Anyway, we are working towards creating a table, which requires no sewing in the moulds, making the rubber mould reusable for each chair. This requires a lot of clamps, bolts, rubber moulds and wooden clamping pieces.
By the end of the day we frantically poured the sewing free chair. We will see how this piece pops out. It may compromise the organic qualities of the piece having a wooden structure forming the edges of the chair leg.
A stand I forgot to mention from Milan Furniture fair was a group called ‘Just Married’. This was a very fitting name considering these designers had travelled from Brittany in France. Anyway, they showed a lot of enthusiasm and determination to display their work. Three designers towed a caravan from Brittany to Milan, to show off there work. They parked the caravan on a prominent walk-way between exhibitions. In the back of the caravan were a number of different products. One was a cast vibrator with a relief print of Jesus on the cross! This was very brave considering the number of Catholics living in Milan! Anyway, I was just impressed by the initiative the ‘Just married’ design team showed, overcoming the expensive challenge of exhibiting at the Milan furniture fair.
I am not to good at keeping up with this blogging business I have a back log of stories in my mind to write about, but never seem to find the time to sit down and stick them on the blog.
Anyway, I will start with the most current event. Yesterday I was determined not to be your typical tourist and arrive in the tour bus to see the tulip fields of Lisse. Instead I was determined to slog it out to get there. I made use of a beautiful summers day and cycled about 70 kilometres from Utrecht to Lisse. It took an exceptionally long time on my clunky old Dutch bike. I am guessing I had lots of old people comment in Dutch about the amount of noise my chain guard was making.
Anyway, the ride was pretty spectacular, I cycled through a lot of small towns, following the canals most of the journey. I did exceptionally well not getting lost until I got to Leiden. You would think it would be straight forward finding a tulip field, but not for old Hol. After many stops pulling out the map, asking for directions I found my way.
By the time I made it to Lisse, my knees were creaking and my thighs were aching. All I wanted to do was see a bloody tulip and my mission would be completed.
However, once I found one field I had a lot of inspiration to keep on riding. The wide expanses of colour were almost like an abstract painting. It was a very spectacular scene, seeing such vibrant colours. The cycling pains disappeared into the back of my mind, over taken by a visual feast of flowers.
The most challenging exhibition I visited during the Furniture Fair in Milan was a stand by Droog Design titled ‘ Make Me.’ Droog are renowned for commissioning innovative and conceptual exhibitions. This is basically the reason that I was drawn to working in Holland with Tejo and Rene who are represented by Droog.
The benefit of this platform for design is that the end user can to some degree manipulate and design there own furniture pieces, it cuts out the large commissions that retail outlets take for furniture pieces, effectively driving the product price down and it reduces the green miles that the piece needs to travel.
- -You are basically limited to very sterile products that only employ cnc/laser cutting techniques in the design.
T They suggest that designers could use 3 D laser printers to create more organic work. However, this technology is so expensive it is not really a viable option.
-T There are a lot of inconveniences placed in the consumer’s hands like… negotiating with manufacturers, transportation issues.
- This style of design does not leave opening for the designer crafts person.
- Maybe it is an egotistical reason this concept from Droog is niggling at me. Basically it devalues the skills that a designer develops over time to create work. We develop the knowledge and understanding of materials and processes. We learn to build relationships with manufacturers to easily translate computer generated ideas into real objects. All of these aspects of design will be compromised for the sake of reducing the products price and making different designers work more globally accessible.
As highly critical as I am, I was impressed that I was challenged on day four of design saturation.
Today I spent the day roaming the Tortona exhibition area. This was a lot more up my alley than the Fiera Milano. The Via Tortona area is an industrial area of Milano. Spaces like mechanic workshops have basically been boarded up partially and turned into temporary exhibition spaces. People have given up there houses and moved every object out to accommodate for hordes of visitors to walk through a temporary exhibition space.
This style of exhibition reaches out to designer maker crafts people. The exhibition felt much less commercialised than the Fiera Milano.
I visited the Domus live at Tortona, which is focused on presenting talks, interviews and design debates. However, it seems that the whole thing was really geared towards posting the event on a social media platform. The speakers were position awkwardly close to the camera, preventing the real audience to really watch and listen to the interview. There was no attempt from the organizers to rally up real live crowds of visitors to the interviews.
It just seemed a little bit absurd not to engage a live audience, when you have a captive audience rearing to rest there weary legs from walking to endless exhibition displays.
