TALENTS

David Lehmann (*1985, Wuppertal) studied Industrial Design at the Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart and worked throughout his studies as an assistant to the sculptor Tony Cragg in Wuppertal as well as for Marcel Wanders in Amsterdam, and Nendo in Tokyo.
 
In 2014 he founded his own studio in Munich where he lives and works. A key theme in his work is to “make the obvious unobvious by hiding it behind the obvious”, resulting in subtle outcomes that are nonetheless rich in detail and complexity.

 
Lehmann 's creation are particular : simple but not simplistic, refined and never weak, utilitarian with poetry. He managed to find a balance in each of his piece whether it's industrial or conceptual.

 
Here is how he describes "Vers A Tile" his interpretation of a contemporary table service:
"The classic table service essentially distinguishes itself through its multiple parts, the possibility of extending it through additional pieces, and its ability to take on many specific functions of our dining culture. Each dish or plate has a function that is specific to a given task. The pieces are identifiable according to essential characteristics that inform the user of the way in which they are to be used. The perception and experience of the service thereby corresponds to a stereotype.

My intention was not to work with the receptive experience of the user, so that he/she might recognize a cup as a cup, but rather leave it up to them, which piece they select to perform the function of ‚cup‘. The pieces should be distinct, prompting the user to instinctively select one or more pieces to meet their appropriate needs."

 
Another emblematic piece of Lehmann's work is "Ephemere" a conceptual and fragile creation.

"The soap bubble has existed for over 5,000 years. It has always been more than just a by-product of cleansing or something for children to play with, becoming a symbol for the ephemerality of beauty and of life itself. Blowing a bubble creates something both beautiful and delicate that you know will only last for a few brief moments. Ephemere is a soap bubble bowl from the split second series, comprising products which, once used, last only for a very short space of time. There exists a brief moment, so fleeting as to be imperceptible to the human eye, in which the bowl fulfills its function and is immediately destroyed through doing so."

studiodavidlehmann.com

Material Futures is a two-year Masters course at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, dedicated to exploring how we will live in the future through trans-disciplinary practice and expert collaboration. Blurring the boundaries between craft, science and technology gives the possibility to look beyond existing disciplines to anticipate our future needs, desires and challenges for the 21st century.
Bonnie Pierre-Davis just graduated from MA Material Futures 15/16.
 

Bonnie Pierre-Davis encourages Afghan farmers to grow saffron as an alternative to opium.
 

Bonnie is a London based designer and she became highly fascinated and intrigued by the saffron spice after visiting Dubai while exploring Al Fahidi, a traditional Arabian market originated from the 1960s. She realized that saffron is the most expensive spice in the world and is even priced similarly to gold. It is used traditionally as a color dye for textiles and made from the saffron flower, Crocus Sativus L. Saffron.
 

While thoroughly researching the economics and politics about the saffron spice she stumbled upon the opium drug trade in Afghanistan and became engaged with the country. Through farming opium, Afghanistan creates a poor way of living with an increase percentage of addicts to this narcotic drug, producing 90% of the world’s supply of heroin. In her graduation project ‘What is Golden’ she aims to encourage Afghan farmers to grow an alternative crop, namely saffron.
 

Bonnie has a background in Menswear Print Design and in her graduation project she explores the possibilities of saffron as a raw material in which she uses traditional crafts while seeking for new design opportunities.

She explores the value of the material and transforms the matter to create new perceptions and contributions. She gives new life to old recipes using her traditional making skills such as embroidery, dying and hand weaving to create artefacts that celebrate this naturally occurring spice.
 

Bonnie has done this in order to highlight the culture of Afghanistan with its strong traditions and rich cultural heritage but also to encourage farmers to stop growing opium. She aims to help stabilize the economy of the country and creates an ethical contribution to Afghanistan.
 

Britt Berden
 

mamaterialfutures
 

Britt Berden is a Dutch future concept developer and material explorer living in London, currently studying MA Material Futures at Central Saint Martins. She works across various disciplines to create a single body of work in which she emphasizes that the assets of nature and being human are of intrinsic value, especially because we are heading towards a technological future. She derives from intuition and seeks new tools to stir the imagination to inspire a more valuable future.
 

www.brittberden.com

Marlies Kolodziey is a graduate from the Design Academy, Eindhoven. In her graduation project ‘Hidden Values’ she questions the status quo of the design system, speculating at how the value of objects will possibly change in a dematerializing future. How does this dematerializing world affect us and how do we approach this shift in design? Her work balances between the real and fictional in which the individual experience becomes the new standard and is key in defining functionality.

In her project Marlies wants to unlearn the learned to open up new perspectives in perceiving materiality and shape. ‘What if every object becomes what you see in it, rather than falling back into behavior patterns constructed by marketing and industry?’ Focusing on the imagination, exploration and appropriation of an individual. Because that is where the emphasis of our time is on according to Marlies. She thinks that ‘possession is essential in the way we define who we are, and personifying objects is another way of expressing oneself'.

She challenges and questions the existing norms of our modern world in which every object needs to have certain usability. Her project marks a form or action so the user can ‘design’ the functionality and purpose itself. She shows fresh alternatives that tap into shifting values creating designs that are accessible, triggering and intriguing finding a balance between the known and the unknown in which one would feel familiar but alienated at the same time. Creating flexible functions through a more natural and improvised interaction between human and object. Through this somehow unconscious behavior, deeper layers of interaction will be exposed.

During the process of the project but also during her exhibition at the Dutch Design Academy Graduation Show and Van Abbemuseum she tested people’s improvisation upon her abstract objects, to test if people were able to imagine the limitless functions of the objects that could become a material, object or product depending on the individual perception.

According to Marlies, during the Graduation Show, ‘people stopped because they did not know what it was, whereas usually things should communicate’ and apparently also many people passed by without noticing, as it was not a very promising Instagram shot. Also, people were refreshed in being challenged instead of being told what to do. ‘Finally it felt like people wanted to find the hidden value themselves and enjoyed to design a function without being the designer’.

Britt Berden
 

marlieskolodziey.com

Britt Berden is a Dutch future concept developer and material explorer living in London, currently studying MA Material Futures at Central Saint Martins. She works across various disciplines to create a single body of work in which she emphasizes that the assets of nature and being human are of intrinsic value, especially because we are heading towards a technological future. She derives from intuition and seeks new tools to stir the imagination to inspire a more valuable future.

www.brittberden.com

Fuzzy Logic by Adam Blencowe is an innovative project introducing a method of creating textiles using felting and new digital technology. Blencowe, a Royal College of Art graduate currently working in East London, managed to construct a digitised mechanism that combines CNC (computer numerically controlled) technology and the traditional craft of felting. His geometric samples demonstrate the technique’s ability to bring « unprecedented precision » to woven textiles.
 
Felt, one of the oldest textile known today, is usually produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibres together. It can be made of either natural or synthetic fibres, and is used in industrial, technical and design contexts.
 
The common process of felting is generally done in two ways, wet or dry; the dry process, known as “needle felting”, is the one Blencowe chose to focus on for his Fuzzy Logic project.
 
Using a hacked Makita jigsaw, two textiles are bonded together through needle-punching, creating effects of colour-blending and gradations. The marks created by the process form rich textural surface patterns and simultaneously reveal the contrast between the different fibres. « The marks created in the process become patterns and pockets that enrich and decorate the surface of the fabric, but also present the opportunity to make the material three-dimensional, » explains Blencowe.

The textiles created by this unique technique could be applicable in various fields - from floor-covering to the production of fashion fabrics. With the control gained through the digitise process, Blencowe is now able to customise fabrics within short production runs. « Using needle punching as a starting point, I found there was a gap in the application of the technique, » told Blencowe in an interview to Dezeen. « It existed either as a labour-intensive hand-produced craft or within a mass manufacturing space to produce non-woven textiles for industry. »
 
Blencowe’s approach to design is centered around combining existing materials and systems in ways that produce unexpected results. He explores traditional techniques along with groundbreaking technology, interpreting the dichotomy between the two worlds in a contemporary way.
 
In previous works “Thaw” and “Thaw vases” , Blencowe challenged traditional casting techniques by working with unusual materials such as frozen water. Burring ice in plaster - the water from the melting ice hardens the plaster and creates a physical record of the transition process - produced unpredictable shapes and forms. As Blencowe managed to enhance the process, it resulted in a series of unique furnitures and vases.
 
www.adamguyblencowe.com
 
Lior Fisher Shiloni

Birgit Toke Tauka Frietman is a hybrid designer working in the Netherlands and London. Her sculptural jewellery follows the complex shape of the human body and uses wood in an unconventional way to explore an uncommon material and shape.
 
