Hasta La Ideas

Like so many businesses today, the publishing industry is facing new challenges due to rapidly changing technologies. With the New York Art Book Fair taking place on 20-22 September, we chatted with three art book publishers…

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Architect Julien De Smedt has launched Makers With Agendas, a new design brand with products ranging from solutions to natural disasters and humanitarian crises to coat hooks and tea sets (+ slideshow + interview).

Makers With Agendas, co-founded by De Smedt and William Ravn of JDS Architects, launches tomorrow at Maison & Objet in Paris. The first collection includes a folding wooden trestle, coloured tea set, a wooden easel for displaying paintings and a butterfly-shaped coat hook that can also be used to hold keys or small accessories.

Future projects will address bigger issues, De Smedt told Dezeen. “We’re looking at displacement situations around the globe from either natural disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes or political conditions leading to civil wars or genocides – and will use our research to create a product addressing it,” De Smedt said.

Makers With Agendas will also be exhibited at Design September in Brussels and later in the year at the Makers With Agendas store in Copenhagen and the New Museum Store in New York.

Prior to founding JDS Architects, De Smedt worked with OMA/Rem Koolhaas and co-founded Copenhagen architecture firm PLOT with Danish architect Bjarke Ingels.

Other stories about Julien De Smedt include a stacked shelving system and a harbour-side housing development that looks like a cluster of icebergs. See all our features about JDS Architects »

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Photography is by Nikolaj Møller.

Here’s a transcript of the interview with Julien De Smedt:

Marcus Fairs: Why have you decided to launch Makers With Agendas?

Julien De Smedt: Makers’ comes for me at the confluence of three flows of needs and desires – to have a recipient for experiments, to address societal issues and to realise things exactly as I want them to be, rather than being a necessary compromise, however successful this compromise might be.

Marcus Fairs: What does the name mean?

Julien De Smedt: We’re a capacity. We’re designers, thinkers and producers. And since ultimately what matters is the result of our ideas, we put the emphasis on the act, the making. But it is not a random action, it’s intentional. We have agendas. Each of our projects tackles issues, provide answers and creates new meaning.

Marcus Fairs: What products you are launching and why? What’s different about them?

Julien De Smedt: We’re launching six products and have another six in the pipeline. Our first set is focusing on issues of transport, compactness and domestic needs. It sets the tone: even in casual settings we bring a different approach.

Our trestle, Accordion, folds into a single stick making it the most compact of its kind. T.4.2 is a tea set for two people where the cups embrace the teapot. It is our homage to conversation. Stilt gives people a new, nomadic, relationship to their interiors: with it you can move your paintings around the house. No nails are necessary to hang artworks. Butterfly is a coat hook that doubles as key and wallet holder. Who hasn’t run around the house trying to find his or her keys? Swing is a serving tray that allows you to carry full glasses, single handed and without spilling – even if you swing it over your head!

Finally, SMLXL is our first venture in fashion accessories: as one can expect from its name it is four different sized bags in a single design. From a woman stylish purse to a shoulder bag, a backpack and even a big shopper. This last design was also brought into the launch to make a statement and to show that we’re not confined to product design. We’re also working with other designers such as fashion designer Prisca Vilsbøl who was commissioned for this project.

Marcus Fairs: What else is different about the company, apart from the products?

Julien De Smedt: We’re organising ourselves and deciding our designs from another angle: we first take topics that we find relevant, interesting or urgent and we analyse them. From this analysis we extract objects. We’re now looking at displacement situations around the globe from either natural disasters (tsunamis, earthquakes, .etc) or political conditions (leading to civil wars, genocides etc) and will use our research to create a product addressing it.

We’re also working to create awareness of the different aspects of society where design plays a role, whether good or bad. In our poster campaign ‘Design Is…’ we’re discussing issues such as the relationship of the use of Coltan in mobile phones and the biggest death count since World War II, currently occurring in Congo. In a very similar way as Benetton did with [Oliviero] Toscani in the 1980s, we are working with a photographer, Nikolaj Møller, on the concept, message and its physical presence. We’re actually also the only retailer stocking COLORS magazine in our first store in Copenhagen.

Marcus Fairs: Who are your partners in the brand?

Julien De Smedt: We’re two founders: William Ravn and myself. William comes from a more business angle. At age 22 he has already been running multiple successful businesses. He interned at JDS when he was 15! Wouter Dons is the third partner. He has been working for JDS for over 6 years on all my product designs. It felt natural and necessary to have him on the Makers’ team.

Marcus Fairs: What do you plan to do in the future with the brand?

Julien De Smedt: Makers’ is a recipient for ideas for change. We’re not sure where it will go because we thought of it as a capacity rather than a company with a single business plan. For us, we see Makers With Agendas as the platform we use to discuss matters that interest us. So if we stay curious and creative it can go anywhere.

