I have visited the hussein chalayan exhibition at the design museum in london. its a comprehensive retrospective about the fashion designers work between 1994 – 2009.

this is the aircraft wing chandelier for the swarovski crystal palace at kunsthalle mannheim .

Its a large flap moving slowly up and down, revealing a long strip of swarovski crystals which are illuminated from behind by led lights. the installation is called ‘repose’ and belongs to the autumn/winter collection 2006.

also included into the installation:a digital clock with specially cut crystals, featuring 24 leds and 96 crystal octagons

I announce couple changes that will or have occurred on my blog:

- I have added a ‘drawn interview’ symbol to the interviews of the designers to separate the pictures from the drawings

- I will start to watermark my pictures. It happens often that I find my pictures on other websites without putting a link to matandme.net. shame on you!

- I will finally publish more information about me. so people who don’t know me will find out whats behind all this

lalala, matylda

roy mcmakin is sometimes described as a designer, sometimes as an architect but mainly as a craftsman.

english furniture manufacturer established & sons is presenting an exhibition of selected work of the american creative. It’s his first european debut in london.

high chest of drawers with knobs,
originally made in 1986, made of mahogany

ebonized stools

want to see more? see (continue…)

london-based designer tom price has designed the panels on the ground floor level of metropolitan works, creative Industries center. It is a specially commissioned frieze that has been laser cut out of the panels to give the structure a sense of movement and life.

see more (continue…)

couple days ago I have visited metaalwarenfabriek phoenix, metal working factory phoenix, in eindhoven. designconnection brainport, a network for designers and industry, have organized a guided tour through all facilities of the factory.

I found a case of a henk suitcase in the showroom of the factory and couldn’t believe that $20,000 are standing in front of me. yes, $20,000!! a dutch real estate magnate named henk worked together with frog design to create a strong, agile suitcase for the elite travelers. It is crafted of 500 component parts and its shell is made of super lightweight carbon fiber.

I mean, I am traveling a lot but I prefer to buy a car instead of a suitcase that is worth $20,000.

I can highly recommend this movie about the underside of our production and consumption patterns. annie leonard is guiding through the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues in a way that possibly make you change the way you look at all the stuff in your life.

more about the movie here.

last friday I attended at the 2nd pecha kucha night at the ainsi in maastricht, netherlands.

pecha kucha forces a presenter to show 20 images for 20 seconds a piece, for a total time of 6 minutes, 40 seconds. this form of presentation was invented in japan in 2003 by tokyo based architects astrid klein and mark dytham, klein dyham.

I am sure everybody of us know some creatives that tend to talk to much and too long about their ideas. anyway, I think I am going to participate at the next pecha kucha maastricht on saturday, 20th june 2009. lalala

Eindhoven

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djim berger is student at the design academy who will graduate this year. he is obsessed with ceramics. I had the chance to have a look on what he is doing (the first samples) for his final project but I’m curious what we will see at the graduation show.

‘de pastoor van arskerk’ is a 20th century church in eindhoven that has been empty for 5 years before a group of designers took it over as a workspace.

It started with the problem that some design academy students had not enough space to work at the academy. they were looking for their own space and wanted eindhoven, the self-appointed design city, to provide the space. I mean, in every city are enough abounded buildings. why not giving it to people who need the space?

otje bastiaanse, djim berger, hilbert tjalkens, vera teunen and rocco verdult founded stichting atelierdorp and searched for other people to join the project that aims to give space to creatives. In 2006 nacho carbonell, veronique lorne, nathan wierink and bas van raay built an atelier in the church, called atelierdorp. a half year later julien carretero joined in nacho’s atelier. later other people joined to the group.

since then they work together in holy facilities of this church. a beautiful space, but unbelievably cold in winter. that’s why the designer have build little workspaces in the church which capture the heat .

bas van vraay
nacho carbonell
julien carretero
ontwerpduo
djim berger
joni neelen
rocco verdult
veronique lorne
marly gommans
vera teunen
hilbert tjalkens

post office boxes of all designers

hallway to the offices

textile workshop

workspace in the old church

view from top –
the space is separated into small work spaces

ceramics workshop

this couch is standing in front of the church/workspace of the design collective atelierdorp in eindhoven. (I don’t think that it would be easy to steal it) it is a product of designer nacho carbonell and is called ’soft concrete’. nacho created a concrete bench for outdoor purposes which shape reminds of a soft couch.

soft concrete by nacho carbonell, 2007

London

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London

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okaystudio is a design collective of former royal college of art students. all of them were studying design products at the college and after graduating they still wanted to share the same workspace. I had the chance to go and see their london-based studio in stoke newington and meet some of the members. more about 2 of the members and their assistant ;-) in the upcoming days.

the collective consists of:

tomás alonso/spanish
jordi canudas/spanish,
peter marigold/british
ed swan/british
oscar narud/norwegian
yael mer and shay alkalay/Israeli
mathias hahn/german
hiroko shiratori/japanese
jorre van ast/dutch

main hall in the old factory building

office area

entry to office area

‘table objects’ for the dinner of the design musem london

‘table objects’ for the dinner of the design musem london

if I wouldn’t know what technical approach is hidden behind this ‘thing’ I would just say that it looks awful. but the ‘allegro crescendo’ (means lively and becoming louder) speakers by studio tord boontje are a scan of micro-scale objects put together to a functional cover. they are on display at the metropolitan works, creative industries centre in london, exhibition called ‘digital explorers’.

studio tord boontje has scanned real flowers, leaves and insects by using 3d scanning technology like non-invasive 3d scanning to capture the form of the original objects and direct metal laser sintering (dmls) to manufacture the pieces. for all that I still have an aversion to flower ornaments but I give them my credits for the diversity of innovative processes.

nickel plated nylon, stainless steel
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London

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young royal college design student matthew plummer-fernandez has made another installation for the selfridges window display in london.

4 containers with coloured ink are hanging at the ceiling and droping the fluid on the white rods. I have been listening to portishead’s roads while standing in front of the window. it gave me peace of mind.

unfortunately there was not much ink
on the columns when I took the pictures

see more about matthew here
see more pictures here (continue…)

oh, I forgot to put in my favourite from the ‘prototypes and experiments’ show at london’s aram gallery. its an quite old project by london-based designer rolf sachs – an likeble concept of bags.

suit-cage and lug-cage by rolf sachs, 1997
maple leaf and merino felt

‘prototypes and experiments’ (2nd edition) is the name of a current exhibition at london’s aram gallery the show features prototypes from various designers. there were also some drawings and sketches from the designs but unfortunately not so many than I expected. I mean, an exhibition called ‘prototypes and experiments’ should show more about the process of the design, shouldn’t it?

table lamp by tomas kral, 2008
cnc milled aggolomerated cork with hand blown glass

cassette table by fran santos and caterina fadda, 2006
mdf for the top and solid-wood planks for the base

see more here (continue…)

fashion design student wayne fitzell has designed a biker jacket for puma. wayne, who studies at central saint martins, has won the motorsport re design competition – an collaboration with iconic motorsport brand ducati.

see more here (continue…)