ArtBabble: European Design

Jair Straschnow and Gitte Nygaard: Design for street children

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:15:15 +0000

Series:

Dutch Design

Institution:

The Umthombo drop-in centre in Durban, South Africa, provides a day-care service for 50 of the city’s 3000 street children. Jair Straschnow and Gitte Nygaard stayed at the centre for several weeks and designed several practical solutions for some of the problems the center is facing. In order to create a space for personal expression, they designed tables and benches for playing games, drawing and writing. The Postbox Lockers provide the children with storage for their belongings but they also provide a symbolic ‘identity’ or ‘address’ for these dispossessed children.

Studio Wieki Somers: Merry-go-round coatrack

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:05:00 +0000

Series:

Dutch Design

Institution:

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

Studio Wieki Somers’ products are like ‘metaphors of everyday life’. Wieki Somers does not take the existing world for granted. Why are everyday things the way they are? Her transformation of everyday objects results in new and unexpected forms. For her, the inherent qualities of particular materials contribute to the meaning of her products. Her search for new forms is carried out with great attention to experimentation, the tactile qualities of materials and detailing.

Makkink & Bey: The future office

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:55:50 +0000

Series:

Dutch Design

Institution:

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

According to Jurgen Bey (1965): ‘Looking at the world from another angle – from behind – offers enormous beauty…’ His designs derive from a defiance of logic. Through observation and contemplation he finds the inspiration to sketch an alternative view of the world. Studio Makkink & Bey undertook a study into mobility and work for Prooff, manufacturers of furniture for the ‘progressive office’.

Koninklijke Tichelaar: Craft meets design

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:49:25 +0000

Series:

Dutch Design

Institution:

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

The ceramics factory Royal Tichelaar Makkum (Friesland, The Netherlands) has passed on knowledge of ceramics and built up expertise over generations. This knowledge and experience is, partly by commissioning contemporary product designers, given a new life. In Makkum classic craftsmanship, contemporary design, experiment and future-oriented research are components within a sustainable ethic.

Customr: Dome construction for illegal immigrants

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:47:41 +0000

Series:

Dutch Design

Institution:

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

Willem van der Sluis (1972) designed a demountable and moveable sports and recreation facility at the detention centre in Zaandam. Asylum seekers who have been denied residence are held here awaiting deportation. Van der Sluis based his design on the classical dome construction. The fencing material has a pattern which filters the light as the leaves of a tree do in nature. At night the ‘sportdomes’, as Van der Sluis calls them, are transformed into beacons of light that point at the hopeless situation of the inhabitants of the center.

Graphic Design Collective Gorilla: A daily visual column

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:42:41 +0000

Series:

Dutch Design

Institution:

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

Disguised as eloquent gorilla’s, this mysterious and rebellious designer collective tells us about the experiences with their daily visual column on the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. Six times a week a revolving duo drawn from the collective was given three hours to create a visual response to the day’s news. Gorilla gives iconic images a twist and creates a visual double take that challenges readers’ expectations.

Joost Grootens: Information layers of atlases

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:38:22 +0000

Series:

Dutch Design

Institution:

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

Joost Grootens (1971) states: ‘The book is not a linear medium, but a data carrier with various possible points of entry’. For him the organisation of information is more important than the creation of a beautiful and stylish page. His designs are based upon the graphic conventions of books such as architecture monographs, photo books and atlases.

Atelier NL: Design in the Noordoostpolder, Holland

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:34:55 +0000

Series:

Dutch Design

Institution:

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

Dutch clay as a source of inspiration. The designers of Atelier NL and Maarten Kolk operate as biologists, archeologists and ethnologists during their design process. Invited by Jurgen Bey and Rianne Makkink, they spent a year in residence at a farm in the Dutch Noordoostpolder. They closely investigated the specific vegetation, historic roots and local culture, to create designs that are strongly rooted in this specific area.

Christien Meindertsma: A pig in a hundred pieces

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:27:24 +0000

Series:

Dutch Design

Institution:

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

‘Products are given an important value when we know where they came from, how they were made, the effort that has been involved’, states the Dutch designer Christien Meindertsma. 'The starting point for my projects is a particular place. A place is the location, the vegetation, the people and animals.'

Time traveling through the collection: bent wood

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:18:05 +0000

Series:

Dutch Design

Institution:

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

Perhaps you have it at home, at your kitchen table: a molded plywood chair. It might be an ordinary model by Ikea, or an old Thonet chair that was left discarded at the sidewalk. Maybe you have a beautiful bent wooden chair from the fifties – or even This Chair, designed by Richard Hutten. Well, it doesn’t matter. Just sit down on your chair, close your eyes and – flash! Your chair is a perfect vehicle for time traveling.