Marcus Fairs: What can architects bring to the design of furniture, tableware etc that can’t already be done by other designers?

Julien De Smedt: I don’t think being an architect grants you anymore skills to do anything better than a designer can. There are good and bad architects just like there are good and bad designers. The difference is in the impact of the crime committed. Architecture is somewhat local only and even if the impact is long lasting, the location is unique. With design the damages go further. It spreads like a virus.

I can only speak for ourselves, as Makers With Agendas: our design orientation is one of ingenuity over beauty, of content rather than looks. Which is why our style is in fact very minimal. We’d like the focus to be on the function and its idea rather than a taste judgment. I function in a very similar way with my architecture. Which is why I often call it ‘performative architecture’. Maker’ projects follow that mantra.

Marcus Fairs: What do you think about the current state of furniture/lighting/homeware design?

Julien De Smedt: I’m not really aware of what is around and do not focus on that. At least not too much. Maybe that’s already a sign of the state of things. That said, I like a lot of products I see but not always for substantial reasons. I just like them.

Marcus Fairs: Your Stacked shelving for MUUTO has been extremely successful. How did that design come about?

Julien De Smedt: I was asked by MUUTO to make a modular shelving system. I have a wall of stacked shelves I collected here and there and from my family in my apartment. It became an immediate inspiration for Stacked. In a way it was a no-brainer: three interchangeable modules of varying capacity, linked together by a simple clip. I think the success comes from the fact that the design isn’t imposed – it’s understated and leaves space for people’s appropriation.

Marcus Fairs: How do you feel about the way Stacked has been so widely imitated?

Julien De Smedt: It’s kind of insane. Sometimes it’s really an issue we can address, but most times there’s nothing we can do. It’s also the risk one takes when one makes understated design: can you really claim to have invented a box? Of course the clip is a different story. That is really our idea.

Marcus Fairs: What architecture projects are you working on at the moment?

Julien De Smedt: I’ve just delivered a large tower project in Mexico City and an entire neighbourhood design in Istanbul, where we’re also building a 100,000 m2 development. Apart from that we’re building our first projects in Asia, in Seoul and Hangzhou.

We’re also under construction of a public project for the city of Lille, a large cultural incubator in Brussels and of course we just delivered the Iceberg in Aarhus and the Kalvebod Waves in the centre of Copenhagen.

The post Makers With Agendas by
Julien De Smedt and William Ravn appeared first on Dezeen.

Ethical production doesn’t always result in the most fashion-forward apparel. But that’s absolutely not the case with London-based designer Eleanor Dorrien-Smith, whose past experiences include working for John Galliano, Mary Katrantzou, Eley Kishimoto and Anthropologie. Proving high style can be synonymous with sustainability,…

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Original floor tiles were relocated to highlight seating areas during designer Laura Bonell Mas’ renovation of this Barcelona apartment (+ interview).

Local designer Laura Bonell Mas completely refurbished the 100-square-metre apartment, located among the grid of buildings in the city’s Eixample district.

She uncovered patterned tiles beneath newer ceramics and reused them throughout the property as they were in good condition.

“All the hydraulic tiles in the apartment were there from the beginning,” Bonell Mas told Dezeen. “Most of them had been covered by a brown ceramic flooring for years, which probably explains why they were in a relatively good state.”

Some of the tiles were kept in their original location, while others were relaid in other spaces to denote seating areas at angles to the walls.

“We put back the tiles in the living room and dining room as they were before, and then we used the ones that had originally been in the corridor and entrance of the apartment for the carpets and paths,” said the designer.

Wooden boards frame the tiled areas and cover the remainder of the floor, except for large black tiles used in the kitchen and bathroom. Ceiling mouldings on the suspended ceilings were also restored where possible, along with the balcony doors.

The rooms by the entrance were reorganised and partition walls removed to make the flat more open-plan. A walk-in cupboard was installed between the bedroom and hall to keep clutter hidden away.

As the front door and hallway are positioned at an angle to the rest of the apartment, a curved shelving unit and desk were installed to remedy the awkward junctions.

After noticing a few apartments in the Catalan capital that feature decorative tiles, we published a slideshow and roundup of our favourites. “Lately their popularity has gone up and when doing a renovation, finding beautiful pieces in a good state is almost like finding little jewels,” Bonell Mas said.

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Here’s our short interview with the designer about the history of tiles in Barcelona:

Dan Howarth: Did you move tiles from elsewhere in the apartment, or were they bought new to match the existing?

Laura Bonell Mas: All the hydraulic tiles in the apartment were there from the beginning, we didn’t have to buy any new ones.

Most of them had been covered by a brown ceramic flooring for years, which probably explains why they were in a relatively good state.

