Back in the day one of the joys of reading the British Yellow Pages was the entry for Boring: "See Civil Engineers"* Oh how we laughed! And still do! Partly to counter such negative associations, partly to explain what Civil Engineers do, and partly to explain just how fundamentally that what Civil Engineers do has contributed to our contemporary society, and the multitude of possibilities available to us, whether we choose to take them or not, the Oskar von Miller Forum Munich is staging the
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When we spoke with designer Patrick Frey in context of our #campustour, the plan was quite simply to discuss contemporary design education; however, the natural flow of the conversation took us in a raft of interesting directions, including his experiences as a freelance designer, the question of development payments in the furniture industry and the background to his and Markus Boge's joint diploma project, a project in many regards personified by the tables Kant and Marketing. Kant by
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Can innovation be an end to itself? Are we living in excess? Do things bewilder and inspire us still? Does a museum collection inevitably lose its link to reality as time goes by? What is good design? The exhibition Hella Jongerius & Louise Schouwenberg – Beyond the New at Die Neue Sammlung Munich poses a lot of questions. Questions which needn't necessarily find answers, but which should serve as inspiration and motivation to further questions, and thus a deeper discourse on design. Hella
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Architects are always very keen to stress how they are working in the interests of society, for society. Often selflessly so. Yet little polarises society quite like architecture. And no architecture polarises quite like Brutalism. Whereas in discourses on other architectural genres the middle ground is a place where those of moderate opinions can meet objectively and attempt to approach one another's position: there are no Brutalism moderates. With the exhibition SOS Brutalism - Save the
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Modular lighting is a seldom encountered genre, and when it is encountered, then invariably in a very technical form, a form that implies the computer software has taken a greater role in the creative process than the designers understanding of form-giving, There are however exceptions..... 304 by Nick Beens, as seen at Dutch Design Week Eindhoven 2017 Although we saw the 304 collection by Nick Beens' at the 2017 Design Academy Eindhoven Graduation Exhibition, it's inclusion here should in
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While figuratively "blowing the roof off" is arguably an aim of every design festival; physically having your roof blown off is not. Sadly that is what happened to Designblok Prague 2017; Storm Herwart, when not completely de-roofing the Art Deco Palace of Industry which hosted the event, causing damage sufficient to force organisers the cancel the last two days of the five day festival. A situation not only unfortunate and irksome for the organisers and exhibitors, but disappointing all
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Although as an event Dutch Design Week has always had a focus on presenting design in context, design in practice, our feeling is that of late that focus has intensified, something we thoroughly approve of as it helps make tangible that design is, can be, more than pretty objects; does however mean that you increasingly need to take more time with you to Eindhoven. Or accept that you are going to miss a lot of, potentially, interesting and thought provoking presentations. Necessity meant that
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Like gardens mottled with the vibrant leaves of autumn, so too is November 2017 bestrewn with a multicoloured carpet of new design and architecture exhibitions. We could have published three such lists, seriously considered it .... have however instead taken the opportunity to bring our monthly recommendations average up to where it should be. Five. Back in August we only had four new recommendations, and so to compensate summer's shortfall, here we present six, technically seven. Although it
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In context of Designblok Prague 2017 the winners of the fourth edition of the pan-European design graduate competition Diploma Selection were unveiled at a ceremony in the city's Palace of Industry. Diploma Selection 2017 Winners, Nominated, Jury, Uncle Tom Cobley and all, at Designblok Prague 2017 Diploma Selection 2017 Initiated in 2014 as a joint initiative by Designblok and the European Union National Institutes for Culture, EUNIC, Diploma Selection is open to all students graduating in
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"Marcel Breuer seeing a pair of bicycle handle-bars decided to make chairs using the same industrial process", notes Jasper Morrison in his text, The Poet will not Polish, "the new world constructor seeing a pair of bicycle handle-bars decides to use them as they are and save himself the trouble and expense of bending the tube."* On seeing an aluminium tube, Eindhoven based studio OS ∆ OOS followed, in many respects, a similar logic. The result is the Tunnel collection. OS ∆ OOS @ Dutch
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Algorithms as dance, a tactile architecture guide and a future-proof flat sharing platform. On Thursday October 26th the winners of the 2017 Kölner Design Preis were unveiled at a ceremony in the city's Museum für Angewandte Kunst, MAKK; and where until Sunday November 19th the three winning, and all nominated, projects, can be viewed in a specially conceived Kölner Design Preis 2017 exhibition. Kölner Design Preis 2017 exhibition at Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln, MAKK Celebrating its
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As we believe we've noted before, the joy in that exhibition format in which designers present objects which are important and/or relevant to them, is that no matter how often it is repeated it is always new. Same, same, but different. For their 2017 show Dutch Invertuals are presenting collections of objects from 45 alumni which have an importance to/relevance for them, or which simply represent an object of wonder and inspiration to the relevant designer. And because it's Dutch Invertuals
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"The problem of the construction of affordable housing for the lowest earning sections of the population is currently a primary concern in almost all civilized countries." Thus invited the Congrès internationaux d'architecture moderne to their second congress, a three day event which opened on Thursday October 24th 1929 in the Palmengarten Frankfurt am Main, and which saw some of the leading protagonists of inter-war architecture discuss potential solutions for that most primary of concerns.
