Hasta La Ideas

Milan 2014: new design brand TOG‘s furniture can be customised using an app and makes choice “the only trend that is acceptable”, according to Philippe Starck who has created a range of products for the company (+ slideshow).

French designer Starck told Dezeen that he wants to do away with trends in favour of allowing consumers to create bespoke pieces, but still at an affordable price.

“The only way to see life is no more trends,” Starck said at the TOG launch in Milan last night. “The only trend that is acceptable is freedom, freedom to be different, freedom to choose what you want.”

“Everyone wants and needs mass production, because only mass production can raise the quality, raise the engineering and lower the price,” said Starck. “But the problem with mass production is that there are millions of pieces. People said ‘I am happy’, but millions of people have the same.”

His solution is to design and produce furniture that uses low-cost mass production but gives consumers the option to chose various elements, finishes and even produce add-ons for the furniture themselves.

“We have 15-20 custom options, in six months it will be 500, and 5000 next year,” explained Starck. “Mrs Jones in Australia can say ‘I want this chair’ but Mr Budu in Africa covers it in pearls. They make a deal, how much is it, $50? When they agree, we send the piece of furniture to Mr Budu who does his work and sends it back. It’s win win win. We make the best furniture, I hope. Mrs Jones has what she wants, she creates her own thing. And Mr Budu uses his creativity and makes a business, we don’t take any profit from that.”

“Like that you have the best of two worlds,” said Starck, who explained that there are four ways to order pieces from the collection – choosing from a panel of pre-made pieces, buying a “naked” product to customise at home, ordering direct from the factory or accessing a network of creatives for bespoke commissions via the TOG app.

“You have some sort of panel here to do it. Or you buy the product naked, in the flagship [store]. TOG will have the first one in São Paulo in four months. Or you can order it on the internet from the factory and say ‘I want this colour, and this colour, and this shape.’ We can also print images on so you can customise. You can also go to the flagship and do the same.”

Along with Starck, the brand has enlisted established designers including Sebastian Bergne, who has created a range of outdoor furniture, and Industrial Facility founders Sam Hecht and Kim Colin to design the first pieces in the range.

“TOG is the first company that has solved the paradox between the brain, the computer, the theory, the engineering, the high technology, the mass market, the mass production and the hand, the talent, the craftsmanship, the small artists, and you can make both,” said Starck.

Starck became involved with the TOG project through his friendship with the owners of Brazilian footwear company Grendene, who are behind the new brand.

“We are partners because the owners are huge industrial company in Brazil and I’ve helped them make shoes,” said the French designer. “There is no art director here, everything is about the freedom. That is why today we have started with some designers, because you have to start. After, people will arrive and chose the designer. It’s really a company of freedom.”

“My next collection for them will be even more designed for customisation,” he added.

TOG’s range is on show at Torre B, Piazza Gae Aulenti, in Milan until 13 April.

Here some information from TOG about the collection:

TOG

In occasion of Milan Design Week, on the 7th of April, a new design player comes to life. TOG is an innovative furniture brand and a creative community, combining the best of industry with its highest technology and the best of humanity with craftsmanship.

For TOG – ALLCREATORSTOGETHER – anyone can be creative: blending a bold and innovative approach to design and its imaginative process. TOG is an open source platform, a collaborative yet individualistic, irreverent and yet respective project able to adapt itself at everyone’s likings. TOG offers an already high quality product – design wise and production wise – together with a wide array of customisation options should the client wishes to make the item unique. TOG is creating a virtuous unique system where creators, clients, artists, artisans and industrials share the same values and the same goals, in the direction of an exceptional design made of dream and reality.

TOG is an oblique network where customers are asked to be involved if they wish, to take the leadership and become part of the practical, cheerful process of making and sharing new ideas for new customised objects. It is a collective escalation: TOG creative-team designs the piece of furniture; the company produces it. At this stage the client has the freedom to enjoy the distinguished design piece naked – as proposed by the company – or has a large range of choices, in house, in store or online to create their own personal mix of forms and colours through a large and various platform of possibilities. TOG enables its clientele to create a one off object according to their desires through photos printed on or through interventions of a wide range of selected artists and artisans.

