Hasta La Ideas

World Architecture Festival 2012: in the next movie from our series running up to this year’s World Architecture Festival, programme director Paul Finch tells us how the jury were ”bowled over” by the hand-constructed Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre by Peter Rich Architects, winner of the festival’s World Building of the Year award in 2009.

Finch explains how indigenous building techniques had to be retaught to the South African community that built the centre because they were more familiar with modern construction. See our original story about the Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre here.

This year’s World Architecture Festival will take place in Singapore from 3-5 October and will be the event’s fifth year.

Dezeen is media partner for World Architecture Festival 2012 and readers can save 25% on the early rate cost of entering the WAF awards. Simply enter MPVOUCH25 in the VIP code box when registering to enter online (see voucher above for more details).

Here’s some info about WAF:

World Architecture Festival is the world’s largest live architecture festival and awards programme.

Now in its fifth year, the World Architecture Festival has attracted over 8000 attendees to date. 2012 is a landmark year for the Festival, heralding our relocation to the Asian gateway and design hub, Singapore. WAF’s move brings with it unparalleled opportunities for east to meet west and for you to obtain inspiration, develop your global network and plan new exciting projects.

In 2011 over 400 architects from across the globe were shortlisted and battled for a WAF award. The festival saw over 30 international practices become winners of a revered WAF yellow W trophy.

To be at the centre of all WAF has to offer, and that includes global PR, doors opening, new connections and a celebration of your fervour for the power of life changing architecture, you need to enter the projects that you want to shout to the world about. You have less than six weeks to enter, so start yours today.

The World Architecture Festival Awards offers you multiple opportunities to showcase your best work and most exciting ideas to the world, including the most influential names in the design and development community. All you have to do is decide which projects will be representing your practice at the world’s largest, live architectural awards programme and festival.

There are 30 categories to choose from and projects can be completed buildings, future projects, landscape projects, masterplans or interiors. You can enter a project into more than one category (which will of course increase your chances of walking away with that rather handsome WAF award).

With 35 awards and prizes covering 100+ different building types, World Architecture Festival is your opportunity to promote your latest completed building, interior, landscape or masterplan globally.

How to enter the WAF Awards:

Entering the World Architecture Festival awards is easy. All entries must be submitted through our website www.worldarchitecturefestival.com

Just follow these simple steps:

»Open your WAF account or if you have entered WAF previously just log onto your existing account – log in here.
»Choose the section and category that you want to enter – remember you can enter a project into more than one category.
»Tell us what project you are entering
»Pay for your entry
»Create your online entry by adding images for the project, your details, a description and any professional credits – all entries must be completed by 30th June 2012.

Dezeen is media partner for the fifth annual World Architecture Festival, taking place in Singapore from 3-5 October, and our readers can get a 25% discount when they enter their projects for the awards programme (see below).

To kick off a series of videos about the awards, programme director Paul Finch explains what WAF is all about and sets the scene for this year’s event.

In the movie Finch talks about this year’s venue, the Marina Bay Sands hotel and conference centre (above) designed by Moshe Safdie, as well as describing the atmosphere at the first four festivals, which were held in Barcelona.

Dezeen readers can save 25% on the early rate cost of entering the WAF awards. Simply enter MPVOUCH25 in the VIP code box when registering to enter online (see voucher above for more details).

Here’s some info about WAF:

World Architecture Festival is the world’s largest live architecture festival and awards programme.

Now in its fifth year, the World Architecture Festival has attracted over 8000 attendees to date. 2012 is a landmark year for the Festival, heralding our relocation to the Asian gateway and design hub, Singapore. WAF’s move brings with it unparalleled opportunities for east to meet west and for you to obtain inspiration, develop your global network and plan new exciting projects.

In 2011 over 400 architects from across the globe were shortlisted and battled for a WAF award. The festival saw over 30 international practices become winners of a revered WAF yellow W trophy.

To be at the centre of all WAF has to offer, and that includes global PR, doors opening, new connections and a celebration of your fervour for the power of life changing architecture, you need to enter the projects that you want to shout to the world about. You have less than six weeks to enter, so start yours today.

The World Architecture Festival Awards offers you multiple opportunities to showcase your best work and most exciting ideas to the world, including the most influential names in the design and development community. All you have to do is decide which projects will be representing your practice at the world’s largest, live architectural awards programme and festival.

There are 30 categories to choose from and projects can be completed buildings, future projects, landscape projects, masterplans or interiors. You can enter a project into more than one category (which will of course increase your chances of walking away with that rather handsome WAF award).

With 35 awards and prizes covering 100+ different building types, World Architecture Festival is your opportunity to promote your latest completed building, interior, landscape or masterplan globally.

How to enter the WAF Awards:

Entering the World Architecture Festival awards is easy. All entries must be submitted through our website www.worldarchitecturefestival.com

Just follow these simple steps:

»Open your WAF account or if you have entered WAF previously just log onto your existing account – log in here.
»Choose the section and category that you want to enter – remember you can enter a project into more than one category.
»Tell us what project you are entering
»Pay for your entry
»Create your online entry by adding images for the project, your details, a description and any professional credits – all entries must be completed by 30th June 2012.