Can you tell a bit about your collection?

I got inspired by nature in minimal art. Seen as in for example the impressionist painting ‘Study of Trees’ by Paul Cézanne, I found it incredibly interesting to see how a subject can be reduced to its essence and still keep all its strength and impact. This contrast of the minimal and the powerful interested me. I came across the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude in which their wrappings of nature and architecture revealed strong and clean shapes by removing the detailed and the intricate. Their ‘Running Fence’ intrigued me most, bringing the complex and simple together. I aimed to represent the framing of nature in my graduate project as well. Creating jewellery for an organic and complex body, I wanted to design pieces that contrast with their use of straight lines and clean curves.

I started looking into all the possibilities for shaping wood around the body. The technique of steam bending, gave me the right method to manually manipulate solid sheets of European walnut. In the end, Wood and the use of felt, I believe created a collection that in shape and cut is minimal but leaves a strong impression since the framing emphasises both the body and the jewellery.
 
What fascinates you about the jewellery design?

Jewellery, to me, is incredibly unique in its intimacy. It is a medium that exists closely connected to (and is driven by) personal values instead of functionality. To me, jewellery can be defined as unnecessary. Unlike clothing, there is no need for a person to wear it. Therefore the wearer makes an absolute conscious decision when s/he puts on a certain piece of jewellery. The irrelevancy creates that jewellery can expose the personal and the intimate.
 
The work reminds of very sculptural garments and it looks like there is a link between jewellery and fashion design, can you explain this?

Yes, there is a very close link; they go hand in hand in my work. When I started studying Jewellery Design, I was amazed by the enormous freedom in material and technique; from traditional enamelling to the new technologies, such as 3D printing. However when it came to the actual designing, the medium of fine jewellery seemed very limiting to me in both size and placement. For me it should adorn the body and fashion design started to intrigue me because the whole body is being considered and addressed. When I started to understand those differences/qualities, I think I gradually combined them to find my own hybrid.

How do you choose the materials and silhouettes for your designs?

The decisions for both materials and silhouettes are very naturally made. I tend to experiment a lot which gives me the right aesthetic and function. I think for my graduate collection, I spent about a month trying different types of wood to see which one would bend best into the shape that I wanted for the shields. Silhouettes, on the other hand, come more from my drawing development transferring to the body. With the chosen material, I try to understand what quality needs to be altered for the model to work as a final design.
 
Are you currently working on a new project? Can we expect a continuation of your graduation project?

I am working on several projects. I am currently developing sculpture ideas for a new project but I am also continuing my graduation collection in collaboration with Azura Lovisa Wänmann, graduating this year, from the BA (honours) Womenswear Design course at Central Saint Martins. Other than that, I am currently collaborating with several artists and designers in both the Netherlands and England, which projects should all come out around this summer.
 
Britt Berden
 
Photos: Theresa Marx.
Make up artist: Grace Ellington.
Models: Flora Miles from D1Models & Natalia Munoz from Wilhelmina Models
 
birgittoketaukafrietman

Britt Berden is a Dutch future concept developer and material explorer living in London, currently studying MA Material Futures at Central Saint Martins. She works across various disciplines to create a single body of work in which she emphasizes that the assets of nature and being human are of intrinsic value, especially because we are heading towards a technological future. She derives from intuition and seeks new tools to stir the imagination to inspire a more valuable future.
 

www.brittberden.com

« Angels and Demons” – perhaps an inelegant way of describing Sebastien Courty’s artwork but it works. And buying one of his canvases, much like most things in life, is all about the mood you find yourself in. His 2015 Non-Washable show at Bespoke Studio Gallery in New York was a textured introduction to the art scene of this adopted city; a young Frenchman originally from the City of Lights - Paris after all is also a place with an acquired taste for art.
 

Sebastien paints on three-dimensional surfaces while screen-printing on silk organza and other high-end fabrics. The result is an artistic mirage; layers of images that blend together, leaving one intrigued by the depth of the work’s character and the artist’s research. His inspiration in one piece is faces, and a lot of them: Renaissance, Beethoven, masks from the Mayan era, homeless people. He captures expressions that demonstrate his eye for the different strands of what could be deemed powerful. When he paints on silk, we find bright colours and bold lines that break from the darker, more mysterious faces that often scream back at you.
 

Sebastien was raised in Limoges in the west of central France, a city well known for its 19th century porcelain and oak barrels that make Cognac. At 5 years old his uncle taught him how to combine his vivid imagination with whatever he could find and that planted a creative seed. By 17 and against his parent’s wishes, he moved to Paris to attend the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts where he found his artistic freedom.

As the artist puts it, “you could do whatever you wanted”, but by wanting to forge a more predictable career path, he shifted into fashion and textiles, yet while bringing his first love, painting, along for the journey. One that would lead him to New York’s renowned Fashion Institute of Technology and his second solo exhibition.
 
Textile allows Sebastian to work on a surface like a canvas but allows for great practical use of the work – so rather than just hang on a wall, he wants to see his creations in as many forms as textiles allow themselves to be transformed into. A nuanced sense of creativity… Sebastien has a unique ability for translating the ideas of ancient civilizations or the images of a ‘current living’ into ambidextrous fabrics that, depending on one’s mood, could work well as a stretched canvass on a wall or produce an interesting exchange about the couch one might be sitting on. Says C, “it’s important nowadays that an artist is able to propose their work on different surfaces.”
 

Sherwin Bryce Pease
 

www.sebastiencourty.com

"Material utopian"
Artist Tjalling Quinten Mulder and Jules van den Langenberg meet in a house in the suburbs of Amsterdam to discuss life after graduating at the Sandberg Instituut.
 

Mulder graduated earlier this year at ‘Material Utopias’, a temporary masters program of two years taking place at the Amsterdam based Sandberg Instituut. Headed by Dutch editor, critic and curator Louise Schouwenberg, the course at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie’s postgraduate department is a materials-based Master program in which Tjalling enroled after graduating in Fine Arts at the ArtEZ Academy in Arnhem. ‘Material Utopias’ focuses on serendipity during the experimental processes of artists and designers. Tutors include a variety of artists, designers and architects amongst others Folkert de Jong, Lex Pott, Vincent de Rijk, Gijs Assmann and Karel Martens. An important element of the program was the collaboration with the Rietveld departments and workshops - Glass, Ceramics, Textile - and external workshops which enabled the students to extensively work with materials and discover its qualities and narratives. Throughout their studies, both the artists and the designers continue to let themselves be surprised by their material experiments and the consequences of those surprises. Tjalling deepened his relationship with clay and started clay turning, throughout his studies he remained an interest for ceramics but was uncertain of what exactly he was researching. As het got stuck in the process this internal conflict became the starting point of his graduation work. “I literally struggled free from plaster blocks that where poured on my hands and feet. These I later used to create new images of myself, showing the process of the conflict that we as human beings all encompass inside of us daily.”

Louise Schouwenberg, Head of Material Utopias department about Tjallings’ journey:
“In many ways Tjalling and his work coincide: his personal feelings, his passion, love, but also his fears, inspired his choice of subject and way of working. Viewed from the other way round his sculptures, installations and performances reflect how we have gotten to know him during his studies.

The intense interweaving of his personality and his work meant that Tjalling could never take a distance from his struggle with topics and materials. From the moment he ceded with that, which happened during his video performances for his graduation, all individual works obtained a big, almost universal intensity that can be understood by spectators.”

After graduating Tjalling is currently working on a competition and is about to embark on a new struggle with wood chipping as a material and technique to discover.

 
The young Material Utopian has found his role in reality: “An Artist Craftsman. In this order I see myself in the world of art. The projects that I do originate from the mental and physical processes that are involved in crafts. In my work I start as an amateur and stop when I feel I mastered a craft.”

Jules van den Langenberg
 
www.tqmulder.nl

Jules van den Langenberg (Boxtel, 1988) graduated at Design Academy Eindhoven and works within the fields of exhibition making and curation. His Willy Wonka like behaviour leads to a zapp culture of projects as initiator, creative director, editor, critic and entrepreneur in which the role of design is carefully programmed. Parallel to commissioned works and self initiated projects Van den Langenberg works as a curator/designer at Studio Makkink&Bey and guest tutor at the Academy of Architecture Amsterdam.

Jules van den Langenberg

Matilde Boelhouwer has been  recently graduated from Artez Institute of the Arts in Arnhem. "Insectology Collection" is about upgrading insects as alternative material and food source. Considering food and environmental problems, she highlights this fact as a designer on different levels.
 
Our editor Cecile Poignant asked her some questions for you to get to know her better:
 
You have been doing recently 2 works with insects. Where does this interest come from?

