Form, Colour & Space
The “June” family has had off-spring!
In fact I am happy to announce that the collection has been completed by “Junior” and “Jay”.
Junior has been designed to be used as a seat in its own right …
…or for supreme relax to be used as a footrest in combination with “June”.
dimensions: W 60 x D 42 x H 42
Materials: internal steel frame upholstered with cold-foamed polyurethane covered in fabric. Frame in powder-coated steel.
Same client - same location - same size (7×10 m) but a lot more furniture to display.
I have elaborated the step idea from last year only that this time around the steps have the full width of the stand. Also they don’t run perpendicular to the stand but at a slight angle, with the effect of creating different sized product areas at each end of the step. In order to give the different product groups a defined area the steps change alternatively from black to white. To create extra display space without interfering with the main product groups I have added some protruding elements which contain display niches and neonlighting to light wash the walls.
I keep my fingers crossed that next year we’ll manage to finally get a bigger space!
In the beginning of this year I worked together with my friend Maddalena Casadei on a competition called “Fuori dal Tunnel”. The competition was about improving the visual impact of a very intrusive high-way passing right next to a picturesque skiing resort (Bardonecchia) in the Italian Alps right on the border to France.
Bravely we decided to take up the challenge of this rather complex landscape architecture project. Sadly we didn’t win but we had a great time and were nevertheless rather satisfied with the result of our work.
Bardonecchia is a skiing & holiday resort and thus closely linked to outdoor activities during all seasons. The first question that springs to the holiday makers mind as soon as he gets up is: How’s the weather today? …but leaning out of the window to check instead of looking at a lovely mountain landscape he is confronted with a massive highway bridge.
But what if this monumental brigde became a feature rather than an eye-sore? We proposed to transform the bridge into a giant horizontal thermometer ( 6m x 300m). Interesting also because temperatures in Bardonecchia vary between 37°C in the summer and -15°C in winter.
The graphic visualization of the thermometer is achieved through a special metal-mesh which contains LEDs (Mediamesh and Illumesh). This means the thermometer is visible both during day and night. Since the LEDs are computer commanded colours can change. At lower temperatures the thermometer appears generally in colder tones whereas during summer it appears in warmer colours.
The metal mesh is also interesting in so far that even though seen from the village it veils what is going on on the highway it remains translucent from the highway side allowing the drivers to look at the landscape. The LEDs in Illumesh and Mediamesh remain visible over very long distances and thus the temperature could still be read from the mountain top.
The LEDs are powered by a system of 3D solar panels which we designed to cover some of the concrete walls and to integrate into the alpine landscape. For the realisation of this we discovered a phantastic technology produced by Nanosolar.
June- Maxdesign - 2007
June is a lounge chair which invites to informal and leisurely seating. The comfort of the upholstered structure is worked out into clean lines where the one-shot foam-shell proposes a seat, a backrest and a “elbow-rest” as an extension of the backrest.
Materials: upholstered one-shot foam-shell, covered in textile; structure in powdercoated steel bands.
Yet another stand for Maxdesign, this time in Rotterdam for 100% in the wonderful Van Nelle Ontwerpfabriek. Again I was asked to display the complete collection of Maxdesign in a very reduced space without making it looked too crammed. Using the full available height helped me to get some chairs “out of the way” but making them also very visible.
This year I designed for the 3rd time the exhibition
stand for Maxdesign for the Salone del Mobile in Milano. The space the fair gave us was only 7 x 10 m but with the idea of the steps I managed to make the most out of the available height of 5m. In this way Maxdesign managed to display the complete colour range of the “Tototo” and “Zed” chairs both designed by Hannes Wettstein.
In march 2005 I traveled to Senegal on a trip organized by Fratelli dell’Uomo (Frères des Hommes). The reason for the trip was to discover if there could be any parallels between pre-war Italian furniture production and Senegal’s present situation. If there was anything to be learned from the development of the furniture industry in Brianza which transformed from a situation of pre-industrial craftsmen working on a very local level to the world-renowned furniture industry it is today. It is acknowledged that one of the main reasons for the extraordinary development in Brianza has been the design factor. Could Design do the same miracle in Senegal?
At first we were overwhelmed by the apparent poverty and chaos. The workshops we visited were little more than sheds, most of the work being carried out in the open. Tools were lying on the floor, saw-dust was piling up in meter-high heaps, the rooms were filled with junk. The machines, they surprisingly owned - most of them were second-hand from Italy and Germany, were badly maintained and above all were not placed on even ground. It looked as if these machines had fallen from outer space into a world which in some respects could be compared to our medieval times. It seemed obvious that before learning about production or design the craftsmen had to learn about keeping their workshop tidy and health and safety basics.
We soon also learned that most of the craftsmen were actually illiterate, had never been to school and drawing their ideas before making the products is not part of their procedure. I assume that this is the main reason for very little innovation in the Senegalese furniture industry. The things are build following already existing models.
