So we made a presentation to a major house builder this week and were amused to be asked by a related party if we were the ones who turned up with boxes of macaroons and pretty “waitresses”. Purlease!
I’m all for surprise and wit in design but my constant and fervent plea that “proper interior designers are not just cushion plumpers” is not helped by “plumpers” who make the frontispiece of their presentation cake and totty. They’ll probably get the job!
As if I didn’t get myself into enough trouble when I dedicated a couple of my Telegraph columns to the curse of uPVC (or PVCu) windows I am now working with the very fine Wood Window Alliance in an attempt to push back the terrifyingly rising tide of white plastic windows. As a result we’re looking for three lovely homes with those hideous plastic windows that we can make over. For more info go to wwacompetition.co.uk
To Killerton House in Devon yesterday. House unremarkable but gardens and Summer House, built as a birthday present for the then Mistress by the Master at beginning of 19th Century magical.
the above a floor made of deer knuckle bones
Loving these from warmproducts.com ...
an appropriate supplier now the winter season is clearly upon us!
What’s the point of design? This the title of a seminar I participated in recently with Heavenly Kevin and architect and TV presenter George Clarke (I am reliably informed he likes his fishy firmly on the dishy by the way) at the recent Grand Designs Live exhibition.
To begin with we all agreed that design is not a choice but unavoidable, it being a process rather than something one just adds, like water, to a product say.
Then Dishy came over a bit peculiar and started talking about design being like masturbation and how design is solely defined by beauty. Must be something in those fish. Crowd seemed to love it though, and I guess that’s all that matters, right?
Raising the tone I stumbled across the lyrical Collier Campbell exhibition in the National Theatre this week; nothing like the comfort of floral prints combined with the inspiration of clever ideas.
Also this week I presented a short film for Design Ventura, the Design Museum’s competition inviting secondary school age children to design a product for their shop. It’s a brilliant project and not only do I get to present the introductory film but I also get to judge the awards and go to the party. Can't wait on all fronts.
I am rather beginning to love working with young people (no doubt I will eat my words soon). I recently gave a masterclass as part of The Sorrell Foundation's Saturday Art and Design Saturday Morning Classes at the Somerset College of Arts and Technology.
A thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding experience and an opportunity to tell young people about the fantastic opportunities that exist in a career in design. The UK has the best design education system in the world and the creative industries are worth over £70 billion to the UK economy, something I love to quote to people who say doing art at school is a waste of time, something I was always told. Equally I never knew as a young person that design was even a subject, and I am sure I am not the only designer to have had this experience.
The Summer Show, an exhibition of all the work from all the classes, will be held at Somerset House from this Saturday. For more info. go to http://thesorrellfoundation.com/saturday-club.php
Who’d have known it was the 50th anniversary of the Salone, the focus of Milan’s furniture fair and the flagship of the industry? No, I mean really, who would have known? Thank God for good friends, new friends and nice restaurants.
The emerging trends seem to be stuff made to look like animals - a piano made to look like a whale, a light made to look like a chicken, that kind of thing......
stuff made out of masks, from the kind of chandelier that would probably look perfect at one of Berlusconi’s Bunga-Bunga parties to Driade – yes Driade – producing a chair moulded out of a giant mask........
stuff with plants plonked onto them (this was Milan’s sole attempt at “green design”, more of which below);
plus a good dose of sexism typified by a laughable lampshade designed by Richard Hutten, founder of Droog for God’s sake and made of gold discs punctured with the kind of silhouettes of nude dancing girls that can be seen on truckers mudguards.
I know the Dutch are pretty open about sex (I do a pretty good impression of a Dutchman talking about orgasms the way a Brit might talk about the weather) but come on people!!!!
During this odyssey, shared with Maya (architect) and Kathleen (interior designer), otherwise known as The Kingston Massive (perhaps massively bottomed after so much pizza?), we began to think maybe it was us – maybe we are just getting old? But then speaking with chums bumped into along the way we realised that we may well be getting old but that’s not the reason for our ennui.
We also discovered that our failure to visit one satellite event – the Lambrate – was indeed a grave omission as this zone was reputed to have the best “gear”. Which goes to show that quality is always far more valuable than quantity.
The few highlights, however, began the moment we landed, with a dinner to launch the new World Festival of Interiors (http://www.insidefestival.com/launch-party.cfm) to be held in Barcelona later in the year, headed by my old mate Paul Finch (ex CABE and ex editor of Architect’s Journal who in that role lavishly sponsored the catalogue for my very first show of architecture and interior design a million years ago now, and for which reason I will always love him) and the lovely Claire Barrett editor at large of Elle Decoration (UK) and ex editor of Grand Designs Magazine.
