Unbelievably, Eindhoven based design studio Daphna Laurens have never, ever, participated at Salone Satellite, that section of the Milan furniture fair devoted to young design talents. Unbelievably because they are unquestionably talented, and are equally unquestionably young. Even if the works displayed in Milan suggested a maturity beyond their years. Studio Daphna Laurens present Prototipi @ Salone Satellite Milan 2016 Presented under the title Prototipi Daphna Isaacs and Laurens
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To the casual observer selecting five outstanding products from the Milan Furniture Fair is a neigh on impossible task, so great is the number of potential candidates. "How", asks our casual observer, "are you going to select just five?!?!" For the seasoned attendee selecting five outstanding products from the Milan Furniture Fair is a neigh on impossible task, because the vast majority of articles on show are anything but outstanding. And those which are are invariably older, established
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......and continued over Budapest and on to Berlin - where amongst other delights we partook of the exhibitions Sensing the Future: László Moholy-Nagy, die Medien und die Künste at the Bauhaus Archiv Berlin and Schrill Bizarr Brachial. Das Neue Deutsche Design der 80er Jahre at the Bröhan Museum - and onto Cologne for the Orgatec office furniture trade fair.
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August being holiday month our principle focus was board sports: Woody Skateboards for the summer and silbærg snowboards for the coming winter. And when not trying to dislocate our virtual collarbones we found time to bring you an interview with Daphna Laurens and a warning from the colleagues at smow Australia.
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For us the passion, indeed interest, for living in a shared flat ended approximately 18 months before we moved out of our last shared flat. It ceased to be our thing. We needed our peace. We needed our space. We became anti-social. Some people however remain sociable. Even professionally. Some such as the design studios Daphna Laurens, Studio Mieke Meijer, OS ∆ OOS, Studio Maatwerk and Bogaerts Label who since summer 2014 have shared a space in the so-called TAB Building, somewhat inevitably a
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Back in February the participants of the exhibition "Trading Places. Designers meet the collection" at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden spent two days trawling through the museum's depots looking for objects with which to work. During the tour Daphna Isaacs and Laurens Manders, aka Eindhoven based studio Daphna Laurens, were shown inside a drawer. Walked on. Stopped. Walked back. Looked inside the drawer again and asked Herr Knorr, Head of metal, glass and ceramics at the Kunstgewerbemuseum,
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Strolling through the corridors of the Dresden Museum of Decorative Arts, the Kunstgewerbemuseum, one comes across a presentation called "Thronfolge" - Throne Succession - featuring three 18th century thrones which belonged to successive Sachsen Kings. And a Well Tempered Chair by Ron Arad. A delightful piece of juxtaposition made all the more enjoyable on account of the relative ease with which Arad's uncouth bent steel scoundrel fits in with the gilded and velvet noble decadence of yore. In
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Many people, if not peoples, could currently be forgiven for reacting somewhat sceptically to the notion of a “Happy Future”. With their exhibition “Happy Future” Dutch design collective Dutch Invertuals take on this scepticism and aim to show that the basic ingredients for such are there; we just need to identify and use them correctly. Established in 2009 Dutch Invertuals is a loose collective of designers, largely but not exclusively with a Design Academy Eindhoven background, who
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Pretty much ever since we first saw Tafelstukken by Daphna Laurens at DMY Berlin 2010 we've had a bit of thing for them. A fact that we are completely unapolgetic about. There is something wonderfully eloquent, dignified and timeless about their work. Something that draws you to them. Their works invariably comprise a mix of materials, a mix of materials which is always central to the objects, yet is understated in the design, almost as if it doesn't want to draw attention to itself. For
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As we've already admitted the first time we saw a Dutch Invertuals exhibition we didn't hang around very long. Since then however we have matured a lot and the show has become a regular feature of our visits to Eindhoven and Milan. Simply put, one always finds something challenging, exciting and beautiful at a Dutch Invertuals show. And invariably something you don't really understand, no matter how often it is explained to you. But that itself is for us reason enough to go. In 2012 Dutch
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As reported last week we sadly couldn't make it to the opening of Cirkel by Daphna Laurens at Galerie Gosserez in Paris. Because we were at the opening of Kibbutz and Bauhaus in Dessau. However Daphna and Laurens were kind enough to send us a few photos of the works. As older readers will know we are always very wary about judging articles on the strength of photos alone; that said, the Cirkel collection does look very promising. For us the highlight is probably "Leaning Lamp". Resembling
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Although we beef a lot about the amount of time we have to spend travelling to ensure that the (smow)blog remains Europe's premier product design blog, there are a lot of nice things on the European design circuit. Stockholm on a crisp February evening. The vegetarian catering at Neue Räume Zürich. Daphna and Laurens. Two of the nicest people you can meet. As they once again proved when we bumped into them in Eindhoven during Dutch Design Week. And you've got the chance to meet them as
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During Dutch Design Week the Eindhoven based design platform Onomatopee is hosting an exhibition looking at ways of adding cultural value to raw materials. In a time when raw materials are becoming rarer and our economic prosperity ever more dependent on the fluctuating prices of such, how can we disengage from this cycle and give these economic materials a cultural value? Or, put another way, how can we use raw materials in an alternative fashion, that removes them from the economic cycle
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As with all furniture trade fairs IMM annually gives part of the floor space over to young, up and coming, designers. In three themed sections "d3 Design Talents" offers space for design colleges - d3 Schools - those further on the way to establishing themselves - d3 Professionals - and a competition - d3 Contest. "Space" is however not only a relative term - but one that cannot be defined by physical measurements. As we learned on the journey to Congress-Centrum Ost! d3 Design Talents : d3
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We must begin this post with a small confession. Something we were too scared to tell the good folks at Dutch Invertuals personally. We first came across the Dutch Invertuals design collective @ Milan 2009. Where we walked out of their show after 36 seconds. It was our fault. We were tired, hungry and on our way to the opening of a Belgian product design showcase. We shouldn't have gone. It was the wrong moment on the wrong day for experimental Dutch design. We spent a little longer at
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