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ICFF 2004
A sneak peek at the people, products, and events you’ll see at this
year’s Fair.
By Kristi Cameron and Laurie Manfra
May 2004
A first-of-its-kind exhibition will be unveiled at this year’s
International Contemporary Furniture Fair (May 15-18), in New York.
ICFF Raw: The Next Generation will highlight 15 to 20 of the
compelling designs and radical ideas entered in Metropolis’s
first “Next Generation Design Competition.” A joint production
of the ICFF and Metropolis, the show will be curated by Marco
Pasanella, whose design career was launched at the ICFF in 1990 with the
immediate success of his sideways rocking chair.
Our recent competition called on emerging designers to submit a
“Big Design Idea” that would benefit people and the
environment. Though only one firm received the grand prize—$10,000
seed money to invest in their idea—the call for entries attracted
an array of innovative proposals.
Pasanella’s own selections for the 2004 ICFF special exhibition
include the very first entry we received—a tattered handwritten
proposal to convert parking garages into homeless shelters—which
may just have been sent in by one of New York City’s homeless.
“It was an interesting contrast from the rest,” Pasanella
says. “Just having that piece of paper as the entry represented, to
me, the real spirit of raw. It’s just this idea thrown out
there.”
Other innovative ideas that will premiere in ICFF Raw include:
Lume, an LED-embedded fabric that creates a plane of light and can be
applied to an interior wall or surface; Slik nonwoven textiles made
entirely of discarded plastic bags pressed and heat-rolled into
semi-translucent sheets; and the Johnny Applesandal, a shoe that
disperses phytoremediating seeds as the sole wears out. “These
seeds will actually grow into plants that clean the toxins in our
environment,” Pasanella explains. “Just imagine the
possibilities. One day someone might develop a coating made up of
dust-eating mites that are incorporated into the polyurethane on your
table!” This same concern with material innovation will also be the
focus of the Metropolis Conference at the ICFF, Design Entrepreneurs:
The Next Generation II, on May 17th. |
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Lume, a light emitting fabric. |
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Johnny Applesandal, new phtyoremediating footwear. |
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Optrix, a light diffusing laser-cut acrylic tile. |
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Slik nonwoven, a recycled plastic textile. |
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ICFF Preview: Exhibitors
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2TIER TABLE, PURE DESIGN, 2004
“The design was initially conceived for inhabitants of confined
spaces—for the urban dweller, generally speaking. The table and two
chairs were designed to be knocked down flat to a thickness of about two
and a half inches. A lot of confined spaces need storage, which is why
the coffee table has two levels. I participated in the constructive
criticism panel at Metropolis’s Next Generation conference
[at ICFF 2003]. I felt quite fortunate—I guess I had a good
product. My review by the panel was very favorable, which certainly
helped to generate interest and was a selling point for the item. Right
after I presented the table at the conference, I was approached by a
couple of manufacturers. Unfortunately none of them panned out. But the
panel’s interest—specifically Rob Forbes, from Design Within
Reach—was very encouraging. And being able to say that I got this
favorable review really helped me sell the product to Pure.”
Kirsten White, Designer
www.puredesignonline.com |
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FLARE TABLE, MAGIS, 2003
“I like the fact that you can fill [the legs] up with paper, your
own drawings or posters—maybe your restaurant’s posters. But
it’s also possible to put in three-dimensional stuff. You could put
toy bears or spaghetti or forks there—things that concern the table
or your hobby or things that you want to store. I think this option to
make it your own is very interesting for people who have their own
personal things and for businesses, such as a little restaurant. The
restaurant architect could think of a fun plan for the legs, and it
could work in an interesting way. That’s an important
point—the innovative part—it gives people the chance to
personalize the product.”
Marcel Wanders, Designer
www.magisdesign.com |
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OXFORD CHAIR, BY ARNE JACOBSEN, FRITZ HANSEN, 2003
“The chair was originally designed for St. Catherine’s College
in Oxford. Fritz Hansen and Arne Jacobsen put it into mass production in
1965 in an upholstered leather version. Two years ago we decided the
chair had a bigger potential than the number we were selling. It had
become thicker over the years with padding, so we decided to take it
back to the original design. We’ve made the base feel more stable
to sit on, but also slimmer. You see the curve of the long shell much
better now because we’ve used a higher-quality, slimmer upholstery.
With the technologies and materials we had in 1965 it was not possible
to make a chair that lived up to the wood model. Today we can come
closer. This Paul Smith fabric goes very well with it because the Oxford
is a classic, but it could have been designed yesterday.”
Gitte Maj Schrøder, International Marketing Manager,
Fritz Hansen
www.fritzhansen.com |
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Egon Gade/courtesy Fritz Hansen |
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ELEPHANT STOOL, BY SORI YANAGI, VITRA DESIGN MUSEUM, 2004
“We have been working on the Elephant stool for a year and a half
with Sori Yanagi. We already produce his Butterfly stool. This is a
stackable three-legged design from 1954 that was originally made in
fiberglass (pictured here) and only available in black and white.