Held in Tom Dixon’s Milan “space”, surrounded by his beautiful work and crunching on Steve Parle’s imaginative food (piles of carefully selected raw veg, a plate of spices and a mortice and pestle in which to mix up your own mix – then squeeze lemon on veg, dip in spice and scoff) was utterly memorable, especially as Marcel Wanders intentionally/unintentionally provided the cabaret.
Hermes produced a wholly atmospheric installation designed by Shigeru Ban within a basketball court.
And we got accosted by a “man of the road”, who turned out to be our old mate Michael Young (though difficult to discern beneath the wild-man, slightly-matted-veering-towards-an-Arthur-Scargill hair do and layers of clothing consisting of his own topped by Trussardi threads insisted upon by his client at Trussardi) with whom we were all at Kingston and who had designed a sparkling installation for said client in Piazza de la Scala.
Jumping in his waiting chauffeur-driven Beamer (!!) to go to dinner at a sweet Sardinian restaurant we marvelled at Michael’s total rock star lifestyle, a boy who failed all his exams and got a third class degree now has homes around the world, flies first class (with a plastic bag only of essentials, at least so he says) and loves what he does but would actually quite like to do nothing too, especially as the Saturday before he flew to Milan from Australia his wife had just given birth to his first born son.
Notwithstanding these and a few other highlights, such as....
......plus whatever was going on at Lambrate, what was striking about the entire event was the paucity of intellectual rigour in many of the exhibits and groups thereof: not just a failure, but a kind of stupid determination to completely ignore the enormous conflict that exists in design when it comes to sustainability, in terms of both environmentalism and the sort of high quality, enriching aesthetic that can be cherished for years to come.
??
Design’s first purpose must surely be to enhance life, either through practicality, beauty or ideally both - that old William Morris idea – or it’s just pointless rubbish, literally. Even the mounds of discarded flyers for events scattered on the streets everywhere were pretty offensive.
This observation has been made all the more poignant for me as I have since barrelled around Devon’s boscy lanes, munching on freshly bloomed wild garlic flowers. Nature is the most brilliant designer and it is surely a designer’s duty to glorify her? Better to do nothing at all than produce just more loads for landfill.
Perhaps this malaise is entirely Milanese though? The presence of graffiti literally everywhere was depressing and suggested something rotten at the heart of this city. And it probably didn’t help that we got into a fight with a bunch of Milanese lads as they tried to grab our taxi. They certainly learned that you never try and steal a cab from a London-trained Lady, and especially not three of them. In high heels. Late at night. In the rain.
It actually says "ALL WEATHER SCREEN" on Great Western's sign but that isn't true is it GW?
Because when the sun shines from the South, a not infrequent occurrence, it's impossible to read the screen.
Bad Design No. 000000768
As I tell my students, when thinking about what you can control inside always think about what you cannot control outside - and the relationship between the two.
Somewhat following on from the themes in my last post I am reconsidering the size of my business card i.e. bigger, if only to explain what an interior designer actually does, or maybe what this interior designer and her team does.
The problem, it seems, is that "interior designer" is so often interpreted as someone who chiefly shepherds fabrics, paint colours and "objets". In my book this is an interior decorator (not to be confused with a painter and decorator) and a fine calling it is too. To witness a really talented decorator at work, who can summon detail and finish from nothing, almost like an artist, and who has a deep knowledge of current craft technique and the history of decor is impressive.
I, on the other hand, am very much an interior designer. My understanding of this term though is not only someone who can direct fabric, colour and "objets" but also someone who will, generally speaking, approach a project much like an architect, developing the design for an interior in context, that relates in a meaningful way to a given site, to the unique characters and demands of those who will use the space, a design that acknowledges the fundamental importance of navigation and legibility, the relationship between volume, mass, rhythm and detail, of the effects of natural and artificial light. A design that allows for the most efficient mechanics of a building, from heating, ventilation and air conditioning to the audio visual and security. A design that understands construction and proper process in terms of working alongside other consultants and with building firms.
A friend of mine who works in the same way calls herself an interior architect. Not bad. But a bit of a mouthful and slightly pretentious. Also, while interior designer sort of negates the architectural aspect of the job, interior architect negates the softer decorator aspects.
The reason I set up my practice in the first place was to offer the kind of still fairly unique service that covered everything a client could want in a renovation, from construction to cushion covers, and our clients seem to love us for it. Every feature in a building is, after all and inevitably, related to the other by the simple virtue of being in the same place.
Perhaps the confusion lies in the fact that the professions are promiscuous? Architects operating as interior designers. Interior designers working as interior decorators. Interior decorators calling themselves designers.
What is to become of us?!
