What makes Dutch Design Week so unique is its location: Eindhoven. A small city with farming origins, a history of being home to the Phillips factory, and now regarded by Forbes magazine as the most inventive place in the world due to the high density of technology startups, IP registrations and students.

Between the pioneering industrial design of Eindhoven’s University of Technology, and the renowned avant-garde milieu of the Design Academy, a design festival that explores the sci-fi-like qualities of our present and future emerges. Or, in short: less chairs, more virtual reality.

The impact of game-changing technologies on how we live was explored in numerous high profile exhibitions this year. Big data, the internet of things, hyperreality, sentient machines, and the disappearance of privacy were key themes in exhibitions such as the Age of Wonderland that hosted six fellows from around the world to explore big data in relation to indigenous knowledge; Manifestations that asked if we’re designing the future or if it’s designing us (are we in The Matrix?), and In No Particular Order, showing the country’s emerging designers. These and thematic exhibitions on health and education by the Stimuleringsfonds – the Netherlands’ creative funding agency – not only challenged society’s blind adoption of technology, but also presented radical alternative applications. For instance, Ali Eslami explored how instead of virtual reality as escapist fantasy, using it to foster more empathy and understanding of terrorism-related death tolls.

There was also a mood of apocalypse, resourcefulness and restraint, with social issues taking centre stage in the Making of Your World exhibition, curated by Bas van Abel – founder of the Fairphone, which is a smartphone that is open-source, modular, recyclable and guarantees ethical sourcing of materials. Iman Abdurrahman explored how when disaster strikes, all our fancy technology may well be useless, but the humble radio will play on. At Modebelofte, top fashion students showed how we might adapt our clothes to become resources for shelter, safety and energy in an apocalyptic world.

Clothes, but especially textiles, came up for a complete rethinking and reshaping. No longer simply textured, fabrics were sculptural and architectural, often with extra features like sound, light or pollution absorption. The likes of Milou Voorwinden, Emma Wessel and Robin Maas explored the potential of weaving optical fibres, wires, yarn and any type of thread they could lay their hands on. Bart Hess opened his studio, presenting a treasure trove of artificial hides, with the flesh coloured Royal Latex Bed really getting under your skin, so to speak.

Milou Voorwinden

Emma Wessel

Bart Hess

Robin Maas

Continuing from their exhibitions at Milan Design Week earlier this year, collectives like Dutch Invertuals and Envisions showed how we might also find some spontaneity, whimsy and craft in this era of high-tech. The style is exemplified by Bastiaan de Nennie who toys with making the virtual subconscious physical. This post-Memphis digital candy aesthetic was also picked up by Pop Core, and MU’s For Play exhibition that went above and beyond to delightfully show that designing sex is not about dildos and vibrators.

Bastiaan de Nennie

When there is speed and technology, there is also always the countermovement. Atelier NL took their exploration of heirloom clay sourced from specific locations in the Netherlands to the next level, serving vegetables grown in the same soil as the plate was made from. Pressing pause was Maarten Baas with his Making Time exhibition that presented a retrospective of his work (possibly the most chairs in any of the exhibitions during DDW), and his on-going fascination with the concept of time. He presented 12 boxes in a clock-like circle, inside of which real actors completed mundane everyday tasks to show that real time is not measured in minutes or seconds. A collection of other time-measuring devices were also on display.

Atelier NL

Maarten Bass

Of course, there were also those domestic objects that, with a profoundly reinvented form, give a pure aha moment. Like Christian Heikoop’s Glissade furniture range that shows the truly flatpack is not even solid, but fabric like a tent. Pinkie Patisserie’s glass Cake Tower, Paul Ketz’s storage Nest and Zeljka Zrnic’s One Day Stand would be welcome in VISI’s home any day.

Christian Heikoop

Paul Ketz

Zeljka Zrnic

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Between the sea of countless chairs that typically characterise a visit to the world’s largest design festival, Milan Design Week, three trends spoke to VISI’s passions.

Smart Stone Kitchens

Kitchens were king in Milan this year, not least because of the biennial EuroCucina exhibition at the Salone del Mobile, where the undeniable star of the show was a sink that disappears when not in use. The sink was part of the Tuler responsive kitchen by Offmat, an experimental kitchen project of Italian design studio Marmo Arredo, which also featured concealed stovetops. Indeed, more than just finishes or lifestyles, the new kitchen was barely visible – what Miele’s conceptual installation named the Invisible Kitchen.

