We’ve waxed lyrical many times about our love for Dutch design, and no organization better represents the idea of ‘Dutch Design’ than world famous Amsterdam-based collective Droog Design. So you can imagine how excited we were when we got wind of the fact that Droog was planning to open up shop here in New York City.
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Celebrated Dutch design collective Droog Design pushed green design ideas to the forefront this year with their ‘A Touch of Green’ presentation in Milan. Echoing this Inhabitant’s focus on the boundaries of sustainable design, Droog brought together a whole host of designers – some new, some familiar – to showcase a range of approaches in an effortlessly curated, but typically stylish show complete with a buzzing 48 hour shop. Among our favorites are Tejo Remy’s furniture made from collected components, SMAQ’s take on thermal comfort and Jens Praet’s functional, waste-diverting pieces, but the Droog show offered exciting new design perspectives at every turn. Read on for more highlights!
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From our favorite Dutch design duo Tejo Remy and Rene VeenHuizen comes an awesome reclaimed material rug to cozy up to. Made from recycled blankets, the rug takes cuddly comfort and turns it into a great example of recycled design that your toes will love. Tejo Remy spoke at our Reclaiming Design event on the issues of reclaimed materials in design, and this is a shining example of turning potential trash into great design treasure.
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A few weeks ago, Inhabitat put together an event about recycling and reuse in design, called Reclaiming Design. This event at HauteGREEN in New York was a big success, thanks to the thought-provoking design and insightful discussion from Dwell Editor-in-Chief Sam Grawe and designers Carlos Salgado of Scrapile, Tejo Remy of Droog fame, and Matt Gagnon. Our conversation touched on a variety of issues surrounding the concepts and processes behind using reclaimed materials in different scales of design, and its implications for both environmental sustainability as well as more conceptual and cultural themes.
For those of you who are really into this stuff, the full-length video of the entire discussion can be found here >
You may have thoughts tennis balls were just for tennis – but creative Dutch designer Tejo Remy has found a another use for the bright yellow bouncy felt-and-rubber balls. The same material qualities that make tennis balls bright, bouncy and easy-to-spot make for seating that is comfortable, sturdy, and extremely eye-catching. While many museum goers observe works of art perched upon the usual wooden bench, visitors at Rotterdam’s Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen are able to sit and stare in style on these colorful and clever tennis ball benches designed by Tejo Remy and Rene VeenHuizen.
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For the (green) kid in all of us, check out Droog designer Marcel Wanders’ latest creation- ‘Swing With The Plants’ combines flora and the nostalgia of childhood days spent on a swingset. The seat of Swing with the Plants serves as a planter, AND comes packed with soil and the seeds of a climbing plant that will grow upwards along the ropes.
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One of the highlights of our recent Reclaiming Design events in New York was Dutch designer Tejo Remy’s presentation. As expected, the Dutch designer spoke about his well known chest of drawers, rag chair, and milk bottle lamp – but he also talked about a few lesser-known projects that wowed us with their playfulness and ingenuity. In particular, his re-interpreted playground fence (shown above) was a real crowd pleaser, and provided an interesting take on “reclaimed” or “recycled” design in which the reuse brought a new interpretation to a vernacular form (the materials may not have been reused, but the language and application was certainly reused and re-invented).
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If you’re in New York City this weekend for the ICFF, we’d like to remind you about our Reclaiming Design event at HauteGreen this afternoon. You can’t miss the HauteGREEN show, so why not combine a visit to the exhibition with a visit to our event, which features Dutch design icon Tejo Remy, Dwell Editor Sam Grawe, and Brooklyn designers Carlos Salgado of Scrapile and Matt Gagnon to speak about recycling in design. Reclaiming Design is this afternoon at 5pm, so come by and check it out!
People in NYC – Don’t forget that HauteGREEN starts tonight!
After weeks of anticipation, sneak peeks, and announcements about the star-studded lineup, HauteGREEN is officially kicking off its festivities tonight with its opening party in Manhattan! Promising to be bigger, better, and greener than last year, HauteGREEN will showcase the best of the best in sustainable design for the home.
And while the exhibit itself (and the party) are going to be great, don’t forget about three fabulous events happening over the weekend at HauteGREEN:
Tom Dixon: A Sustainable Conversation: Saturday, May 19, 3pm.
Design journalist and editor Julie Taraska will engage London-based design maverick Tom Dixon in a conversation about sustainable design.
Meet the Designers: Sunday, May 20, 2pm.
Graham Hill, founder of Treehugger.com moderates a panel and walkthrough discussion with a group of designers featured in HauteGREEN 2007
Reclaiming Design: Sunday, May 20, at 5pm.
Tejo Remy of droog fame, and NY designers Carlos Salgado of Scrapile and Matt Gagnon, along with Sam Grawe of Dwell, will take a critical look at design processes and the application and implications of using reclaimed materials.
The Inhabitat crew will be in attendance for most of the weekend, so stay tuned for our full report on all the green festivities. And if you see us there, please stop by and say hi!
Our upcoming Reclaiming Design panel at HauteGREEN is all about reuse and re-appropriation in design, and few people are more qualified to speak on such a topic than iconic and prolific Dutch Designer Tejo Remy, who’s groundbreaking early 90’s designs, such as the Rag Chair (shown above), challenged the dominant formal style of the times and heralded in a new era of fun, witty, playful design.
[gallery] In coordination with this year’s HauteGreen exhibition during New York Design Week, Inhabitat will be hosting a star-studded panel discussion surrounding the topic of using reclaimed materials in design. So mark your calendars for RECLAIMING DESIGN Sunday, May 20th at 5pm EST!