In-fact all workshops seemed to offer coarse interpretations of western period furniture, a style reminding me somewhat of American furniture. Apart from the lack of development work there is another reason for this. Those who can afford to buy furniture aspire to a ficticious ideal of western styles and life-styles. If they buy a sofa it has to be BIG! The same counts for beds and wardrobes. The most popular furniture seem to be a sort of caricature of their stereotypes. It is interesting to note that we discovered one company (Atelier Atiss)which tried to focus on local skills and heritage. To our disappointment we were told that they catered mainly to the western market.
Beyond chaos and poverty however there is an incredible amount of inventiveness, imagination and creativity to be found in a country like Senegal. In-fact I feel that poverty in some degree pushes people to be inventive, not having the money to buy things they have to make things themselves. This leeds to a great variety of beautiful one-offs. I wish the Senegalese would learn to understand the richness of their heritage and build on it.
Still the question keeps lingering on. Does it make any sense to teach “Design” in a context where basic necessities are not covered, people live by the day, children don’t go to school, hospitals don’t exist and governments are helpless.
If “Design” is about style, glamour, taste and quality, if it is about imposing our own culture onto others then teaching it doesn’t have any meaning outside our own culture.
If “Design” however is understood as the process of documenting thoughts to paper, as a tool that helps to communicate with ones-self, a tool to develop thoughts and to test ideas without wasting time & material. Then design can be useful to the single craftsman as to the country as a whole since it can channel creativity and speed up development of industry and society. In this case it will be worth teaching “design” in a place like Senegal.
During my time with James I have followed the realization of various exhibitions and exhibition stands. One of the first ones was “The View from Domus” an exhibition about 75 years of photography for Domus which took place in the Armani Teatro a building by Tadao Ando in Milano. The exhibition consisted of huge “lightboxes” with backlit photography. The funny thing was that the architecture was so clean and rigorous that there was no power supply available. This is why James came up with the idea of bringing the power in from the ceiling (the only point where it was available) and passing it through the coloured tubes.
The same concept was employed for “Kuramata’s Tokyo” (also organised by Domus) the following year.
The most important exhibition I have followed for James was when he was nominated guest of honour at the Interieur fair in Kortrijk in 2004. Instead of showing his own work he decided to design an exhibition called “Design Anatomy”. It consisted of a series of products ranging from upholstered, wooden and plastic furniture to a Ducati motocycle, a washing machine and a toilet. All were shown complete and “exploded”. This way James wanted to illustrate the production processes that are behind different products. The exhibition was conceived in collaboration with Marimekko. This is why we had a ceiling with glow-in-the-dark Unikko flowers.
The concept for the book publishers company Phaidon is interesting in so far that it was designed and manufactured in order to be modular and reusable. The elements can be reorganized to fit different stand sizes and locations. This was not only a good intention but has actually worked over several years now.
During the eight years of working with James Irvine I have helped to develop a large number of products but there are a few projects whose development I have particularly enjoyed. Funnily all three of them have movement in them.
Pens seem to be the perfect object for designers onto which to apply their style to. But what is there to be invented? For the “S3″ pen collection for Spalding James invented a clip which is activated by a button rather than working as a spring. This way shirt or jacket pockets don’t risk ripping.
There are many 3-legged folding tables with a removable table top, there are far less 4-legged ones. The reason being that if you use a central hinge point the corners of the table top do not line up with the feet but are automatically slightly twisted. To avoid this James had the idea of curving the legs so as to bring the feet back to where they should be, straight under the corners of the top. The “X4″ table is produced by the Swedish company Swedese and the first one was bought by the king of Sweden to do his watercolours outdoors.
Some tools are generic, a knife for example. It can be used to peel an apple, to cut some cheese, to spread butter… and some tools are very specific for a specific action, a butterknife for example. The Germans seem to want to take this idea to the extreme. One day they asked James design a Spaghetti Tester! Being a Foil-Cutter “Captain Cut” seems to be one of those objects but actually turns out to be rather useful in the end. It is placed on top of a wine-bottle. By pressing the button while slightly twisting it it’s 4 little cutting-wheels cut the foil in a clean and easy way. It has turned out to be a very welcome gift!
When Olivetti decided to launch itself into the world of consumer products, James Irvine, teamed up with Alberto Meda, was comissioned to design the first product for this line. I think this was the most important project I have followed with James.
I realize thst it was a very rare occasion to being able to take part, right from the start, and to every aspect of the product development of the new area of Olivetti. Everything had to be defined. In a very Italian way Olivetti involved us into everything from the design strategy, the discussion about the product functions to the definition of the interface and icons (which were studied together with IDEO, London) down to the product logo and the product communication. We worked together with the marketing department as well as the engineering department. Since the project was very important for Olivetti even the highest levels of managment took part in many meetings. The amazing fact is that Olivetti is the only European brand that produces consumer inkjet printers! The competitors are Epson, Canon, Hp and Lexmark!
James was involved so much into this new project of Olivetti that he also ended up designing their product manuals and their fairstands at IFA Berlin, Smau Milano and Cebit Hannover. Since I was his Olivetti assistant I followed all of these projects with him.