Product Placement

Product Placement 4.5: Heart of Glass, 5/20, with Harry Allen, Omer Arbel, Bec Brittain, Johan Liden

Julie Taraska — Fri, 11 May 2012 12:09:01 +0000

Product Placement 4.5: Heart of Glass
Sunday, May 20, 1-3 pm (presentations start promptly at 1:30pm)
WANTED Design
269 11th Avenue (btwn W. 27th and W. 28th Sts.)

As we continue with our spring term of guerilla Product Placements, we evoke our love of Blondie and invite you to our latest edition, held as part of ICFF extravaganza WANTED Design. This installment explores a range of innovative glass items and will feature:

• Product and interior powerhouse Harry Allen

• Architect and Bocci creative director Omer Arbel

• Lighting designer extraordinaire Bec Brittain

• Aruliden principal and product provocateur Johan Liden

Open to all with no RSVP required, although trade guests may pre-register for free at 2012.wanteddesignnyc.com/attend

Artist Paul Chan’s E-Book Designs

Julie Taraska — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:12:43 +0000

"Wht is a Berlusconi?” (part of Paul Chan’s “Wht Is...” series

Video, drawing, collage, installation and site-specific projects: Paul Chan’s art takes many forms. In 2010, after showing his work at both Minneapolis’ Walker Art Gallery and New York’s New Museum, he started the e-book imprint Badlands Unlimited (distributed through D.A.P.) to explore the expanded opportunities of digital publishing. His roster comprises books of multimedia work by himself and others, including the dancer and choreographer Yvonne Rainer. Yet the cornerstone of the endeavor is the “What Is…” series, each of which features layers of visual and textual information about subjects ranging from the Italian politician/media magnate Silvio Berlusconi to the nature of lust.

Interior pages of "Wht is a Berlusconi?” e-book

Chan’s inspired by his experience working with moving images to create not exactly 360-degree multimedia experience, but ones enhanced by appropriate additions: audio files of Rainer reading her work to video clips of a work at a gallery. Ironically, thinking about how iPads and Kindles give amorphous electronic files weight has led him to contemplate how the book might looked on paper—a medium he’s also trying out in the form of limited-edition paperback versions of some of the titles.

Other Badlands Unlimited titles

Audi’s Product Placement: R18 Ultra Chair by Kram/Weisshaar

Julie Taraska — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 04:07:58 +0000

The prototype R18 Ultra Chair (photo courtesy of Tom Vack).

You’ve got to give a tip of the hat to luxury car brands. In their race to differentiate themselves and each new model, they’ve continued to experiment with different platforms and media, from BMW’s shortform films to Aston Martin’s art collection. Audi’s latest gambit—a chair made by the Munich- and Stockholm-based design duo of Reed Kram and Clemens Weisshaar—plays upon the auto manufacturer’s interest in products and technology. Dubbed the R18 Ultra (after Audi’s Le Mans-winning racecar), the seat will have its shape crowdsourced from users at next week’s Milan’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile. The chair’s final form will be presented to the public in December 2012 at collectors’ fair Design Miami.

The many sensors on the R18 Ultra prototype.

The R18 Ultra prototype chair comprises three main components: a carbon composite seat, a carbon-rubber composite backrest, and aluminum alloy legs. During the Salone, Audi and the designers will set up the chair in a testing booth in the courtyard of the city’s Palazzo Clerici and invite visitors to sit on it. Each user’s unique physical impact on the seat will be registered in realtime via industrial sensors integrated into the chair; the results will be displayed via a multi-colored simulation on a wall inside the booth. At the end of the week, Kram and Weisshaar will study the gathered data and optimize the final product accordingly, shedding every excess gram of weight.

A simulation of the Milan installation

The experiment, claims Audi, will elucidate Ultra (the car’s) principles of “state-of-the-art lightweight construction, technology, and design…[beginning] with the raw materials sourced for production all the way through various manufacturing stages.” Fair enough, but it seems like an awfully esoteric way to show off the auto’s gee-wizz advances.

The inspiration: the R18 Ultra race car.

