Hasta La Ideas

This table with folding trestle legs by Spanish designer Tomás Alonso is one of nine new products that Japanese furniture brand Karimoku New Standard will present at Erastudio Apartment Gallery in Milan later this month.

Collaborating with the brand for the first time are Swedish design duo TAF, whose Soft Triangle low table (above) is carved into a form somewhere between a triangle and a circle.

ECAL student Lucien Gumy was inspired by a mountainous landscape when designing his Berra card holder (above).

The Castor chair (above) is a new addition to the range that Lausanne studio Big-Game presented during last year’s furniture fair (see our previous story).

Dutch design duo Scholten & Baijings have created two new products, the first of which is a series of chestnut containers ranging in size from a desktop pot to a large waste bin (above).

They have also designed a dining table (above) to supplement their Colour Wood range, which was part of the original Karimoku New Standard collection launched in 2009.

Karimoku creative director Teruhiro Yanagihara has designed a table made from oak and maple with hexagonal legs (above).

Alonso Frame Desk by Tomás Alonso

Italian design group Arabeschi di Latte will serve dishes and drinks derived from trees, referencing the material from which the furniture is made.

Colour Bin by Scholten & Baijings

Last year the gallery in a 100-year-old Milanese apartment hosted Natura Morta by Studio Toogood – read more and see photos from the even in our earlier story.

Soft Triangle table by TAF

See all of our stories about Milan 2012 »

Photographs are by Takumi Ota.

Here is some more information from Karimoku New Standard:

A New Standard in Japanese Furniture Making

Karimoku New Standard is a trademark of the Japanese firm Karimoku Furniture Inc., known as Karimoku, launched in 2009 under the creative direction of Teruhiro Yanagihara. Collaborating with emerging international designers and with its products sold internationally, it is the most innovative brand in the company’s over-70 year history. Karimoku New Standard distinguishes itself from other brands with high-quality furniture items that follow the concept of ‘Everyday Life’. All collaborating designers turn their back on fast-moving trends with products that hold functional flexibility and cater to a wide range of individual tastes and life-styles.

Castor stool by Big-Game from the 2011 collection

In line with Karimoku’s philosophy, Karimoku New Standard supports the sustainable use of forest resources and experiments with new methods to retrieve a balance between global environments and local industry. Karimoku New Standard products are predominantly made of solid Japanese hardwoods such as maple, chestnut and oak. The wood stems from low-diameter trees that have previously remained significantly underused, usually ending up as wood chips for paper pulp. Likewise, Karimoku New Standard makes the most out of Karimoku’s know-how accumulated over generations of furniture-making and uses its well-equipped factories for manufacturing. A deep understanding of experienced craftsmanship, together with cutting-edge technologies produces furniture that meets the highest standard. Since its founding, Karimoku New Standard has manufactured 15 innovative pieces of furniture and 4 home accessories, all of which are versatile products that carry the silent beauty of every day life.

Homerun chair by Sylvain Willenz from the 2010 collection

Milan Design Week exhibition 2012

Where New Furniture Starts to Blend With Existing Lives

A 100-year-old apartment building at Milan’ s Via Palermo forms the ideal setting to present the new collection of Karimoku New Standard during the Milan Design Week 2012. It is a place that, over the years, has been used by many different people in various ways. Exactly in this kind of everyday environment we would like to show that Karimoku New Standard furniture can easily mix in with any existing living environment, and be used by anybody at any time. In addition to the existing products in the brand’ s collection, we will exhibit an additional 9 new prototypes. Besides designers Scholten & Baijings (The Netherlands), Big-Game (Switzerland), and Sylvain Willenz (Belgium), and the Karimoku Design Team, creative director Teruhiro Yanagihara this year invited ECAL/ Lucien Gumy (Switzerland), TAF (Sweden) and Tomàs Alonso (UK) to participate. In four apartment rooms Karimoku New Standard presents four new tables, as well as a chair, a stool and small daily objects of a paper bin, a wall hook and a cardholder, which are mixed with items previously designed by our collaborating designers, such as vases, rugs and lamps.

Colour Wood tables by Scholten & Baijings from the 2010 collection

Food Preparation meets Furniture Making

In order to highlight the “Everyday Life” concept of Karimoku New Standard, the Milan Design Week exhibition will host a food installation prepared by the Italian design unit Arabeschi di Latte. Under the title of ‘TOKENS / Love for Food and Wood’, special dishes and drinks will be served based on ingredients derived from ‘trees’, the very origin of furniture. Arabeschi’s food TOKENS refer to “small food units” or “snacks” inspired by the Japanese way of eating from different small plates. In this setting, we would like visitors to experience something indispensable on a very ordinary day.

