What a waste

Students Petter Thörne’s och Anders Johnson’s easy chair Mold looks like a piece of art made by the Brasilian Campana brothers, but is actually ment to be massproduced in Sweden. Developed to be made out of veneer waste from different kinds of wood, it not only saves the waste from it’s usual destiny – that of being burnt despite it’s low energy value – but uses it in a much more constructive way: to make new furniture. By their work the designers have converted the disadvantage of the small format veneer-waste slivers into a constructive advantage that has facilitated the double-curved surface. And the variety of veneer in terms of wood type and format make each individual piece of furniture unique. Let's hope this chair will soon find its producer.

Made in the hood

There must be 1000 ways to work as a designer. Take the Finnish-Korean couple behind Helsinkibased designproducer Company for example. They chose a starting point very far from the usual international-designer-as-a-star-concept: they produce their own design and only work with local manufacturers. Aamu Song and Johan Olin talk about their ideas in terms of “seeds that make the local factories grow” and describe the “recipes” of 70 of their products in their “Company Cookbook”. Since 2008 they also run their own shop Salakauppa (the Secret Shop) close to the Kiasma museum of modern art in the center of Helsinki. The dancing shoes “Tanssitossut” for father and daughter are made of Finnish felt and rubber in Jämsä, Finland.

Puzzle furniture

By the way, “puzzle furniture” seem to be in every designer's mind for the moment. Here’s a Norwegian contributor: Petter Skogstad showed his all textile d i y-sofa "Hay" in Milan's young department Salone Satellite. And yes, it's inspired by hay piles. But the big question is: do people want to fit all the pieces together themselves? And do they prefer flexibility to commodity? After the age of 25, I'd say "No".

The question is "How?"

Nowadays it's not only the "What?", it's the "How?" that counts. How things are being produced luckily seem to become a hotter topic every week. Thanks to climate change YouTube can now add a new kind of film to their broad supply: production porn. In a few weeks time I’ve seen films about the production of the Danish chair Nobody, the Swedish chair Papuru and the Swedish stool Cow Stool. But production films are not always about high tech procedures. Form Us With Love’s “Man–size Mekano” is a kind of puzzle d i y-product with a production process you might as well visualize in a few images. But have a look anyway.

The weight of light

Nicolas Cheng, a Singapore-born student at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, showed a poetic take on energy awareness at the Salone del Mobile in Milan last week. Light is by definition something hard to quantify or experience by human hands, but by associating light to weight, Nicolas provide the user with the neccessary tools. Combinations of simple mechanisms utilize gravity resistance to transfer light to a bulb. For every 100 grams of weight, a corresponding 10 watts of light is produced. Good thinking.

High tech cow stool

A stool called "Milk", made in ash tree. Could things get more nostalgic? If you ask the Swedish designer Staffan Holm the answer is yes. The stool he showed in Milan's Salone Satellite is not the handicraft piece it looks like, but rather the opposite. Look for your self, here's a film showing the production process.

Simplicity rally in Milan

1.Swedish style
2.French style

These days, a lot of designers are striving to come up with the simplest, smartest idea. According to the British journalist Alice Rawsthorn in International Herald Tribune utilitarianism will be the dominant style during the Salone del Mobile in Milan this week. But how far can you take simplicity? Swedish architects TAF will show this parcellike furniture collection at the design gallery Rossana Orlandi. And I like the idea. But I liked it even better the first time I saw it. Already in 1997 French designer Matali Crasset wrapped soft cubes into the kind of big shopping bags that immigrants in Paris use to carry things around in. Sometimes a simple solution is just too simple.