Bon Appetite

This is another post that will be sort of like many posts in one, but it all stems from a group called Council from San Francisco (of course: truly some of the most astonishing design work is coming from there lately), but the designers are potentially from anywhere in the world.

First up is Mike & Maaike from San Francisco, who I spoke to and wrote about for the magazine last year.  I'm not going to go into the stuff I saw then, but if you don't know about them, I highly recommend looking through their website, because they really are brilliant.

Anyhow, for Council, they've designed the "Mute" chair and ottoman, which is just peaceful, simple, and lovely:

Next is Nendo, working out of Japan.  For Council he's designed this bookshelf called "Radial":

Sorry about the weird image, they don't have the images from their photo shoot, yet.  But basically it forces its perspective with the vertical panels.  I think it's very smart because it would make itself, and therefore your room, appear far, far bigger and longer than it actually is.

Not for Council, but to be found on his website were a couple of other cool items, these are "Polar" tables for a company called Swedese:

They're basically nesting tables, but the glass is polarized in just such a way that, when it overlaps, it creates these really interesting floral patterns.

Conceptually, it's a great idea, but I'm sure that seen in person, the optical effect of this--where you can't quite tell where the flowers are coming from, would be quite magical.

And this pitcher and tumbler set:

That's not necessarily cold.  It has nubbly blobs of glass on the outside and the glass is smokey toward the bottom.  It would look like that even with a hot liquid in it.  I think that's a fantastic optical illusion.

And lastly, here's Khodi Feiz from the Netherlands.  For Council he's created this "Peel" line, which is fantastic--the ottoman:

But it's hiding something:

Such a simple idea, but I think very clever, streamlined, and flexible.  Here's the chaise:

Not for Council, but for the Dutch Embassy in Berlin, Feiz designed these chairs:

It's carved very geometrically out of one solid block of polystyrene foam.  Its lines are so Space Age and sleek, but I think it looks totally comfortable--it bends under your weight--and evidently perfectly fine for outdoor use; it sounds like it was designed for a park-like space.  Here's the upholstered version, which is interesting in its own unique way:

He also did these portable speakers for Nokia:

He did an especially tiny speaker set--as in you could wear it around your neck like a pendant--but I thought these were awesome.  They can be hooked up wirelessly to any bluetooth device.  They click together with magnets, protecting the speakers:

The heavy duty cable becomes a carrying strap.  Now that's seriously clever.

Council

415-550-1750

©2008, Ryan Witte

Conquering Time and Space

(BD)

Here's some brilliantly intellectual work from Takeshi Miyakawa.

Not to generalize, but one thing I really adore about the designers trained in Japan is that so much of their work seems to have deep, spiritual implications.  It can often be quite clever, also, but they're able to create truly beautiful pieces that express the most timeless concepts.

Miyakawa's "Infinity" is the perfect example:

He's taken the arrangement of a traditional (opposite facing) loveseat and executed it with an M.C. Escher sort of Surrealism...as much as a real object can be surreal, that is.

"Rabbit" is still only a prototype, but he had a cute little model of it at the show that I was playing with.  He told me that's how he usually works, by first making a miniature and then translating the model to life-size:

This falls into the "clever" category, and here I go again with the idea of adaptability.  It can fold up to be a stool or a small table.  In playing with it, I also thought it could be positioned in different ways to provide a higher or lower seat, one that allows the user to recline more, and so on.  

Some of the positions I tried may be unsound under the weight of a person, but there's no reason the lever things couldn't be made to lock into place to solve that problem.

"14+1" looks like a random stack of boxes:

I could be wrong, but something about the proportions of the boxes strikes me as obeying the Golden Mean or some other ancient formula.  In any case, the cool thing is that some of the boxes slide out, revealing secret compartments on the inside and openings through the piece:

But perhaps the most astonishing thing Miyakawa has done is "Fractal":

Priced at $20,000, it's really more of an art object than a piece of furniture, but he says the piece is extremely difficult and time-consuming to make, and I can most definitely believe that.  Still, it's totally functional.  Fractals of course are infinite formulas, a marvel of modern geometry, and while the drawers in reality can only get so tiny before he has to stop (the smallest is a cube a little larger than a quarter), the spiritual symbolism of this is truly incredible.

Takeshi Miyakawa

718-782-0951

©2008, Ryan Witte

Wood You?

In a way, this blog is dedicated to a great craftsman named Eric Manigian. I was asked to cover the BKLYN DESIGNS trade show by @home magazine, and chose his work to feature in the magazine out of hundreds of others. I really loved his work. Later, he and I had a great telephone conversation, and he said I seemed to have a better grasp of Design principles than most people he speaks to about what he does. I hear that from a lot of designers and architects (you can't imagine the pride in hearing "that's exactly what I was just going to say!" or "you totally get where I'm coming from!"), but from him it sounded so sincere.

The following year, he had a booth again, and he suggested that I really should start a blog. I told him I do have a LiveJournal where I discuss a lot of the things I've seen, but I thought it was time to take his advice and start a blog devoted purely to these topics. And so, Architextures by Ryan Witte was born.

Here is the section of my article, as published in @home, about the work of Eric Manigian. [A lot of this is copied from other sources, so please disregard the lame formatting. This is also a highly edited-down version of my original piece, due to page space limitations.]

Eric Manigian’s work speaks for itself, but that’s sort of the point. It’s all about Honesty. His work had always been about the relationship with the trees and the wood he uses to create furniture, even before people started labeling his work “Green.” He explained that with hidden joinery, there are shortcuts a craftsperson can take. Having spent time in Japan studying at a Buddhist monastery and learning the techniques of wood-frame temple construction there, he returned home with a renewed attitude toward his work.






Working with mills that salvage fallen or diseased trees, these designs respond directly to an ecological sensitivity. Manigian’s work shows his respect for trees, but as he speaks of it, he doesn’t get all plaid-flannel-shirt-and-Birkenstocks about it.




Manigian understands that in order to make beautiful furniture, he must alter the material in some way. It will necessarily show the hand of the designer. He responds to the material and then forms the piece, rather than trying to force it into some predetermined shape. Exposed joinery is part of the design. His work displays an uncommon level of care and attention to his craft; as if slapping two pieces of wood together with a couple of hidden screws does the natural wood a disservice. You’ll notice that the joinery is not just basic, bland woodwork. He staggers his joints, giving them voice and aesthetic purpose. They’re perfect, smooth, seamless.




He stains nothing. He’s actually had clients who didn’t understand his work ask for a piece to be stained darker, and he’s all but flat-out refused. The staining process contradicts his vision, but even just aesthetically, ruins the natural beauty of the material by homogenizing the texture, destroying the look of the grain, making its natural striations more uniform.



Eric Manigian Studio
Brooklyn, NY
718.855.9097

©2006, Ryan Witte