The interest in insects is actually came from a deeply rooted interest in nature and animals. When I was seven I already began reading Charles Darwin and learning the scientific names of animals. This resulted in a choice between studying Biology or studying in the field of arts, which I also had a big interest in. I chose for the arts, but during my study I was developing a way to combine my two biggest interests, animals and arts. In this process I chose specifically for insects, because they are such an under appreciated group, super interesting as inspiration (because of shapes, sizes, colour, detail and everything else you can think of) and also, it’s a subject which hasn’t been used this much before in design. This insect-subject became so to say my specialty, because I learned so much about them in this project, I will definitely work with this for a long time. I would like to develop the sweets with chefs, maybe Sergio Herman, Jonnie Boer or Heston Blumenthal an take it to a higher plan.

For the other part of the collection, it would be great to work together with biologist in New Guinea (specifically there because they are specialized in insects for a long time now) or Japan, which is a country in which there is more interest in insects, they keep beetle as pets and they even have a fun-park entirely based around insects.
 
Do you eat insects yourself if not why?

At the moment, insects are not at my daily menu. The sweets are shaped and made this way because I actually didn’t like the idea of eating insects as they are (crunchy, tasting quite dark/earthly, looking at heads and six legs). The sweets are quite complicated to make, so I don’t do that on a daily even not a weekly bases.
 
I tasted everything though, making the sweets, this is a necessary thing of course. That’s the point where you get more used to the flavour, which is put into another form and structure and other flavours are added which are chosen together with the insect taste, so there becomes a good balance.
 
Do you imagine more personal works around insects in the future ?

My latest project is soon to be revealed at Glow in Eindhoven, it’s a project in which I developed a technique to be to print with butterfly wings.
 
 

matildeboelhouwer.com

Rodrigo Ambrosio is a young designer living in the northeast of Brasil, Alagoas. He is part of « The Armorial Design Group » a collective of North-Eastern Brazilians together with Zanini de Zanine, Sérgio Matos and Rodrigo Almeida. They combine the traditional clothing, crafts and the Northeastern way of life, mixing public and private symbols.Rodrigo Ambrosio also realize projects by its own.
 

Ambrosio recently exposed a new work made for the design week in Sao Paulo : «Engenho Chair»
 

The concept is to transform the most powerful energetic food in a design piece. Ambrosio used « Rapadura » aka sugar cane.The sugarcane was processed as a juice, cooked until boiling and evaporating. Finally it gets to the correct point to become resistant. “Rapadura” is the name of the process used a lot in the past to keep and transport sugar.

People could eat a piece of the chair when passing by the exhibition.The idea was to rescue the history of the colonization of Brasil, with the interaction of flavors that feed us until today. The chair was made at the last remnant machine Engenho São Lourenço, in Água Branca, state of Alagoas.
 

www.rodrigoambrosio.com
 

www.armorialdesigngroup.com

‘Contemporary primitives’ is a graduation project of the alumna of the School of Forum in Poznan, Jagoda Fryca. It is worth mentioning that the mentor of the school and the author of the program is none other than Lidewij Edelkoort.

The footwear collection project is a result of a fascination with amateur handcrafting of everyday objects. It is impossible to avoid comparison with the famous Dashilar Flagship Store project by the Dutch designer Sander Wassink. However, the effect seems to be more commercial. Similarly to the Dutchman, Jagoda Fryca saw the mass product as a resource and resolved to play with ready-made elements, which give infinite possibilities. The designer created an ‘unfinished product economy’ instead of the one in which everything is ‘finished’ and designed to have a predetermined effect, which means that it is bound to become outdated quickly. The collection was made of readily available materials and techniques, and the author herself described the whole creative process as ‘modern primitivism.’ By sharing photos of the products on and a short description of the technique used to craft them on the Internet, the designer, in a way, encourages others to design objects for their own use. Reusing materials and resources is increasingly less innovative and more obvious among the young generation of designers.
 
What’s the idea behind the ‘Contemporary primitives’ project? What the term of ‘finished product’ means to you?

One moment I noticed that all manifestations of ‘spontaneous creativity’ were less and less visible around us. We are afraid of what could reveal our amateur clumsiness, we feel too incompetent even to decide about our closest surroundings. We prefer having ‘professionals’ manage this area of our life. The same happens with objects. We rarely treat them in an expressive way. The primitives were my personal experiment. I wanted to find out if the existence of something aesthetically far from perfection can still be justified.

And the distinction between finished and unfinished products depends only on our approach to them and on how much potential we are able to see in them.
 
In your work you give new life to ready-made elements. Do you think that’s a good answer to the modern overproduction of consumer goods problem?

I doubt if we can defeat overproduction in this way. Instead, I suggest that if we look at everything around us in a creative way, an abundance of opportunities will appear before us.

You called the process of creating shoes as a modern primitivism. What is your definition of that term?

When I was creating the collection, I used not only elements of mass products, but also other materials and techniques that are available to the contemporary human, and I called this very technique modern primitivism. I do not mean, however, the literal meaning of primitivism (relating to some techniques or materials taken from primeval cultures), but I understand it as an opportunity to obtain necessary things on your own, an opportunity to handcraft something, in opposition to mass culture. What is primitive today is hand-made, imperfect, and yet immersed in contemporary reality, created using currently available materials.

How did you develop the production technique? Can you briefly describe this process?

I can describe the production technique as spontaneous. Everything depended on the materials that I managed to find or received from my friends. Later, the time came for trials, experiments and extensive testing the product on myself - checking if the shoe holds together, if it is possible to survive a day in it.
 
You decided to use a very characteristic pop colour range. Why?

The colours I used are a consequence of available materials. For example, I was able to find only pink, black and white warm-setting adhesive. It determined the whole colour range.

You’ve made available online not only photos, but also instructions regarding manufacturing your own shoes. Do you reckon that sharing your know-how is an important element of the economy of exchange?

It was rather a description of materials utilised in a given pair of shoes than a detailed assembly instruction. That this lace was taken from cheap slippers and the other one was moulded from warm-setting adhesive. It gave me occasion to suggest a way of using what we can find around. And because everyone can find something else, detailed instructions would not work here. It is characteristic of scraps that they are often unique.
 
The ‘Contemporary primitives” project was selected for the finals of the make me! competition organized within the Łódź Design Festiwal 2015.
 
Agnieszka Polkowska
 
Contemporary Primitives
 
make me !
 
Trend watcher, lecturer, Head of Trends at Pop Up Grupa creative collective agency based in Warsaw. Author of first Polish blog dedicated to emerging trends in fashion and design. Agnieszka Polkowska is also a doctoral student of Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk in the domain of experimental design and trends.This is also the field to which she dedicates her scientific work. Since she’s both a recipient and designer, she feels that her experience makes her a right person to share reliable analyses with the world.
 
trendspot.pl

Kaja is a Norwegian designer from Oslo. She studied two years of fine arts in Oslo before moving to Stockholm where she pursued her bachelor in product design at Beckmans College of Design 2008-2011. She worked in Stockholm for two years after graduating, testing the waters on the design scene with exhibition collaborations with fellow graduates from Beckmans and a solo show of timepieces.
 
She was accepted at the Master in Contextual design at Design Academy Eindhoven in 2013. After two eventful and evolving trimesters the studies proved not suitable for Kaja’s design approach and she moved to Switzerland to attend ECAL. She graduated in 2015 June from the Master of advance studies in design for luxury and craftsmanship.

“Tapputi and the Sea” is Kaja's graduation project ECAL 2015  in Master in Design for luxury and craftsmanship. It is a tale of natural sea sponge, heat, skin, texture, fragrance and rituals. "This experimental perfume project about the meeting of fragrance and material, a design take on the luxury of cosmetics and natural materials role in our objects. In my casted solid perfume designs the sponge material properties enables the design and interaction.
You apply gently by rubbing the casted solid perfume onto your skin, the heat of your skin melts it just enough and fragrance transfers. Applying different notes of smell you can blend directly on your skin, creating a new scent.
 
The project is named after Tapputi, the first known chemist, she used the method of distilling essential oils, which is the origin of perfume creation."
 
www.kajasolgaard.com

Born in Málaga (Spain), Jorge Penadés studied Interior Design at Escola Superior de Disseny i d’Arts Plàstiques Llotja in Barcelona, before graduating in December 2014 from IED | Istituto Europeo di Design in Madrid with a Master´s degree in experimental design and conceptual thinking.
 
