Hasta La Ideas

London designer Benjamin Hubert created a screen of branching modular structures to surround the auditorium at trade show 100% Design during the London Design Festival (+ movie).

Called Amass, the modular system comprises three different components that can be configured in several orientations.

“The branched form of Amass was inspired by the controlled randomness found in nature and the building blocks of life,” said Benjamin Hubert.

For 100% Design, 46,000 pieces were hung in curtains around the stage and seating area to create a permeable visual barrier defining the space.

“The brief called for a visually iconic space that would create a reference point within 100% Design,” Hubert explained.

“Based on observations from previous years, the auditorium needed to accommodate an audience for the seminar programme without excluding passers-by.”

Although other modular plastic partitions already exist on the market – Algue by the Bouroullec Brothers perhaps being the best-known example – Hubert points out that his system can be used to create structural compositions like walls and corners as well as simple curtains.

“Amass was created to build architectural structure as apposed to other modular plastic products, which only act as simple curtains or dividers,” he said.

“The Amass geometry allows for walls of varying thickness and corners to be created, forming three-dimensional structures.”

The parts are made of injection-moulded polypropylene, which can be recycled, but they are also reusable.

“Each year, trade shows reportedly generate more than 600,000 tonnes of waste, much of which comes from the exhibition design and structure,” Hubert noted.

After an event using his system, the whole installation can be taken apart and reassembled elsewhere.

Following its debut hosting the talks programme at 100% Design, the product will be made available for space division in commercial and contract interiors. It has applications ranging in scale from one square metre to over 100 square metres.

100% deign took place from 18 to 21 September as part of the London Design Festival, and also featured a pavilion made from 1500 metres of undulating paper strips.

Elsewhere at the festival, Hubert showed his expanded Pelt collection of furniture for De La Espada and what he claims is the world’s lightest timber table as part of a solo show at Aram Gallery.

See more design by Benjamin Hubert »
See more coverage of London Design Festival 2013 »

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German designer Clemens Weisshaar argues that cutting edge software from race car engineering and hypersonic aircraft will underpin design in the future in this movie filmed at Dezeen Live during 100% Design.

In the movie, Clemens Weisshaar, one half of design duo Kram/Weisshaar, introduces the computer-controlled X-51 hypersonic test missile, which is designed to fly at several times the speed of sound.

“There are physical objects out there, including every Airbus aircraft, that wouldn’t fly anymore if you switched off the computer systems,” he says. “Software becomes an integral part of a physical object […] and that’s not even the future, it’s now.”

Above: the X-51 hypersonic test missile

He then talks about an Audi race car created by engineers with whom he recently collaborated on a high-tech, ultra-lightweight chair.

“Those guys, they think completely differently – they really think of energy as investing energy in an object to make it very light, but then you need the return on the investment by saving energy afterwards,” he says. “Only if you break even and actually save energy after 100,000 kilometres on the road, only then is it worthwhile doing it. Otherwise, it’s a waste.”

Above: an Audi race car

Weisshaar also criticises as “naïve” the idea that making furniture from wood is always the most sustainable option, and adds: “Design students these days tend to think that everything they can make with a cordless drill is amazing. That’s also naïve.

“The age of mass production hasn’t stopped – we’re more and more people on this planet, so we can’t customise products for everybody.”

Above: Istanbul

Showing a slide of the Istanbul skyline, he comments on the Multithread furniture he showed at the Adhocracy exhibition during Istanbul Design Biennial, which has metal legs produced in a new 3D printing process.

“Now there’s technologies where you can actually melt on metals straight away and print metal objects straight away. That’s what we’re using – it’s called selective laser melting,” he says, adding that 3D printing with plastic has largely produced trivial objects like ashtrays and egg cups. “We don’t do the much-hyped 3D printing of plastics […] now there’s technologies where you can actually print usable objects.”

Above: diagram of a lioness’ muscles and skeleton

He then shows an image of the muscular and skeletal structures of a lioness, explaining: “There’s so much chemistry, engineering, bio-engineering going on that nobody really understands it, not even doctors or biologists […] the big challenge of the 21st century is to control entire systems, complex systems, and understand all of it.”

Above: software analysing forces acting on furniture

The final slide depicts a computer program analysing the forces acting on a piece of furniture, which Weisshaar used to prototype pieces such as the chair for Audi.

