After an impressive London summer of furniture exhibitions including everything from Earls Court's - 100% design, Portobello's - The Dock and Shorditch's - Tent. I wanted to give my predictions for the next century of furniture design.
As a journalist's aid I have worked within the furniture industry covering everything homes and interiors for the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times and such like... indeed I have spoken now to most figureheads in most disciplines in order to formulate these very columns and fortunately enough have become design obsessed.
Over the past year I have become particularly obsessed with the materials that furniture is made of and the materials that people desire. This hyphened interest is particularly debated by interior designer friends, who, alongside me - find the right material choices as important as provided drinking water.
You may agree that a lot of modern furniture doesn't live up to good material choices. Pointless furniture materials in a sense degrade the art which lay on the canvas. Hypothetically painting on cheap canvas's ruins art. Not initially, but over time magic without good materials will fade. Take the Eiffel chair as an example of materials put to bad affect. The Eiffel chair design is held beautifully together with only 4 screws and often as an obvious result an awful broken ending occurs.
Other examples of false economies are MDF products which crumble away, wood finishes that blemish by trouser buttons and tragically thin steel legs that eventually turn to lamb legs. Some great examples of materials perfect for the furniture of the future however are revealed below.
This list might seem controversial so hold tight to your opinions.
- Plastic like acrylic is mans rock, it is the clay of spacemen and a wonder to induce unusual shapes with. Acrylic is cumbersome yet effortlessly a charmer.
- I've been passionate about wicker for years because it is a great contrast to other objects in the home and has a lovable aging quality.
- Styling foam is light and once rendered provides shapes unimaginable.
- Recycled rubber is unusual and is great to work with. It's tough and pleasantly wearing like denim.
- Fiber glass has no limits in contemporary design yet it lasts several world wars and is very garden friendly.
- Veneers are the real cover-up for designers looking for shape and greedily an organic finish too.
- Hardwood. effortless in style and often very labour intensive but trustable, traditional and warm upon touch.
It is worth continuing this debate on materials by talking about this years highlights from 2009's furniture design shows. The first is easy. The Acrylic Clip chair from Osko and Deichmann.It is the shape you are. The seat bends around you like a hammock to seek closure on perfect postures. It folds away neatly and has a remarkable air of defiance over the contours of our devotion to bespoke digital products and cyber tailoring.
Before going to any show or fair next year, make a prediction like digital furniture. Notions of simple technological convergences come perfectly to the rescue of new furniture concepts.
Tomomo Sayuda's flat bed scanner placed in the pillow of a chair delighted most who saw the scanned results.She talked me through the opportunity sit, laugh and contemplate something between the merger of entertainment from a comfort... especially if you've been on your feet all day.
At tent you'd barely got through the door before chins hit the ground with an advertising director scream... 'Why didn't I come up with this'. Olivia Decaris's Drop series lights/work enclosures are ornate, personal and sexy in an open space where privacies are linited.
Drop enclosures like this resonate a modern twist on the post war desire for furniture to protect the user. It is a low cost control over space and a discovery of ones privacy.
Polly Westergaard's take on the humble waiting room chair found in so many public sector halls adds truly a set of wings to a school, hospital and public library haunt. She is putting the pleasure back into a dull shape and re-rendering it a must design classic. This is more than an Ikea hacking, it's recycling comfort into style.
Stretch Ceilings stole the thunder this year for me however. A wall constructed purely from thousands of efficient LED's create colours of your own creation and control.
Changing into a million shades of shades that Mark Rothko would have dropped his paint brush and forgiven Liechtenstein for.
This is a sensory overload especially if you push your hand into the flexible PVC wall of light and watch as your hand goes into a puddle of colour: pull away and like water you see waves cross the lighting wall.
Overall, loathing the promise of chairs not made for sitting on... I hope you too chance as I do that design in the future decade will shed the flimsy materials and emerge as a Madison loft style with tough residuals and breathless stylish comfort as good as an Apple mac computer.
Was Tent the most creative? Was it the least objective and best fun furniture show of 2009? I hope you enjoyed the discussion and please leave do your comments.
Matthew D. Wright 2009©
1st image is of a Parachute® canvas print called WANT.