Nevertheless, we had to take them all out in order to reinforce the floor with a thin layer of concrete, as it is an old building, and the floors had some problems – some unlevelled parts and sound isolation in general.

So we put back the tiles in the living room and dining room as they were before, and then we used the ones that had originally been in the corridor and entrance of the apartment for the carpets and paths. In the rest of the rooms, the tiles were not very beautiful – maybe they had already been changed before.

Dan Howarth: Why were patterned tiles used in Barcelona apartments historically?

Laura Bonell Mas: Initially, these tiles were created as an alternative to natural stone for floorings. The fact that they didn’t have to be baked like ceramic tiling probably had an impact in their development.

Despite the fact that they were used in other Mediterranean areas, the hydraulic tiles seems to be found more often in Barcelona and the rest of Catalonia, and that is probably due to the art nouveau movement of Gaudí, Domènech i Montaner, Puig i Cadafalch, etc. In their search for a new architecture, decoration played an important part and hydraulic tiling was very versatile in terms of geometries and colours.

Their use went far beyond the age of modernism though, probably because the industry was already quite advanced by then. It has to be said that the more colours a piece has, the more expensive it is because it takes more time to do it. For instance, you can see that the flooring in the living room and the dining room is more noble or was at least more expensive than the ones in the corridor, which only have three colours and its geometry is far more simple.

Dan Howarth: Why are they still implemented today?

Laura Bonell Mas: Around the 1960s their implementation decreased and most of the factories that produced the pieces do not exist anymore.

But lately their popularity has gone up and when doing a renovation, finding beautiful pieces in a good state is almost like finding little jewels. New ones can also be used, even though they are quite expensive, but they don’t look exactly the same. They don’t look aged and the colours are much brighter. Also, because the colour has a four to five millimetre thickness, unlike painted ceramics, you can polish and lower them a little so that they have an even surface.

Dan Howarth: How do the tiles affect the atmosphere of a space?

Laura Bonell Mas: I think this kind of tiling affects the atmosphere in many ways. They always add colour, so using relatively neutral furniture and walls you still get a joyful result.

Their cold materiality is also important to note. We decided to combine the tiling with wooden floors, especially in the parts of the house that have little natural light, or none at all, to add some warmth. I think, as a result, the atmosphere you get in the bedroom or the study is completely different to that of the living room.

But mainly, I think this kind of flooring gives an aged kind of feeling. It seeks to maintain the old character of this kind of building but with a twist. The combination of old and new gives an interesting atmosphere to the space, and by recycling some of the existing materials, it also allowed us to reduce the expense in new ones.

Read on for Bonell Mas’ project description:

Renovation of an apartment in Barcelona

The project consists in the complete refurbishment of an apartment of about 100m2, in the Eixample area of Barcelona.

The geometry of its original plan layout responded to the building typology of the Eixample, with load-bearing walls parallel to the façade and the distribution of the rooms to each side of a long corridor. At the same time, though, it was partially determined by the fact that it is a corner building, which means that the entrance space is rotated 45º relative to the rest of the apartment.

The main strategy of the project was to enhance these different geometries to allow visual continuity and greater amplitude of space, by defragmenting the excessive compartmentalisation.

Partition walls were removed (bearing walls were not modified in any case) and the bathrooms and the kitchen were redistributed around one of the inner courtyards, so that the spaces or rooms are concatenated and the idea of a long corridor is destroyed. The needs of the client and future user, who would be living alone or with a couple, influenced decision making: less rooms, and bigger.

The presence of the original building components was especially important to preserve the atmosphere of an Eixample apartment. The suspended ceiling, with its existing cornices, was kept where possible, and the wooden balcony doors were restored. The windows that had to be changed and the interior doors that had no use anymore were recycled into the enclosures of a new piece of furniture.

The hydraulic tile floor, which had been covered for years with another ceramic pavement, was recovered and reattached following new guidelines: it is maintained as it was in the living room and dining room, while in the rest of the apartment it is combined with an oak parquet flooring, with the intention to create “carpets” that point out some of the liveable areas and suggest paths.

This old materiality is complemented with some made to measure furniture, which shows autonomy from the original structure with its curved shapes and directs the user through the space. These are various tables made with recycled teak wood and a big piece of furniture situated at the entrance of the apartment, and which has a double function of bookshelves and coat wardrobe on the outer side and closet for the master bedroom in the inner side. Its height emphasises the will of a fluid space as it doesn’t reach the ceiling, which allows the visual continuity of the structure of ceramic vaults and wooden beams, which in this part of the apartment was left uncovered.

The post Renovation of an apartment in Barcelona
by Laura Bonell Mas appeared first on Dezeen.

Wary that his newest project would be consumed for being buzz-worthy rather than genuinely good, French-born photographer and founder and editor-in-chief of Desillusion Magazine, Sebastin Zanella found a name for…

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