Branding Trend: Chairs that ‘Remix’ Classic Designs

Julie Taraska — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 18:09:41 +0000

Front Design’s Collage chairs for Gemla

I’m all for recycling. But recycling design forms and ideas? Depending on your personal take—as well as the actual amount of originality involved—it can be an homage to an icon or sheer laziness masquerading as new product. Case in point: Front Design’s new Collage arm and lounge chairs for Gemla. Introduced in February at the Stockholm Furniture Fair, the wooden custom-made pieces combine classic and contemporary motifs from the 150-year-old Swedish furniture company’s archives. The chair’s seat and backrest are highly customizable, available in leather, fabric, or webbing and in a range of colors. The manufacturing methods echo Gemla’s traditional craftsmen-heavy protocols, as well as its wooden materials. The result is pleasant, but I can’t help feel that this is like a Mark Ronson remix of a PJ Harvey tune: a name-brand reinterpretation of something that didn’t need to be reworked—especially as so many elements stayed the same as the original for whatever reason.

Philippe Starck’s Masters Chair, with its inspirations.

Contrast that with Philippe Starck’s 2009 Masters chair for Kartell. That feat combines the silhouettes of the 7 Series seats by Arne Jacobsen, the Tulip armchair by Eero Saarinen, and the Eiffel chair by Charles and Ray Eames. Three iconic chairs and four iconic designers twisted into a new “hybrid,” as the Frenchmen called it. And the difference is he was right. Starck and his studio really did add their own je ne sais quoi to the equation, from material choice (polypropylene, versus the originals’ metal, fiberglass, and leather) to use (indoor and out) to palette (a shocking range of hues, from fire-engine red to a canary yellow). And thus, with these elements, transformed it to a truly new product despite its reference points. That’s the kind of remix design needs, where you wear your history lightly rather than regurgitate it.

Product Placement at MAD: Design for Kids Feb. 16 @ 7pm

Julie Taraska — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:45:48 +0000

What’s going to be the first Product Placement event of 2012? Glad you asked. Kimberly and I are talking the series to the Museum of Arts & Design Feb. 16 for a special fundraising version that’s part of the museum’s The Home Front 2012: American Design Nowseries. The evening’s topic is design for kids, and the speakers will be a mix of new names and old friends:

• DwellStudio founder and creative director Christiane Lemieux
• Rockwell Group principal and studio leader Barry Richards
• Furniture, lighting, and toy designer extraordinaire David Weeks

The details:
Feb. 16 at 7pm
Museum of Arts and Design
2 Columbus Circle  New York, NY 10019   

Tickets:
$12 general /  $10 members and students  / $6 Product Placement mailing list (use discount code MADPRODUCT). Call 800.838.3006 or click here to purchase tickets.

Architects & Artisans also just did a piece on us and the event. Check it out and leave a comment. And rest assured, we’ll be adding info soon about additional forthcoming PP events.

Khodi Feiz’s Moment Chair for Offecct

Julie Taraska — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:23:38 +0000

Old wooden school desks—the ones you slide into, with the chair and table fused together—provide the form for this multifunctional seat for Swedish company Offecct. Created by Khodi Feiz, an Iranian-born American designer now living in Amsterdam, the upholstered Moment supports a range of activities, from reading a newspaper to typing up a report to having a light meal. Flip down its integrated, wing-like tablet surface when you need it, and flip it off to the side when you don’t; aside from being convenient, you could also argue that the tablet’s placement reinforces the notion of public (just hanging out and open to conversation) and private (busy at work and would prefer to be left alone.) Made of molded foam, and available with a range of feet configurations and finishes, Moment can be used in residential or commercial settings.

Moment, with its tablet work surface flipped to the side.

Feiz’s sketch of Moment in action.

