Winter just started, but now’s a gooda’ time as any to start daydreaming about warmer weather! Let the Yellow Summer series of table and chairs inspire your imagination. Made of galvanized steel and seaworthy fabric-clad cushions, the design is weatherproof for outdoor use. In sunshine yellow, it’s easy to imagine yourself enjoying lemonade, watermelon and fresh flowers ’round the table with friends!
Movie: jury member Tobias Lutz reveals the winners of the Unique Youngstar outdoor product design competition in our second movie from garden trade show Spoga+Gafa.
“The Unique Youngstar competition was started in order to develop new ideas in the garden furnishing and garden products field, which is a growing industry,” explains Lutz, CEO of products database Architonic and a member of the Unique Youngstar jury.
“It took a long time [for the jury] to decide the winner. We decided on three projects for the first three places and one special mention.”
First prize went to French designer Thibault Penven for his foldable boat Ar Vag, which comprises a wooden bench, fibreglass poles and a PVC skin, and is put together like a tent.
“It is one of the projects where we really see tremendous depth of research,” says Lutz. “Shape is one thing, research and material is another thing and this project really shows a passion for an idea. It goes far and the result it surprising. I think that’s really what we call design.”
Dutch designer Francien Hazen was awarded second place for her Watercabinet, which attaches to a downpipe to collect rainwater and houses a water butt, pump, hose, tap and even a small greenhouse.
“We gave the second prize to an extended drainpipe,” says Lutz. “What is beautiful in this idea is the designer decided to use the water to add a functionality to this drainpipe and make it charming in a very Dutch way.”
Swedish designer Matilda Lindblom picked up the third prize for her collection of garden furniture called Contio.
“What we like [about these products] is the different applications of materials, of old technologies with new technologies,” Lutz explains.
Swiss designer Markus Bangerter‘s Polufine chair made of heat-moulded textile straps also got a special mention from the jury.
“This is not for the end result of the product that we saw,” says Lutz. “It’s more the way the designer researched how to develop new ways to stabilise textile plastic straps and heat them and get them to a stable construction.”
Movie: Katrin Schön of garden trade fair Spoga+Gafa shows Dezeen around the Garden Unique section of this year’s show and discusses the growing trend for outdoor cooking in this movie filmed in Cologne.
Garden Unique is a showcase of premium garden furniture at the Spoga+Gafa trade fair, which took place at Koelnmesse in Cologne earlier in September.
Katrin Schön
“We do this area especially for the furniture traders,” explains Schön, project manager of this year’s show. “In Germany outdoor living is very popular.”
Schön says that the market for cooking and eating outside is growing rapidly and there is now a demand not just for grills and barbecues, but full outdoor kitchens.
“The Germans love grilling, the grilling market is the fastest growing market in recent years,” she says. “It’s a trend to have an outdoor kitchen.”
“Not only the Germans, I think the Europeans like to be outside and here at the fair you have a whole range of products for it.”
One of the brands showing a range of outdoor kitchens at this year’s show was German company OCQ. Nadine Pollex of OCQ says the trend is due to the increasing size and importance of outdoor spaces.
“Outdoor spaces continue to grow, people have big lounges and big tables,” she says. “There are guests and guests like to eat, so you need an outdoor kitchen.”
There were many garden products besides kitchens at Garden Unique, including an array of chairs, tables and daybeds.
One of the more unusual products on show was a shower that you connect to a garden hose by Swedish company Röshults. Tobias Lindberg of Röshults agrees that outdoor living is becoming more and more popular.
“Our experience is that people want to be more outside,” he says. “We see all these new types of modern architectural houses and we want to do products for those types of houses.”
American designer Chad Wright stretched the archetypal birdhouse shape to create penthouse nest boxes with varying heights.
A concrete base with a screw-in stake stabilises these slender wooden pillars on grass or hard-standing.
The birdhouses come in a selection of different colours, including tomato red, robin’s egg and cloud blue.
Here’s some more text from Studio Chad Wright:
Attic is a series of avian abodes recently designed by Studio Chad Wright. At 4’6″, 4’10″ and 6’0″, Attic provides homes of varying levels of status to a variety of birds. Shown here in colors robin’s egg, tomato and cloud, Attic features a molded concrete base with a screw-in lawn stake, thus accommodating tiled or lawn-covered landscapes.
Studio Chad Wright is the laboratory, factory and home of Chad Wright, an emerging independent American designer.
After working in several of the top design studios in San Francisco, Chad recently ventured out on his own and founded Studio Chad Wright in 2011, a studio that synthesizes ideas with objects, poeticism with relevance, product with person (or animal), and simplicity with joy.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
