A continuous shower of organic matter

A life in weaving 

we-find-wildness:

“I hate design,” Mr. Biesenbach will tell you emphatically. When he travels, he has a habit of stripping his hotel room of anything that moves (furniture, colored pillows, desktop accessories) and stuffing it all into the closet. “It’s a little bit of curatorial disease,” he said. “I like to reduce everything to its original surface.” - Klaus Biesenbach, director of PS1 for the NYTimes 

The Making of a Blueware Vase by Glithero

London based designers Glithero are masters at documenting their creation process. Although I have seen their Blueware Vases before I hadn’t seen this beautiful ‘making of’ film. The process used is called cyanotypes, where direct impressions of botanical specimens are captured on earthenware, using photosensitive chemicals. 

The vases are coated with photosensitive dye before pressed plants are applied to the surface. The vases are then exposed to ultraviolet light, causing the dye to react. The exposed areas of the vase turn an intense Prussian blue, while the parts protected by the plants remain white, creating a crisp silhouette of the plant.

via Lin-Morris 

The Firste Cycle 
Stop motion animation

On the 4th of October 2011, byBorre had his first Paris fashion show entitled: the First Cycle – the story from the yarn to the show.The show started with a visualisation of a creative production process in a stop-motion animation.

In fashion the production process is something you hardly get to see  and for byBorre that is just as important as for the final pieces.

Concept : Borre Akkersdijk
Script : Borre Akkersdijk & Niels Hoebers
Stop motion : Niels Hoebers
3D & Post production : FINK
Music : Sound Circus

“Chairs are the staple of design, one of the first categories of objects (together with cars) that people all over the world think of when confronted with the “D” word. In a designer’s life, the chair is also a ritual of initiation, the first truly mature challenge that involves the responsibilities that come with the design profession. In chairs, more than in any other designed object, human beings are the unit of measure to which everything must defer—including all economical considerations regarding the manufacturing process and marketing.”  ~ Paola Antonelli

full article  

Copy/Culture

Design culture is obsessed with authenticity. Copying is often deemed reprehensible, and borrowing another’s idea or incorporating elements of his or her work into one’s own is viewed as a sign of creative impoverishment. But is this right? What’s wrong with interpreting someone else’s creation? Musicians have been quoting each other’s work for centuries – why shouldn’t the same thing happen in other creative disciplines? Where does quotation end and copying begin?

Businesses and creators diligently protect their creative, technical and technological property – rightly so, as large sums are often invested in their development. But is intellectual property protection appropriate in an age of digital distribution, when it’s difficult to identify a product’s author, maker or inventor? And in a culture in which quotation and copying have long led to enrichment and innovation, should these acts be made impossible?

via Premsela 

Saving cultural heritage goes beyond safeguarding our past and protecting what is magnificent, impressive and beautiful. Rescuing cultural heritage is also an integral part of humanitarian aid, given the importance of rebuilding the social and cultural identity of the community, in which the mosque, the synagogue, the church, monuments or other key buildings play a central role.  

- H R H Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands (Honorary chairman of the Prince Claus Funds, Amsterdam, the Netherlands)

Link 

Kirstie van Noort - Ceramic Work

Coloured Bowls 1st Edition

“These bowls made out of porcelain are the result of a half year experimenting with oxides and porcelain clay. My goal was to get new colours by mixing different types of oxides.
for this research i used cupper-, nickel-, chromium-, manganese-, and cobaltoxide. By mixing these oxides with white porcelain in different percentages you get different grades of a colour.

After making small series with the oxides I was fascinated by the colours they have and the sound they make. I decided to make them bigger. And while working with the bigger bowls i discovered that the influence of different oxides is very big. The bowls have their own, new unique form and colours, which I think is beautiful.”

website:  Kirstie van Noort

Lucas Maassen & Sons Furniture Factory.

Lucas Maassen has employed his 3 sons, Thijme (9), Julian (7) and Maris (7). His Sons are responsible for the paint job of the furniture which is build in the factory. They get paid 1 Euro for every piece of furniture they paint. As agreed by the contract they signed.