TOG pulls together the best of humanity with craftsmanship, along with the best industry development with its highest technology: TOG tries to solve a strong paradox that is to offer all the advantages of democratised production – that grants high quality and service – with the best of human craftsmanship that grants the uniqueness. TOG guarantees the quality of its products in terms of design and manufacturing also creating a support for other people’s creations. It means giving profit to the customisers without TOG taking any profit. TOG is social conscious: for example various communities and local Yawanawa and Varzea Queimada Brazilian tribes, are involved in the creative customising process – for example developing decorated slip covers in straw or pearl chains for a chair by translating their traditional patterns and techniques in contemporary design elements.

At TOG, there is no style but freedom, therefore customisers are from all areas, ethnics and diverse backgrounds. TOG suits everyone’s taste.

TOG is not just a brand on the market: TOG sets up a global system, a web community of customers, enthusiasts and professionals sharing ideas via a user-friendly brand new app. TOG, that will allow cheerful exchanges with various medias including video, and that soon will also lead to a community award. TOG is communicative and interactive, is industrial yet crafty, traditional and ground-breaking, and its visual campaigns are fresh and surprising. TOG is a new approach to the design industry at large.

TOG maximises logistics and transports with less volume, but also reconciles the advantages of mass production with individual and distinct acknowledgement, it’s eco-responsible.

At the Torre B in Milan, TOG will introduce 21 families of products. The first collection includes a creative rooster of high quality designers, such as Sebastian Bergne, Jonathan Bui Quang Da, Sam Hech + Kim Colin, Ambroise Maggiar, Nicola Rapetti, Dai Sugasawa and Philippe Starck.

The main shareholder of TOG is the brazilian industrial group Grendene, already the world’s largest footwear producer using mostly plastic as its field of expertise. With the launch of TOG, Alexandre Grendene, a visionary in the sector, enlarges the circle of activities of the GROUP. It was logical for TOG to develop its entire production in Italy: the worldwide centre of design with the best engineers and best manufacturers. The Grendene brothers Alexandre & Pedro are very proud to invest in Italy, their home country of 3 generations ago. Their grandfather had left Padova, Veneto, in order to set up vineyards in Brazil. Coming back to invest in Italy is also a natural personal and cultural choice for them.

TOG’s high ambition is to bring back together dream and reality, volume and uniqueness, theory and practice through high quality designed furniture that can be customised by everybody.

TOG believes that anybody can be creative. Its goal is to create a virtuous collaborative system where designers, clients, artisans and industrials share the same values and goal.

The post Customisable furniture means
“no more trends” says Philippe Starck appeared first on Dezeen.

French designer Philippe Starck argues that consumers should be buying products that will last for generations rather than following passing trends, in this movie filmed by Dezeen in New York.

“Timeless seems like a cliché,” says Starck, who was speaking at the launch of his new Organic tap for Axor. “It’s not.”

“If I take the example of fashion, today a girl will buy a new dress every year. If she has a little more money, every six months. If she has [a lot of] money, every two months. This is a little crazy, because we know that the world cannot afford so much material, so much lost energy.”

“Timeless is the only way that is really ecological,” Starck continues. “We don’t need recycling if we just buy less.”

Starck believes a product must have both an enduring design and be sufficiently well-made to be considered timeless.

“If we are obliged to buy something, we have to buy something intelligent, which has longevity, so that you don’t put it in the trash five years later because it is no longer a good look,” he says. “And [it must have] longevity of materiality because five years later if you still like the look, but the quality was bad, it goes in the trash.”

“It’s a new way of thinking,” he concludes. “You don’t buy [a product] for six months. You buy for you, for your life and for your children and your grandchildren.”

See more stories about Philippe Starck »

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– Philippe Starck appeared first on Dezeen.

Product news: a tap presented by French designer Philippe Starck in New York this week uses half as much water as regular taps.