“We take engineering code that lets us calculate the forces acting within an object, and we’re bringing that into design software we’re writing,” he explains. “We want to use it to see things that the eye can’t see […] in many cases you make assumptions, you think there’s a lot of strain on the joint there, but it’s not, it’s somewhere else.

“We’re using [this technology] for tables and chairs now because we think that tables and chairs really deserve this kind of attention,” he adds.

Weisshaar’s other work with designer and computer scientist Reed Kram includes computer-designed concrete stools and pedestals and eight robotic arms installed in Trafalgar Square.

Dezeen Live was a series of talks between Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs and a selection of designers and critics that took place at design exhibition 100% Design during London Design Festival this September.

Each of the four one-hour shows included three interviews as well as music from Dezeen Music Project. We’ve been posting all the movies over the past few days and you can watch all the movies we’ve featured so far here.

The music featured in this movie is a track called Business Class Refugees by Indian producer Earth Sync. Listen to more Earth Sync songs on Dezeen Music Project.

See all our stories about Benjamin Hubert »
See all our stories about Dezeen Live »
See all our stories about London Design Festival 2012 »

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object” – Clemens Weisshaar at Dezeen Live appeared first on Dezeen.

Curator and writer Beatrice Galilee proposes that architecture and design exhibitions need to be about more than just “sticking furniture on plinths” in this movie we filmed at Dezeen Live during 100% Design. “It’s just not good enough anymore,” she says.

Contrasting this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale with the upcoming Lisbon Architecture Triennale she’s curating, Galilee explains why her approach avoids showcasing architectural models and products in favour of process and debate. “We’re not really interested in showcasing things that have happened, and we want to showcase things that will happen: people that will change the future of architecture, who’s going to be curating the next city and what’s that going to look like?”

This search for the next generation who will shape our world leads Galilee to work closely with critical designers who specialise in experiments and social commentary. “They don’t have an aim to be as part of a kind of manufacturing process but they would rather be involved in a discussion,” she explains.

Design with a critical agenda demands a critical response and Galilee stresses the need to uncover and nurture creative criticism. “There’s a real sense of urgency for a kind of more critical design and a kind of conversation about design,” she says.

By way of example, the talk begins with a discussion about the Hacked Lab exhibition that Galilee curated in Milan earlier this year (above), which comprised a series of events centred around new technologies and design experiments. “The idea of the week was to try and find different ways of presenting designers’ ideas and try to find things that are not just stuff on plinths,” she says. One of the activities involved designer Dominic Wilcox racing a 3D printer in a competition to build a model of the nearby Duomo cathedral.

She goes on to present a photograph taken in Africa (above), a place that she is currently researching, and explains how the narrative of African design is starting to focus on technology and particularly on science fiction. “Science fiction is quite an interesting way of designing in its own sense, city wise and landscapes and so on,” she explains.

The Black Book Interview Project, a series of events during the London Design Festival about the “urgent topic” of critical design is discussed next. “[The curators] were really trying to find out where critical design is, who’s writing it, who’s doing it, why isn’t there more of it?” says Galilee, before explaining how designers like Tuur Van Balen (above) are more interested in a “more social or anthropological or scientific kind of narrative”.

Broadening the topic to include architecture, Galilee discusses how this year’s biennale in Venice contained too many models presented as whole projects and not enough engagement with ideas. “Curators really should be sort of raising their game at this moment and be really trying to challenge audiences and to provide something interesting to say,” she adds.

Dezeen Live was a series of discussions between Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs and a number of designers and critics that took place at design exhibition 100% Design during London Design Festival this September.

Each of the four one-hour shows, recorded live in front of an audience, included three interviews plus music from Dezeen Music Project featuring a new act each day. We’ve been posting all the movies we filmed and you can watch all the movies we’ve featured so far here.

The music featured in the movie is a track called Mosquito Maps by American designer and musician Glen Lib. Listen to more of his songs on Dezeen Music Project.

See all our stories about Beatrice Galilee »
See all our stories about Dezeen Live »
See all our stories about London Design Festival 2012 »

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critical design” – Beatrice Galilee at Dezeen Live appeared first on Dezeen.

Designer Philippe Malouin describes how the Olympics has changed Hackney in this movie we filmed at Dezeen Live during 100% Design.