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I’m a self-proclaimed Droog addict, and have touted the “je ne sais quoi” of the always-engaging and wryly humorous Dutch design ad nauseam. And this bee-made vessel by Tomas Gabzdil Libertiny of Studio Libertiny is no exception. Making its debut at Droog’s booth in Milan, the vase was made by 40,000 bees over the course of one week. Studio Libertiny constructed a vase-shaped hive that the bees then colonized, building a hexagonal comb to encompass the existing form. And in the usual dry yet oh-so-clever Dutch manner, Studio Libertiny calls this process “slow prototyping,” a more time-consuming, yet much more poetic alternative to CNC rapid prototyping.
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We’re die hard fans of both Dutch design and fiberoptic lighting here at Inhabitat, so it should come as no big shock that we were wowed by this gem of a light fixture designed by Niels van Eijk and Miriam van der Lubbe. Currently hanging in the atrium at Amsterdam’s SKOR (Foundation Art and Public Space), the three fiberoptic “Lace Bobbin Lamps” provide stunning light without the use of lightbulbs. Instead, their light is delivered via a remote power box — and of course we like to imagine that this type of fiber-optic chandelier would go perfectly with a fiberoptic sunlight device such as the Cold Lamp. We love the juxtaposition of the high-tech fiberoptic technology and the man-made woven aesthetic. Leave it to the Dutch to be both forward-thinking and nostalgic at the same time. Niels van Eijk and Miriam van der Lubbe have been collaborating since 1997, and are part of the Dutch design force Droog.
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There’s something so identifiable and charming about Dutch Design. Tejo Remy, one of the first and most influential members of the Dutch Design group Droog, has recently split from the collective to launch a project-based firm called RemyVeenhuizen with cohort Rene Veenhuizen. Their Leaf Project, whose cascading waterfall of leaves create a fluid series of shelves, benches, and wall coverings, is a great example of witty, innovative, and engaging design. We love the flora motif made structural and functional.
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Chris Kabel’s ‘Shadylace’ Parasol
Tonight at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, o2NYC will host an open forum on the always impressive Dutch design force Droog. Known for their engaging, innovative, and endearing designs that often speak to issues of sustainability, Droog has consistently produced objects that are both thought-provoking and functional.
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This morning we’ve been discussing the environmental friendliness of Dutch design. Like Tejo Remy’s rag chair (shown above), a lot of Dutch design uses reappropriated objects and recycled materials, challenging users to think about waste, materials, and consumption. However, very few Dutch designers approach their work from the framework of environmental activism. Instead, what seems unique to Dutch design is a passionate concern for engaging the user emotionally and intellectually. It is, in fact, this concern for human interaction which makes much of Dutch design so engaging – and what often also makes it eco-friendly by default.
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Despite the seemingly subjective nature of design, there seems to be one thing that most people can agree upon- Dutch design is good design. Product after product, Dutch designers continue to wow us with designs that are not only functional, but clever, funny, oddly nostalgic, at times tongue-in-cheek, and most importantly, engaging. Their products possess a certain unidentifiable quality that make them identifiably Dutch.
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Just wanted to let you all know that I am finally back from my trip to the Netherlands and Scandinavia, and I will have a lot to report in the coming weeks. I managed to interview Koen Olthius of Waterstudio.nl, the Dutch architect who designs floating homes, and Joost Van Brug – the Dutch blogger behind fabulous design blog Reluct. I also toured the Droog studio and checked out the latest student work from Eindhoven, as well as catching up with Alver Aalto’s buildings in Helsinki, Steven Holl’s Kiasma Museum in Helsinki and Calatrava’s Turning Torso in Malmo. Good stuff will be coming your way soon!
We love the idea of living walls here at Inhabitat, and if we could turn every surface into a living surface, we would. That’s why we were so struck by Loop.ph’s stunning new BioWall, which was just launched at the NewBritishDesigners exhibition in Amsterdam with Droog Design.
The BioWall is a lace-like, three dimensional fiberglass structure that acts as a sort of modern trellis for growing vine plants. The springy fiberglass rods are bowed into rings and woven into several dodecahedra that in turn are joined together, creating a sturdy yet flexible organic structure that resembles bubbles, living cells and water molecules.
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When it comes to the essentials at home, sanity trumps vanity. In old apartments and houses, big clunky radiators seem like a necessary annoyance, but do they really have to be?
Dutch designer Joris Laarman specializes in “reinventing functionality.” With his gorgeous new Heat Wave radiator, he has managed to transform what was once a bulky necessary evil into a stunning piece of sculpture that functions just as well as wall art, as it does in heat radiation. Luckily for all of us, Droog Design has recognized the genius of this design and has put the Heat Wave Radiator into mass production, so now we can all bask in its warmth.
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The most earthly looking eco-burial container that we’ve found is the Capsula Mundi, created by a pair of Italian designers who wanted to remove the taboo from the burial process and give it a new conception.
What is it about the Dutch and design? Why is it that most witty and thought-provoking designers these days all seem to be coming out of the Netherlands? Tord Boontje, Jurgen Bey, Hella Jongerious, Droog… Its hard to put a finger on exactly what it is that unites these different designers ? but there seems to be a certain playfulness to Dutch design which makes it uniquely compelling.
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On the subject of simple lighting solutions, here’s something that caught my eye from Mocoloco’s Milan reportage. Its a parasol made from lace cut in the pattern of foliage. There is something about this aesthetic of emulating nature which reminds me of Paran’s Sunlight Transporting system. You could put these parasols underneath your Bjork, and being inside could be exactly the same as siting under a tree. The designer Chris Kabel has this, and a couple others intriguing items (such as this …
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