Anyway, today I spent the day roaming around the Fiera Milano site. It is pretty overwhelming being confronted by about 22 jumbo sized sheds which have all been converted into exhibition halls that house displays ranging from Student exhibitions (Salone Satellite), to lighting (Euroluce) right through to office furnishing.
I kicked off the day by visiting the student display, placed at the very rear of all the exhibition spaces. Many of the students stood there hopefully handing out business cards, in an attempt to have their work picked up by manufacturers. It was kind of nice hanging out in this area, most of the students lack the pretention that most of the other display spaces had. But at the same time a lot of the work wasn’t particularly impressive and I wondered why you would blow so much money on hiring an exhibition space/transporting the work and then sitting at a stand for 4 days for some mediocre work.
One of the most stand-out student pieces was from Kirsti Taiviola. She has developed blowen glass globes that reflect different patterns onto the wall surface. They were simple but elegant and you could see them adapted in many different architectural situations.
Then I spent a lot of time wondering around Euroluce.. I haven’t scene so many glass chandeliers. The place was sparkling with diamantes, Euroluce was full of Italian bling. There was a lot of bad taste going on in a lot of these stands.
Moving onto the modern furniture stands I was most impressed by the Zietaprozessdesign a Polish design firm. They had developed a collection of works made from inflated steel. I must say I was pretty inspired by this method of creating organic looking metal works. I think this technique could be adapted into sculptural works. It will just take a dam fine welder to weld .5 sheet metal together, and have an airtight joint.
For the past week I have been experiencing being illiterate. Putting little to no effort in prior to leaving for the Netherlands, I have been greeted by a sea of Dutch words, plastering advertisements billboards, signage, newspaper and shopping isles. I have resorted to shopping from pictures.
Instead I am considering whisking the package into the kitchen pantry in anticipation of my ‘weekly fry up.’
Yesterday I went to Amsterdam. It was a cool Metropolitan city, which felt a little like Melbourne, with arty stores lining the streets. Trams continually streaming past looping back and forth to central station to the Museum quarter.
Anyway, that aside after a long walk being lost on the complex canal system I made it to the Van Gogh Museum. It was teeming with tourists. But tourists aside I put my headset on and zoned out.
It is pretty striking to see how contemporary Van Gogh was for the times. His strong use of colour and texture creates really intense moods in his paintings.
I was most struck by his works featuring cherry blossom trees. I have not really seen these works in reproductions before. However, the works manage to capture the delicateness of the tree and the atmosphere of Spring.
I am onto day 3 of the internship with Tejo Remy and Rene Veenhuizen. When I arrived at the studio I was very reassured to see a room full of treasurers. A collection of old glassware for lighting projects, bags full of old blankets, a sea of prototypes floating in every spare space.
The sight of the single stitch industrial sewing machine was also pretty exciting.
Anyway, the studio is based out in a very industrial part of Utrecht. The studio has an outlook onto a DHL depot, and the street with lined with lots more factories. It is pretty much on par with the serenity of Midland. Not the type of place you feel like venturing out for lunch in. Anyway, luckily where the studio is housed is a ‘Culture Lab’, basically a whole heap of creative’s have leased this building. Which means lunch often consists of conversa
tion with different architects, painters, set designers or engineers. This makes for a good social working environment.
Over the last couple of days I have been working on an ‘Accidental mat’. The piece recycles old blankets, and turns it into a very organic floor mat. It is nice to see the full working method of making the piece. It is also great to see what was probably conceived as a one off piece be developed into a marketable small production run product. The investment that Tejo, Rene + Tanja have put into developing the first rug has paid off through the development of the piece into a product. It is also reassuring to know that I am not the only designer who invests crazy amounts of labour into her work, the Accidental mats take approximately a week to make.
It is pretty exciting to see so many bicycles being ridden in Holland. Nothing stops the Dutch getting around by bike. There are young women stilettos cautiously mounting their bikes. Groups of Oma’s (Grannies) picking up there shopping. Mums cycling with their multiple children strapped front and back to the bike. Not even a trip to Ikea is an excuse to drive flat packed furniture home. Instead it is planted under the cyclists armpit, and precariously balanced on the handle bars all the way home.
-Ban all personal use vehicles to the school. Staff must carpool, cycle or catch public transport to the school.
- Ban selling water at the canteen. Students must refill from refrigerated taps around the school.
- Stop selling meat dishes in the canteen.
- Health + fitness should be valued over personal grooming in the school environment.
The list went on, I scrawled the ideas down with enthusiasm. I thought that implementing these initiatives in a small school environment would be relatively easy to organise. It would also be an environment that you would be able to actually see progress. Finally teachers could be valued for their role modelling, leading a green revolution!
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