When all's said and done Marcel Breuer's 1927 Wassily Chair is nothing more than a couple of bits of material stretched over a metal frame. Giandomenico Belotti's 1960 Spaghetti Chair is nothing more than some PVC cord stretched over a metal frame And so on first impressions there is nothing new about "Upholstered Chair" by Jooyeon Lee. Damn those first impressions............... Created as her Diploma project at the Aalto University Helsinki, "Upholstered Chair" is a lounger created from
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One of the reasons we've never got on well with trends is because ultimately he who shouts loudest is perceived as being the best, most innovative or most important. DMY Berlin 2012 demonstrates that is not the case. While in Hangar 4 the main sponsor screams his marketing budget at full volume; about 40 metres away two FH Potsdam graduates are quietly presenting much more interesting and socially relevant objects. And much as we'd like to proclaim that their minimal, non-intrusive stand
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If we're honest we can't remember if the Vitra Design Museum exhibition "The Essence of Things: Design and the Art of Reduction" has a section devoted to ergonomics. If not, they may need to extend it to include "The Half" by Finnish/Korean design collective Studio Sailing to Mars. Initially developed with musicians in mind, "The Half" is... half a chair Proportionally. Not physically. Through the reduced form the sitter is more or less forced to adopt a more positive posture - one simply
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Egon Eiermann allegedly once began work on a series of coffins for a Berlin funeral company. The series was sadly never realised, but we can well imagine in which direction Eiermann would have gone.... On the Farmer's Creativity by Agri-expo Yunlin stand at DMY Berlin 2012 is an object that approaches the subject with a little more agility. Return by Sa' Bella Design / Sally Lin is an urn. An urn made of recycled paper, the walls of which are impregnated with seeds. As the paper
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One of the real joys of the first few days of DMY Berlin 2012 has been catching up with Stephan Schulz. Not just because Stephan is without question the product designer we know with the healthiest attitude to the whole circus, and as such after a few minutes in his company you no longer fear the workload that lies ahead. But also because we'd been looking forward to seeing his new Domestic Landscape collection. A collection that as the press material so promisingly begins "... transports
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As already stated, DMY Berlin 2012 is hosting not only the Designpreis der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2012 exhibition but also the jury meeting to decide which entries should be nominated - and as such go forward to the short list from which the winners will be selected. The jury have done their work and until June 10th we all have the chance to not only view all submitted entries. But also disagree with the jury's decisions. It's why jury's make decisions! The first thing to say is that
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Because we know what's coming up at DMY Berlin, we loved this quote from Marcel Breuer that we discovered in connection with the exhibition Marcel Breuer – Design and Architecture at Bauhaus Dessau "The furniture, even the walls of rooms, are no longer solid, monumental, seemingly immobile, or even in-built. They are much more light, open, almost plotted in the room...."1 All will, hopefully, be clear by the end of the week! 1. Marcel Breuer, Das Neue Frankfurt, January 1928. Quoted in
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As part of the 2012 festival DMY Berlin will be hosting a one day symposium-cum-workgroup looking at design education. As regular readers will be aware design education is a subject we often come back to; be it in terms of business education in design schools, questioning the number of design students or looking at opportunities for networking design schools with local communities. It therefore goes without saying that we find the fact that DMY Berlin is staging such an event very
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Although we know better, sometimes we could almost believe that this blog is planned. In our "Belgium is Design" post from Milan we wrote "Tim Baute from interror was for several years one of the true highlights at Designers Fair in Cologne." And a couple of weeks later in pops the information that he will be making his debut at DMY Berlin. If his new "Stealth" product range will be a highlight remains to be seen. And certainly the competition is tough. New Zealand designer David Trubridge,
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A couple of years ago we were sat, late one Friday evening, in the kitchen in the Moormann Berge in Aschau, when Nils Holger Moormann came in. Beaming. He'd just returned from collecting a "German Design Prize" in Gold for Berge and enthused how, in comparison to other design prizes, winning the Designpreis der Bundesrepublik Deutschland was like winning Olympic gold. He may not have compared it to the Olympics, our memories may be fuzzy on that point. But it was certainly high praise. And
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After bringing you things you have to be in Paris to see. We bring you something you'll have to be in Stockholm to see. Helpful as we are. We first saw Spiral Shelf by Stockholm based Argue Design at DMY Berlin 2010. And fell in love with it pretty much straight away. We then met up with Matilda Nordgård from Argue Design at Stockholm Furniture Fair 2011, where we conducted a very interesting and entertaining interview with her. An interview we really must get round to writing up sometime
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Under DMY Berlin 2011 lancerede Daniel Wahl aka Weltunit sit nye skrivebord Wilbur. Bordet er specielt designet til den klassiske Egon Eiermann bordramme, og Wilburs primære funktion er at hjæpe brugerne med at genvinde kontrollen over deres arbejdsareal. Hvad de fleste ikke ved er, at Egon Eiermann udelukkende designede bordets ramme, da det var meningen at brugeren selv skulle levere eller fremstille deres egen bordplade - mange af Eiermanns studerende brugte eksempelvis gamle døre på