´Structural Skin´does not start from an interest in the advantages of a material, but from its disadvantages.For Penadés, «Leather is a beautiful material but very inefficient in terms of its manufacturing process due to its natural origins No matter which tanning process a hide went through, the quality of a piece of leather depends directly on the part of the animal that came from. The higher the movement, the lower the quality; some experts indicate that just the 13% of a hide is top quality and up to the 43% is considered good quality. This fact means that companies involved in the production of leather goods produce a large amount of discarded materials, leftovers and offcuts.»
 
As a thesis project, Penadés developed ´Structural Skin´, this new material made out of leftovers from leather factories. The self-produced material is 100% coming from animal resources, so any resin or chemical component has been used along the production.

The binder is fully biodegradable and this fact allows the process to be returnable. The outcome can be re-heated and re-shaped again which means that nothing is lost and therefore the whole material is re-usable.

The objective is to reintegrate the offcuts from the leather industry into their own companies by creating different objects that can be used for displaying their leather goods. Two furniture pieces has been designed to launch the project, a hanger and a side table; with the hanger 28kg of leather offcuts has been reintegrated and 12kg with the side table.
 
New furniture pieces will be developed with monochromes and also mixtures of different colors, further developing the aesthetic side of the material.

 
 
www.jorgepenades.com

“Innovation turned into a magic word, all things new are being embraced in an instant. As a designer I desire to discover if technical innovation alone is enough to succeed in practice or if other qualities are needed.”

Meet Roos Meerman, a 23-year-old designer from the Netherlands who studied product design at Artez academy for the Arts. She mainly focuses on techniques instead of products, as the process regarding innovation intrigues her more than the final outcome itself. “I want to create materials and techniques that appeal to people, that make them wonder what it is”.
 

Roos’ latest project is Area Fabrica, which arise from an online video about the inflation of marshmallows in a vacuum chamber. Roos was instantly intrigued and got the idea to insert this technique in different materials that would have the characteristics of staying inflated permanently. Area Fabrica is a combination of blow molding, glass blowing and 3D printing.

 
“With my project Area Fabrica I research other qualities of 3D printing, my drive is the fascination I have for this technique. The technique is still in development and currently quite inert, expensive and difficult to upscale. Moreover, outcomes of the 3D printer are mostly gadgets as people still consider this machine as a product producer instead of a material producer. My goal is to change this assumption and to discover new material characteristics through the 3D printer.”

 
She started with simply stretching plastic and after that moved forward with blowing the plastic up just like a balloon. When plastic is heated it turns into a flexible substance that can be transformed in to every possible shape, cooling it down solidifies this specific shape again. This technique mind remind one of glassblowing but with Area Fabrica the form is determined before the inflating process, which allows more influence on the final form.

Roos likes to see her project as a combination between Art & Science, an experiment to push boundaries regarding great objects. Area Fabrica is the perfect example of our current redefining trend as this project mainly focuses on discovering new ways of engaging with well-known materials. It creates awareness regarding the fact that we should be open to determine new paths, to define the old into the new. Area Fabrica teaches us to never stop redefining.

 
The project Aera Fabrica won the Hendrik Valk prize 2014, the New Material Fellow 2014 and the Design and Innovation award Gelderland. At the moment Roos is developing the process and researching the different possible applications.

Cecile Cremer

www.roosmeerman.com

Extremely curious and always searching for little weak signals that tell us things are changing. Cecile is a trend researcher and creative concept developer with the wanderlust of a cosmopolitan.Her aim in life is to develop things that matter to others and to help others change their strategy to be ahead of the future. Because she believes “The future is ours”.

www.wanderingthefuture.com

Linde Freya graduated Design Academy Eindhoven in last January. She just start her design studio - Destroyers/Builders Ontwerpstudio - where she gives a new view and re-intrepretation of material : "My fascination is in the thin border of being an object or being almost a material itself. I question the use of crafts, but translating into contemporary materials. I question the daily objects around us."
 
"Carved / Uncarved" is a series of objects based on the craft of carving wood, a traditional way of shaping. By searching for a way of shaping the wood, a human signature arises. The series is made as a reaction on our structured life.

For Freya: " the industry continues in making cold, featureless objects, where we are unable to find a signature of the maker. More than ever we live in contradictions, of overstimulation and under-stimulation of our senses."
 
Today is a particular time of fusion between industry and craft, between material and digital. Freya expresses that with a lot of talent in her recent works.

Cecile Poignant

To contact Linde Freya 

Kenny Dunkan is a Guadeloupean Paris based artist that belongs to a category of transversal cultural dreamers. A recent graduate from the École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, he breathes art and aestheticism, and this shows in both his physical appearance, environment, language and work. He documents his visions in a blog where he creates collages using his body as canvas.

One can immediately understand the artist’s vision by looking at his living space. An all white laboratory where minimal design objects interact with tropical plants and Guadeloupean inspired coloured decorations. With a similar approach to researchers, he observes and explores his surroundings to then “sample, analyse and transform” them into sculptural collages and objects.
 
In “Knife Just Do it” (2014) for example, he hijacked a Nike logo to transform it into a rustic knife, combining two of his passions: craftsmanship and fashion.The artist has what can be considered as a fetishist obsession with small manufactured objects, that he accumulates to create “organic textured furs”.

Combined with his childhood explorations in the Mardi Gras parades of Guadeloupe, his sculptures are filled with movement and eclectic colours.

In “Frustrations #1” (2013), hundreds of plastic purple flower petals were glued together into a base like circular shape that then evolve into a tube. The tube then leads to a plant like construction; compiled by clothes wrapped with electrical wire. Resembling a tropical plant of our time, he was able to ensemble together opposing objects and to capture the essence of stuff we often consider as trivial.

thekennydunkan.blogspot.com

www.kennydunkan.com

RÉVÉLATEUR / in collaboration with Sissel Tolaas
Smell to trigger emotions – Recent Design Academy Eindhoven graduate, designer Mickaël Wiesengrün uses intrinsically shaped smells as a way to seduce the audience and interact with his work. For his graduation project, he conceived an installation where visitors use their noses as reading tools. By capturing scent and converting it into fog, Wiesengrün managed to catch the historical atmosphere of the Witte Dame building, former Philips light bulb factory of Eindhoven.  
 
With overpowering grease in the air and scents of musty metal created by the machines, the hard work back in the days gave rise to laborers sweat. He reproduced this ambiance by creating a highly visual structure where three glass tubes transported and diffused the specific smells of sweat, grease and metal. The smells were chosen and created in collaboration with the famous „scent provocateur“ Sissel Tolaas.

By interacting in a material and invisible way, the scents allowed history to come back to the space, through the material state of fog. The public, implicated in the process as receptors at the end of the tubes, could then imagine the hard work that shaped people‘s lives in the present space. The smells could be discovered separately or in union. The mix of them summed up what the designer called the “smell of the past” - an homage to a space of creation.
 
Good scents or bad ones didn’t matter anymore, the main purpose of Wiesengrün being to communicate information through smell. Thus, the designer considers smell as one of the most powerful generators of emotion and reaction within human beings. Endless possibilities open once we brake the barriers of what we consider a message.
 
Michèle Degen
 
http://www.wiesengrun.com

Working in a variety of crafts and visual interventions, Mateusz Wiewiorowski (1988) designs metaphoric furniture and graphic concepts – exploring the wonder around each creation. Studying at Design Academy Eindhoven, Chelsea University of Art/Design in London and taking entrepreneurship courses in New York.

His training started before school and continued after – from furniture management at Barcelona’s Design Center to learning from old craftsmen in Wroclaw and back to spatial adaptation in his hometown Stavanger.

Currently developing new project, he continues to bring visual poetry into different atmospheres – investigating the behavior of lively materials and their outcomes.

Here are his words to explain his quest :
"I set out to communicate sense through shape and explain insight through visual creation.

Feeling for the structure and transforming volume into surface, results in given space. My need to reshape reality is an on-going development that focuses on diverse activities within our visual world by which, senses attract and hypnotize.

I explore different planetary perspective reinterpret them into sculptural metaphoric objects."

Adrian Madlener

mateuszwiewiorowski.com

Stone Project image was shown as part of Nasza Polska – Paris Design Week 6 to 13 September 14 www.tlmagazine.com & www.promateria.be

Shai Langen  just graduated from the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht, The Netherlands.

"Chimera is a project , depicting a contestable future where the human body is grown and cultivated. A material based entity whose boundaries continually undergo construction and reconstruction. Moving away from a solid to a liquid form.
 
Here it has become an amalgam of the synthetic and the organic. Its skin infested by fungi like textures, feeding of its host. Synthetic cellular structures constricting its carnality, growing in stasis, waiting to unveil its newly formed function.This new malleable body, has become a place where plastic parasitic substances emulate the immaterial, intuitively revealing its architect.

