Ventura Lambrate is always my favourite show of Milan Design Week, so I was super excited to hear that Ventura Projects was coming to the London Design Festival – and I wasn’t disappointed.
Above, Nottingham Trent graduate Aimee Bollu‘s collection the Hoard gives new life to discarded objects by combining them with ‘luxury’ materials such as porcelain, glass and wood. I love the quirky vessels that result.
One of the things I love most about LDF is interesting conversations with interesting people and Dr Jane Norris was without doubt one of the most interesting people I met this year – her Polychronic Objects are a series of bowls and stools that are the outcome of a research project that uses a randomised map-folding technique to connect materials from different times and locations, with the aim of finding small-batch production solutions for a post mass manufacturing era.
On a more whimsical note, the Elements collection is made using water, air and balloons to take the final form out of the hands of designer Jomi Evers Solhein.
Stockholm-based Studio Ljung Ljung’s smoked bamboo lamps are handmade according to fair trade standards in Thailand.
Moving on from Ventura London, I also really enjoyed the Camberwell College of Art (part of University College London) stand – Rhian Malin’s‘s Hand Held Vessels, are made using traditional hand-throwing techniques before Rhian asks people to pick them up and gently squeeze them before the clay is quite dry, meaning that once dry and fired, they fit perfectly in the hand.
Camberwell College graduates Bob Watson and Jordan Watson are now Happenstance Workshop and the Sack System is their proposal for self-assembly furniture, encouraging the user to get involved in designing and making their own products, Meccano-style.
Osma by Ian Spencer & Cairn Young is an outdoor chair fashioned from waste water pipes – the intention being that grass can grow up through it.
Shake the Dust‘s Kathy Shenoy is up to her usual magic – this time a collaboration with Liezel Strauss (Subject Matter Art) to curate Africa Calling – a showcase of African designers, challenging aesthetic stereotypes and exploring cross-cultural collaborations. This light is by award-winning South African designer Heath Nash and is made from discarded plastic cups.
I cannot tell you how good it was to see Brink graduate Alexander Mueller exhibiting his new collection for Indian-manufactured furniture brand Capsbury. He’s made incredible progress in just a year.
And on a similar note, it was also fantastic to see confessions of a design geek bursary shortlisted designers Thorody going from strength to strength with five new products launching at designjunction. I’m so proud of them both!
And last but not least, I love it when designers I know well surprise me – Kyla McCallum of Foldability has been working with ‘pleaters’ in the UK to bring new life to a dying industry while exploring new materials – her new lights are made from a metal-coated fabric, which has aluminium, titanium, copper or gold on one side and black on the other, making it transparent when the light it lit and opaque when it’s turned off. Clever huh?!
Further reading for the especially geeky:
- out and about :: 100{ff546b69e23b1524d799f96c6ba7a638e1f677053b0a2a1568b05315fd5f8fc7} norway, LDF14
- out and about :: home london, LDF14
- out and about :: tent london, LDF14
- out and about :: guide to the london design festival 2014
