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Category: DMY Berlin
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Workaround by Sofie Aschan Eriksson, Lund University School of Industrial Design. As seen at DMY Berlin 2016
smow | 05.06.2016

DMY Berlin 2016: High Five!!

We're not going to claim that DMY Berlin 2016 was a vintage year, for us the 14th edition of the international design festival featured too little of substance, too much superficial, too little original, too much that was too obvious and far, far, far too many intricate filigree light bulbs. And nothing says "lifestyle", or winds us up, more than an intricate, filigree light bulb. However our impression may have been partially clouded by the distraction caused by the large amount of open space

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DMY Berlin 2015: H20 - Tea by induction by Marta Suslow
Designer | 19.06.2015

DMY Berlin 2015: H20 - Tea by Induction by Marta Suslow

"Fancy a cup of tea?" "Oh, yes please! Thank you!" "OK, I'll put the kettle on" "Troglodyte" Boiling water for tea is a process as old as, well...... the drinking of hot tea. And a process that has remained largely unchanged since. When change has come it has invariably been influenced by technology: kettles over open fires, kettles on stoves, electric kettles. But always involving a kettle. (Accepting that is that the samovar is a "kettle".......and even if you don't, the samovar has

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DMY Berlin 2015: FS Modular Shelving System by Philipp Beisheim
Designer | 16.06.2015

DMY Berlin 2015: SF Modular Shelving System by Philipp Beisheim

There is little in this world that brings us more pleasure than a good modular shelving system. We know that sentence speaks volumes about the state of our alleged "lives", but we're not embarrassed to admit it. We like shelves. Consequently, given that it appears that everybody but everybody is developing a modular shelving system and that as a result you currently can't visit a furniture fair or design event without stumbling every few metres across another new system, these would appear

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Klein's Lamp by Lucien Dubuis
Designer | 14.06.2015

DMY Berlin 2015: Klein's Lamp by Lucien Dubuis

Customs are a form of social regulation. Love them or loath them customs allow us to form connections, to find a sense of stability and order, to differentiate ourselves from others, align ourselves with others, and not least enjoy regular festivities and parties as customs are celebrated and/or enacted. Customs are therefore inherently good. Unless it is the sort of Customs which sit at the border between two counties and stop a young Swiss ceramicist displaying their work at an

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DMY Berlin 2015: Splitting Wood by Bastian Austermann
Designer | 13.06.2015

DMY Berlin 2015: Splitting Wood by Bastian Austermann

The first thing any carpentry apprentice does is build their own wooden toolbox. It makes sense. You're learning to work with wood, you will need somewhere to keep all your chisels and saws. So you build a toolbox. The first thing anyone wanting to chop logs does is make their own wooden axe head ? Or perhaps better put ?????????????????? But why couldn't it be the case, for as HFBK Hamburg student Bastian Austermann demonstrates with his Splitting Wood project, such is eminently

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Fish Futures by Martí Guixé, as seen at Pet Market, Galerie erstererster, Berlin
Designer | 13.06.2015

DMY Design Spots 2015: Pet Market at Galerie erstererster

Much as we adore our pets they can be troublesome. Be it the cat the refuses to move from your bed, the dog that chews your shoes, pillows, newspapers et al, or the sweary parrot embarrassing us at every (inopportune) moment. If only we could distract them. Maybe we should treat them better? Or at least treat them to better possessions, to objects that meet a standard of functionality and design quality that we demand from our objects. We’re not averse to claiming our pets are family members,

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DMY Berlin 2015 The Shrinking Office Project by Roy Yin
Architecture | 12.06.2015

DMY Berlin 2015: The Shrinking Office Project by Roy Yin

As we have often noted in these pages, a combination of increasing automation, advancing technology, the changing nature of industry and commerce and the associated evolution of the term "office work" will increasingly enforce changes in office furniture design. And we're not being particularly clever or perceptive when we say such, its simply how the process works, how office furniture design has always progressed: be it the evolution of the office chair in the 19th century as ever more

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......detail
Designer | 12.06.2015

DMY Design Spots 2015: Migrant Birds present Modern Fossils by Song Tao

In context of DMY 2015 the Berlin/Beijing based cultural exchange association Migrant Birds are presenting the exhibition Modern Fossils, a solo exhibition of works by the Beijing based artist and designer Song Tao. Migrant Birds present Modern Fossils by Song Tao Born in Shanghai in 1969 Song Tao initially graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1986 before moving to France to complete a Masters degree in Plastic Arts at the Université Paris 1. Although Song Tao’s

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BLOW vases by Ruben der Kinderen, as seen at Contemporary Creation Processes in Design at DAD Galerie Berlin
Designer | 11.06.2015

DMY Design Spots 2015: Contemporary Creation Processes in Design at DAD Galerie Berlin

As we believe we've said before, and assume we will repeat in the future, contemporary Dutch design is largely, though not exclusively, about the research, and the subsequent processes invariably developed. If it leads to a product, that's good. But it needn't. That it however often does can be experienced in the exhibition Contemporary Creation Processes in Design on show at DAD Galerie Berlin. Curated by Berlin based, Eindhoven graduate Ruben der Kinderen Contemporary Creation Processes in

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KraftwerkBerlin_Ebene0_c-Fineartberlin
DMY Berlin | 05.06.2015

smow blog Interview: Fabian Burns, DMY Design Festival Berlin - We believe it is a festival format for which there is a continuing demand and interest.