The collection consists of different pieces of liquid latex, that emerge through the emulsifying reaction of latex with calcium nitrate. Calcium nitrate is used in the balloon, latex gloves and condom industry to create a uniform film of latex around a mold. The molds are first dipped in a bath of water and calcium nitrate before being dipped into liquid latex. I’ve been experimenting with the shapes that form through dripping latex into the emulsion of water and calcium nitrate. By changing the viscosity of both the latex and the emulsion I was able to create different outcomes.

Each piece of the collection asks for a different thickness of the latex as well for a different technique of dripping. A lot of experimentation was needed to find the right method, since the material is very perceptible to numerous components, such as water surface tension, ratio calcium nitrate and water, drying process, etc.
 
With the different techniques I created a collection that resembles cellular structures, slime molds and fungi-like textures, that are created and formed like living and growing organisms. These textures are both organic and synthetic. Exploring the boundary between living matter and non living matter.
 
Chimera plays with the concept where the organic is overgrown with the synthetic. Where natural processes mutate the skin into fungi like textures. Like living organisms feeding off its host. And where the synthetic is governed by the organic. A place where plastic parasitic substances emulate and imitate the immaterial. Intuitively revealing its architect."

www.shailangen.com

Tom Mckenzie is an australian, Denkmark based photographer whose work is distinguished, passionate and emotional.  Growing up in a both musical and highly academic family allowed him to get inspired by a blend of various factors - Ancient Greek mythology, modern natural and biological phenomena, sexuality and mystical theory. With a strong fascination with new ways of interpreting reality and contemporary identity and how our generation, with our resources and complex technology, may discover a new language in which to describe our place in the ever-changing world, he invites you to explore a surreal world and creates a sentimental feeling in its beholder.

His project 'CHRYSALIS' (2012) was made in close collaboration with sound and set designer, Simon Holk Witzansky and was created as an editorial for The88.dk. Looking at the biological metamorphosis of snakes and moths, the geological processes of plate tectonics, rock and crystal formation, as well as incorporating classical and medieval depictions of warriors and heroes, they created a rich universe which gave new meaning to a mythological story of light and dark, confrontation and resolution.
 
tommckenzie.dk

Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Anna Badur is an independent Designer based in Berlin. Having studied Contextual Design she has created several industrial design projects that reflect her style, her ideas and her view on design. Her ability to create art and design from everyday simple materials makes her work unique and lets us see design from a new angle in an un-expecting way. All her projects so far belong to her master thesis, which was generally about the idea of using natural influences in design processes.

Her latest project „Drawn by Nature“, awarded with the iF concept design award 2013, is where natural forces meet because the environment in which it exists shapes everything in the natural world. Since natural forces and weather conditions form Landscapes, and organisms adapt to their natural habitats, she explored the northwestern Germany, her home turf. There, water and wind have a dominant effect both on the landscape and on the human condition. It has a melancholic beauty, which offers room for poetry and creation.

These most essential elements oft he region became Anna’s media and is a study of its aesthetic potential.

Her 100% cotton textiles (washable up to 40°C) are made of blue pigments that were blown over the wet fabric, by the wind making it result into unique patterns and an end result is directly determined by the process.

She exhibited during last Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven a collection of all kind of experiments to give the viewer an inside look into the processes.

“I’m interested in how design can take advantage of integrating natural forces in the process of creation”.

annabadur.de

A ribbon or a rope can create endless possibilities. They are symbols of connecting or binding things together, which therefore represents relationships, bonds, safety or communication. But yet they can evoke a feeling of being constricted or restrained. A simple rope serves on it’s own as a linear object with no limitations.
 
A challenge of exploring the ways of transforming a linear material into three-dimensional objects has been executed from folk basketry up to fashion. Researching the spatial possibilities of the coiling method that are influenced by masonry construction.
 
Australian knitwear designer Katherine Mavridis, is most interested in exploring the textural qualities of clothing. These ideas then transform within her knits from a 'rhythmic' perspective, creating dynamic textural and sculptural structures which 'pulsate' around the body. Her Mokuba collection was sponsored by luxury Japanese trim and ribbon company, Mokuba.

“Initially inspired by one of their amazing ribbon samples I received from their New York store. This led me to explore traditional rustic techniques of coiled basket making and sculpting. My research led me to explore more modern examples of basket making as I looked to other inspiration sources such as Brooklyn based designer Doug Johnston who constructs amazing coiled bags, purses and baskets out of rope. I went on to develop a way of shaping the pieces around the contours of the body, eventuating in fully-fashioned pieces. “
 
Her collection relies on a new technique, creating clothing with only utilizing-coiled rope, a new technique to be explored in fashion.
 
Chloe Sos
 
katherinemavridis.com

Moriel Dezaldeti is a graduate of the Textile Design Department at the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design - Israël. During her studies, Dezaldeti found a refuge in knitting as an intimate and meditative act which provided her a quiet place and a form of expression. Dezaldeti believes that through knitting she can express her vision to the world; she examines body movement compared to textile and produces images of the inward body through search and great curiosity of the human body.

Through the transition between the two dimensional and three dimensional,Dezaldeti explores the material, listen to it and let's it be what it is and so breathes life into it. As a designer, she puts emphasizes on handmade works and mainly works with a manual knitting machine. With the same machine she has developed a technique that combines textile knitting and weaving elements, this is how she manages to embrace a variety of colorful and unique textures.

pantarhie.blogspot.fr

Khesin’s unique technique of multiple layers of silicone, colored differently, and to be placed one above the other after a long process is an intriguing process of art. His will to obtainable form is accompanied by his humility in virtue of natural processes. Evidently Lev Khesin compares painting to the art of archery and other Zen rituals: When applying each new layer, he focuses exclusively on this one action, thus making them an exercise in controlled presence of mind. The image is the evidence for an accomplished meditation.
 

The light penetrates the transparent material: colored layers shine through, shimmer and shine.

They mix and oscillate in its various shades depending on the position of the viewer and depending on the time of day. A single beam of light can bring a deeper color to glow, let it glow mysteriously diffuse or disperse. The boundaries between the individual color fields are never clearly perceived, since there are no faces, but only depths from which ascends a color.
 
The secret lies in the artist’s technique managing to give the color and the material a twist. The original substance manifests itself in the pictures, but the man who has left his trace here .
 
www.levkhesin.de

Christa van der Meer is a Dutch fashion designer and graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. Experiencing with different mediums she now works on projects to find ways to connect her portrait drawings to her fashion designs. Her graduation collection she portraits the fact that drawing is essential for designing. The drawings form the base of her fashion collections and is an instrument to create a new perspective both visually and emotionally.
 

Since faces define the identity of a person, Christa uses this intriguing factor as inspiration.

After an intense research into the relation between her love and fascination for portraits and passion for designing fashion stands a collection which merges the two. In addition her studies are intriguing collages which tell a story. Her approach to her silhouettes, using them as portraits and her materials as a frame to the face she lets us see a new world.
 
The combination of the exotic prints make her collections a piece of art. Wrapping her silhouettes in different cultures allows a new global silhouette to be born and gives us new ideas how to incorporate new fabrics in various prints.
 
A new urban nomad.

christavandermeer.com 

Agustina Bottoni is an Argentinian product designer. After graduating at the University of Buenos Aires and working as a fashion designer, she moved to Italy to pursuit a master’s degree in product design at the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (NABA) in Milan. Her main goal is to develop skills to become an integral designer.Currently she is an exchange student at Willem the Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

"Glow Set" is a luminous tea brewing. The aim of the project is to maximize the luminance and heat potential of a small candle. The tea set celebrates the process of slow tea making while showing it through a light effect, becoming a decorative object that brings a pleasant moment of contemplation.

The spherical shape of the glass bottle acts as a lens, magnifying the light of the candle, and showing the beauty of the tea.

Tea can be brewed slowly in 3 to 4 hours or can be used to maintain the infusion hot. The flask rotates in every direction for serving the tea. The strainer fits the cup, which has a cork sleeve as thermal insulation.

This set is carefully handcrafted in turned wood, cork and borosilicate glass.

agustinabottoni.com

Philipp Weber was born in Munster, Westphalia in 1987. During his studies at the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands he explored various media and materials, always fascinated by language, music and craftsmanship.

In 'Creation of a strange Symphony'  Weber portrays the performance of a glassblower using a new and unusual tool.

Pivotal to this work was Webers desire to discover the world of a glassblower. In Belgium he was able to watch glassblower Christophe Genard working with the hot material. The designer questioned himself, ‘How can I inspire his interest to work with me?'. Genards most important tool, the blowing pipe, caught Webers attention. In the past 2000 years only minor alterations have been made to the 1.5m long steel pipe, with no effect to the material. ‘What would happen to the glass, if the function of this tool radically changed? How would Christophe adapt to a new pipe?’.