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The Ecole Cantonale d'art de Lausanne, ECAL, isn't actually in Lausanne, but the community of Renens on the western edge of Lausanne. Édith Piaf famously opined that, je ne regrette rien, but how many of this year ECAL graduates would be singing, je regrette Renens? Or perhaps better put, how many of this year's graduates would Renens regrette? To gauge the mood, we anchored on the shores of Lac Léman to visit the 2017 ECAL Graduation Show......... Ecole Cantonale d'art de Lausanne ECAL
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As regular readers will be well aware, here at smow blog HQ we're very much of the opinion that fashion isn't design. Never was. Never will be. Design, and without wanting to wade too deep into the definition quagmire, arose from applied craft/applied art, fashion is applied craft/applied art. And so while unquestionably a creative discipline, isn't design. Neither is Graphic. Design can however inspire and influence fashion, past decades recalling numerous occasions of fashion houses being
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Ukrainian designers haven't featured often in these pages. Arguably never. And may never have, had it not been for the exhibition Transformation staged at the Ukrainian Cultural Centre during Paris Design Week 2017 The installation Pulse of Life by Nikolay Kabluka & decoruznetsov studio, as seen at Transformation, Ukrainian Cultural Centre, Paris Design Week 2017 Embassy and Cultural Centre presentations are a regular feature of design weeks, and as a general rule are awful. As in truly
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Aachen is famous for its Cathedral, its Rathaus, as a sedes regia, Royal seat, and coronation location of Germanic monarchs for 600 years, and its confectionery. But for its design? The network Designmetropole Aachen aim to change that, through both promoting the work of Aachen based designers in exhibitions and events, and also through being a network, a variagted structure in which local creatives support local creatives. Among Designmetropole Aachen's current projects is as co-curators of
read moreJust as the Eamsien adage proclaims that "the details are not the details; they make the product", so too are a design school's teaching staff not the teaching staff, they make the school. Consequently, it follows that to better understand not only an individual institution, but also both the wider contemporary condition, and possible future directions, of design education, it is important to talk to, and understand, design school teaching staff; both those full-time Professors, and also those
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Whereas most design schools stage their annual exhibition at the end of the summer semester, there are exceptions, such as the Folkwang Universität der Künste, Essen, who present theirs just before the start of the winter semester. And so nigh on three months after all others have ended. Because, one wonders, they fear its brilliant glow would place all other schools in its shade, and they want to remain fair to their colleagues elsewhere? Because they have something to hide, and hope by
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"October is the month of painted leaves. Their rich glow now flashes round the world. As fruits and leaves and the day itself acquire a bright tint just before they fall, so the year near its setting. October is its sunset sky; November the later twilight" ‡ Before Henry David Thoreau's twilight comes, our five painted leaves, flashing their rich glow round the world from Nürnberg, Lausanne, Hamburg, Eindhoven and Barcelona. "On the art of building a teahouse" at the Neues Museum Nürnberg,
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With their 1997 exhibition The Work of Charles and Ray Eames the Vitra Design Museum staged one of the first major Charles and Ray Eames retrospectives Twenty years later they return to two of the 20th century's most important creatives with An Eames Celebration: less of Charles and Ray, and more of the diversity, depth and continuing relevance of their work. Charles & Ray Eames. The Power of Design, Vitra Design Museum That it is 20 years since the Vitra Design Museum last dedicated an
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As regular readers will be aware, for us there is little more elegant and logical than the modular shelving system. And in the variety of systems developed, little which better illustrates both the multitude of options available for the seemingly most simple of functionalities, and thereby the talent required, or perhaps function, of the designer in developing something meaningful, interesting and, ideally, attractive. Of late we have seen several interesting new modular shelving
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One of the inescapable features of our recent #campustour was the number of projects exploring potential, possible, new materials, including, and amongst many others, egg shells, eelgrass and chitosan. Explorations whose relevance and importance was neatly underscored post-tour by the exhibition Pure Gold. Upcycled! Upgraded! at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg. Beyond the questions posed by the projects themselves, the experimentation we've seen these past few weeks has increasingly
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Having grown up near Quimper, Brittany, Ronan Bouroullec moved to Paris in 1989 to study industrial design; since when the French capital has not only witnessed him complete his studies, but establish a studio, achieve his first commercial success and together with his brother Erwan develop projects for a roster of international clients including, and amongst many others, Vitra, Magis, Flos, Kvadrat and Samsung, in addition to realising numerous collaborations with Galerie kreo. We met up with
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