Powered by digital technologies, projection mapping and gestural controls, the result is sculptural forms free from messy details and buttons. Rebooting the kitchen with the aid of Caesarstone, Tom Dixon said that he wanted to get away from a “series of equipment” arranged to “hug the walls”. The result is four kitchens based on sculptural forms and the elements – water, air, earth and fire. Using cutting-edge equipment from Electrolux, he also introduced newfangled means of cooking: blasting, vacuuming and large-scale steaming.

Italian food designers Arabeschi di Latte interpreted these modes into black pancakes, freshly dehydrated fruit and roots and aromatic stock with frozen leaves. Similarly peculiar food was served at Lexus’s Anticipation installation. Chef Yoji Tokuyoshi served an aperitif of fish broth, agar agar and mandarin, as well as a nasturtium leaf with a spot of prune, shiso leaves and blueberry relish. Miele too served sweet potato ice cream – the recipe for which can be found here.

Going just beyond the kitchen, the Sapienstone Smart Slab Table by Reed Kram and Clemens Weisshaar for Iris Ceramica includes facilities to heat and cool food.

Kids Design Is Growing

From Kartell to Marcel Wanders for Cybex, design for kids and babes made a big splash, not to mention at least three rocking horses – by Front for Gebrüder Thonet Vienna, Nendo for Kartell and Alvin Tjitrowirjo from Indonesia.

“What a challenge to design a collection for babies, so we thought maybe we should design it for parents,” said Wanders about the Cybex range of embroidered rockers, high chairs, bouncers and toys inspired by his iconic Monster chair. “Going from a couple to a family is already quite a lifestyle change, so maybe you don’t have to change your whole apartment.”

Kartell’s easy-to-wipe plastic is a natural fit for children’s furniture, and it has explored this territory tentatively before. This year however it launched a complete kids collection, including a building block table and series of racing cars (which we featured as a recent Pick of the Week).

Kaleidoscopic Colours

The hue of this year was undoubtedly every shade of pastel pink – pretty on the money for Pantone’s Rose Quartz Colour of the Year. Vitra’s Soft Modular Sofa showed how to snuggle into the colour, while Formafantasma showed that it works just as well in hard-edged minimalism at the Lexus Anticipation exhibition.

What the show-wide palettes of dirty pastels really achieved however was to make the unapologetically rich velvety reds and kaleidoscopic geometric patterns pop out even more. On the red front, Fabio Novembre showed a round leather-clad interior in the Rooms: Novel Living Concepts exhibition at the Triennale Museum, while the Mindcraft exhibition of Danish design spun in a crimson set of turning decks.

A celebration of Ron Arad by Moroso and Javier Mariscal, Spring to Mind included an installation of red chairs in a mirror room. Mirrors, red and geometrics also featured in the Scarlet Splendour collection at Rossana Orlandi, with its striking vanity table. Also at Orlandi, KIGI from Japan showed its Mirror Cup and Saucer.

Patricia Urquiola teamed the salmon and red in her exquisite stained glass collaboration with Federico Pepe for Spazio Pontaccio – Credenza. In her debut as creative director for Cassina, Urquiola further showed her finesse for colours and patterns.

The result of 10 years of research by Hella Jongerius, the Vitra Colour and Material Library drew the crowds. Besides the swatches, an installation of furniture turned into wheels, dropped jaws.

To find out more about this year’s Milan Design Week, visit salonemilano.it. Browse the gallery above to view some of our favourites.

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Design is one of the national pastimes of the Netherlands. Some 275 000 people descended on a town of 216 000 during the nine-day Dutch Design Week that ended on Sunday 25 October 2015 in Eindhoven.

Here are seven ways that the humour, romance, innovation, and sometimes just plain weirdness, of what was on show will soon be coming into your home.

1. Furniture gets a life

Embedding a touch of personality into furniture makes it come alive. Yksi showed how cabinets can become urban elements, or at least fantasize about a higher calling. Lucas Munoz turned the speaker into a fluffy creature. What artist Margriet Craens and designer Lucas Maassen did to normal domestic chairs will not soon be unseen: The Chair Affair book asks just how intimate our furniture likes to get.

2. Contemporary romantic

Also practically breathing were Studio Drift’s diaphanous Shylights, shortlisted for a Dutch Design Award. These utterly exquisite dandelion-like flowers open and close as they plunge down. Similarly harking back to old-fashioned whimsy was the bent-veneer and ceramic Viola coat hanger by Roos Sanders and Tijn van Orsouw intentionally made to be too beautiful to hide in the closet. Reviving the classic art of hand-caned chairs with exciting new patterns was Jonghlabel.

