Budapest Design Week 2024 Compact: Alfréd by Szebedy Vajk When we first approached Alfréd by University of Óbuda student Szebedy Vajk at 360 Design during Budapest Design Week 2024 we interpreted it as an abstracted giraffe. It certainly wouldn't be the first time an animal had served as the basis for a piece of furniture design. Indeed shortly after meeting Alfréd we met the giraffe-esque library ladder 3½ by vondingen at Grassimesse Leipzig. Others would at this point speak of a t****
read more
My Daughter's Room by Josef Tomšej, as seen at Designblok Prague 2024 (it's a video wall in the background, loved the concept, didn't make photographing it any easier. But still loved the concept) There is a much posed question in terms of chairs as to if we need ever more chairs. The answer is, we do. We certainly do; but, and as opined from A Chair and You at the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig, we all do. Similarly, at each and every design week or furniture fair we invariably
read more
Two Hundred Tons, as seen at Designblok Prague 2024 It's more or less a century since the first steel tube furniture was developed, and looking around you it's relatively easy to believe that since then everything has been done, that steel tube furniture has reached its full potential. Or perhaps more accurately; because the contemporary popular understanding of steel tube furniture is the steel tube furniture from the earliest days of steel tube furniture, and because the steel tube
read more
Arguably there is no museum permanent collection exhibition more painstakingly, fastidiously, organized than that of the Werkbundarchiv - Museum der Dinge, Berlin: what initially resembles a hurried attempt to cram as much as possible into as few vitrines as possible, reveals itself on closer, more careful, inspection as vitrine after vitrine of disparate everyday objects organized according to a wide variety of characteristics and properties, such as, for example, objects formed from specific
read more
Following the #smowblogfact revelation from Vitra Work at Orgatec Cologne 2018 that the smow blog office is devoid of shelving, we were inundated with an e-mail asking why? why has the smow blog office no shelving....? A very simple question, and one which for the first time caused us to pose ourselves a much more fundamental question, why? why, has the smow blog office no shelving....? Considerations which quickly evolved and diverged to concern themselves with the more general questions of
read more
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a ticket for a design exhibition. On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me, two tickets for two design exhibitions, and a ticket for a design exhibition. On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me...... You get the idea. Our five goohoold rings for December 2017 are new architecture and design exhibitions in Winterthur, Barcelona, New York, Munich and Moscow. "Cupboard Love" at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur,
read more
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
read more
As we are sure you will appreciate we tend to shy away from recommending anything we haven’t seen and/or tested ourselves. That said, the following five exhibitions, all opening in November, caught our attention. And certainly seem worth checking out..... "mein reklame-fegefeuer. herbert bayer. werbegrafik 1928 - 1938" at Bauhaus Archiv Berlin, Germany Appointed in 1925 as the first director of the printing and advertising workshop at Bauhaus Dessau the Austrian artist and typographer
read more
A few months ago our local baker started offering a new bread roll variety called KNAX You can imagine our disappointment when instead of a streamlined, almost invisible product with cleverly integrated features we received a somewhat cumbersome bakery product with the various grains apparently inserted at random. What would Charles and Ray Eames have to say? Although it is a bit harsh to blame the baker, for not everyone can have the talent of Harrit and Sørensen, the design studio behind
read more
Sometimes we really do ask why we invest so much time and effort travelling to design shows, when all we need to do is sit in front of our computer with a good Brooklyn Lager and bag of crisps. Saves money, saves the environment and potentially saves us from drowning. Such questions mainly arise when we find products such as Gangsta Lean by Matt Braun. As we will never tire of saying, for us an important element of good design is does the phrase: Took a problem, analysed it, solved it
read more