Ninety jets spurt combinations of air and water to give the sensation of more falling water than is actually being used. These nozzles are made of silicon to prevent limescale formation.

“We have created a new type of water, which we call ’empty water’,” Starck told Dezeen. “You have the feeling of having a lot of water, but with less.”

Designed for bathroom brand Axor, the Organic faucet is turned on at the nozzle to either an economy or a boost setting, keeping the hands low in the bowl to avoid splashing the surrounding basin and surfaces.

The temperature is preset at the top of the tap, so water comes out at the desired warmth each time it’s used and none is wasted while fumbling to adjust the heat. “When we change temperature we lose a lot of water,” said Starck. “We don’t need to change temperature – we always use water at more or less the same temperature. That’s why we’ve added a pre-set feature.”

Its shape is derived from natural forms. “It’s something very, very pure,” he said. “The lines come from our body, from vegetation.” This version is a development of the Starck’s original design for Axor (below), first conceived 20 years ago and influenced by a simple outdoor farm tap.

We’ve recently featured a combined tap and hand dryer by Dyson, and other faucets on Dezeen include gently rounded bathroom fittings by Matteo Thun & Partners and a curving sculptural tap by Zaha Hadid.

See more tap design »

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for Axor appeared first on Dezeen.

French designer Philippe Starck and car company Peugeot have unveiled a prototype bicycle crossed with a scooter, designed for a free cycle scheme in Bordeaux, France.

As part of efforts to integrate bicycles into its public transport system, the city of Bordeaux asked locals to submit design suggestions for an urban bike. Philippe Starck took their ideas and worked with Peugeot to develop a scooter and bicycle hybrid called Pibal, which means “baby eel”.

On the Pibal, cyclists can pedal as normal or, if traffic is heavy, use the low scooter-like platform to push themselves along with one foot. The aluminium bicycle has yellow tyres for visibility and spaces for bag racks at the front and back.

The first 300 units are expected to be manufactured and delivered by Peugeot in June, when they’ll be loaned to citizens for free.

“Just like the pibale, undulating and playing with the flow, Pibal is an answer to new urban ergonomics,” says Starck, “thanks to a lateral translation which allows oneself to pedal long distances, to scoot in pedestrian areas and to walk next to it, carring a child or any load on its platform. It only has the beauty of its intelligence, of its honesty, of its durabiliity. Rustic and reliable, it’s a new friend dedicated to the future Bordeaux expectations.”

We recently featured a cardboard bicycle that can be made for less than £10 and a concept for a transparent bike – see all bicycles.

A luxury yacht designed by Starck for Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs was briefly impounded last Christmas when the designer’s lawyers claimed he was still owed €3 million for his work on the vessel – see all news about Philippe Starck.

Images are by Philippe Starck and Peugeot.

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and Peugeot appeared first on Dezeen.

News: a yacht built for Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs has been impounded in Amsterdam following a dispute over an unpaid bill to French designer Philippe Starck.

A lawyer for Starck’s company, Ubik, said the designer was still owed €3m for his work on the vessel, which was completed after Jobs’ death last year.

Jobs and Starck had reportedly agreed on a payment of €9m for the design work – or 6% of the estimated €150m building costs. However, Jobs’ estate say the designer should receive 6% of the actual total cost, which came in at €105m.

The yacht will remain in the Port of Amsterdam until Jobs’ estate hands over the money, the lawyer told Reuters.

Earlier this year we reported on the unveiling of the 80-metre-long yacht, named Venus, which was built over six years at the Koninklijke De Vries shipyards in Aalsmeer, the Netherlands. See all our stories about Steve Jobs and all our stories about Apple.

We’ve previously reported on boats designed by Zaha Hadid, Thomas Heatherwick, Marc Newson and Studio Job – see all our stories about boats.

This year we’ve featured Starck’s stacking chair for Emeco made of discarded material and his design for an aerosol spray that lets users enjoy alcohol without the hangover.

The post Steve Jobs yacht seized over unpaid
Philippe Starck design bill appeared first on Dezeen.