Amsterdam’s Hotel the Exchange

Julie Taraska — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:44:15 +0000

The convergence of fashion and design is no new story, although it tends to be the purview of Italian houses (Armani, Missoni, and Bulgari, for example), with the Americans (Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren) a close second. So bully that the Dutch are staking a claim to the scene. Otto Nan and Suzanne Oxenaar, the duo behind Amsterdam’s Hotel the Exchange, call their third foray into the hospitality business a “fashion hotel.” But this effort—located in the Damrak section of the city, and accompanied by a restaurant (Stock) and contemporary-design shop (Options!)—is a showplace for both established and nascent Dutch design. The Hotel features 61 one- to five-star rooms “dressed” as if they were catwalks models, with inspiration coming from sources as divergent as denim jackets, Marie Antoinette’s panniers, wallflowers, and Frida Khalo’s wardrobe. One-of-a-kind textiles are used throughout, a result of a partnership Nan and Oxenaar forged with eight students and alumni of Amsterdam Fashion Institute (AMFI), who in turn worked with local studio Ina Matt in cooperation with the Dutch Textile Museum (Textielmuseum) to create these fabrics.

The rooms themselves feature a treasure-trove of pieces by a who’s who of the contemporary-design scene, from Ed Annink and Claudy Jongstra to Ineke Hans and Konstantin Grcic. The hotel also worked with Royal Mosa to create two custom lines of tiles used throughout. Dutch architectural firm Onswerk oversaw the combining of the hotel’s three buildings, adding transparent panels to allow hotel visitors to peer between floors and retail and restaurant spaces. (All photos by Mirjam Bleeker.)

The Options! gift shop

Yves Behar’s XO-3 Tablet for One Laptop Per Child

Julie Taraska — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:26:51 +0000

For six years Nicholas Negroponte has been pursuing his dream of providing low-cost, energy-efficient computers to 500 million schoolchildren around the world. His One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project is now one step closer to reality with the XO-3, a rugged tablet introduced today at electronics trade show CES 2012. Designed by Yves Béhar—a longtime partner in the OLPC venture, and the designer of its original XO laptop—the new computer runs on the Android and Linux operating systems and features an anti-scratch screen surrounded by a tactile, green rubber cover; the cover’s arced front surface allows access to ports and buttons, and shields them during transportation to preserve the hardware. The cover’s back surface has a bumpy, kid-friendly texture and integrates a rear-facing camera. The connectors, power switch, and speakers are arranged on the bottom edge, facing the user. The device is powered by batteries, but additional options allow the tablet to be charged directly by solar panels or via hand cranks. There’s no information on when it will start to ship, although to date 2.4 million children in 25 countries have received the original XO laptop.

The XO-3, with its removable green rubber cover

More views of the XO-3, including one with its solar charger

London 2012 Olympic Stamps by Paul Smith

Julie Taraska — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 03:58:32 +0000

Imagine you’re a famous fashion designer who has been creating critically and commercially successful menswear for 40 years. Your quirky, colorful patterns are nothing short of iconic, and you produce 14 different collections, which cover everything from jeans, watches, and shoes to fabrics, pens, and furniture. Your company’s annual turnover is £325 million, and, oh, you’re also a knight, thanks to that MBE from Queen Elizabeth II. So what do you do next? If you’re Sir Paul Smith, you design a collection of postage stamps. Issued Jan. 1, the seven stamps—issued by Britain’s Isle of Man—commemorate the London 2012 Summer Olympics. Each illustrates a different sport, including archery, rowing, tennis, swimming, track, sailing, and cycling, with the renderings distinguished by their minimal designs and radiant hues. Face values range from 37 pence to £1.15, with all legally tender. Mint (and cancelled) souvenir sheetlets are available for purchase from the Isle of Man Post Office for £9.84; worldwide buyers can have them delivered free through Jan. 31.

Hive Sculptures by Pamela Sunday

Julie Taraska — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 21:32:05 +0000

For those who thought their days in geometry classes would never lead to anything, take note of these magnificent spheres, whose inspiration lay in science, nature, and spatial mathematics. Handmade of mottled stoneware by Brooklyn-based sculptor Pamela Sunday, each Hive is essentially a hollow sphere covered with smaller hemispheres that are attached and covered with small balls of soft clay. Sunday uses a wooden tool to make indents in these small balls, in essence morphing them into cells that push against one another. After drying for several weeks, the sculpture is fired in an electric kiln, with each indent filled with a reflective gold-luster glaze. The result? A private universe that glows like a jewel.

The completed Hive, pre-glaze, which took four weeks to dry.

Sunday and Pratt student Emma Choi glazing indents of the fired Hive.