Due to Dutch child labour laws it is only possible for Thijme, Julian and Maris to work for 3 hours a week. As a result of this the production speed has became a crucial factor in the process. Time limitations are set, they contribute to the typical LM&S aesthetics.



All furniture is build by hand and painted by hand.

more information about this project here. 

Book : DIY Furniture: A Step-by-Step Guide by Christopher Stuart

Featuring 30 designs by leading designer-makers from around the world DIY Furniture shows you how to use simple techniques to make stunning designer furniture from scratch. All the projects can be easily assembled using the step-by-step guides from common materials which can be found at the local hardware store. Along with designs for seating and storage, the book also features projects for making your own bed, wardrobe, lighting and garden furniture. Each project features hand-drawn diagrams with short, easy-to-follow instructions on how to build the piece. Whether building from scratch or customizing existing designs, DIY Furniture allows you to create unique designer pieces at a fraction of the normal cost. Brief biographies of all the featured designers are included at the end of the book. 

Sight Unseen excerpted one of the book’s easiest-to-follow projects, Brass Ensemble by London designer Jorre Van Ast and to top that they are giving away 2 copies.

read further article on Sight Unseen

 

Shelter by Henny van Nistelrooy

Shelter is a collection of space dividers composed of Bute fabrics, meticulously unthreaded in to new geometrical patterns.

In response to the brief “Shelter” by JJAM Curators Collective for London Design Festival, Henny van Nistelrooy has developed a collection of space dividers. The collection makes original use of the fabrics supported by renowned Scottish textile manufacturer Bute Fabrics. In reaction to the machine woven structures Henny has been unthreading the fabrics by hand in order to create new geometrical designs within the fabric. By doing this the tightly woven, opaque textile become translucent and the relation between the different threads that make up the fabrics becomes clear.

The project has been inspired by a recent journey Henny made to China. Here the beautiful architectural features appearing in many Ming/Qing imperial palaces and gardens have been of influence in the use of color and shape. These space-dividing screens reflect the geometrical shapes of some of the many windows that can be found in the many historic buildings I visited during my trips to Beijing, Hangzhou and Suzhou.

Materials:

Bute textiles, various wool

Poplar

Dimensions:

Mustard circle: 120 cm diameter

Commission from:

JJAM Curators Collective

Supported by:

Bute Fabrics 

website

via Design.nl 

Narciso by Giorgia Zanellato

Narciso is a project which started with the intention of designing some vases, focusing on the functionality of the vase as an object. But what is the function of a vase? They are used to display flowers. Narciso is a collection of six different vases which use mirrors to draw attention to the role of the flowers. Mirrors are investigated in all their aspects, from the simplest reflection to the most complex one. In this way each vase shows flowers from a different point of view. They’re made in borosilicate glass, powder-coated aluminum and mirrored stainless steel.

website 

This Too Will Pass - Anna Glansen

As a product designer working primarily in packaging, Anna Glansen is constantly on the lookout for new materials. For her graduation project, entitled ‘This too shall pass’, she designed a series of biodegradable food containers - made of substances like beeswax, caramelised sugar and seaweed - where the packaging has the same short life span as the foods they contain. ‘My main goal,’ she says, ‘was to show how we can think differently about packaging and the materials we use.’ To open the beeswax basmati rice container, you peel it like a piece of fruit, while to pour from the sugar-coated olive oil vessel, you crack it like an egg.

Most inspired by: ‘I am inspired by biomimicry. A designer I admire is Kenya Hara.’

via Wallpaper 

N55 | Manuals

N55 is a Copenhagen-based Scandinavian art collective which was founded in 1994. An artistic platform that gathers people who consider art as a part of everyday life. The name refers to an address in the Danish capital, Nørre Farimagsgade 55. Over the years, N55 have achieved international recognition for their projects. They have exhibited at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Tramway and Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Camden Roundhouse, Smart Museum of Art in Chicago, in New York, and at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and at [Wysing Arts Centre,] Cambridge.

All of N55’s work product is freely accessible; their books, manuals, manifestos and images can be seen online and are not copyrighted. Most of their written work is accessible in N55 Book. 

website