And so, by manipulating the pipe, he took influence on the inner shaping of the glass.

Simultaneously to this process, Weber also sensed a strong rhythm and musicality in the way Genard was working on the glass.

The pipe as a tool for glass production, appeared to be like a musical instrument to him. He could not resist the idea to translate the mechanism of a trumpet into an application for blowing glass. Together with an engineer and the knowledge from preceding experiments for a new tool, he worked on an ‘instrument’– an allegoric bond of craft and music–, inspiring Genard to ‘improvise’ the glass, to start a dialogue with the material. Playing the valves, Genard would shape the glass from inside, activating different air streams.

The transformation of the pipe into an instrument provoked a performance of glass making. A short-movie, several glass objects and the instrument itself communicate this dance with the fire.

The musical rhythm of the glass workmanship emerges and unveils a new facet. An old craft can be experienced with a new sensibility and poses the question how design can change well-known patterns and processes without destroying the essence of the craft.With A Strange Symphony, he received the DMY Berlin New Talent Award 2013.

www.philippweber.org

Agrarian consciousness – how food is grown and harvested, and where it comes from – has been rising steadily for the last decade. Sustained interest in sustainable agriculture, energy and consumer products has also garnered a great deal of time and attention from top designers and innovators.

Product designer, Qiyun Deng has interpreted these matrices of agriculture, design and ecology in the form of biodegradable tableware for his diploma project at ECAL, in Switzerland. Made of bioplastic PLA, Deng's project, Graft is a testament to the inherent artistry of nature's colors and textures. Merging form and function, Deng modeled his bio-untensils after common fruits and vegetables. His project honors beautiful design and the moral imperative to live consciously and sustainably.

The briefing for this project was to uplift disposable products by introducing a "haptic" quality, such as texture or color. Deng noticed that the texture and shape of fruits and vegetables could be applied to everyday artifacts: for example, a celery stem made sense for a handle; a petal of artichoke was perfect for the bowl of a spoon; and one half of a honey melon would make a bowl fit for the human palm.

Textures were copied by various techniques including 3D printing; and then parts were joined together by a grafting technique that is also commonly used in horticulture. The final prototypes were finished at the school workshop by using two parts of polyurethane resin with different colors.

Qiyun Deng leaves his audience with one final thought: "Will you throw them away easily?"

Beth Lauk

Qiyun Deng

Beth Lauck contributes bi-monthly posts about emerging and disruptive design and communications trends, and helps forecast why and how these changes will affect market intelligence. She also maintains a blog devoted to the intersections between fashion, future studies and trend science. She completed an internship with Trend Union in 2012 as the Assistant Editor and Community Manager of Trend Tablet, and considers her experiences with the Trend Union team an invaluable addition to her work as a trend forecaster and fashion theorist. 

Beth's blog

Stéphanie Baechler is a trained textile and fashion designer who graduated from the College of Art and Design in Lucerne, Switzerland. She was nominated in 2009 for her thesis for the Design Prize Switzerland and has already won various other design awards in her young career. Curious, imaginative and courageous, she incorporates art and contemporary topics in her designs, forging intuitive understanding with conceptual imagination. She not only works by hand but also uses the computer, to follow a playful process of deconstruction and reassembly to derive at fresh perspectives on seemingly familiar themes and forms. The transition to a three-dimensional approach required in fashion design set off a chain of developments in her thinking which started off as an exploration of the mineral world, her graduation collection eventually researched elegance in relationship to the space we occupy in the world, both in a physical sense and psychologically, socially and politically.

Her surreal world is a manipulation of textiles and invites us to see textile from a complete different angle. Her main inspiration originates from minerals. Dug up from the earth and grounds to glaze components and pigments, in her vision they mysteriously regain their solid state on the surface of the fired pieces, adding durability, colour and brilliance to the work. With a main focus on rocks, gems and ores, studying their varying substance densities she creates wearable minerals.

" In negotiating this disparity, transition and transformation are essential: stone becomes fabric, modelled to follow the body while it is moving and to turn the figure into sculpture as soon as it comes to rest – suggesting an effortless, casual flow from fashion to art and back again. Several elements taken from the mineral world return into the design. "

www.stephaniebaechler.com

Floor Nijdeken recently graduated at Artez institute of Arts Arnhem, The Netherlands in Product Design. His latest project is called Crossover Collective and we just love it.

Floor explains us his project : "The Crossover Collective intends to redress social relationships. My main focus lies in activating and mobilizing people. I designed the conditions in which social structures can grow and bloom, and the initiative of users is stimulated. With myself as an intermediary and my table as a medium, I let participants find out that working together stimulates mutual trust, understanding and positive energy.

In today's society there is a lot of knowledge (created), but how is this knowledge passed on? Young people get their knowledge from books and the Internet, while the elderly and their heritage disappear. Society is changing and people are suspicious of spontaneity and communication with each other. People increasingly withdraw into their own privacy ‘bubble' while society, perhaps more than ever, actually is in need of real social exchange.

Collect moments, not things.

My social machine focuses on an ancient form of communication and social activity: collective embroidery. With my machine the viewer is an active part of the installation, where transfer of ‘heritage’ (a collection of behavior, knowledge, expertise, skills, memories, core values and sentiment) that you leave in your environment is the central theme. The embroidered carpet is the silent witness of the numerous short encounters, and the visitor created a positive memory to cherish."

www.floornijdeken.nl

Alexa Lixfeld is a design studio, consultancy and production company, based in Hamburg, Germany. Set up in 2008, its portfolio ranges over a great variety of projects, from tableware and cashmere products to children’s dolls and a fragrance. What these projects have in common is that they reach far beyond the strictly commercial: the limited series and one-offs that result from Lixfeld‘s interventions are first and foremost meant to be statements, processes and experiments where interaction is central, where new relationships are woven, and where the improbable is more than possible.

The present series of glass pieces, GlassWood, which was premiere in Milan in April 2013, perfectly fits Lixfeld‘s approach. The glass elements were handmade and mouth-blown in a workshop in Novy Bor, a small town in the Czech Republic, between the Lusatian Mountains and Central Bohemia, famous for its history of glass production. The glass tradition still survives in hundreds of small factories in the surrounding villages. When confronted with their techniques, Lixfeld decided to celebrate them by combining the glass with the wooden molds that lend it their form in the blowing process.

“I was struck by the relationship that grows during production between these beautiful oak molds and the hot glass, each leaving its mark on the other,“ says Lixfeld. “Upcycling and working with existing forms has always been a point of interest to me. These molds, just fuel for the kilns after they were discarded, had a beauty of their own, which is never seen. Keeping the glass pieces and their molds together once the production was over offered me an opportunity to put that beauty on display. It also provided a much greater tension to the glass, because of the contrast in texture between its shiny and colorful skin and the worn out appearance of the mold. It equally gave me the opportunity to show the process that led to the finalized product.

Our production has always been non-industrial, away from the standard and norm. GlassWood is no exception: each duo comes a perfect couple, with a unique identity. I re-use an old mold to serve as a base for one glass object. It creates a unique mold-glass combination, and you cannot have the same coupling twice.”

Lixfeld sees her work as an open process, a collaborative action that allows for coincidence and surprises, incidents and accidents. In the GlassWood project she had her project guided by objets trouvés – the molds that she found and used untouched- and the craftsmanship of the artisans by whom the glass objects were blown.

“I chose the color of the glass, and decided where and how to cut it, but after that the project became an interaction with the surroundings, finding potential in what was given, working hands-on with the artisans. My work is essentially about bringing together what is already there, but which remained disconnected. A great number of designers start from scratch, and then define the product in every detail. If you take that as a norm, I’m less a product designer than a process designer, a curator and facilitator, someone who makes things possible.”

Max Borka

www.alexalixfeld.com

Arturo Erbsman, freshly graduated from ENSAD- Ecole des Arts Déco- lives and works in Paris, France. Water, fire, wind, light, gravity, temperature, are his working tools. Erbsman works with natural phenomenons and try to create links between manufactured objects and the four elements of Nature.

Polar Light is a project realized in Lapland in Winter 2012 and presented at Salone Satellite - Milan 2013.It is a poetic ice chandelier, result of human conception and nature’s intervention.Designed to be hung from a branch of a tree in winters, it is composed of a metal structure covered with soft white woven fishnet that catches water in all its forms.

At dawn, when the morning dew deposits micro droplets on the surface it gradually freezes and turn into stalactites. Over course of the day, the structure stiffens coated with ice.  At nightfall, it glows as rays pass through the ice, thus highlighting the beauty and delicacy of crystallization of water.

