Sources: London Design Festival, inhabitat
One of our favorite shows from the 2009 London Design Festival was Corn Craft, a beautiful showcase of sustainable materials hosted by Gallery FUMI and Studio Toogood. Held in Gallery’s FUMI’s personal live/ work space on Hoxton Square, the exhibition hit all the right notes with tactile, emotional art-design pieces by Max Lamb & Gemma Holt, Nacho Carbonell (above) and Raw-Edges Design Studio.
Raw-Edges Design Studio’s table appears to magically carry ceramic dishes from which food was served at the opening party. 60 were invited, 100+ attended!
Oscar Narud ’s crafty slotted Keel tables 002 and 003.
Very Good & Proper’s ‘Canteen Table leg set’ found value in a discarded science lab table that the designers salvaged in their university years. This set of modular legs can be attached to reclaimed wood pieces such as old doors to convert them into tables.
Scott Jarvie’s One Cut Chair has been designed to minimize energy and manufacturing time by using water-jets to create a single continuous cut into a single sheet of plywood. The chair can be adjusted slightly to suit the sitter. Jarvie is a finalist in the British Council’s UK Young Design Entrepreneur award for 2009.
Tomás Alonso’s light experiments continue the Mr Light aesthetic in a smaller series, inspired by energy-efficient T5 LED dimmable light tubes.
Seating for Eating by Studio Ilse produced by De La Espada.
Buon Appetito is Andrew Haythornthwaite and Jordi Canudas‘ creation. Feeding off unwanted paper waste, the sculptural funishing grows, providing a place to sit and rest.
Inspired by Martin Hocking research into reusable vs. disposable cups, Australian company KeepCup, take on the throwaway paper coffee cup problem. KeepCup’s Jamie Forsyth explained how each paper cup takes approximately 1000KJ of energy to produce, whereas their plastic cups take 9000KJ each to produce and can be recycled once at the end of their lifespan. Including washing, it would take 20 – 30 uses to break even with paper cup consumption. This is quite impressive when compared to a 1000 break even point with a re-usable steel coffee cup, which lasts approximately 5,000 uses. KeepCup pointed out that as fervent espresso-coffee drinkers, in the UK alone, we throw away 1.7 billion paper coffee cups each year. They have sold 50,000 to Australian public services in the last four months.
Bokja by The Quirico Company is a piece of found furniture reupholstered with beautiful vintage fabric.
Kyeok Kim’s Chair (left) made from reclaimed materials. The Easy Willow chair (right) by Cornish-based designers Boex is made from sustainable wood and British grown willow.