Above: Malouin’s Hackney-based studio

Malouin talks about the gentrification of the east London borough, where his studio is based and that Dezeen featured prominently in our Designed in Hackney coverage. “We measure how fast Hackney is changing by the amount of ‘blackboard cafes’ selling flat white coffees that pop-up,” he says. “There’s a new one opening every week.”

“It’s also creating a giant demand which escalates prices,” he continues.”Inhabitants of Hackney can’t necessary live there any more.”

Above: American designers Charles and Ray Eames

The second of five images he shows is of multidisciplinary American designers Charles and Ray Eames, who he cites as his inspiration. “In terms of a studio, what they represent and what I aspire to, they are the best possible example.”

He then shows photos of rolling up fabric to create stools without metal frames. “Form and style are extremely important but they usually come after a long, stretched out process-led design and then we think about the shape,” he says.

Above: the making of Hardie Stools commissioned by Kvadrat 

“We’re also interested in the way products inhabit spaces,” he explains about the space his studio created for furniture company Artek at designjunction this year.

He finishes by showing his spinning “light paintings” made of Swarovski crystals, currently on display at the Digital Crystal exhibition at London’s Design Museum.

Above: the Artek space at designjunction

Dezeen Live was a series of discussions between Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs and a number of designers and critics that took place as part of the talks programme at design exhibition 100% Design during this year’s London Design Festival.

Each of the four one-hour shows, recorded live in front of an audience, included three interviews plus music from Dezeen Music Project featuring a new act each day. Over the next few weeks we’ll be posting all the movies we filmed during the talks and you can watch all the movies we’ve featured so far here.

Above: Blur “light paintings”

The music featured in the movie is a track called Mosquito Maps by American designer and musician Glen Lib. Listen to more of his songs on Dezeen Music Project.

See all our stories about Philippe Malouin »
See all our stories about Dezeen Live »
See all our stories about London Design Festival 2012 »

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at Dezeen Live appeared first on Dezeen.

Curator and writer Daniel Charny explains why making, hacking and fixing represent the future of design in this interview filmed at the Dezeen Live series of talks at 100% Design.

Charny discusses the return of craft and the renewed interest in repairing broken objects rather than throwing them away. “We just printed the back of this remote control that was about to go to landfill,” he says, talking about Fixperts, a high-tech repair service for broken objects. “It took ten minutes and it’s back in circulation.”

This will become commonplace in future as the “circular economy” evolves, Charny argues, aided by the rise of Fab Labs, domestic 3D printers and open-source attitudes. When an object requires a new part “you will download the data and print it,” he says. “You might even improve it. You’ll upload the improvement and other people will use it.”

Above: the Power of Making exhibition at the V&A museum

Charny talks about the Power of Making, an exhibition he curated at the V&A in London to raise awareness of craft. “My interest was to remind people that almost all of us can make,” he says. “We’re in an era when people don’t know about the things we use; we don’t know how to fix them. Our instinct when something is broken or not working is to go and replace it instead of think how to fix it.”

He then shows children in Jalalabad constructing a laser-cut chess set at a Fab Lab – a “fabrication laboratory” where people can access high-tech manufacturing equipment. Charny suggests that Fab Labs could soon become as widespread as libraries: “The future of libraries will be a hub of computers, rather than shelves of books. You’re going to be downloading data, printing books on demand, printing objects.”

Above: children constructing a laser-cut chess set at the fab lab in Jalalabad, Afghanistan

Finally, he introduces his Fixperts project, a matchmaking service that introduces inventive designers to people with everyday design problems. “[The designer] tries to understand the behaviour of the person and fix [the problem] with materials that are low cost in an ingenious way,” he explains.

Dezeen Live was a series of discussions between Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs and a number of designers and critics that took place as part of the talks programme at design exhibition 100% Design during this year’s London Design Festival.

Above: a screen grab of the Fixperts website

Each of the four one-hour shows, recorded live in front of an audience, included three interviews plus music from Dezeen Music Project featuring a new act each day. Over the next few weeks we’ll be posting all the movies we filmed during the talks.

Movies we’ve already published from the series include talks with IDEO UK design director Tom Hulme, architect and writer Sam Jacob and designer Katrin Olina.

The music featured in this movie is a track called She Lives Above the Door by Reset Robot. You can listen to more music by Reset Robot on Dezeen Music Project.

See all our stories about Daniel Charny »
See all our stories about Dezeen Live »
See all our stories about London Design Festival 2012 »

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– Daniel Charny at Dezeen Live appeared first on Dezeen.