This ephemeral work of nature exudes a timeless boreal light.This faraway, atmospheric light reinterprets a crystal baroque chandelier. It sees water, frost and ice as functional materials, and enhances each of their aesthetic, ecological and structural qualities. This project considers factors of climate as potential drivers that can interact with manmade objects.

It is the first result of an ongoing experimental research on relationship between manufactured objects and the four elements of nature.

www.arturoerbsman.com

Maximilian Löw is a young designer from Weißenburg, Germany, studying Integrated Design at the University of the Arts in Bremen. His work focuses on objects for everyday life, with a playful handling of materials and design in different fields.

One project, titled Edged—Cutlery, combines the elegant soft curves of classic cutlery with sharp, rigorous edges. Cast in bronze, the set is designed to achieve a balance of ergonomics and aesthetics.

On his process, Maximilian states that “It is my impulse to question the essence of objects and to try to get to the bottom of them. Therefore it is really important to experiment and work practically.”

The designer’s work also includes Edged—Lamp, a one meter long pendant lamp made from a single sheet of stainless steel. The design process involved the creation of a paper model before the final result was achieved.

Another inventive and playful project is Cake Server, in which the handles for the cake plate are removable and become serving utensils. The sleek design is accentuated by an elegantly curved handle.

Maximilian will be graduating from his program this summer. We hope to see more from this talented young designer.

maxloew.com

Camilla Bo’ is an Italian freelance journalist and stylist. After two years of study in Paris she returned to her native Rome to study architecture. The art of critique proved more fruitful for Camilla and she began to write for the Association of Art and Critic about art and design and on her personal blog Choufouchouf. Focusing on the relation and communication between fashion and art, she decided to follow her creative nature not only giving a voice to the library she has on her laptop but also as inspiration for editorials. She’s now based in London, attending the course of «Art Direction for Fashion» at the Central Saint Martins College of Art.

It has been just one year since this young architect started to devote himself to photography.

He spent his childhood behind science books and numbers, then later joined an architecture course where he was also introduced to the camera for the first time.

Architecture has taught him so much about balance, form, colour and so many other skills which he now apply to his photography, creating his own personal language.

The photographers whose work he admires most are Kris Micallef, the surreal works of  Alex Stottard and Brooke Shaden and the poetic scenario of Sarah Ann Loreth. But his stronger influence comes from fantasy movies set in fantasy worlds.

I asked him about the picture with the men’s head covered by flowers. I think this picture is so powerful thanks to the contrast between the male subject and the grace of pink flowers. I was wondering  how the concept was born and if it is part of a project…

“I remember watching fencing on the television and thinking to myself that the masks the Olympians wear were so cool and mysterious. I usually always try to find some connection between the relationship that us humans have with nature, so I thought I would try replicate the fencing mask with beautiful, graceful flowers. It is definitely part of an ongoing project that I wish to continue once I graduate from university!”

Fascinated by eclectic references, this young architect is able to filter out unnecessary excess and contrived structures through his camera lens, and communicate only the grace and lightness that he experiences in his inner world.

Julian Vassallo

Camilla Bo' s website

Sabatina Leccia is a 28 years old independent eco-designer based in Paris. "Eat Up The World" her master project at Saint Martins  is a visual metaphor aiming to communicate that we are consuming too much too fast.

Through the invention and reinterpretation of existing objects, two collections of products were created: Haemorrhage and Fragile Breath. Each project is designed to visualise a specific set of data or specific material scenario. Through exploring methods of ‘designed destruction’ and removing calculated portions of material, Sabatina aims also to question if we can design in a more material-efficient way.

In a time of unparalleled material scarcity and increasing population she hopes to use design as a communicative vehicle to visualise the urgent need to reconsider the patterns and speed of our consumption, and bringing these broader global issues closer to home.

“Eat The World Up” is located within the table landscape, aiming to underline the notion we are ‘eating’ our planet’s resources.

www.sabatinaleccia.com

My name is Dienke Dekker and I am a 4th year student at the Design Academy Eindhoven in Holland.

I think that different properties of materials offer a great opportunity to express ambience, tactility and feel of objects. In my work I love to experiment with these properties and to create objects with a strong emphasis on craftsmanship and detail.

The basket weaving craft has been the inspiration for this project about imitation and reinterpretation of crafts.

From imitation of bamboo structure, the step was made to silkscreen printing on silk and other textiles with custom paint stamps, resulting in a series of archetypical objects.

To contact Dienke

Yuval Atzili is 26 years old , he lives in Israel and just graduated Academy of Art and Design Bezalel, photography department.

"The majority of nature's creations where created in couples – as many of the human organs, so can a fetus be created in couples, transforming from semen and ovum to cells sorting process. I have a twin brother. To be a part of a couple and experience everything together is a big advantage in life, the bond, created in the womb, I cannot explain but it has affected me tremendously in consolidating my personality and my self-esteem. Growing with a twin brother can sometimes lead to loss of identity, loss of the individual's oneself, starting from identical clothing, celebrating birthdays together until getting the first summons for the army.

Our names – Yuval and Gal always called together, so are the wings, dependent on each other in order to fly. Chicken wings symbolize purity, sanctity and immature manhood. By using wings in different forms I am trying to express the sacrifice, sacrificing and death, sometimes, African cultural symbols. Working with wings as a material, intrigues me, it is a live-dead material.

Wings allow me to show the clean outline, saint as angel wings. However, the use of wings in my photographs does not wishes to express the above-mentioned. Moreover, the wings in my photographs always wishes to symbol the rooster's slaughter as part of the food industry – an unseen stage.

Photographing control and loss of control interest me; expressed as human control of animals for instance, such as training or butchery.  In the still nature photograph with the bed, I have built a construction out of 250 chicken wings, which comes out as a peacock's tail. The magnificent peacock tail has survived through evolution and has preserved, even though it lessens the peacock survival abilities and according to evolutionary history should have not survived. What allowed it to stay was mating issue; tail is presented to females at the reproduction period and the most beautiful, impressive male gets to have offsprings. The impressive tail symbolizes manhood, power and control, however, It also symbolize vulnerability, femininity and care."

to contact Yuval

27-year-old Dutch designer Ingrid Hulskamp describes herself as a 'design poet'. "My aim is to enchant people with the use of poetic, playful and sophisticated design."

Here are her words to describe her Toys for contemplation :"To pursue time for daily contemplation in an intuitive way, I have developed a series of contemplative toys for adults. The luxurious objects, made from hand-blown glass, remind us of the candid fun we had as a child, when we were able to fully get caught up in the moment.

In order for the toys to catch our attention and create a poetic moment in time, I have created three different sensory experiences: a tactile experience using hand-blown glass, wood, brass plated gold and textiles; a visual experience using coloured pigments that transform when you start playing with the object; a sonic experience through the movement of water and glass balls."

www.ingridhulskamp.com

When you think about designed object, lot of super famous designers and object came into your mind, but the essence of design is more about innovation of shapes and matters, then it can become part of our culture.

That's exactly what Elisa Strozyk is making, turning wood into flexible textile : surprising and playful way to use this material ! The outcome is really fantastic, and shows us that innovation is still part of the game, using traditional material to create new forms, reconnecting us to real feelings and a new tactile experience.

As she explained the world around us is becoming immaterial, with all the way we have to communicate with people, by mail, messages, calls, using internet to live, buy, get informations of the world : a society of pictures and waves. The place for printed and matters is becoming tiny, but making it luxury and precious.

And that's what she want : "Giving importance to surfaces that are desirable to touch can reconnect us with the material world and enhance the emotional value of an object."

There is also a part of  earth care in her work process, as she said "Another way to save resources is working with reused or recycled objects and material waste. Also it is crucial to aim for a closer relationship between subject and object.This can be achieved through more flexibility and changeability, the possibility of growth or surprising elements. In the future we will have to deal with more waste and less resources. Therefore it is fundamental to be aware about life cycles of objects. That means to use material that is able to grow old beautifully. "

Born in Berlin, Strozyk studied at prominent arts colleges at a young age, ENSAD (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs) in Paris and KHB (Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee) in Berlin, before she received her masters in Future Textile Design from London’s Central Saint Martins in 2009.

There is no doubt the young woman is particularly well-qualified when it comes to design pedigree, but it is the artistry, originality and use of symbolism, in which her works and approach display a depth and maturity beyond her years, considering she is only 28 years old, –and is already capturing hearts and minds the world over.

Caroline Aufort

www.elisastrozyk.de

Elisa Van Joolen is a recent graduate of the newly initiated MFA Fashion Design and Society program at Parsons The New School for Design. Her graduate work 11” X 17”, was an installation that specifically challenged the confines of conventional fashion collections.

