Sprouting Drawers

I just think these one off pieces of furniture by Peter Bottazzi and Denise Bonpace shown at Milan are incredible. When I was reearching my chair project last term this series called Da Morto A Orto would have been fantastic inspiration!
Images from dezeen

Slow Wood

More handmade furniture - I really want to get my hand saw out and get making!

Images from slowwood via bloesem

Hand Made

I love the bursts of colour in an otherwise simple and natural interior. It's Ashley Helvey's Seattle apartment at Design*Sponge and the furniture is handmade.

Tonight we're having Fisherman's Pie for dinner! And soon I'll be time to make some of this...

Images from Design*Sponge via Lena Corwin

Carpenter Girl

I've been exploring my inner carpenter today, finishing the prototype chair for my interdisciplinary project. Sawing, chiseling and drilling is a tiring business, I'm pooped! It has definitely been worth making the mock-up, as there are a number of changes that need to be made in the 'real thing'. Been having a gander at the work by Greg Hatton, as pointed out by fine little day. Inspiration for a future furniture project maybe?

The weather at the moment is beautiful, not a cloud in the sky, not even an Icelandic volcanic ash cloud! Yesterday I went to a lovely pub near by for my primary school friend's 21st. As parentals were invited too it was like being back in the playground all those years ago. In the evening my cousin, my brother and I went for drinks in London and even saw George Michael (we had a vouchers for a posh hotel bar!)

Chicken's roasting in the kettle BBQ for Sunday dinner... smells deliiiicious!

Shad Thames

I Never Knew That About London by Christopher Winn explains what 'shad' means. When I knew the Design Museum was in Shad Thames, I thought "What on earth is that?! A 'shad'?! Like a street or a road?". I would look it up again, but the book has gone AWOL (I'll blame the brother!) It's something to do with fish and the docks that were once there, but it's a really interesting little street, apparently Dickens set some of Oliver Twist there!

Yesterday we had a really good look around the Design Museum, there was just so much to see! First the Design Awards had such a range of furniture, architecture, graphics and above are some favourites. The David Adjaye photography exhibition had eye-opening snaps of all across the African continent.

The Sustainable Futures exhibition also included ways, on many scales, in which designers are becoming more sustainable; this is from whole cities in Brazil with incentives such as football tickets for recycling, to portable plants which clarify the air for astronaunts. Even the Design Awards had a wide range of sustainable prducts- which I find so great to see. I think I've become pretty hippie! ,

Check out: Edible Estates by Fritz Haeg, bamboo furniture by Grassworks, pallet furniture by Studiomama, folding plug by Min-Kyu Choi (Mum's favourite), repaired street benches by Linda Brothwell

Make Do and Mend... again

Yesterday on one of the most stormy days there has been this year, I went to London to visit the Geffrye Museum. Primarily it was to see the building itself as I am writing an essay on its architectural themes, but they had a really useful exhibition on, Eco Homes.
As this is what I am investigating in my interdisciplinary dissertation there are many designers featured in the exhibition who explore the themes of Make do and Mend and REuse and REcycle...
Zoe Murphy - reused printed furniture
Claire Danthois - once discarded furniture
David Stovell - newspaper stools
Laura Cahill - book vases
Squint - reupholstered patchwork chairs

Notting Hill Carnival

Today a bunch of my friends and I went to the carnival in Notting Hill, the biggest in Europe so I hear! We had a brilliant day, the atmosphere was incredible... music, dancing, colour, parade, costumes, Caribbean food! Twas fantastic... we were all taken miles away!
I've spent a lot of time in London town over the last few weeks and I've realised what a wealth of culture and activity we have on our doorstep here! On Friday I went to the National Portrait Gallery to see the BP Portrait Awards (and glimpsed Twiggy who was there!) Some of the portraits you would never believe have been painted, they look like photographs! My particulary fav was Maggie by Sue Rubira. About 1m in height, it had such a presence in the room.My friend Ree and I also popped along to the V&A to see the Telling Tales exhibition on Design Art which focuses on art based furniture. The chairs especially are going to be inspiration for my dissertation this year!

There's sooo much to see, definitely go see it all!

Architour

Today my friend Matt (a fellow architect in training) and I went on an architectural wander around town. First we went to Radical Nature at the Barbican and had a look at the conceptual art/architecture pieces as sculptures, images and video installations.

My favourites were a wooden structure by A12, when stepped into is a mirrored interior space with a miniture garden within, a pavilion with shingle cladding by Heather and Ivan Morrison and the photography of a project by Agnes Denes called Wheatfield - A Confrontation, a wheatfield in Manhatten.

Image from artnet

In the shop I discovered this chair by Valentina Gonzalez Wohler which is very much along the lines of the sort of thing I want to explore for my third year interdisciplinary module.

Image from fabrikproject

After checking out the House Design Awards at the RIBA HQ, we headed to Hyde Park and found the Serpentine Pavilion this year designed by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA. The reflective surfaces made for an exciting and almost futuristic space.We got very inspired, hope that'll stay with us til we start term again in a couple of months!

Serendipity

So I've just come home from an evening in town with friends, should go to bed at this early hour BUT through an email from the shop Frank in Whitstable, I have discovered the artist Zoe Murphy!

For this coming final year of my degree, one module I have selected is called Interdisciplinary where we explore a theme of architecture through another art and design medium. After some research through magazines, cut outs from my scrapbook, TV (specifically Kirsty's Homemade Home on Channel4), on the internet, I decided upon the theme of 'Make Do and Mend'.

Like old buildings are given new uses - an old factory converted into trendy, modern apartments - old furniture can be given a new lease of life through upholstery. There is no need to buy new when there is such good examples just looking for a little TLC. I had envisaged finding a vintage seat or chair and designing my own fabric or material to reupholster it with. Two thoughts for inspiration were London life and its skyline or the North Kentish seascape (as uni is 15mins away) - oh which to choose?!


Zoe Murphy indeed recycles household objects and furniture and the inspiration is her hometown of Margate, which is half an hour from me here at uni! Her designs give a modern, funky taste to vintage furniture, and according to her blog she is getting well deserved critical acclaim for it! So good, considering she only graduated last summer!

I'll definitely keep my eye on her work to give ideas for my own project and will post ideas, sketches and images as my own design progresses!