Erastudio Apartment Gallery
Via Palermo 5 (3rd floor)
20121 Milano

Tuesday 17 – Sunday 22 April, 11.00-19.00
Event with Arabeschi di Latte, Thursday 19 April 17.00-21.00

London designer Tomás Alonso presented a range of shelves and lighting that combine ash timber with leather saddlery during the London Design Festival.

Each shelf is suspended on natural leather straps, of a similar tone and colour to the wood.

The timber and leather are joined with little brass studs.

The collection also includes a basket, a tray and a lamp with a glass shade.

Vera, Chapter One was an exhibition curated by Kirsty Minns and Érika Muller (KM & ÉM), which asked designers to use a fictional character, Vera, as their muse.

See all our stories about the London Design Festival here.

Photographs are by Benedict Morgan.

The text below is from Vera curators KM & ÉM:

Tomás Alonso
Aintree

Every weekend, for as far back as she could remember, Vera and her parents would go away for day trips, sometimes to the beach, sometimes to the hills, sometimes to see her Aunt and Granddad. It was what they did.

She especially liked going to Stanmer Park. It was a regular outing spot for her and her family, but she didn’t mind because she could see the horses there. She loved horses.

Looking at them in the fields always gave her a feeling of freedom. It made her daydream of all the places they could go the day she learnt how to ride. She was especially fond of Aintree- that’s the name she gave her favourite one. She imagined he would grow into a strong pure bred that would win the Grand National, who knows maybe even ridden by her one day.

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Furniture by Benjamin Hubert for De La Espada	Matilda 2011 at designjunction	Local Collection by Maxim Velčovský

London designer Tomás Alonso used ceramic tiles to create optical illusions in this store he designed for Spanish shoe brand Camper in London.

The interior is lined with a grid of white 10 by 10cm tiles, but this pattern is broken in places by coloured geometric tiles to create the illusion of recesses or volumes looming out from the walls.

The space is furnished with benches and counters made of oak and bent steel tubes in Alonso’s studio, plus ceramic lamps he designed specially for the project.

Called Camper Together, the shop is the brand’s fifth in London and is located in Covent Garden.

See all our stories about Camper »

The information that follows is from Camper:

CAMPER
TOMÁS ALONSO
LONDON

Camper opens a new shop in the city of London, on the corner of Shelton Street and Neal Street.

The store’s image was conceived by Tomás Alonso, a young Spanish designer of Galician origin now based in London, who practises “slow design” and has a knack for working with simple gestures.

With this new venue, the British capital now boasts a total of five Camper Together shops.

Since the great masters of the Modernist movement, no designer has been noted for his ability to bend a steel tube. This apparently simple feat is actually quite difficult to perform with a natural flair, as Tomás Alonso does.

Tubes, wood and colour were all he needed to craft the furnishings for this new Camper store. Another simple flourish in the tile pattern creates an illusory three-dimensional effect on the walls.

“All of the furniture was designed and built specifically for the shop as part of a personal project I’ve been working on for some time now, which is based on the formal and structural language that two materials as dissimilar as lacquer tubing and natural wood – in this case, white oak – can create together.

This language also extends to the stairs and the cash desk unit. The pieces were handcrafted at my studio in London. Perhaps the most striking element is the large table with its accompanying chairs and benches, which take up most of the space. The ceramic lamps are also original designs.

The wall cladding is a simple twist on the standard 10 x 10 cm square tile. If it is combined with three additional shapes, you can create all kinds of geometric patterns and designs in isometric perspective.” TOMÁS ALONSO

Tomás Alonso (Vigo, 1974) is the prototypical young nomadic designer who, like so many others, roams the earth searching for ideas to make his work more original. He is not in any hurry; he practises his own version of “slow design”, which consists in doing things leisurely and carefully so that no detail is overlooked.

He wandered through the USA, Italy and Australia before moving to London to study at the Royal College of Art. Alonso graduated in 2006 and teamed up with five classmates of different nationalities to found OKAYstudio.

He currently combines his research work with commercial design commissions. His personal creations have been exhibited at galleries such as NextLevel (where he presented the show Variations on a Tube in 2009), Whitechapel and Aram, whose doors are always open to up-and-coming talent.

Tomás is a rising star, and this is his first interior design project. The concept—which, like every Together shop, is a limited edition—made its first appearance in Genoa, and the London store will soon be followed by another in Glasgow.

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Camper store in Malmö by TAF	Camper store in London by Tokujin Yoshioka	Camper store in Tokyo by Jaime Hayón