3. Candles in the wind

Romance without candles is nothing – clearly Europeans don’t need load shedding as an excuse. A plethora of all manner of holders and candles were on show everywhere, including the royal blue porcelain Bubble Collection by Jorine Oosterhoff and strikingly utilitarian Elbow by HeetmanPatijn. By Thomas van Rongen for Puik Art, the Candela brings a new shape to wax. Yet, why are we using wax, asked Tijn van Orsouw with his Vet Pot that burns on used cooking oil.

4. Textured textiles

Beyond simply fancy prints, intricate weaving and production methods are making textiles three-dimensional. Sanne Muiser needle-punched latex with wool and sisal to create a second, fur-like skin. Combining organic and synthetic materials, hand craft and machine techniques, Roos Soetekouw’s fabrics are each multi-dimensional masterpieces. Machine-knitted fashion, blankets and throws were seen throughout, best exemplified by the Plaids by Hella Jongerius, Simone Post and Studio Truly Truly for the Textiel Museum.

5. Food food food

Designed food experiences and concept pop-ups included Aart van Asseldonk’s indulgent banquet in a church, The Allegory of the South, and sustainable food practices from around the world at Age of Wonderland. Product-wise, Michal Avraham showed how to use chocolate to make design rocks that look almost too good to eat, and Mickey Philips’ tessellated plates insist on an intimately communal mealtime.

6. Tricks of the eye

Besides introducing an element of seeming magic into homes, optical illusions can also beneficially change the space. At the Design Academy Eindhoven graduation show, Ward Wijnant showed the Spacelamp that with its curved mirror surface reflects light and enlarges a room during the day. At night, when the light is switched on, the mirror is turned translucent and the room becomes small and cosy again. Also playing on the changing light were the ethereal clocks by Daan Spanjers that use evolving colour combinations to show the time, like the sky.

7. Weird and wonderful

From chairs grown from mycelium fungi by Eric Klarenbeek to fashion made from human hair by Anouk van Klaveren, design materials are simply not what they used to be. Winner of the Young Designer title at the Dutch Design Awards was Teresa van Dongen with her bacteria-powered light installation showing that we’re already living in science fiction. The brand new future we live in also has 3D-printing producing personalised bras by Mesh Lingerie, woven vases and lamps by Atelier Robotique, and intricately detailed ceramics with fabric-like textures created by musical vibrations by Olivier van Herpt and Ricky van Broekhoven.

Find out more about Dutch Design Week at ddw.nl/en.

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The simple materials and ingenious details of the inside-out Dunkirk Estate on the North Coast is why the awards rained down on Designworkshop:SA’s architecture studio.

Designworkshop:SA is one of those architecture firms that writes its own briefs. Having the Constitutional Court in your portfolio, after all, would earn you that privilege. Now what would partners Andrew Makin, Janina Masojada and Mark Horner do with something as domestic as, say, a gated community? What is their antidote to the Tuscan doldrums and cookie-cutter Pleasantvilles that suffocate suburbia?

“The developer initially asked us to design a code – for instance, red roofs, white walls – that residents have to follow, which is how most gated estates control their style,” explains Mark about their Dunkirk Estate project in Salt Rock, winner of a 2013 KZN Institute for Architects Merit Award.

Not everyone wants uniformity, however, agreed the team, who collectively give input into the firm’s projects. So, instead of doing a code, they built iconic public buildings – the gate house, residents’ office, clubhouse and Dash hotel/apartments – to stimulate property owners as to the possibilities of the site and climate.

“Our climate is perfectly suited to an open, outdoor, naturally ventilated living environment,” says Mark, as he gestures at the public clubhouse, where the floor-to-ceiling glass sliding doors can be opened to turn the building inside out. “The building is a veranda.”

Similarly, the central living areas of the apartments can also be turned into deep-berthed stoeps, thanks to the sliding-door tracks running on the outside of the building, so that there is no fixed pane. The positioning is also just right – when the wind blows from the northeast, close the front doors, and when the wind blows from the southwest, close the back doors.

Another universal feature is the slatted balau wood facade, which allows apartment residents and clubhouse gym goers to see out, while giving some privacy from the prying eyes of passers-by. “We’ve used the cheapest form of balau timber,” says Mark. “It’s about using simple, traditional materials – glass, steel, aluminium – in a different context in a direct way.”