Elisa embarked on a collaborative project whereby she requested and acquired sample garments from industry giants, (Nike, Banana Republic and Calvin Klein, to name a few), as well as sourcing from local stores and independents. She longed to create a collection with multiple entities and brands, like a wardrobe.

Through the process of cutting into these pieces, Elisa created several new assemblages lending itself to a collection in sum.

As a result of this process, garments that had already been deemed complete were given new life and each purposeful cut gave way to an array of beautiful abstractions.

Elisa will be showing at New York Fashion week in September 2012 which will provide a new perspective on her work 11” X 17” as it translates from an exhibition context to runway.

Madeleine Harman

www.elisavanjoolen.com

"My aesthetic evolves around fusion; contrast of techniques, materials and inspiration. I concentrate on combining traditional, hand and innovative approach to knit, such as using horse hair, untreated alpaca, berries home made dyes. I am fundamentally inspired by non physical subjects; psychology & sociology, however, natures ' multi dimensional elements: such as evolution, preservation, decay.

Texture, remains a source of fascination and often a backbone of visual and textural moodboards.

Currently I am living  in Kiev & preparing for a summer internship  in Copenhagen."

www.valeriyaolkhova.com

Daniel Costa is a design poet who hails from the Tyrol. Like a breath of fresh mountain air, his endearing personal style and enchanting optimism mix freely with his creative skills and mature sense of beauty.

After studying at the Design Academy Eindhoven, Daniel completed an internship at Studio Edelkoort in Paris, where he immersed himself in the city to redefine his work and expand his identity. In Self-reference, Daniel has responded to the organic grains of a found piece of wood before taking it on a journey of transformation to create a series of contemporary fossils.

The contextual designer explains:

"I found a tree trunk in the forest, which was cut every 50cm. A very pragmatic human interaction with the tree as a movement in time and space. I take this found piece and give it a more sensitive shape. Following the grain, the structure, the architecture of the tree. I cast the new shape in ceramic to observe the qualities of this shape in a different material.

The shape is still human – I start to burn and brush it. The grain comes out and the smooth shape starts to have a structure that is logic towards the shape. Again I cast the new shape in ceramic. I burn the shape even more. Deformation. Cast in ceramic. I sand the grain structure away to observe the deformation – anew burning the shape and casting. Anew sanding and observing the deformation...

Autonomous shapes arise that refer to themselves and their origin; shapes and surfaces that need contexts in our world. They show us potentials and new design qualities but also a strong relation to our body. It is a research that evokes an archaic quality that seems to harmoniously combine the contradictions of us humans in our troubled world with the roots of our existence. An alchemistic approach to design and our contradicting lifestyle. My longing for tactility and structure. My wish to appreciate the complex beauty of the most elementary things."

daniel-costa.com

Lee Schein is recently graduated in visual communications and illustration from the Wizo Academy of Design, Israel.

Her final project called "Wild Realms" is an anthropology work about fictional civilization of warriors. Her world is inhabited by strange creatures, well-dressed and accessorized.They look perfect, between Tim Burton and African Art.

Even more impressive in real, her silk-screen printed figures are 2 meters high! "Wild Realms" was showed with a wall of miscellaneous "remains": dental clay models, handmade felt pieces and few pairs of feet made from a mixture of sawdust and mud. Schein's major interests are illustration and wearable art.

Caroline Aufort

www.leeschein.com

Jungeun Lee has been experimenting and researching unconventional methods of garment construction. She is a recent graduate of London’s Royal College of Art (2011) with an M.A. in Mixed Media/Textiles.

Her process eliminates the need for sewing, cutting or weaving. She wraps synthetic fibers around a desired form, and then uses a heating process that transforms the fiber into a three dimensional molded garment. This technique renders both expected and unexpected silhouettes.

Her zero-waste garments are a significant contribution to the fashion industry. Although her materials are petroleum-based, her process is noteworthy nonetheless. By designing in free form without the vast amounts of waste that traditional methods entail, she is paving the way for future eco-friendly praxes. Text by Beth Lauck.

www.studiokoya.com

Fiona Krüger is a recent graduate from ECAL/University of Arts and Design. Earning her Master’s in Luxury Industry and Design, she presents her final project, Memento Mori. Drawing inspiration from the 17^th century skull watch of Mary Queen of Scotts as well as the artwork of Dia de Los Muertos, Krüger worked with key suppliers from the swiss watch industry to have the pieces made and with a watch maker to do the assembly.

The pieces of the dial were layered to mimic the shape of a skull, mirroring the layers that facilitate the movement of a mechanical watch. A devotion to detail and a dedication to the art of craft make this watch a spectacle for the eyes as well as a tribute to luxury horologists of the past, present and future.

www.fionakruger.com

Claire-anne O’Brien — a young, Irish-born, London based-designer and last year’s RCA graduate (MA Textiles) — takes a sculptural approach to textiles. O’Brien is forging a new relationship between textile design and landscape interiors.

Her meticulous praxis uses a combination of hand- and machine-knit stitches.

Without losing our connection to technology, O’Brien’s craft offers a renewed appreciation for artisanal intelligence.

www.claireanneobrien.com

Elsa Lambinet is born in 1987 in Nimes, France. After graduating from Design school in France, she decided to live in Australia for a year in order to perfect her english and build upon her professional experience. She sent her application to the ECAL/University of Art and Design from Melbourne and was accepted 2 months later in MAS Luxe.

She was part, as a student,  of the Baccarat/Milan Design Week 2011 as well as Christofle/Designer Days 2011."Don't play with food" is her diploma project : "A new kind of chocolate which can be created according to your taste, thanks to three elements."

www.lambinetelsa.com

"My name is Meriç Canatan. I was born in 1988 in Turkey. I studied painting in high school.And now ı'm studying fashion and textile design in mimar sinan fine arts university in istanbul. I do love to create-draw-illustrate my world and transform to design-print-cloth.

I always feel close to speechless and undisputed free side of life such as art,design and music. This is what ı do and will be doing in the future."

www.flavors.me/mericcanatan#

"I`m 23, I live and work in Kiev. Past summer I finished MA course Fashion design in Kiev National University of Technology and Design, then I got a couple of internships in studios of  Thakoon and Walter Van Beirendonck. I`m really enjoying to experiment with everything that I could create or change, and a big part of me - is my love to draw and make sketches.

I hope to make an experimental studio to work on different things as illustration, garments and print design and even maybe something else."

www.mashareva.com

Jannis Huelsen is a young german industrial designer graduated in 2011 from HbK Braunschweig.
Xylinum is a research project that poses the question: what could future materials and production processes be like? The title Xylinum is the name of the bacterium which produces an artificial cellulose material. This bacterium consumes sugar and builds a cellulose fibre structure around any given form. Since the process takes place in a nutrition liquid, the wet material can be dried later on, resulting in a durable and 100 % biodegradable material.

The properties of this material can be adjusted by changing the genetic code of the organisms. In collaboration with the company Jenpolymers, a technique was developed to create a »skin« around a wooden stool frame, forming the coating and seating surface.

www.jannishuelsen.com

"THOS claims that it is possible to capture the essence of luck into garment. Its underlying thoughts are meant to provoke a discussion and pose an alternative to the current trend logic. In Mongolia, my native country, we believe in an ancient myth that you can charge your spirit and fortune by standing in the dust of our famous horse races. As I explored deeper, the question branched out into: What is luck? What is luxury?And ultimately how are these things connected to humans desire for spirituality?

Due to its nature, part of this project involved a journey to Mongolia where I explored the other, the eastern side. In Mongolia, the project not only got its essence but also got shaped by all the other occurring experiences and influences. The next evolutionary step of luxury in the west will be intangible."

A graduation project by Tschagsalmaa Borchuu

www.thos.mn

The designer behind SMJD is Sarah Mesritz, she graduated in 2008 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht. After several projects and internships in Amsterdam and New York, Sarah started her own jewellery label in the fall of 2010. The collection is made of 100% cotton rope, knotted and crocheted in different patterns.

During Milan 2011 SMJD presented, 25 meters of jewellery.
Create your own design with jewellery per meter and combine different elements of knotted or crochet rope.

www.smjd.nl

"My name is Christian Sarragúa. I'm an illustrator, graphic designer and toymaker based in Montevideo in Uruguay."

The Amigurumi is a Japanese technique that allows modeling small sculptures by crochet wool.This technique creates textures and unique volumes for natural and organic pieces.

Anna October is 20 years old, she is a designer based inUkraine.

Creation and harmony, utility and functionality are main words for understanding Anna's clothing.