Hasta La Ideas

Beijing Design Week 2011: visitors were served tea at a heat-sensitive colour-changing table in a pop-up teahouse for Beijing Design Week.

Design retailer WUHAO moved into the two-storey building in Dashilar Alley to host a sequence of installations, including plastic yellow canaries disguised as growing lemons and an arched opening lined with green paper butterflies.

The table by designer Huo Yijin could be found in a downstairs room and changed colour from brown to green when hot water was spilt onto its surface.

This excess water naturally drained into a disposal container through curved recesses that indented the tabletop.

Folding stools provided seats around the table, while wisps of bamboo formed lampshades that hung overhead.

Read our Beijing Design Week highlights here and see more stories about the festival here.

Here’s a little more text from WUHAO:

WUHAO’s special Beijing Design Week Project WUHAO @ The Teahouse

WUHAO Curated Shop prepares to go from its ‘secret’ peaceful surroundings of 35 Mao’er Hutong, to ‘public’ in-the-bustling-streets with an exciting pop-up project created especially for Beijing Design Week.

Set in Beijing’s historic Dashilar district, WUHAO @ The Teahouse will display an array of unique installations and lifestyle experiences with an everything-on-display-for-sale concept from cutting-edge fashion to unique tea products to playful toys.

These will include established WUHAO’s partners like Hangzhou-based Innovo design studio, exciting new furniture designer Zhang Chen, and exclusive labels like Kiroic from Shanghai. It will also go from ‘exclusive’ to ‘affordable’ with many products available in the 10 to 500 RMB range.

Located in a former teahouse, WUHAO has partnered with socially responsible tea company Tranquil Tuesdays to offer a new vision of this traditional space. Local creative talents will join, including designer Huo Yijin and his custom-made tea table, and designer Li Naihan with her new foldable furniture.

In keeping with its key values, WUHAO @ The Teahouse will continue the ‘5 elements’ concept of ‘fire’, ‘metal’, ‘water’, ‘wood’ and ’earth’. The space promises to offer a unique selection of WUHAO’s products and labels, a collection of ‘Beijing souvenirs’, a brand new installation, a variety of cross-branding experiments with companies like Beijing Sideways – a specialist of motorcycle sidecar tours who will customize a special Beijing design tour linking Mao’er and Dashilan – and much more.

It is once more a fine balance between traditional Chinese content and a consistent contemporary design experience. Let’s spread south towards the summer fire dynamics!

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