We’re bringing it back in an injection-molded plastic. It
hasn’t been in production for about 20 years, except for a
reedition by Habitat about six years ago, but Yanagi was not happy with
the quality. We asked Yanagi to develop a color range. It’s a
relatively inexpensive plastic stool that looks very nice if you have a
stack of different colors.”
Eckart Maise, Managing Director of the Products Division,
Vitra Design Museum
www.design-museum.de |
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Courtesy Vitra Design Musuem |
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DIAMOND PLATE VINYL UPHOLSTERY FABRIC, KNOLLTEXTILES, 2003
“This technology was brought to us by one of our suppliers. This
process is less expensive than doing embossed and engraved rollers.
That’s a huge cost—in the $30,000 range. In this process you
can make a sleeve out of any kind of material, which is then used to
create the mold for the embossing roller. Normally you have to engrave
steel rollers. The sleeve is injected with fiberglass, and that becomes
the roller. I’ve been exploring the concept of wet and dry, shiny
and matte materials. For Beveled Square I used corrugated cardboard;
Diamond Plate was taken from steel industrial plates.”
Suzanne Tick, Designer
www.knolltextiles.com |
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VERO SOFA, BERNHARDT DESIGN, 2004
“I still like my first collection for Bernhardt, Abra, very
much—it’s sculptural—but I wanted to do something that
would not stand out so strongly, like clothes you wear because of some
very personal detail inside. The back of this sofa is articulated in a
nice way. A change of color shows the thickness. From the front it looks
simple—almost déjà vu. We worked hard on the
proportions. We had thin armrests that looked too designed, so we
thickened them to look more regular. It’s the first time I have
come to the market with such an understated product.”
Christian Biecher, Designer
www.bernhardtdesign.com |
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Courtesy Christian Biecher |
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ICFF Preview: Education
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CASA CLASSROOM
“We’ve taken videos from second- and third-grade classrooms
and studied them. We are astounded by the constraints of the
classrooms—almost to the point that the children are frustrated.
We’re also finding that children’s activities, like recess,
are increasingly limited—at least here in Georgia, and I think
probably nationally. We’re looking at the classroom as a
neighborhood. Some definitions specify that a neighborhood has to have a
perimeter, so we’re working on moving all of the functional
furniture to the perimeter and leaving the central part open—much
like a market in Europe—as a flexible community area. We’re
working on a storage system that is an entire wall so it doesn’t
look like storage. We’re working with organic shapes to break down
the linear atmosphere and regimentation that schools typically have. In
terms of furniture, the projects are quite loose, and the kids are
encouraged to take different positions. We have four graduate students
working on the main team, three graduate students working as affiliates,
and about twenty students approaching it through a universal-design
course.”
Steve Thurston, Chair, Furniture Design Department, Savannah College of
Art and Design |
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Katie Schoenfelder/Savannah College of Art and Design |
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VESTA, BY JEFF STURGES, GRADUATE STUDENT
“For our exhibition theme [“Convivial Tools”], I asked
interested students from all Cranbrook departments to propose an object,
ritual, idea, product, or method that would encourage others to live a
more creative, autonomous, and socially and environmentally constructive
lives. This challenge was originally posed by philosopher Ivan Illich in
his 1973 book Tools for Conviviality. His example is the bicycle
because it increases your range but doesn’t displace anyone else.
It was surprising to me that what students really felt would empower
someone in our culture isn’t meeting basic physical needs but
rather spiritual or emotional needs. Jeff Sturges’s project Vesta,
a communal cooking hearth, is the best example. This photo shows one
moment in the trial run of the kitchen, which allowed 12 or so people to
enjoy cooking together.”
Peter Lynch, Head of the Architecture Department, Cranbrook Academy of
Art |
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Jeff Sturges/Cranbrook Academy of Art |
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GEORGIE, BY TODD SEIDMAN, GRADUATE STUDENT
“LifeCycles relates to a curriculum we are developing here at Pratt
that integrates an assessment of a product’s projected lifecycle
into every aspect of the design studios. You don’t market a
product’s greenness; it’s something you consider when you make
any product. What’s interesting about Todd Seidman’s project
is that he first designed it without thinking about the
materials—just using really high-end processes and lacquer. He then
redesigned it into something I think is actually more beautiful. In
reinvestigating it in terms of materials he came up with a new bamboo
construction technique that creates curvilinear forms while reducing
construction waste to a bare minimum.”
Debera Johnson, Chair, Department of Industrial Design, Pratt
Institute |
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Todd Seidman/Pratt Institute |
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THE SAFE CONTAINER, BY ROMI HEFETZ, SENIOR
“We’re talking about how product designers can have a real
impact on the lives of people across the globe. To do that, all of the
students have developed partnerships with not-for-profit organizations.
Their work isn’t simply about redesigning a device that already
exists but about tackling a problem. They’re working with
organizations ranging from the American Heart Association to Pop
Sustainability to Doctors Without Borders. Romi is working with Doctors
Without Borders on a filtered-water container designed as part of a
strategy for fighting opportunistic infections related to AIDS in
sub-Saharan Africa.”
Tony Whitfield, Department Chair, Product Design, Parsons School of
Design |
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Romi Hefetz/Parsons School of Design |
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