bring both the landscape and the forces of nature together as facilities for production.
As in their previous projects Autarchy (2010) and Moulding Tradition (2009), Formafantasma questions the link between tradition and local culture and the relationship between objects and the idea of cultural heritage. De Natura Fossilium is a project that refuses to accept locality as touristic entertainment.
Instead, the work of Formafantasma is a different expedition in which the landscape is not passively contemplated but restlessly sampled, melted, blown, woven, cast and milled. From the more familiar use of basalt stone to their extreme experiments with lava in the production of glass and the use of lavic fibers for textile, Formafantasma’s explorations and the resulting objects realize the full potential of the lava as a material for design.
In homage to Ettore Sottsass, the great maestro of Italian design and an avid frequenter of the volcanic Aeolian islands, this new body of work takes on a linear, even brutalist form. Geometric volumes have been carved from basalt and combined with fissure-like structural brass elements to produce stools, coffee tables and a clock. The clock itself is deconstructed into three basalt horizontal plates to represent the passing of hours, minutes and seconds. A brass movement spins around the plates, shifting three different ages of lavic sand that have been sampled from three different sites on Stromboli.
Lavic glass, procured by remelting Etna’s rocks, has been mouth-blown into unique vessels or cast into box-like structures that purposefully allude to the illegal dwellings and assorted buildings that have developed at the foot of the volcano. Drawing on their own vocabulary, these solitary glass boxes and mysterious black buildings have been finished with such archetypal Formafantasma detailing as cotton ribbons and Murano glass plaques. By returning the rocks to their original molten state Formafantasma are reversing the natural timeline of the material and forcing a dialogue between the natural and manmade.
A black, obsidian mirror that is suspended on a brass structure and balanced by lavic rocks continues this line of narrative, as the semi-precious glass like stone is produced only when molten lava is in contact with water. Formafantasma have also investigated the tensile properties of lavic fibre and woven two different wall hangings.
These pieces combine illustrative references to both the Greek mythological gods of Mount Etna and the microscopic views of lavic rock’s geological strata as ascertained through the designers’ collaboration with the Volcanologist Centre of Catania (INGV). As a sustainable alternative to carbon fiber, Formafantasma’s use of lavic fibre has effectively reappropriated a conventionally high tech material for artisanal ends.
While the collection focuses on a specific locality, the project has been developed in collaboration with a number of European experts: from the CNC cutting of basalt in Sicily to the scientific analysis of lavic stones at the INGV of Catania, through the experiments with lava as glass at both the Glass Museum in Leerdam and Berengo Studio in Murano, to the brass developments with Carl Aubock in Vienna and the textile works with the Textile Museum in Tilburg. The collection is also accompanied by a photographic series by long time collaborator Luisa Zanzani.
All works are part of an edition, available exclusively through Gallery Libby Sellers, London. Supported by Creative Industries Fund NL.
Milan 2014: a patchwork of panels on Doshi Levien‘s Shanty cabinet for Spanish furniture company BD Barcelona references the temporary housing found in cities across Africa, Asia and South America (+ slideshow).
The Shanty cabinet hides a rational storage system behind a seemingly random series of panels that is inspired by the design variation found in informal settlements, where corrugated iron is used to create unique dwellings and colour combinations that change as they fade over time.
“A lot of people think that these improvised structures are ugly, that they have negative connotations,” Nipa Doshi told Dezeen. “We really like the beauty of the improvised.”
Corrugated iron is often seen as a cheap material in the west, but takes on a new value to residents in these homes said the designers. “To [the people who build these homes] this is a prestigious material,” explained Doshi.
The lacquered MDF cabinet features extruded aluminium legs and is set to be the first piece from a bigger collection that BD Barcelona will produce in the next year.
It is available in two different configurations – one with three shallow drawers on the right hand side which can be finished in multiple colours or shade of grey. The other has a concertina-opening cabinet.
The collection is a continuation of Doshi Levien‘s aesthetic, which seeks to combine a European approach to industrial design with a strong interest in handcraft and a “way of looking at the world that is not so pure,” said Doshi.
“It’s not a one-sided European design approach,” she explained. “There’s another world out there and there are many other ingredients we can use in design that are beautiful. It’s finding beauty in everything.”
Milan 2014: products by French design brand Moustache will be exhibited as a “breathing” installation at Spazio Rossana Orlandi in Milan to celebrate the brand’s fifth anniversary.
The Half Decade Beast installation of new and existing designs by Moustache, created by French designer Jean-Baptiste Fastrez, will pulsate and appear to breathe.
“Alive and breathing, the Half decade Beast has 10 new projects to show, which open up and prospect new ways for publishing and production,” said a statement from the brand.
