Design

Design must be understood as a word that describes both a process and an outcome. It is the process of turning ideas into material things. The word design can be used with legitimacy in many activities, the design of a sales or financial plan, the design of a new organisation, or design for construction. Many individuals have followed a design process in the course of their everyday activities. At some level, it is a natural human ability along with the other innate capabilities such as communication and language.

Industrial Design is the term used when the activity is pressed into service as a formal part of a business enterprise dedicated to creating artefacts as a part of wealth creation. Prior to industrialisation, individuals undertaking design were craftsman, we might speculate on what expertise and knowledge those active in design might need in a future post industrialist age.
Currently, though, the activity of industrial design is generally linked to product development in a manufacturing context.

Silver Lake

Silver Lake is a Patricia Urquiola creation that offers us an architectural memory inspired by the Californian modernism of the ‘50s. The Silver Lake range is composed of three sofas, two armchairs and a small armchair displaying a continuous geometric interplay of solids and voids, with volumes creating many-sided polyhedral forms.

Silver Lake takes and retains from the ‘50s a scrupulous choice of materials, whose physical and chromatic qualities are enhanced by a meticulous, deliberate combination of contrasting surfaces.Wood, steel, fabric or leather in a sculptural synthesis that, indirectly, brings to the surface today the Utopian vision of the ‘50s.

Minimalist fitting

This cool decorative wall lamp by Alturo Alvarez is minimalist in appearance yet endless in positions the user can focus the light where needed. Wall or ceiling mounted this fitting looks and functions exceptionally well, available in two sizes its easy to see why it has won a 2010 Red Dot product design award. 

Designer Cards

Checkout our new range of gorgeous greeting cards for all you design crazies out there! Perfect for birthday's, mother's day or anything. The numbers are limited so be quick.
http://designheist.blogspot.com/2010/07/contemporary-out-door-setting-inspired.html

TUPA Stool

The Spanish design duo Marina68, founded by Rafel Oliva and Cristian Montesinos realised this playful stackable stool made from a cork body clammed into a frame of powder-coated steel tube.

The process is quite simple and seems to be very influenced by our Scandinavian friends, available in a range of candy colours this stool is attractive but I'm not sure about the comfort and practicality.

To look at this a little closer the cork body seems quite hard, and although this is something we seem to turn away from as a sitting/resting device I like the fact that the design is playing with this element, it challenges the user to rethink what is furniture. Ergonomist's are all for this these days and maybe for a posture correction device this method could be explored.

Another notable point is the fact that there is no mechanical fixings for the stool and the cork body is held in place by the flex of the rolled steel tubing, with a powder-coated finish this is durable and will not rust.
Together with the industrial rubber feet the overall feeling is definitely not a high end piece of furniture but something that would not be out of place in a small trendy inner city apartment.

Finally the stack-able attribute saves on space and promotes the use of more than one stool,  I can see this being quite functional and ten points for simplicity.

Stefan Wieland Furniture

'Stolz und Schabernack' by Stefan Wieland
The names of his works are as bloomy as they are colourful in appearance: ‘Stolz und Schabernack’ . The German designer Stefan Wielands creates loud and expressive lamps and furniture made from roughly worked – welded, painted and bent materials such as acrylic / glass, veneer or laminate. In his likewise crude but beautiful explanations you will read comments like “To provoke errors and then cultivate them”, “Sunshine, o sunshine, how you are shining in my cup of peppermint tea” and “to split a painting into fragments and restructure”.

These pieces have a very urban feeling to them and would not look out of place in a dark alleyway or streetscape of brunswick. A standout non-the-less. I like the contrasting colours as the viewer is to walk around the object, this could be applied to tv units / kitchens or even wardrobes, I really like the potential this innovation has. Seemingly endless.

Minimal Seating

The Tokyo based practice Ryuji Nakamura Architects realised this minimal seating area for the Ikebukuro Seibu Department Stores. A wide ribbon made from vinyl sheet is – like a hammock – regularly suspended from the ceiling, this piece of design is innovative and I can see it attached to a pulley system to conveniently make it disappear when its use it not needed.

Reinhard Dienes of Germany presents furniture that can be reconfigured as a sideboard or bookcase by changing the position of the legs.

Another modular furniture piece, successfully designed and manufactured. The angular legs support the joinery and focus the pressure inwards achieving a collapsible leg that supports the case without any mechanical fixing, the unit can be flipped and arranged to suit a limited number of arrangements. It gives the user controlled flexibility. 

Clean and fresh acrylic heat formed and welded depicts a modern interpretation of the thonet chair. I am drawn to the aesthetic of the chair, although not too happy about the choice of materials, the designer non-the-less has seemed to pull it off.

The Royal Collegue of Art graduate Nicola Zocca presented this tricky joinery within her final year project at this year’s degree show. All pieces of her ‘Shrink’ series, a chair, a bookshelf and a side table, are based on the same simple but inventive process: hot heat-shrink plastic ribbons are tightly wrapped around the joints and fixed by cramming them into a groove. After cooling down a perfectly fitting joinery is shaped.

Personally I am not sure if this is all that inventive, there seems to be an emerging trend with this method and its hard to say who was the innovator.

Wood work training manuals

An introduction to joinery
A practical guide for increasing skills in both carpentry and joinery, this well thought out guide is very useful for both trade and designers.

Joining solid timber
Practical guide for joining solid timber.

General solid timber
Complete solid timber training manual.

Wood workers pivots
Short guide for pivot doors

Neubrandenburg is a small city in former East Germany. Its townscape is decisively characterised by apartment buildings made from precast concrete slabs – typical GDR social housing. The young German architect Peter Grundmann broke this static architectural order with this single family house located on a small lot of only 7 m right between two existing blocks of flats – and incurred the wrath of especially elder inhabitants.
Quite a cool aspect with the dynamic curtain waving in the breeze, adds flair and creativity quite a rare quality in todays architecture.