Visited the design museum to finnally see the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year 2010, and also the David Adjaye exhibition on Urbanisation in Africa. The Insurance Design exhibition was really interesting. The winning design - the foldable plug by Min-kyu Choi, was impressive. The UK plug is something which is so unescessarily bulky and cumbersome, but also tolerated without question in day to day life, so to create such a simple and user friendly solution, I think, was very clever. Other designs which I was impressed / inspired by include, a product called 'clouds' which is an installation / starage / furniture / partition wall combo creation, by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Kvadrat. Basically a series of cells constructed from felt and connected together with custom fit elastic bands. the beautiful thing about the product is that the form and size of the 'cloud' is entirely down to the individual user. I really enjoyed the creation of something beautiful which can also be unique to everyone. Also the nominees for the interactive award were interesting and often alot of fun! Bloom (by Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers), which is an iphone / ipod touch application design was fun. the idea was to create music compositions by touching the screen in different places, this also created a ripple effect visual and when the application was left idle it would repeat the most recently entered composition on a loop. The BMW concept design was fascinating but with the desciption of its fantastic ergonomic form and unusual material, and also the surreal aesthetic; all you wanted to do was have a touch - and you obviously (but dissapointingly) weren't allowed. The most beautiful intallation I saw during the exhibition was without doubt 'Soma' by Ayala Serfaty. It was a light intallation constructed of light filaments which are woven together and then sprayed with polymer to create a glowing skin-like crust.
(Below: Folding plug design by Min-Kyu Choi, Cloud by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Kvadrat, Soma by Ayala Serfaty)
I was surprisied to see the Highline project as a nominee for the architecture award, only because it feels like its been around longer than it actually has, I think. Where it was maybe under celebrated in the Brity Insurance Design Awards, it has now made it up by winning a D&AD 'black pencil' award in the environmental design category.
LINK to D&AD website
I then went on to see the also long awaited David Adjaye Urban Africa exhibition. The introduction to the project was really interesting. Different characteristics of each African country were shown through mapping the whole continent in different styles. Giving you as the viewer an opportunity to understand each individaul country in the context of the Afican Continent. However when I moved into the exhibition I was slightly dissapointed. Each capital city in the whole continent was represented through a series of photographs, intended to encapture the feel of the whole city and the urban context of each city. I felt a little let down, and I don't really know why - the few Cities in Africa which I have visited and were represented, were represented well by the photographs. I think I was just expecting more analysis, more of a study.
(Below: Folding plug design by Min-Kyu Choi, Cloud by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Kvadrat, Soma by Ayala Serfaty)
I was surprisied to see the Highline project as a nominee for the architecture award, only because it feels like its been around longer than it actually has, I think. Where it was maybe under celebrated in the Brity Insurance Design Awards, it has now made it up by winning a D&AD 'black pencil' award in the environmental design category.
LINK to D&AD website
I then went on to see the also long awaited David Adjaye Urban Africa exhibition. The introduction to the project was really interesting. Different characteristics of each African country were shown through mapping the whole continent in different styles. Giving you as the viewer an opportunity to understand each individaul country in the context of the Afican Continent. However when I moved into the exhibition I was slightly dissapointed. Each capital city in the whole continent was represented through a series of photographs, intended to encapture the feel of the whole city and the urban context of each city. I felt a little let down, and I don't really know why - the few Cities in Africa which I have visited and were represented, were represented well by the photographs. I think I was just expecting more analysis, more of a study.