As previously reported, the company DMY Berlin GmbH & Co. KG, who for the past decade or so has run the annual DMY Berlin design festival, filed for insolvency in October 2014: the festival itself however continues under the auspices of a new organiser, about:design. “DMY is dead. Long live DMY”, as it were. The 2015 edition of DMY opens for professional, specialist, visitors at 10am on Thursday June 11th, at 6pm that evening to the general public, and runs until Sunday June 14th. Ahead of

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dmy berln 2015
DMY Berlin | 30.01.2015

DMY Berlin 2015: Back to the Future - New Venue, New Organiser.

For its 13th edition the DMY Berlin International Design Festival will be staged in a new venue and under the auspices of a new organiser. Neither change coming particularly voluntarily. The former festival organiser DMY Berlin GmbH & Co. KG filled for insolvency in October 2014, and the process was formally opened on January 1st 2015. Given the nature of their business DMY Berlin GmbH was, though committed to the cause, never the most profitable of companies, and ever increasing financial

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Candle Holder by AU Workshop
Architecture | 01.01.2015

smow blog 2014. A pictorial review: September

Following on from the relative inactivity of August September saw us wind back up towards the 2014 autumn design festival season. But before everything kicked of in Vienna, we enjoyed the exhibitions Okolo Offline Two – Collecting at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden, Useful Exhibition by Sanghyeok Lee at the DMY Design Gallery Berlin, Alvar Aalto – Second Nature at the Vitra Design Museum and enjoyed a lovely chat with architect Eberhard Lange on the restoration of Egon Eiermann's Wohnhaus

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Useful Exhibition by Sanghyeok Lee at the DMY Design Gallery Berlin
Designer | 08.09.2014

Useful Exhibition by Sanghyeok Lee at the DMY Design Gallery Berlin

Charlotte Perriand was famously of the opinion that in terms of furniture design wood was a “… vegetable substance, bound in its very nature to decay,….” and that the future belonged to metal. For all the bent steel tubing of European modernism.1 Poul Henningsen in contrast warned that the industrial production of steel tube furniture as promoted by Perriand, Le Corbusier, the Bauhaus clique and their ilk "maa ogsaa føre til, at de sekundære Former ved Stolen" - may also lead to secondary

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DMY Berlin 2014 zTuA by Marko Steininger Martin Winkler and Fabian Steiner Hochschule Rosenheim
Architecture | 02.06.2014

(smow) blog compact DMY Berlin Special: zTuA by Marko Steininger, Martin Winkler and Fabian Steiner, Hochschule Rosenheim

We can't rule out that our interest in the project zTuA by Hochschule Rosenheim students Marko Steininger, Martin Winkler and Fabian Steiner is a direct consequence of the current situation in the (smow) blog HQ. That our professional opinions are being influenced by personal circumstances. We hope they aren't. But can't rule it out. zTuA is an acronym of "zwischen Tür und Angel" - "between door and hinge" - a nice German idiom that refers either to a necessary urgency, to being in the

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DMY Berlin Award 2014 Algaemy- crafting our future food by Blond & Bieber
Designer | 01.06.2014

(smow) blog compact DMY Berlin Special: Algaemy - Crafting our Future Food by Blond & Bieber

As our more loyal readers will be aware, for us the future is analogue. As ever more aspects of our daily routine are taken over by digital technology, the more time we have to concentrate on the things that matter. And they are all analogue. All. Parallel, open design and open processes will become more important as we all lose the need to be part of a stylised mass and finally comprehend that contemporary industrial production and distribution networks are no longer ecologically or

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DMY Berlin 2014 Clair Obscure by Fischer Weidenmüller Unterberg
Designer | 01.06.2014

(smow) blog compact DMY Berlin Special: Clair Obscur by Fischer Weidenmüller Unterberg

What you see used to be what you got. However our modern world offers a plethora of viewing possibilities, and so now what you get is influenced by how you see what you see. To this plethora Berlin based collective Fischer Weidenmüller Unterberg have now added one further option. Without going into too much detail, through a manipulation of LCD projection technology the Clair Obscur project generates an image which is invisible to the human eye. Only the use of a special filter renders the

