vuvuzela lamp tent
Tomoni Sayuda. All photography by Amelia Gregory.
Tent London featured both curated rooms and areas where designers had paid for stands. In Tent Digital I loved this whimsical piece by Tomoni Sayuda even though I have no idea what it’s purpose was: ambient sounds were played when the glowing eggs were placed in different nesty holes.
Kingston University had cleverly invited all their now famous alumni, medications including David Chipperfield and Ed Carpenter of the ubiquitous pigeon lamp, viagra dosage to display their designs in the Made in Kingston room – thus creating the biggest promotional tool ever known. Very very savvy. The only Kingston graduate show I had time to look at was the MA Illustration show; read my review here.
And then onto the stands…
The Modern Garden Company make exterior furniture, page and I was most taken with Rock, fun felt wool cushion seats that will even work in the great outdoors, allegedly.
Bespoke lamp stands from Alex Randall featured antlers and a swarm of stuffed rats from Susan Labarre dubbed the “most nightmarish lamp ever created…”
Beautiful abstract carpets from Danish textile designer Naja Utzon Popov are designed in her East End workshop and woven by skilled artisans in India.
Kitchen clocks that once graced the walls of 1970s German kitchens were lovingly sourced, repaired and displayed by London Timepiece. Confusing name though.
A vuvuzela lamp! Whatever next! Very amusing. From John Edwards.
The JJAM Curators Collective had put together a fun collection of designs made using the most banal everyday item – the yellow dishcloth. Stand outs included Polish it Off! by Dora & Fullard, So Much Time So Little To Do (I wish!!!) by Cure Studio, and A Word about Fashion by Catherine Ann Haynes.
So Much Time So Little To Do (I wish!!!) by Cure Studio
Polish it Off! by Dora & Fullard
A Word about Fashion by Catherine Ann Haynes
Recycled fabric covered armchairs by Kelly Swallow reminded me of local shop Squint. But anyone who refashions old fabrics has got my seal of approval – there’s room for many of these bespoke designers up and down the country.
The Makaranda collection by Quirico featured vibrant brightly patterned and coloured foot stools and pouffes – although I somewhat balked when I discovered the price – a mere £425 each. Oh what it must be to have a huge disposable income.
There was some lovely delicate jewellery on display from Clerkenwell based shop Family Tree.
Miller Goodman make wonderful wooden block games out of rubberwood for kids.
Very clever plastic fold up Flux Chairs, but I wasn’t convinced of their comfort levels.
And a big mention surely has to go to the huge blue rope Knitting Nancy interactive installation from Superblue that was prominently installed as everyone came in. Fabulous fun, and a serious nod to the impact of craft techniques on the entire design world.
Tomoni Sayuda. All photography by Amelia Gregory.
Tent London featured both curated rooms and areas where designers had paid for stands. In Tent Digital I loved this whimsical piece by Tomoni Sayuda even though I have no idea what it’s purpose was: ambient sounds were played when the glowing eggs were placed in different nesty holes.
Kingston University had cleverly invited all their now famous alumni, about it including David Chipperfield and Ed Carpenter of the ubiquitous pigeon lamp, check to display their designs in the Made in Kingston room – thus creating the biggest promotional tool ever known. Very very savvy. The only Kingston graduate show I had time to look at was the MA Illustration show; read my review here.
And then onto the stands…
The Modern Garden Company make exterior furniture, and I was most taken with Rock, fun felt wool cushion seats that will even work in the great outdoors, allegedly.
Bespoke lamp stands from Alex Randall featured antlers and a swarm of stuffed rats from Susan Labarre dubbed the “most nightmarish lamp ever created…”
Beautiful abstract carpets from Danish textile designer Naja Utzon Popov are designed in her East End workshop and woven by skilled artisans in India.
Kitchen clocks that once graced the walls of 1970s German kitchens were lovingly sourced, repaired and displayed by London Timepiece. Confusing name though.
A vuvuzela lamp! Whatever next! Very amusing. From John Edwards.
