Self Portrait

Self Portrait
Holly Pepper

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Currently I am undertaking an internship in Utrecht, Netherlands with the renowned design team consisting of Tejo Remy + Rene Veenhuizen. Through this blog I plan to document my design experience in Holland.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Milano Furniture Fair 2011- First Impressions





Well I have taken off on another small jaunt across Europe to the Milan Furniture Fair. Finally after studying Italian for six years in primary school I can put the phrases to some use. I am kind of wishing we learnt a few more useful things other than singing happy birthday and hide the la gomma! Anyway, staying with Mamma + Pappa should see some speedy adoption of more Italian phrases.Thank Christ for the Italian/English dictionary, it is doing wonders in translating.

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.

Zieta



And the winner of the worst piece of design i saw today, goes to someone that produced some white fur like fluffy panniers on the back of a bike. I can't post a photo because i ran out of batteries on the camera... but it was pretty hideous.

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Midland Atelier

Midland Atelier
The Water Tower Studio.

The Water Tower View

The Floor Mat

The Floor Mat
This is an organic looking floor mat I am creating. It was inspired by mold crawling up the wall