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Among the most innovative exhibition concepts we saw at DMY 2011 was that from the Holland based Portuguese design platform Made out Portugal. They showed their works in the back of a truck. Or at least they did at the beginning - the combination of location and weather meaning that they did eventually have move indoors. But that's not to distract from the concept itself. Beloved by governments and state institutions looking to increase "participation", or indeed health service providers
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For their 2011 project the Berlin/Milan design group Transalpino chose to explore the "design" tradition that exists between their two cities. The fruits of their research were presented at DMY Berlin 2011under the title "Made in Between". To find out a little more about the project we spoke to Transalpino member Christoffer Martens. (smow)blog: Briefly, what is the background to "Made in Between"? Christoffer Martens: Normally one would only speak of Berlin as a design city or Milan as a
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During DMY Berlin 2011 Daniel Wahl aka weltunit formally launched his new desk top Wilbur. Specially designed for the classic Egon Eiermann table frame, Wilbur's principle function is in helping the user regain control of their workspace. For all cable organisation. Unbeknown to many, Egon Eiermann only designed the table frame - the intention was that user should supply their own top. And indeed many of Eiermann's students simply used old doors on top of their frames. Back then everything
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One of the genuine highlights of our year is DMY Berlin. Not just because it offers the chance to spend a week in Berlin, but because whereas all design festivals, inevitably, have a commercial aspect - at DMY Berlin it is not rammed down your throat. Conceptual, experimental design is just as welcome as market ready products, and one genuinely has the feeling that "design" is the only thing that matters. Egos, star allure and bottomless expense accounts belong elsewhere. DMY Berlin 2011 is
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On June 26th the (smow)blog team befind themselves in Weil am Rhein and a workshop in cardboard furniture production at the Vitra Design Museum. The plans for our new piece are relatively well advanced, that said we did take the opportunity to check out some of the cardboard furniture on display at this years DMY Berlin. Below a small selection of some of the pieces that especially caught our attention. Edge Table was the first collaboration between father and son team Cameron and Martin
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Of course it wasn't a UFO at DMY Berlin Oh but how we laughed. The structure was the so-called "Tape Installation" by the Austrian/Croatian design team For Use/Numen. First presented at the 2009 Vienna Design Week the installation was in Berlin as advertising and an invitation for the 2010 Vienna Design Week. Which makes it all the more amusing that it won a DMY Award. In Vienna it was an original installation, and importantly an installation in context that demonstrated to visitors what
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Between 1965 and 1985 the Soviet Union launched some 57 satellites from their rocket launching base on Berlin's Alexander Platz; thus, making Berlin the single most important launch site in the Soviet block. Following the disintegration of first the Berlin Wall and subsequently the Warsaw Pact, satellite launches from Alexander Platz ceased and the area was converted to a nature park for tourists and those who prey on such. In 1995 Berlin City Council erected an exact replica of a satellite
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At the risk of alienating the whole of Switzerland, it is probably fair to say that globally Swiss design is most successfully represented by pointy chocolate. And the font Helvetica. Although that may only be an issue to the hard working young men of Berlin-Mitte. With their Swiss focus the organisers of the 2010 DMY Berlin set out to try to introduce other facets and directions of Swiss design to a wider public. Something which they achieved; albeit with a couple of provisos. The idea
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It is truly the stuff of conspiracy theories. A disused US air base. An object of unfamiliar form created from a super-light weight material. We're just missing an autopsy video....
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Between 1965 and 1985 the Soviet Union launched some 57 satellites from their rocket launching base on Berlin's Alexander Platz; thus, making Berlin the single most important launch site in the Soviet block. Following the disintegration of first the Berlin Wall and subsequently the Warsaw Pact, satellite launches from Alexander Platz ceased and the area was converted to a nature park for tourists and those who prey on such. In 1995 Berlin City Council erected an exact replica of a satellite
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Between 1965 and 1985 the Soviet Union launched some 57 satellites from their rocket launching base on Berlin's Alexander Platz; thus, making Berlin the single most important launch site in the Soviet block. Following the disintegration of first the Berlin Wall and subsequently the Warsaw Pact, satellite launches from Alexander Platz ceased and the area was converted to a nature park for tourists and those who prey on such. In 1995 Berlin City Council erected an exact replica of a satellite
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For Berlins premier design show DMY Berlin is mighty shy: but then it is only 5. And certainly no better explanation occurs to us as to why the entrances should be so well hidden. But with the help of a man with a knitting machine under his arm we eventually found our way to Hanger 5 - and our initial grumpiness at the signage shortcomings soon passed. We've been to many a design show in our time; but never in a venue that works quite as well as Tempelhof. Despite having been an active
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