The JJAM Curators Collective had put together a fun collection of designs made using the most banal everyday item – the yellow dishcloth. Stand outs included Polish it Off! by Dora & Fullard, So Much Time So Little To Do (I wish!!!) by Cure Studio, and A Word about Fashion by Catherine Ann Haynes.
So Much Time So Little To Do (I wish!!!) by Cure Studio
Polish it Off! by Dora & Fullard
A Word about Fashion by Catherine Ann Haynes
Recycled fabric covered armchairs by Kelly Swallow reminded me of local shop Squint. But anyone who refashions old fabrics has got my seal of approval – there’s room for many of these bespoke designers up and down the country.
The Makaranda collection by Quirico featured vibrant brightly patterned and coloured foot stools and pouffes – although I somewhat balked when I discovered the price – a mere £425 each. Oh what it must be to have a huge disposable income.
There was some lovely delicate jewellery on display from Clerkenwell based shop Family Tree.
Miller Goodman make wonderful wooden block games out of rubberwood for kids.
Very clever plastic fold up Flux Chairs, but I wasn’t convinced of their comfort levels.
And a big mention surely has to go to the huge blue rope Knitting Nancy interactive installation from Superblue that was prominently installed as everyone came in. Fabulous fun, and a serious nod to the impact of craft techniques on the entire design world.
Tomoni Sayuda. All photography by Amelia Gregory.
Tent London featured both curated rooms and areas where designers had paid for stands. In Tent Digital I loved this whimsical piece by Tomoni Sayuda even though I have no idea what it’s purpose was: ambient sounds were played when the glowing eggs were placed in different nesty holes.
Kingston University had cleverly invited all their now famous alumni, viagra including David Chipperfield and Ed Carpenter of the ubiquitous pigeon lamp, to display their designs in the Made in Kingston room – thus creating the biggest promotional tool ever known. Very very savvy. The only Kingston graduate show I had time to look at was the MA Illustration show; read my review here.
And then onto the stands…
The Modern Garden Company make exterior furniture, and I was most taken with Rock, fun felt wool cushion seats that will even work in the great outdoors, allegedly.
Bespoke lamp stands from Alex Randall featured antlers and a swarm of stuffed rats from Susan Labarre dubbed the “most nightmarish lamp ever created…”
Beautiful abstract carpets from Danish textile designer Naja Utzon Popov are designed in her East End workshop and woven by skilled artisans in India.
Kitchen clocks that once graced the walls of 1970s German kitchens were lovingly sourced, repaired and displayed by London Timepiece. Confusing name though.
A vuvuzela lamp! Whatever next! Very amusing. From John Edwards.
The JJAM Curators Collective had put together a fun collection of designs made using the most banal everyday item – the yellow dishcloth. Stand outs included Polish it Off! by Dora & Fullard, So Much Time So Little To Do (I wish!!!) by Cure Studio, and A Word about Fashion by Catherine Ann Haynes.
So Much Time So Little To Do (I wish!!!) by Cure Studio
Polish it Off! by Dora & Fullard
A Word about Fashion by Catherine Ann Haynes
Recycled fabric covered armchairs by Kelly Swallow reminded me of local shop Squint. But anyone who refashions old fabrics has got my seal of approval – there’s room for many of these bespoke designers up and down the country.
The Makaranda collection by Quirico featured vibrant brightly patterned and coloured foot stools and pouffes – although I somewhat balked when I discovered the price – a mere £425 each. Oh what it must be to have a huge disposable income.
There was some lovely delicate jewellery on display from Clerkenwell based shop Family Tree.
Miller Goodman make wonderful wooden block games out of rubberwood for kids.
Very clever plastic fold up Flux Chairs, but I wasn’t convinced of their comfort levels.
And a big mention surely has to go to the huge blue rope Knitting Nancy interactive installation from Superblue that was prominently installed as everyone came in. Fabulous fun, and a serious nod to the impact of craft techniques on the entire design world. Read about the LAB CRAFT exhibition at Tent here.
Painted tables by Zoe Murphy.
