Hasta La Ideas

Erik Griffioen is a young Dutch designer who will be presenting his works in Milan for the first time. He will have five works on display at Designersblock, and a few more at the Troom:

A couple of years ago Erik Griffioen changed his way of working and broke with his own rules. He started designing more intuitively and more from his imagination but without losing his visual signature. This opened a new creative door and resulted in a great number of new designs of which the Low Rider (based on a chopper) and the Spider are the most illustrative examples. Designing these metal chairs have also made him realize how important material and craftsmanship is for a design. This is why in his work, quality and durability are equally important as comfort and the creation of exciting design.

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Prickly pair chairs designed by Valentina Gonzalez Wohlers will be on display in Milan next week in conjunction with Designersblock:

The chairs juxtapose Mexican and European aesthetic values, incorporating the formal design elements and quirks of both to create a cultural blend. They are frivolous and humorous yet simultaneously encourage reflection and acceptance. Shapes, materials, colours, textures and finishes collide in irreverent and playful harmony; the Prickly pair chairs are a statement against prejudice and preconceptions.

The classical French oval chair originated in the Rococo period during the reign of Louis XV and has since been adopted throughout central Europe. Although now completely familiar, its form was radical at the time – considered over-decorated nonsense which dispensed with rectilinear styles in favour of more light-hearted asymmetric forms. Rococo’s naturalistic and exuberant ornamentation mixed natural and artificial forms of all kinds, from plant motifs to representations of the grotesque.

The Nopal cactus symbolizes Mexican heritage and national pride. According to legend, the Gods told the Aztecs to build Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) in the place they saw an eagle standing on a Nopal, devouring a snake. To this day, the image resides on the National Shield.

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Frankly, we would have found it impossible to resist calling it “Design is Peachy,” but cooler heads prevailed in Hotlanta, where next month Modern Atlanta will host “Design is Human,” six days of speakers, exhibits, and events. Among the highlights: a Friday kickoff party featuring architectural models, contemporary furniture, and student design work; modern home tours; a panel discussion on “CRAFTdesign” moderated by Metropolitan Home creative director Linda O’Keeffe; and a celebration of Italian design with exhibitions of Zanotta furniture, the paintings of Marco Grassi, and a fashion show that is sure to stoke Atlantan appetites for the likes of Marni and 6267. Then fill a sleek aluminum vessel with popcorn and take in a couple of films we can’t stop talking about, as The High Museum hosts screenings of Koolhaas HouseLife and the Museum of Design Atlanta brings in director Gary Hustwit (and a special guest or two) and his new industrial design documentary Objectified, which will only deepen your love for Dieter Rams.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media

Afterparty and Extend designed by Rolf.fr. Photography by rankhanswijk.nl and Olivier Scheffer.

Rolf.fr is a furniture transformer. By cutting away parts or by adding new ones, a piece of furniture gets a new span of life. The furniture used dates to our grandparents, has an emotional value, but lacks the necessary quality to remain useful. By transforming them they keep the emotional value and regain a central place in our living space.

During the Milan design week 2009 Rolf.fr will be showing his latest series of transformed furniture. He will be walking around the streets of Zona Tortona, showing his creations, in an imaginary quest for exhibition space.

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Alissa Walker and Rachel Abrams debrief over at UrbanOmnibus on last week’s Postopolis in Los Angeles. Here’s a taste:

A: I think it represented a very interesting convergence of information and urbanism. I think blogging as a phenomenon is kind of boring to talk about, but what it represents is really just a faster way of disseminating good ideas about where and how we live (and Twitter is maybe even better). Maybe the point of all this is that we’re able to affect cities more intelligently by understanding them better, and now, thanks to our ability to share this information more efficiently, we will? What do you think?

R: I absolutely agree that the draw for me was far more the subject matter, than the format – I’m taking the ‘it’s the content, stupid’ approach, as usual. Converging on shared interests creates community, and that’s one reason I made the trip out here – to participate, instead of just reading about it. When I’ve described Postopolis to others, I’ve made a point of saying it’s about urbanism and technology: the intersection of physical place and information space, not just about blogging about cities.

That said, there’s definitely a quality to this that’s defined by the format – something appealing about seeing some of my favorite online foragers coming out from behind the screen to put faces to what and who they’ve gathered on their blogs. I mean, when I scroll through archive lists of months and years of posts, my mind boggles that there’s a real person, with bills to pay and a life to lead, behind these editorial ziggurats that the rest of us gobble up and trade with others. But more impressive than the discipline of maintaining that curatorial role is what they’ve documented: Yes, your idea that we’re able to impose ourselves on the city by understanding it better is key; how better representations of cities improve our understanding, experience and engagement with cities is of particular interest to me – I’m here for the dynamic data visualizers, the graphic storytellers, the spoken word poets, pretty much anyone who forsakes PowerPoint.

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