batikk's design blog

communication specialist & design lover. passionate about chairs, germany, social media, espresso, italo disco and 1930s architecture, to name but a few.

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diy.

Timber, een tafel die je zonder gereedschap in elkaar zet. Knap! (via swissmiss)

 

maarten.

Maarten Van Severen is undoubtedly one of the greatest designers Belgium ever had. Last Saturday, there was a little tour in his honour organised by www.designmarkt.be. Here are some pictures. All of these designs are still in production, most of them (tables, cupboards & chairs) are made by aiki, some chairs by Vitra, the leather lounge chair by Pastoe and the lighting by Light.
 
 

 

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good art or good design?

It was an interesting Saturday afternoon at the Le Grand Hornu museum. There are 2 expositions running at this moment. 
 
The first one is called Le fabuleux destin du Quotidien and focuses on the relation and touchpoints between art and design. There were contributions by Wim Delvoye, Marti Guixe and the reinterpreted cupboards of up-and-coming artist Hannes Van Severen.
 
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The best work in my opinion was a movie by Fischli & Weiss called Der Lauf der Dinge. It is a 30-minute movie that consists of nothing but an experimental perpetuum mobile. The set-up of the experiments alone must have been huge. It fascinated me in the same way that boys-and-science-experiments books did when I was a child. Here's an excerpt:
 
 
Second was an expo on the work of Belgian furniture designers Nicolas Bovesse and Marina Bautier. Especially Bautier's work struck me as simple but very thought-trough. It looks very honest, practical and beautiful at the same time (unlike 80% of the novelties at Milan's furniture fair). The accompanying booklet shows some insights in Bautier's work method. The fact that she sometimes puts ideas in the closet for 2 years to allow them to mature is an example for a lot of designers. Sadly and strangely enough, her work is almost impossible to buy in Belgium. Anyway: here are some pictures. 
 
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no screws, just glue.

Stefan Diez is one of my favorite living designers. I was already charmed by his work at Thonet, but his chairs for German company e15 are even more innovative. The Houdini chair is radically different from other wooden designs. It uses 4mm thin oak-veneered plywood. The technique used in this chair is also used in aeroplane model making. Two-dimensional plywood slabs are stretched by hand around a milled solid wood ring. The slabs form the back and are also part of the seat. No nails or screws are used, just glue to keep the parts together.

The shape may remind one of the Eames' plastic shell chairs, but the process is quite revolutionary. In the pictures below you see how it is done. Not surprisingly, the chair won the Red Dot 'Best of the best' award.

E15 will present new items in the Houdini chair family at the Salone del Mobile in Milan. I'm curious!

(pics from the e15 website)

 

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time for ideas

Marti Guixé's designs always manage to be funny and intelligent at the same time. He recently designed a clock for Alessi that is made out of whiteboard. It allows you to make your own clock or to define your own time.

Knowing the work of Guixé a little bit, I bet that this is not just a gimmick but that he actually went through a thinking process about the meaning of time in a person's life - to end up with this funny object. I wouldn't be surprised.

This is the man who is convinced that goldfish can also appreciate good design and made some design objects for aquaria. And this is the man who strives for equal rights for plastic garden furniture. In his opinion, they are very good products but often regarded with disdain. This is why he paints the chairs with graffiti stating "stop discrimination of cheap furniture". Gotta love that.

More on his website www.guixe.com.

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fold it, bend it!

Folding and bending seems to be a bit of a trend in furniture design. Designers bend and twist shapes like origami, to get highly original shapes that are also simple to produce. It also adds a certain tension between 2D and 3D that is very interesting and gives these pieces a sculptural quality. Some designs that caught my eye lately: 

- The Straw chair by Osko + Deichmann, made to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Bauhaus. They took steel tubes but folded them with a kink instead of bending them, like the classic Breuer designs. Just like a straw bent too far. 
- The Plopp stool by Oskar Zieta for Hay. This one is first welded at the contours and then filled with fluid (!) under high pressure. The fluid gives the metal its shape. After that, the legs are bent to form a stool. (Though it's interesting, I actually doubt it's comfortable)
- The Vouwwow chair by Maartje Nuy and Joost van Noort. This one is made of recycled cardboard. It won the Mart Stam prize awarded by Thonet for young talent.
- And last but not least a classic: the low chair aluminium by Maarten Van Severen for aiki. So graceful and simple. 

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shelves from Belgium

Shelves: probably the most practical furniture there is, yet so often overlooked. Instead of installing Ikea-LACK shelves that will bend after 2 months, you could as well invest in some real good ones that will last a lifetime. Like the fantastic 606 Universal Shelving System by Dieter Rams for example: a modular system that you can extend as you like. It has been in production since the 1960s. Or, if you want to buy Belgian, the Lap Shelving by Marina Bautier. Very simple but refined, made of oak and metal. A modern classic, if you ask me. It is produced by UK company Case Furniture.


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tight, very tight

This made me look:

TIGHT STOOL by Diane Steverlynck

"A wooden puzzle of legs and seat kept together with a colored rope. This stool is inspired by the simple fastening systems people use in everyday life, to place together loose elements and form, change or repair an object. The rope acts not only as the finishing touch, but also as the only construction element of this stool. It is necessary for keeping the taboret together. With a simple element as a rope, individual elements stick together to make a seat. The only thing required is some strength."

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klug & minimal

Jamie Bolton ontwerpt slimme, minimalistische filmposters die de essentie van films in één beeld proberen te vatten.

(via de fijne blog minimalissimo)


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80s design galore

On the web, it's quite hard to find information about 80s design. That's weird, because since the last decennium the 80s were - and are - kind of all over the place. A very good guide to 80s fashion and culture is Excess. This book is filled with images of music, clubs, advertising and fashion in the 80s, and the influence on more recent cultural phenomenons like electroclash. Especially in the depiction of masculinity and femininity the 80s were quite revolutionary (think Grace Jones and Annie Lennox).  Interior design literature on the 80s seems to be harder to find. That's a pity. Actually, 80s interiors weren't all that bad. Especially early 80s interiors had a sense of lightness and openness that is very agreable. Towards the end of the 80s however the influence of Memphis set in and everything became a coloured, kitschy nonfunctional mess :-). Anyhow, take a look at some cool pics, taken from old B&O catalogues. 

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