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DMY Berlin 2014 All of a Piece by Earnest Studio and Dana Cannam
Designer | 31.05.2014

(smow) blog compact DMY Berlin Special: All of a Piece by Earnest Studio and Dana Cannam

Those of you who followed our sadly demised Posterous account - Why Twitter? Why? - will recall our joy at seeing the Bravais Desk by Canadian born, Rotterdam based designer Dana Cannam at the "Thoughts of Home" showcase during Dutch Design Week 2011. A wonderfully charismatic product Bravais impressed/impresses with its obvious functionality and effortlessly reduced form. Equally as effortlessly reduced is the modular tableware system "All of a Piece" developed by Dana Cannam in cooperation

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DMY Berlin 2014 Designpreis der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2014 Exhibition Thread Family Flip Sellin
Awards | 31.05.2014

(smow) blog compact DMY Berlin Special: Designpreis der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2014 Exhibition

We recently attended a very interesting talk from Munich based designer Stefan Diez at the Vitra Design Museum in which, amongst other subjects, he briefly queried why design journalists are happy to write about furniture and accessories, but no one writes about, for example, safety helmets....... Ranger by Joe Engelhard and Michael Schuler for German manufacturer ENHA is, according to the designers, the first ever safety helmet to incorporate a double wall construction principle; thus

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DMY Berlin 2014 Fachhochschule Potsdam formHOLZ woven veneer shoes by Tobias Jänicke
Designer | 31.05.2014

(smow) blog compact DMY Berlin Special: Fachhochschule Potsdam - formHOLZ

At DMY Berlin 2014 fifteen students from the Fachhochschule Potsdam are presenting the results of the seminar "formHOLZ" Run under the supervision of Professor Hermann Weizenegger formHOLZ explored new possibilities with moulded, formed and otherwise shaped wood and the exhibition at DMY Berlin presents a series of prototypes which demonstrate new possibilities with one of the oldest, and most researched, materials/processes in industrial product design. And ably demonstrates that regardless

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DMY Berlin 2014 Flowers for Slovakia Lost & Found by Vitra
Designer | 30.05.2014

(smow) blog compact DMY Berlin Special: Flowers for Slovakia. Lost & Found by Vitra

One doesn't have to understand why designers or design institutions do the things they do. You don't always have to be able to follow the logic. Sometimes all you need to do is sit back and enjoy the ride. Such an occasion, at least for us, is the project Lost & Found by Vitra from the Bratislava based design platform Flowers for Slovakia. Essentially the project asked 15 young Slovakian designers to combine forlorn items of traditional Slovakian folk furniture with elements from the Vitra

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Godis by Nestor Campos
Designer | 30.05.2014

(smow) blog compact DMY Berlin Special: Godis by Nestor Campos

As older readers will be aware one of our all-time favourite products is the table family Tints by Jason Miller. Although officially inspired by aviator sunglasses what initially attracted us to Tints, and still holds our famously fluctuant attention, is their unmissable reference to candy. They look like big boiled sweets suspended in a maple frame. Our fascination with the Tint tables isn't however the reason for writing about the lamp Godis by Lund University student Nestor Campos. Even

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DMY Berlin CUCULA Refugees Company for Crafts and Design
DMY Berlin | 29.05.2014

(smow) blog compact DMY Berlin Special: CUCULA – Refugees Company for Crafts and Design

"I want to create models for a different society, for a way of producing and living differently", announces Enzo Mari in one of several quotes presented in the exhibition "Who is Mari? at KPM Berlin World. A wonderful example of what can be achieved can currently be explored at DMY Berlin in context of the Berlin based organisation CUCULA. Established in 2013 CUCULA is, as the organisation's full name implies, a craft and design company run by refugees. Or at least all going to plan it

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Berlin Design Week Reset Design New working models at the Spanish Embassy Berlin Yarussi Alvarado
Designer | 29.05.2014

(smow) blog compact Berlin Design Week Special: Reset Design - New working models at the Spanish Embassy Berlin

Events such as Berlin Design Week naturally provide an attractive platform for countries and regions to present themselves and their creatives. Some shows do that very well. Some less so. The exhibition Reset Design - New working models currently showing at the Spanish Embassy Berlin belongs to the first category. Curated by Marcelo Leslabay Reset Design presents ten young Spanish companies, companies all founded in the last three years by designers looking for new ways to produce, market

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DMY Berlin Award 2014 TON
Awards | 29.05.2014

DMY Berlin 2014: DMY Award

With DMY Berlin 2014 up and running the field is open for the 2014 DMY Award. An award that this year has a little extra value given that the trophies have been designed by last years "Young Talent" winner Philipp Weber. And made in Berlin by Berlin Glas e.V. As ever ten nominees have been selected from all exhibitors at this years DMY festival: and from the ten the international jury will select three winners. One of whom will be Dutch. That's not part of the competition rules. Just a

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