Profiles
If you haven’t heard of international architecture firm HASSELL yet, that is about to change. Founded in Australia some 70 years ago, it has more than 900 staff and 14 offices in Australia, China, south-east Asia and, as of a few months ago, the UK too. It designs hotels, airports, research facilities, bridges, parks, rail stations and offices, among other things. In China alone the company has 300 staff, working on mega-projects like the masterplanning…
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The inside of David Adjaye’s new office feels a bit like the outside of his earliest residential buildings in London’s east end: dark, compact… slightly brooding. The effect is part architecture studio, part boutique hotel lobby (the sort that might play a soundtrack of ambient drum ’n’ bass). The walls are a slate grey. Leather banquettes are under-lit with slices of yellow light. It’s only the chaotic piles of material samples on the path from…
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On the second floor of Burbage House in Shoreditch, I find architecture and design practice VW+BS. With various creative companies stacked like pancakes over its five or so floors, it is just the kind of place you would expect to find a design studio. The company’s initials stand for Voon Wong (architect) and Benson Saw (product designer). BS isn’t here yet, but nevertheless VW is eager to get started, so we settle down at the…
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“I’m kind of a rebel,” announces Nika Zupanc, slowly stirring her coffee. “Even in school, I always tried to make a point or subvert things – to give new meaning to the ordinary parts of life.” It seems the Slovenian designer, 37, has used the same motto to carve out her niche in the contemporary design world. A world that, by her account, is still a boys’ club where rational utilitarianism reigns supreme. An object or…
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A stone’s throw from the train station in a surprisingly gritty area of Chichester I find design company BroomeJenkins inhabiting what appears to be some converted holiday chalets. Company founder and director Barry Jenkins greets me at the door. He is neatly dressed in ironed shirt and slacks, but I don’t get the feeling this is for my benefit. In modern parlance, Jenkins is old school, having been in the design industry in one form…
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Robin Lee is standing at the gate of a grotty east London mews. He’s squinting up at the address, presumably trying to figure out where the hell he is. (Meeting the onoffcrew for a photo shoot under the arches of a railway line, as a matter of fact, but he’s a bit late.) When we wave him through, Lee’s anxious look melts away and he extends his hand. “I’m Robin, I’m so sorry…
I’m in a Novotel in Leeds with Naughtone. A second home to travelling salesmen up and down the country, it seems an odd place to meet, especially since the company’s HQ is a short drive north in Pannal. But there is good reason to be here. The company has supplied the furniture for a cosmetic makeover of the place, a project with its long-time collaborators, interior designers Blacksheep. Today, directors Matt Welsh, Kieron Bakewell and…
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The magnificent Farmiloe Building welcomed a plethora of design talent during May’s Clerkenwell Design Week (see review, p18). Homegrown stars rubbed shoulders with established international brands as companies set up base camp within the ageing industrial husk. And soaking up the ambience was ASAP, a loose collective of furniture and interior designers that had formed specifically for the event. Another Country, Scene, Assemblyroom Furniture and Pli Design make up component parts (hence the acronym ASAP),…
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Nestled in a patch of parkland in Groningen, the Netherlands, sits a new office building that has been touted as one of the greenest in Europe. It’s certainly one of the most flamboyant. The 92m-tall tower, designed for the city’s Education Executive Agency and Tax Office, has the sort of aerodynamic expression generally reserved for pavilions, museums or modern churches – not sensible offices built during straightened times. The structure’s undulating curves, accented by horizontal…
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Luca Nichetto strikes a formidable figure at the SaloneUfficio, the bustling office section of the Milan furniture fair. The burly Venetian designer is surrounded by salesmen in suits, huddled together waiting for the next punter to step into their lair. Nichetto, on the other hand, is perched on a small sofa from his newly launched range for the Italian brand Emmegi. He looks confident. Maybe because he knows his collaborations with the company – lovely…
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You can’t miss Ineke Hans. The Dutch designer is never without her plaits, for a start, and she tends to wear clothing of the colourful and floral sort. The anti-designer uniform, if you like. Which is fitting because when you first clap eyes onto Hans’ furniture and objects, they have a similar effect as the woman herself: playful and unselfconscious, but seemingly down to earth. Even when she decided to design three collections of purely…
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Amid the battered leather sofas and armchairs of the Hoxton Hotel, people are doing business. Papers are spread out over coffee tables and smartly dressed arty types perch on velvet armchairs. The decor says ‘mildly ironic gentleman’s club’, its pretensions underlined by the efficient table service and aspirational prices. I’m here to meet Danish design duo Flemming Busk and Stephan Hertzog, the two eponymous halves of the multi-award-winning Busk+Hertzog. Highly decorated in their native Denmark…
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It’s a lot of pressure to be labelled one of Britain’s most promising design talents, as Benjamin Hubert knows. The resounding success of the 27-year-old’s inaugural collection at London Design Festival three years ago, along with the subsequent flurry of awards and publicity, would be enough to petrify even the sturdiest ego attempting to live up to the hype. So far, Hubert has managed to uphold his wunderkind status – but with ten products set…
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