The installation will include a chair by Dutch duo Scholten & Baijings with textile ribbons woven around a lacquered metal frame to create the seat and back.
Milan studio Formafantasma has used tanned salmon and perch skins leftover from the fishing industry to cover a stool and create a hot-water bottle, similar to items in their Crafica collection.
Curving overlapping forms created from injection-moulded recycled plastic by Constance Guisset form shades for table and pendant lamps.
An iridescent vase designed to look like a scarab beetle shell and a mirror framed with welded PVC have both been designed by the installation’s creator, Fastrez.
The piece will be installed at Spazio Rossana Orlandi from 8 to 13 April during Milan’s design week. It will then move to the Bon Marché Rive Gauche department store in Paris for a further two months.
On the occasion of his 5th anniversary, Moustache presents Half decade Beast, a beast at the half-way point of his first decade.
Alive and breathing, the Half decade Beast, his slow and assured breathing, has 10 new projects to show which open up and prospect new ways for publishing and production.
A living incarnation of Moustache’s commitments in favour of projects which are not only dictated by market requirements but also by the cultural quality they convey, taking into account the recent history of manufactured articles, Half decade Beast presents together projects designed by Scholten & Baijings, Formafantasma, Bertjan Pot, Raw-Edges, Constance Guisset, ECAL/Dimitri Bähler Jean-Baptiste Fastrez. In their own way, they all question the way in which, today, we produce and consume the objects we surround ourselves with.
Rather than heading towards a certain technological escalation or trying to satisfy outmoded ideals and standards, these 10 new products shuffle the cards and, each in its own way, argues for a reasoned production consistent with our contemporary ideals.
Alive, Moustache’s Half decade Beast installation also shows a selection of articles that Inga Sempé, François Azambourg, Big-Game, Ionna Vautrin, Benjamin Graindorge, Sébastien Cordoléani and Dylan Martorell designed since 2009 which marked the story of Moustache and which played a part in building his identity.
The Half decade Beast will make his first stop at the Spazio Rossana Orlandi during the Salone del Mobile from 8 to 13 April 2014 before settling in at the Bon Marché Rive Gauche in Paris for two months, in May and June 2014.
For the Half decade Beast exhibition, Moustache asked Jean-Baptiste Fastrez to design the beast and the setting, the Graphiquants to design a breathing font and all the graphic elements for the exhibition. A series of 12 photos of Charles Negre goes with the exhibition.
Strap chairs by Scholten & Baijings
Lacquered metal structure and textile straps. Stackable, for indoor and outdoor use. Three colours available.
The Scholten & Baijings Strap chair is a reinterpretation of the tradition of cane or woven chair produced in Holland for the first time at the start of the 17th century and which have been in France since the 18th century.
As is their custom, Scholten & Baijings put colour at the heart of the project and give it an unusual material status. Going back to the project’s origins, it is the colour which determines the use of a particular know-how and not the contrary. No longer bound by the status of its customary finishing, colour is determining and it is in this inverse process that the innovative coloured harmonies of the Strap chair work.
The attention paid to the quality of the finishing and the manufacturing details are what make the Strap chair a perfect seat for both for outdoors and indoors. Stackable, at the same time it will be a worthy contemporary heir to the cane bistro chairs to be seen on the terraces of Paris cafés or as a very comfortable seating around a table in a domestic world.
Pad stool by ECAL/ Dimitri Bähler
Black or light grey 3D textile, expanded foam.
Pad is the result of a series of experiments with foam injected into a flexible envelope, without using any structure.
Pad is a stool which takes its inspiration from the triangulated construction of a large number of objects. Its ribs, at first sight, basic and rigid, contrast with the use of a flexible and random fabric.
These ribs are what structure the envelope and form the article’s “exoskeleton” while giving it a padded and comfortable appearance.
In an instant, when the foam is expanded, the ribs become taut, the envelopes swells up and Pad takes it final form, every time a different one.
Fins, Perch and Salmon stools by Formafantasma
Vegetal tanned salmon and perch skins, solid ash.
The Fins de Formafantasma collection puts to use fish skins rejected by the fishing industry and, in this way, examines the question of resources and materials in the furniture industry. These skins, in vegetal-type tanning, are most frequently obtained from commonplace fish such as salmon or cod and are used here to cover a stool or to shape the cover of a hot-water bottle.
Apart from the aesthetic appearance inherent in the use of tanned fish skins, this material commits its user to an unusually direct relation with the animal world.
Zoomorphe, the Formafantasma Fins collection for Moustache flirts with the world of taxidermy and the symbolism of the wild world.
Accolade trestles by Raw-Edges
Adjustable height. White or light grey laminated black mdf.
