Hasta La Ideas

Besides the ubiquitous buzzwords like “handcrafted” and “sustainable,” one of the promising trends we noticed at the Salone (and a trip to Holon Design Week) was the emergence of the Middle East design scene. Carwan Gallery and AUS were easily some of my favorite shows at Ventura Lambrate and SaloneSatellite, respectively, and we were also impressed with the TLV Express, a collective of young designers from Israel’s second-largest city.

Meanwhile, at the exact opposite end of the warehouse space on Via Massimiliano, some four dozen students from Jersualem’s Bezalel Academy of Art and Design exhibited an impressive range of work as “Design Bonanza.”

Somewhere in the midst of mundane technology, in the desert of everyday materials, within the familiar combinations, gold awaits to be discovered. The term “Bonanza” expresses the alchemic moment: a dream in which a new idea is born, the discovery of a treasure.

The “mining” process of new ideas, like a golden artery within familiar patterns, an opportunity within the material or object, characterizes the chosen batch of works by undergraduate and graduate industrial design students… “Design Bonanza” expresses the experimental spirit of Bezalel, one of the most recognized design academies in the world: creative research which encourages the students to doubt and look for that which is new in the material, shape, and idea, as tools for continued examination of the field of design.

“Design Bonanza” presents the designer’s digging tools, as a process of searching for a path between junctions: margins and center, old and new. The metaphoric expression of the process is presented here using three essences: dirt, dust and gold. The first represents the period of the search, the second the moment of explosion, and discovery, and the third, the catharsis process of the discovery, when it transforms into a pure and refined idea.

The “Gold Rush” from the early 20th Century is replaced at the beginning of the 21st Century with a new “Gold Rush”, which emanates from the beginning of the decline of the modern financial and social system. However, the real “gold” is in the free imagination, the aspirations, and the exposed, albeit filled with emotion, perspective of new creators. The hidden dreams in “Design Bonanza” try to illustrate the urge, discovery and future products of young designers in Israel.

Itamar Foguel – “Glass Knives for the Post-Modern Neanderthal”

The project deals with the art of breaking rock and glass into blades in a traditional manner, as was done by prehistoric man, and connecting it with modern processing technologies of metal and glass. The project raises associations of an apocalyptic world, in which man will create survival tools from broken bottles, manually, without any raw materials or industry.

Ofer Berman – “100% Couio”

Glasses made of leather. The glasses were made using a method of bending, for strength and form. The graphics were burned onto the product with the use of laser.

Rami Tareef – “COD Craft-Oriented Design”

Rami’s project tries to study the differences and similarities between craft and modern innovative design. It examines the borders of hybridization between them, stretches them, and tries to remain with something identifiable with the past. The woven furniture that he created is based on traditional craft and preserves its production values together with massive industrial design.

Vadim Prokofiev – “Arachnophobia”

Vadim created a glove with a very long and hard index finger and a “diminutive glass.” This set allows people who have arachnophobia to optically “reduce” the size of a spider and thus make it appear less threatening. With the long finger, spiders can be touched without fear. Nothing will happen if the spider catches the finger.

Shelly Simcha – “Hair Brushes”

What if we could determine the types of hair growing from our brushes and paintbrushes? Could we give them specific characteristics, following a genetic specification and unique character, which would affect the way we use them and the products?

Hair is the memory of a specific person. Today, with a single Photoshop click, we can change the hair, the character and the memory. I at least hope that if we reach that moment, my brush will not have a “bad hair day.”

Guy Mishaly – “Blast Chair by Explosion”

In this project, Guy used explosives as a tool; however, he creates objects that are disconnected from their immediate associative context. The series of chairs embodies a new interpretation: the objects begin as geometric volumes made of tin sheets, wired with explosives. The explosion changes
the generic shape into an object with a unique character, while using the explosion element, which will forever create objects that are different from one another.

The making-of video circulated a bit when Mishaly released it last year; check it out after the jump:

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It seems that every time I write about any of the booths we saw at Ventura Lambrate, I feel the need to mention how consistent the student work was this year. The students in RISD’s Furniture Design program opted for a particularly restrictive theme to their exhibition: “The exhibition ‘Transformations’ showcases the concept of utilizing iconic everyday items outside their known applications. By taking these everyday items out of their normal contexts, they are transformed into unexpected objects with altered meaning.”