Now for the best of sustainable design at Tent London, ailment which was dispersed throughout the exhibition and included the exterior exhibit ShowHow, showcasing Danish design, in Dray Walk.
Furniture Magpies collect old furniture and put it together in unconventional ways – so for instance chair legs become a lamp stand, and an old drawer becomes a desk with a liftable lid. Their designs don’t always work – sometimes the results just look a bit too clunky – but I really liked the bravado of these designs, which often use brightly coloured fabric trimmings.
The Nogg chicken house is the latest in avian des-res. And you can’t beat it for a stylish bit of garden sculpture – it’s the most modern chicken coop you can lay your hands on, made of yummy smelling cedar wood as well. Great for rearing your own eggs.
Zoe Murphy is based down on the south coast in Margate, where she no doubt sources all her retro furniture for a pretty penny – but it’s her beautifully painted designs which make these pieces an absolute joy. Not something most people would be able to replicate at home. *You can see why she sold most of her designs to Liberty in the first half hour.*
era was founded only this year with the aim of challenging our preconceived notions of sustainable design. Chairs and tables are based on a honeycomb design which is cheap to make but has an extremely strong cellular structure. The structures are held solid by a stiffening tube of steel and they currently have a patent pending on this technology.
The Rod desk lamp is made from hazel rod and fibres, an excellent example of how very simple unprocessed materials can be used to make something very beautiful and useful. Sebastian Cox from the University of Lincoln makes all of his products from coppiced hazel, a strong, light and entirely renewable material that grows in abundance in the UK, and was once used to create many things. This is truly sustainable design.
What about a cardboard rocking horse, isn’t he pretty? The Eco Rocker from Shell Thomas is a flat pack cardboard horse made from 100& recycled paper board.
Now over to ShowHow… where I met the lady responsible for the project – curator Iben Hansen of the Danish Design Centre in Copenhagen. She was very keen to explain her principles of sustainability, which for me really stretch a definition: apparently anything that is really good design and built to last is sustainable. I think that’s one aspect of sustainability, but there’s a whole lot more to being properly sustainable – such as making use of materials that are not harmful to the environment either in manufacture or disposal. And just not consuming vast quantities of new stuff all the time. Her attitude is very much of the ‘we must carry on enjoying the luxuries in life’ school that excuses consumerism – Green Capitalism in fact. I don’t entirely disagree, I think we will always crave new stuff, and people will always want to make lovely new stuff (eg. me) but this has also to be tempered with the careful use of resources that truly sustainable design should tackle.
The Oficina Creativa Acapulco Chair
Amongst the Arne Jacobsen design classics on show at ShowHow there was an ethical beauty product range from Unique, and some samples for me to take home in teeny tiny wasteful plastic bottles. And I wasn’t impressed with some intelligent fabrics that require less water in washing from huge chemical company Novozymes, again accompanied by the most insane amount of gumph; a big box of huge promotional cards, destined to go straight in the bin.
I rather liked the gorgeous blown glass LED lights from Justyna Piotrowicz and the wonderful Acapulco chairs made by valued Mexican artisans out of brightly coloured plastic wires for Oficina Creativa. Oh so comfortable to sit in.
I suspect there was a serious amount of big company sponsorship money infiltrating this exhibition: it was a shame that ShowHow didn’t find space for more of the truly grassroots sustainable designers that I am sure abound in Denmark.
Written by Amelia Gregory on Friday October 22nd, 2010 8:09 pm
Categories ,Acapulco Chair, ,Arne Jacobsen, ,Danish Design Centre, ,Denmark, ,design, ,Dray Walk, ,Eco Rocker, ,Elemental Textiles, ,era, ,Furniture Magpies, ,Glass, ,Green Capitalism, ,Hazel, ,Iben Hansen, ,Justyna Piotrowicz, ,liberty, ,Margate, ,Nogg, ,Novozymes, ,Oficina Creativa, ,Sebastian Cox, ,Shell Thomas, ,ShowHow, ,Silviculture, ,sustainability, ,Tent London, ,unique, ,Unique Products, ,University of Lincoln, ,Zoe Murphy
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