A Point Of Design: Bold Chair by Sanserif Creatius

Image courtesy of Sanserif Creatius

Once again Valencia-based design studio Sanserif Creatius have created a new innovative product that pushes the boundaries in furniture design, presenting a bench style chair that is made from 100% biodegradable corrugated cardboard. Environmentally sound, the functional, economically viable and serialised production based ‘Bold Chair’ is created in one single die. Made of 5mm thick sheets the standard model measures 50x63x72 cm, weighs 16 kg and has an estimated resistance of 1,000kg in compression tests.

With no screws or wedges, there is reduced machine and staff related costs along the assembly line, helping to reduce the collateral energy consumption in production. With both assembly and handling carried out exclusively in special employment centres; to reinforce values of integration and respect, Sanserif Creatius continue to amaze me.

A Point Of Design: Berlin Neues Museum wins 2011 EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture

© Ute Zscharnt

Yesterday it was announced that The Neues Museum in Berlin is the winner of the 2011 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture, named the Mies van der Rohe Award. The building is a reconstruction, blending old and new, designed by UK architect Sir David Chipperfield.

© Ute Zscharnt

David Chipperfield, Principal of David Chipperfield Architects, said: “The reconstruction of the Neues Museum is a testament to the collaborative process undertaken in a demanding climate of public opinion. The result is evidence not only of the efforts of the professional team but of the commitment of the client and the city authorities to engage in this rigorous and articulated process.”

© Jörg von Bruchhausen

The award ceremony will take place on 20th June at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona.

A Point Of Design: Mustafá table

A Spanish design company I’ve written about on many occasions, Sanserif Creatius last month launched the ingenious Mustafá table. Inspired by Arabian art, the Mustafá is a versatile M-shaped table that stays true to the Sanserif Creatius philosophy of bringing groundbreaking designs created with sustainable industrial materials into social environments. Honing the environmental and social values underpinning Sanserif Creatius’ designs, the Mustafá table is part of the exclusive collection created from corrugated cardboard presented at the latest edition of Habitat Valencia Fair.

Ana Yago; a designer for Sanserif Creatius says: “We are keenly aware that users are looking for added values, furniture and products with soul, that transmit cultural, social and environmental values”. Yago also underscored the need to recover and/or add industrial materials to the repertoire used for the home and office, given that “it is well demonstrated that they are incredibly multifunctional with a range of features well above more conventional materials.”

A Point of Design: Somerville Scott

Image courtesy of Sarah Bowen PR

In the autumn of last year I worked on a design feature and came across the work of the exceedingly talented furniture designer Somerville Scott and one product in particular, her Sloop Chair. Both designed and constructed in England, this unique club chair features slooped lounge arms and what looks to be a fabulously comfortable feather wrapped seat cushion (H 850 x W 700 x D 760). The Sloop chair is shown here in a regal purple mohair with brass studs and solid American black walnut legs, ebonised and lacquered to a chocolate gloss finish. Other finishes and sizes are available upon request.

Prices start at £2,160 plus costs for approximately five metres of fabric.

A Point Of Design: Fotis Evans

Image courtesy of Fotis Evans

Having graduated from a BA in Furniture and Product Design just last year, Fotis Evans is a great design talent to keep an eye out for in 2011. Having worked with none other than Somerset House back in 2009/10, Fotis designed the Somerset House Book Stall System, which is a clever multifunctional book display and storage solution, which fulfils the needs of the small space comprising Somerset House’s newest Bookshop.

Borrowing elements from book flea market displays, the Book Stall System is a combination of three objects, a table and two bookshelves. The bookshelves are made from ash and are lightweight, which makes the crates easy to be transported and transformed into several functional storage and display solutions. The crate bookshelves are routed and finger joined in a way to create square corners inside the bookcases.

With an underlying concern for the future sustainability of design in what is termed as the product’s afterlife, Fotis is continually searching for solutions: “It is very important when we design products to think of their afterlife. One way of course is to make them easy to be recycled, but for me this is not enough. The factories that the recycled products are going to end up in, will consume even more energy in order to create reusable material sources. This means that we don't just have one stage that a product is in a factory but two. For that reason all my product are created using interesting geometries and forms to create afterlife product functions.”

A Point Of Design: Dividing Space with Typography

Valencia based design company Sanserif Creatius have introduced a decorative modular system designed to be used as shelving or to divide spaces within a home or business environment. COMA, whose name is taken from comma (the punctuation mark), is made of two modules combinable in different positions through the use of a metallic structure covered in wood panelling. The main aim is to “reorganise spaces through a graphic play that reconverts a separating wall into an ethereal and multifunctional element”.

COMA helps create different spaces using graphic recourses borrowed from the alphabet. Similar to the way in which punctuation marks indicate different parts of a sentence and text structure, COMA organises spaces without physically separating them. Furthermore, its modular structure enables it to act as a simple arrangement of space whilst transforming itself into shelves, a display unit or a container – among many other possibilities.

With the piece anchored to the wall, “It is akin to a branch emerging from the bricks and cement, bringing light and depth into any space. COMA sets in place an evocative visual game with a lightweight volume, replacing the concept of the dividing wall with a structural element added into the construction”.

Very Sanderson: 150 Years of Decoration at the Fashion & Textile Museum - sneek preview

Yesterday I was thrilled to be invited to the press preview of the Very Sanderson: 150 Years of British Decoration retrospective held at the Fashion and Textiles Museum.

Sanderson was founded by Arthur Sanderson in 1860 and for the last 150 years has been at the forefront of English decoration - producing the first coordinated collection of mass-produced wallpapers and fabrics in Britain. As the exhibition began, snaking around the gallery I came across a portrait of the three brothers and then a copy of the Sanderson family tree. I was so amazed that bar one of the Sanderson brothers, the other two and the majority of the family lived into their eighties and nineties.

During its illustrious history the company amassed a huge collection of wallpapers and textiles (many of which you get to see) representing the many changing faces and fads of interior decoration.

The wealth of prints in the exhibition were staggering and were so inspiring that as I was walking around all I wanted to do was race home and get back into print designing. It definitely helped to reinvigorate my passion for interiors, and I can't wait to start making things again such as motifs and patterns for wallpapers.