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Together with Pieke Bergmans, Studio Libertiny, Raw Edges and Liliana Ovalle I was invited to spend a long weekend in Turin to discuss notions of nature and artifice. We gave presentations about our work and facilitated a design workshop for University students from Turin. The residency was organised by Barbara Brondi and Marco Raino of BRH+ Studio.

The results and documentation of the residency will be published in Interni magazine soon.

A big thank you to the team of the Residence du Parc and to Barbara and Marco!

Luci d’Artista Projects in the city of Torino

Daniel Buren’s “Tappeto volante� (1999) and Studio Libertiny

Two of the students presenting their work

The Conformitory is designed to make safe elements of nature. It acknowledges our desire to connect with flora, fauna and the environment. However, a thorough risk assessment has shown that any contact needs to be controlled. Visit the Conformitory where we process nature to conform to health and safety standards.

Julia Lohmann & Gero Grundmann

Best known for her elegant lamps made from sheep’s stomachs, designer Julia Lohmann will be resident in the Embankment Galleries’ Studio with Gero Grundmann, for ‘The Conformitory: Nature Contained’, as part of ‘Wouldn’t it be nice… Wishful thinking in art and design’.

Working busily from inside a forensic tent, Lohmann and Grundmann will be manufacturing sanitised, ‘health and safety approved’ versions of the natural world – laminated leaves, perfected branches, nut-free nuts and more…

The Conformitory at ‘Wouldn’t it be nice… Wishful thinking in art and design’, Somerset House, Strand London WC2R 1LA, 27 November – 7 December 2008

For press enquiries please contact: Tom.Coupe@SomersetHouse.org.uk

designed for the ‘Designers of the Future Award’ exhibition

The ‘Resilience’ concrete and wool tables on display

My response to the concrete and wool brief set by Design Miami/Basel is based on research into manmade structures that are exposed to the elements, re-conquered by nature and demolished by humans as well as the effects of natural disasters on the built environment.

The concrete and wool objects on show play with a role reversal of qualities we associate with manmade and natural materials. Concrete, which is normally considered a structural and long-lasting material, is cast in two-dimensional forms onto a woven wool backing. Then, in a design process that harnesses destructive force and the ‘undesirable’ effects of decay as a creative tool, the concrete shapes are broken up. Held together by wool, normally deemed the weaker material of the two, the fragmented forms are then reconfigured into three-dimensional shapes and fixed. This process allows the creation of a wide range of unique objects based on shapes cast in a single mould.

A view of my section of the ‘Designers of the Future Award’ display

The high ‘Resilience’ table

The low ‘Resilience’ table

For further information please visit: www.designmiami.com
© Julia Lohmann 2008

Design Miami/Basel, the global forum for limited edition design has selected me as a ‘Designer of the Future’

Press Release:

For Design Miami/ Basel 2008, Design Miami/ has named 4 Designers of the Future. For this award, each designer/collective will create a new object, installation, or series using concrete and wool, supplementing their work with a short video of his/her creative process. The new work and video will be exhibited at Design Miami/ Basel, which will take place at the Markthalle Basel, Viaduktstrasse 10, Basel, Switzerland from June 3 – 5, 2008. The decision to showcase more than one young creative person or collective within a single year was made after taking into consideration the tremendous energy in contemporary design, a field which encompasses a vast variety of compelling approaches and styles. With this award, Design Miami/ Basel demonstrates its commitment to experimental, limited edition and non-industrial design and seeks to reward creativity expressed through new forms, new processes, and new design philosophies. By honoring more than one person or collective at a time, it seeks to provide a more complete picture of where design practice is heading.

More info: http://www.designmiami.com/basel/spotlight/

Martino Gamper

Max Lamb

Clemens Weisshaar & Reed Kram

For the Saloni di Mobile in Milano we built a workshop in Galleria Nilufar.
Instead of finished products we brought 8 kg of kelp from Japan and Ireland and our tools with us and produced the finished pieces in the gallery. There was a real buzz about the new material and our visitors were very excited to mbe able to see the whole working process and touch the material in its different stages of prodcution: dried, re-hydrated, stretched, varnished, unvarnished.

The Irish kelp turned out to be beautifully translucent and green whereas the Japanese Kombu was much browner and hard, almost like a 70’s plastic.

You can find a video of the opening on Core 77 and more images on Dezeen