Similarly to the building sets of our childhood, the Raw-Edges Accolade trestles provide a set of elements for assembly by the user to build a pair of trestles however as he wishes and whose height he can vary. Once built, the trestles’ black band displays the familiar punctuation marks deriving from typographic typefaces.
Fins, Perch hot-water bottle by Formafantasma. Vegetal tanned perch skin and glass tube.
The Fins collection by Formafantasma puts to use fish skins rejected by the fishing industry and, in this way, examines the question of resources and materials in the furniture industry.
These skins, in vegetal-type tanning, are most frequently obtained from commonplace fish such as salmon or cod and are used here to cover a stool or to shape the cover of a hot-water bottle. Apart from the aesthetic appearance inherent in the use of tanned fish skins, this material commits its user to an unusually direct relation with the animal world.
Zoomorphe, the Formafantasma Fins collection for Moustache flirts with the world of taxidermy and the symbolism of the natural world.
Aurore lamp by Ferréol Babin
Black or light grey. Lacquered metal base, multi-coloured glass.
The Aurore lamp by Ferréol Babin is more for projecting than diffusing light. Turned towards the wall the lamp lights, this wall is transformed into a reflector. Thanks to a filtration system, the Aurore lamp produces coloured luminous effects which change depending on how far away from the wall it is. This mechanical light filtration system produces colour effects similar to those seen at dawn or during rainbow. When switched off, its disk becomes opaque and transforms its surface into a mirror creating reflections in changing colours.
Cape by Constance Guisset
Cape table lamp by Constance Guisset. Two models: small or large. Injected recycled polycarbonate. In seven colours.
Cape pendant by Constance Guisset
Injected recycled polycarbonate. In seven colours
Like a half animal, half plant silhouette, with its fluid curves between softness and tension, Cape reveals its pale and opalescent colours. Fragile on its metal base or pendant, soft and ethereal, it seems to incarnate a breath. Its two interlinked shapes gracefully reveal a mysterious presence.
Scarabée vase by Jean-Baptiste Fastrez
Enamelled ceramic, pmma and rubber band. Two colours available.
Comprising two shells fitting into each other, held together by an elastic connection, the Scarabée vase takes inspiration, even imitates, the constructive and aesthetic principles of the insect which it is called after.
While evoking the scarab’s iridescent aspect, its front, which also borrows certain codes from the world of sport and the motorcycle, contract with each other and with the body of the vase, craft-produced in enamelled ceramic.
The Scarabée vase by Jean-Baptiste Fastrez also somewhat draws from certain contemporary or older fantastic mythologies.
Boat mirror by Jean-Baptiste Fastrez
Lined PVC coated fabric and mirror.
The frame of the Boat mirror is made of welded PVC fabric diverting the use of materials for manufacturing nautical equipment to a domestic purpose.
By its softness, the mirror’s oversized frame acts like a garment. Like a coat or a hat, by means of a strap, it can be held on in a large number of ways.
An open and polymorphous object, the Boat mirror may have both a character and new expressivity that can be freely determined by its use.
Milan 2014: Milan designer Alberto Biagetti has created a furniture collection inspired by his home city that incorporates materials salvaged from its aristocratic palazzos.
The Bonjour Milàn collection developed by Biagetti’s studio, Atelier Biagetti, comprises a cabinet, a lamp, a large table and groups of side tables made from materials including discarded tiles.
“All of our pieces are hand made in Milan and each material has been selected to represent an historical era, a sort of sedimentation of materials,” the designer told Dezeen.
“This idea made us think that maybe in the future people will search for plastic in the ground as one of the most precious materials, as happens today with many materials that become more precious and rare over time.”
Hexagonal tiles taken from typical Milanese residences act as surfaces for side tables that feature bases made from rectangular brass profiles.
The structure of each table creates a seemingly delicate contrast to the weighty tiles, which are positioned at different heights.
“When I found these parts of a wonderful old floor with this incredible patina I thought that was a treasure and the perfect starting point,” explained Biagetti.
A mixture of discarded materials including copper, brass, plastic laminate and wood are applied to the glass surfaces of the table and cabinet and arranged in patterns that resemble sectional views of stratified rock or earth.
The patterns spread across the glass top of the table and continue onto the upper portion of the supporting trestles, while the top and bottom of the glass cabinet are covered in opaque materials that conceal its contents.
The Parabola lamp features an adjustable brass base supporting a parabolic dish that is inspired by the shape of the huge antennae used for space research.
A small reflector at the centre of the dish directs light onto the domed surface, which projects an even light into the room.
Each of the pieces in the collection is unique due to the irregular combination of available materials and the use of handmade production processes.
The collection was launched at a preview event in Paris last week ahead of a presentation at Atelier Biagetti’s Milan showroom from 8-13 April.
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