Hasta La Ideas

In the garden of the Case Study House, Eames Demetrios—grandson of Charles and Ray Eames—settled in a shell chair to share stories of his family heritage and legacy, architectural preservation and the world travels he undertook…

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« Paperair » est un projet mené par Filippo Perin en collaboration avec des designers italiens tels que Mauro Gatti, Ale Giorgini, Francesco Poroli, Nicola Ferraresede (et bien d’autres). Le projet rassemble 25 sneakers en papier. Des créations confrontant paper art, DIY et sneakers : plus de photos et de détails sur les auteurs ci-dessous.

Un projet de : Ale Giorgini, Mauro Gatti, Francesco Poroli, Nicola Ferrarese, Gloria Pizzilli, Panfilia Iannarone, Jacopo Rosati, Stefano Colferai, Marco Goran Romano, Fabio Marangoni, Matteo Cuccato, Federico Giuliani, Rubens Cantuni, Alberto Corradi, Marika Zottino, Onibaka, Rita Petruccioli, No Curves, Stefano Marra, Oscar Diodoro, Andrea Bax, David Sossella, Fonzy Nils, Lucia Fioretti, Tram, Davide Barco.

Milan 2014: Dutch studio Scholten & Baijings has designed a series of marble tables decorated with engraved geometric patterns that contrast with the natural veined surface of the stone.

Scholten & Baijings created the Solid Patterns series for Italian marble producer Luce di Carrara and used different types of marble from the company’s quarry in Tuscany to produce five unique pieces.

“The collection is inspired by the uniqueness of marble quarried from the depths of the Apuan Alps,” said the designers. “Designing was all about expressing the various characteristics of the marble in a single form, merging mass, colour, unique line patterns and circular shapes.”

Thin table tops with irregular rounded edges combine with bases shaped as columns, truncated cones, faceted blocks or fluid curving forms.

In some cases, Scholten & Baijings applied its signature geometric patterns to the table tops, while other examples feature lines engraved into the bases.

“Adding grid patterns to the designs has created a contemporary look that enhances the contrast between the graphics and the crystalline marble patterns,” the designers added.

The largest table in the series can be used as a dining or conference table. It features a base made from a single block of white-beige marble, embellished with a subtle pattern of vertical lines.

Two low coffee tables, one produced from brown-beige Lericy marble and another from a pink-hued stone, feature criss-crossing diagonal lines covering their top surfaces.

One of two taller tables for seating three to four people has a base made from a hollowed-out block of grey marble with a pattern of vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines. A similar pattern applied to the other table’s base emphasises the accuracy of its faceted form.

The collection was presented at Spazio Rossana Orlandi in Milan during last week’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile.

The post Scholten & Baijings carve geometric patterns
into marble table collection appeared first on Dezeen.

News: Italy‘s design manufacturing capability is at risk of disappearing, according to the president of design brand Alessi.

The country’s producers could go the same way as its great designers of the last century and be outsourced abroad, Alberto Alessi told Dezeen.

“The risk is that it disappears,” he said in an interview in Milan last week during the Salone del Mobile. “Maybe Italian production will disappear.”

Alessi said that until the 1970s, Italian design was characterised by Italian designers working for Italian manufacturers.

“Then during the 80s we had some important change,” Alessi said, as Italian industry started to work with foreign designers. “Design expressed through the catalogue of Italian design factories was not any more Italian,” he said.

Today, he said, “maybe the second element, Italian production, will disappear.”

The company, which specialises in kitchen accessories and tableware, was founded in 1921 by Alberto Alessi’s grandfather Giovanni Alessi and today employs around 500 people at its factory in Crusinallo on Lake Orta in northern Italy. Its annual turnover is around €100 million.

One of the best-known of Italy’s design-led manufacturers, Alessi started out as a producer of stainless steel utensils for the catering industry but, like many successful Italian “design factories”, began collaborating with external designers in the fifties and sixties.

Famous Alessi collaborations include the 9090 espresso machine designed by Richard Sapper, the Juicy Salif lemon squeezer by Philippe Starck and the Record watch by Achille Castiglioni.

Foreign competition and Italy’s lingering economic woes are creating problems for Italy’s design houses. In May last year Claudio Luti, president of both the Kartell brand and the Salone del Mobile, said the failure of the country’s small, family run firms to seek investment and explore foreign markets was a “big, big mistake.”

Last September Patrizia Moroso, head of Italian furniture brand Moroso, said Italy was “in crisis” while Milan was “sitting in the past”.

“Italy… is very much in a crisis because it doesn’t want to change, doesn’t want to move and is becoming very old,” she said, adding that the country was “losing the culture behind production.”

Alberto Alessi said his company was committed to maintaining its production base in Italy but said he was “concerned” that Italian manufacturing would go the same way as Italian design, and migrate abroad.

But he added that, even if this happened, the notion of “Italian design” would continue, because of the country’s unique culture of collaboration between designer and manufacturer.

“I think that [Italy] will continue to have Italian design because it has not only to do with the nationality of the designer but it has to do with a culture,” he said. “We are a kind of mediator. The core of our activity is to mediate endlessly between on one side the best creativity in product design from all over the world and on the other side, customers.”

“This culture makes Italian design factories the best labs to offer to designers to make real their designs,” he added. “When they enter the door of Alessi, the designer or architect immediately feels he will meet people who will do their best to help him express what he has inside.”

The post Italian design production “could disappear,”
says Alberto Alessi appeared first on Dezeen.

While the “Made in Italy” moniker may not mean quite what it used to, Italian design is still alive and well. And, thanks to forward-thinking design groups like Something Good, it’s becoming more responsive to reoccurring…

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