Milan 2012: in part 2 of our interview with Elle Decoration UK editor Michelle Ogundehin she talks to Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs about the Equal Rights for Design campaign she’s spearheading to demand changes in UK copyright law that will put design on a level with literature and art.

Read more about the campaign on Dezeen here and sign the petition here.

In part 1 of this interview, Ogundehin discusses the calming influence that Japanese designers and manufacturers can have on the industry and how quality design is becoming more accessible to high street brands:

We published an abridged version of this interview in our Friday TV show:

Dezeen was filming and editing all week from Dezeen Studio powered by Jambox at MOST. See all the TV shows here.

Movie: in this interview filmed at the Italian Cultural Institute in London yesterday, Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs speaks to architect David Chipperfield, director of the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale.

Chipperfield speaks about Common Ground, his theme for the biennale, and gives his views on the contemporary architecture scene, comparing architects to “perfume brands at Duty Free, on a pedestal, singular and isolated” and says: “[Architects] don’t have common ground between ourselves and the public”.

The Italian Cultural Institute was the venue of Friday’s press conference to launch the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale, which takes place from 29 August to 25 November. Read more here.

See all our stories about David Chipperfield »

The legendary designer on art and design, working with a rock star and staying fresh after 20 years with Kartell

Known nearly as much for his confident and quirky personality as for his innovative use of single mould injected polycarbonate, Philippe Starck has spent the last few decades changing the norm in product design. From an alien-like lemon juicer for Alessi to organically-inspired sofas for Cassina, Starck has expanded minds with innovative—and sometimes questionable—designs as one of the most prolific designers in contemporary culture.

While in Milan for Design Week we had the rare chance to catch up with the “über designer” himself during the debut of his latest collection for Italian furniture brand Kartell. Standing among a sea of cameras and curious fans, Starck reflected on his history with the iconic brand, working with a rock star-turned-furniture designer and the relationship between art and design.

After roughly 20 years working with Kartell, how does one continue to find inspiration?

Kartell is not a company, it is a philosophy. Thirty years ago I had this intuition that the future must be democratic, and I invented the idea of democratic design. Which is rising the quality, cutting the price and trying to give it to everybody. The only weapon, the only tool I found to do it was monolithic injected plastic. Twenty years ago it was not easy and the only company that had this philosophy was Kartell.

That’s why today everybody says that this booth is the center of the fair. Yes, it is because we deserve it. Because 30 years ago, even before the family of Claudio Lutti, Kartell had this vision. And I can tell you at this time it wasn’t very fashionable to speak about injected plastic this way—it meant cheap, bad things for low people and things like that. We had the courage to built a real proposal, a philosophical proposal, a political proposal. And finally we won. Because we are now at the beginning of the decline of Western Occidental civilization. People have less money but still want quality because we know what is quality, it’s difficult to change. And we must reinvent ourselves and reinvent our new economy of poverty. And Kartell is in the right place to do it.

Speaking of reinvention, we recently spoke with Lenny Kravitz about his collaboration with you and Kartell. Can you tell us a bit about how it all came about?

Lenny is a friend of my daughter’s and finally after years she introduced me and we became friends. One day Lenny told me ‘I want to become an architect, a designer’. I said Lenny you are smart, very smart. When I see your different houses I am very impressed. Perhaps you can become a designer, become an architect. That’s why I brought him into the new SLS Miami Hotel and I brought him to Kartell. And you know where the design is boring him. You have thousands of models here and it’s always the same proposal—the same angle of view. Lenny can bring the fresh air of the night. Designers, we are from the day. He is from the night. We wake up at seven, he goes to sleep at seven. That changes the angle of view. We shall see. He is a young designer, he starts today. He has to work, so we shall see. But he is in a good position, he is very very smart.

How do you feel about the transformation of your work through the materials he chose?

It’s him. You know I don’t want anybody to tell me what I have to do. I don’t want to tell Lenny what he has to do. We gave him a chair. We gave him a nice opportunity to play with it and make what he wants. It’s life, we have to keep his freshness in mind.

Do you find bringing younger people into your office helps to keep your design fresh?

Not the design. The life. Myself. I don’t try to be young, I try to be timeless. And to work with young people, to be married with a young beautiful wife, to have a young baby of 10 months—that makes me timeless, because I’m old now. That makes a difference. For example Friday morning we leave and Friday at noon I will be at my table working like a devil.

This liveliness and a lack of a strong geometric presence seems to shine through in your latest candlestick design, Abbracciao. What else inspired its form?

I’ve never just been about strict geometric, I’ve been known even more for organic lines. I have enough imagination to make both, or more. But this candle piece I made with Maggiar is about the magic of love. Because if you see the two pieces alone they cannot stand up, but together they make an art piece. This is about love. That’s why we decide to do it and I thank Maggiar for bringing this very nice idea, this very iconic and simple idea.

You referred to Abbracciao as an “art piece” just now, for you is there a difference between art and design object?

Clearly, it’s not the same word. It is not an art object, just a symbol of love. I am not an artist. I am just trying to be a designer, but it is not enough. And I’m not sure that the confusion now between art and design is very good for design. It is very good for art, because they have nothing more to say. But in design, finally we are more rich than in art.