Scot Bailey‘s (MFA ’12) telescoping “Cup Light” allows the user to control the brightness by extending the cups on either end

Anna Fulton‘s (BFA ’12) “Mira Platform Stiletto” incorporates acrylic nails into the sole as well as strap

Jamie Wolfond‘s (BFA ’13) fearsome-looking “Communicable Seats” are connected with dozens of medical syringes and pressurized tubing, such that each seat transmits data about the other

It’s not necessarily a new idea, but the sheer variety and quality of the eight works that the Furniture Design department exhibited in Milan—selected by Project Leader Lothar Windels and the furniture design faculty—illustrates the design talent at the Providence, RI art school.

The objects in this exhibition should be viewed as thoughtful prototypes. Through a rigorous research process, students explored iconic everyday items beyond their conventional use to create innovative furniture, lighting fixtures and objects. These explorations are pushing the boundaries of design and questioning the common marketplace.

Tyson Atwell‘s (MFA ’12) striking “Terra Lights” consists of 190 mini-pots attached to a flat-packable steel frame

We’d previously recognized Taylor McKenzie-Veal‘s work (vicariously through last year’s Core77 Design Awards jury team for the Furniture/Lighting category): his “Fl.int.” table garnered a student notable. His project for “Transformations” was a series of upcycled coin banks, entitled “This Little Piggy.”

Core77 was lucky enough to get a video of the designer in action, after the jump:

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Image courtesy of PLZ DNT TCH

We gave you a sneak peek of PLZ DNT TCH‘s furniture fair debut at SaloneSatellite about a month ago, and while the studio shots of work certainly piqued our interest, it was a pleasure to meet the trio of young designers who established the collaborative studio in Savannah, GA.

Studio PLZ DNT TCH is Bradley Bowers, Alejandro Figueredo and Matt Gray. PLZ DNT TCH is some form of attraction—design is our medium. Our work is a fusion of language, culture, design and playfulness. we use design as a vehicle for improvement and revelation; we invite your curiosity and exploration.

Bowers’ “Mona” (at top and bottom) and “Om” vessels: the latter, which is made from cotton, paper and natural latex, explores “expression through form, while staying ephemeral and fragile in an atypical manner.”

The tabletop objects sit atop PLZ DNT TCH’s “LI” table, a low dining table “designed to arouse curiosity.”

Its unconventional use of material invites you to discover and explore the structure, the process, and the dialogue among LI’s various components. It was made to represent the re-union of Nature and Man: the surface of the table is made from charred planks of wood (Nature), while the leg structure is made from Corian (Man). The use of the piece is dictated by its form and material composition, which allows for a new experience.

Similarly, Matt Gray’s “Ante,” which is made from brass, cast resin and real antlers, was also inspired by the man-nature dichotomy:

ANTE confronts society’s obsession with re-presentation. It sanitizes the natural world by fusing it with the precision of the industrial machine. ANTE shifts from a natural to a manufactured world… in an attempt to glorify what always was glorious.

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“I think Industrial Designers can do everything, from a watch, to a car to a building,” explains the ever-charming British designer Ross Lovegrove. “If you are an industrial designer, I am one of you.”

Lovegrove speaks with Core77 live from the Triennale Design Museum in Milan. Watch this exclusive video with where Lovegrove discusses Liquidkristal, his new architectural glass walls for Czech manufacturer Lasvit. The process for creating these walls took over a year to develop and employed fluid dynamics to digitally explore large-scale distribution and densification patterns found in nature.

Working with mathematical models, the behavior of glass was simulated under controlled thermo induction. This produced a highly informed line code, which serves as the blueprint for the production process, where highly precise temperature control imbues the glass surface with the beauty of optical effects seen in water. Working with Lovegrove, Lasvit’s research facilities, led by Tomá Kamenec, developed a special flexible mold system to capture this effect. The finished product is highly customisable, allowing large-scale pattern aggregations over multiple sheets.

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I wouldn’t have guessed that Portuguese designer Rui Alves would produce work under My Own Super Studio, but insofar as his friendly demeanor matched that of his unassuming furniture, the moniker is intended to suggest humility as opposed to narcissism.

We weren’t the only ones who were impressed by Alves’ beautifully-executed woodwork at the SaloneSatellite this year: the organizers saw fit to include his “Woodpecker” design (above and below) in the Best-in-Show section in the far corner.

It’s an elegant interchangeable home organization solution, taking trestle legs as inspiration for a versatile countertop or standalone unit, where the horizontal beam has three vertical points of attachment and a horizontal one. The various appendages—a coatrack, a knife block, a mushroom-shaped storage unit, a lamp, flat surfaces, etc.—and legs themselves are plug-and-play to maximize the functionality of the minimalist form.

The “AA” chair is named for its strut-like legs.

The “Lapa” armchair & matching ottoman

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