Some 7km down the road, right on the main beach, the developer Glen Hesse of Cenprop has also built a beach clubhouse for the exclusive use of the estate’s residents. Two boxes and a roof in form, it gives 360-degree views of the beach and lagoon valley, yet it can’t be seen from the beach – who would want to blight such a panorama, after all?

“A building is not an object to us, it is a place in a landscape,” agrees Mark that it is this unobtrusive, understated beauty, which works with, not against, the landscape and climate, that makes for contemporary vernacular architecture.

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Save electricity while staying toasty this chilly season.

1. Kangeri Nomadic Radiator
Recently on display at the Milan Furniture Fair, this heater is not just a looker – the powder-coated aluminium and oak mobile radiator saves energy by warming up the space that surrounds its user, instead of attempting to warm up the entire room.

satyendra-pakhale.com

2. Retro Ceramic Fan Heater
This little silver and chrome stick of 23cm-high dynamite might be in a small, quirky packet, but it packs a punch as a space heater. It also saves electricity by having the ceramic elements controlled by a thermostat, while only the fan runs continuously.

R759, kalahari.com

3. The Wonderbag
Once your pot reaches boiling point, take it off the stove and put it into the Wonderbag, where it will continue cooking without using any further electricity. Ideal for slow-cooked foods like stews and soups, you can also share the warmth this winter by buying two from Kalahari.com for R500, who will then donate one to charity.

R399, kalahari.com, nb-wonderbag.com

4. The Spindel
This dryer uses spin power instead of heat to dry fabrics, removing up to 80% of the moisture in three minutes. According to its makers, it also uses 100 times less electricity, and it’s safe for even the most delicate fabrics.

R1 599, spindel.co.za

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This week the team is drawing inspiration from a visual feast of gorgeous photography, cool modular candleholders, clever street art and even some good old quirky furniture design. Here are the top VISI picks of the week series – week 57.

1. erneststudio.com.au
2. gq.co.za
3. tastemag.co.za
4. toiletpapermagazine.org
5. oprisco.com 
6. streetartutopia.com
7. snapplify.com, pressreader.com, mysubs.co.za

Browse more like VISI picks fo the week series – week 57 on picks of the week 247.

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Inspiring roundup including gorgeous styling, an architectural installation made from nylon threads, a limited-edition Smeg fridge, toast art, pastel modern classic chairs, an ultra HD projector and the most stylish step scooter yet. Here are the top VISI picks of the week series – week 56.

1. idafrosk.com
2. behance.net/gallery/17318269/PIGEON_kick-scooter
3. smeg.co.za, wdccapetown2014.com
4. dietlindwolf.blogspot.com
5. sony.net/Products/4k-ultra-short-throw/
6. fritzhansen.com/en/designers/arne-jacobsen
7. zadokgallery.com

Browse more like VISI picks of the week series – week 56 on picks of the week 246.

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An eclectic roundup including a light festival in Sydney, 3D printed eco-houses, a pearl necklace, digitally constructed photographs, a cordless vacuum, camping shoes, driver-less cars and watch personalities are keeping the team inspired. Here are the top VISI picks of the week series – week 55.

1. nendo.jp
2. justinplunkett.com
3. plus.google.com/+GoogleSelfDrivingCars
4. dezeenwatchstore.com
5. etsy.com/shop/TOWNDESIGN
6. designboom.com/technology
7. dyson.co.za
8. vividsydney.com
9. nadeemhaidary.com

 

Browse more like VISI picks of the week series – week 55 on picks of the week 359. 

 

 

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An eclectic mix of super styling, award-winning art, a shelfie art installation, an 800-page hand-painted colour glossary and a life-size birdcage chair, here are the top VISI picks of the week series – week 52.

1. yinkashonibarembe.com
2. dietlindwolf.blogspot.com
3. e-corpus.org
4. hannalietaute.wordpress.com
5. ontwerpduo.nl/en/collection/work/cageling

Browse more like VISI picks of the week series – week 52 on picks of the week 106. 

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This week’s team picks are a splash of colour sure to get you sprinting through the first full work week in about a month! There’s a clashtastic fabric shoot, the Moooi 2014 collection, a book with pages that purify water, huge hand-embroidered poufs, a quirky sofa and thought-provoking art based on Disney. Here are the top VISI picks of the week series – week 51.

1. admagazine.ru
2. moooi.com 
3. petitefriture.com, constanceguisset.com
4. waterislife.com
5. ollitt.com
6. disneyunhappilyeverafter.tumblr.com
7. peugeotdesignlab.com

Find more like VISI Picks of the week series – week 51 here.

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