Now entering its ninth year, Clerkenwell Design Week (22-24 May) continues to position the east London district as an international design hub with its annual celebration of creativity. Aside from the new launches that are freshly imported straight from Salone del Mobile (that can be appreciated in much calmer environments), the show also hosts installations, new showroom openings and talks at locations from Fabric nightclub to St John’s Square via Spa Fields. Sustainability is high on the agenda this year, with projects including an anti plastic initiative raising money for Maggie’s Centre, and an environmentally friendly courtyard pavilion. Here we have picked out the unmissable highlights to look out for...

Pipe Line bench by Lou Corio Randall

Lou Corio Randall showcases his new approach to street furniture with this playful bench that will be found in all corners of Clerkenwell. Proving that a single line can portray any shape, he uses the design week’s signature pink hue to form a silhouette out of a single line of steel. ‘I wanted to move away from the mundane archetype of street furniture and address the need for bike storage,’ Randall says.

Petite Friture x Fora

Last year, co-working space Fora opened in Clerkenwell offering an architectural workspace for local creatives. For 2018, Fora is securing its place in design week by getting a decorative makeover by French brand Petite Friture. The exterior walls and entrance will be wrapped up in illustrator Lisa Laubreaux’s charming wallpaper, while inside, lighting by Constance Guisset and Sylvain Willenz, plus other design objects, will recreate the brand’s whimsical world.

71 Central St, London EC1V 8AB; www.foraspace.com; www.petitefriture.com

Form Us With Love for Shaw Contract

The Swedish collective are previewing a new creative flooring project for Shaw Contract. Officially launching at NeoCon Chicago in June, the graphic designs have been a year in the making addressing the question ‘What’s Next?’ in the dynamic shapes that will splatter the US brand’s space. Pictured: The Curve shape from the Inside Shapes collection.

33 Great Sutton Street, London, EC1V 0DX; www.formuswithlove.se; www.shawcontract.com

Next Generation Design Pavilion

Each year, in the St. James’ Churchyard, the attention turns to the next generation of designers with an initiative that sees GCSE students realise an interactive pavilion. The winning entry this year responded to the theme of sustainability with a technicolour tornado structure that represents past, present and future through layers of wire. The installation will also invite guests to look up and admire the bucolic natural surrounds.

Clerkenwell Close, London EC1R 0EA

Stellar Works showroom

In celebration of its first London showroom, Chinese brand Stellar Works are using the raw, unfinished space on St John Street to unveil its newest launches against a photographic installation. Titled Shanghai: Shift the immersive display will see creative directors Neri & Hu take the products out of the domestic context with a uniquely cinematic lens.

99 St John Street, EC1M 4AS; www.stellarworks.com

INFORMATION

Clerkenwell Design Week is on view 22 – 24 May. For more information, visit the website

In the second half of May, over a month after UK design devotees have returned and recovered from Salone del Mobile, London’s Clerkenwell Design Week offers a welcome refresher.

Now in its eighth year, the three-day festival caters to the city’s architects and designers, who flock to the area’s 90-odd furniture showrooms, as well as the pop-up exhibitions, talks and seminars that are held during the week. The show’s mercifully small footprint not only makes the event easily walkable, but also ensures that a festival-like atmosphere can be felt throughout – something that is often remiss during larger city-wide design events.

The week’s design route, clearly marked by pavement signage in the event’s trademark pink, was peppered with the usual array of site-specific installations. This year, seven landmark structures were assembled within Clerkenwell’s winding streets, serving as meeting points for interaction.

Once again, exhibitions were located in some of the area’s most intriguing architectural spaces – one prison, two churches, one nightclub, two parks and two crypts, to be precise. Icon’s House of Culture returned to nightclub Fabric, while Design Fields popped up on again on the green Spa Fields. The work of British makers was assembled under the barrel-roofed crypt of St James’s Church, and former prison, House of Detention, provided an atmospheric backdrop for a showcase of emerging talents at Platform.

While many participating showrooms simply showcased pieces launched in Milan, others strove to create more immersive experiences this year. Fashion illustration workshops were held at Milliken, terrarium making at Interface, live spinning demos at Camira, while printmaker Alex Booker held a series of packed-out woodblock printing workshops in design emporium Clerkenwell London.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Clerkenwell Design Week website

How to enhance performance through the reimagining of traditional product typologies is a bit of an obsession for Layer's Benjamin Hubert.

Take his Clerkenwell Design Week showcase, for example. As well as his 3D printed 'GO' wheelchair, Layer transformed Clerkenwell London's reading room into a delightful lounge of colour and comfort with the 'Cradle' collection, designed for Moroso.

Originally unveiled at Milan's Salone del Mobile, the Clerkenwell showing brought the trio of designs together, using the high-back and low-back chairs to create comfortable seating pockets, with dynamic room dividers completing the scene.

'We have a passion for developing new materials to solve problems at Layer,' explains Hubert, 'and in combination with Moroso’s love of textiles, we have arrived at a new type of mesh construction that offers better comfort through less materials, delivering a rich new aesthetic.'

Using a three-dimensional stretch textile created in collaboration with an Austrian factory, the knitted material is at once high strength and low density; lending flexible support to sitters and visual vibrancy in one fell swoop. A metal backrest cradles the cushioned seat block, and of course all colours can be customised.

Aside from the strong visual statement, the chairs also make a seriously satisfying seating experience – the elegance of a conventional upholstered lounge chair with the unique comfort of a hammock, without the hassle of awkwardly climbing in and out.

INFORMATION

Photography courtesy of Layer

Every year, London’s design pilgrims flock to Clerkenwell for the area's annual Design Week. Set over three days, this year marks the seventh edition of the ever-growing event, that took on a broader area of the East-Central London location, hosting talks, new releases, installations and workshops.

Big changes were brought to the usual festival format this year due to the Farmiloe building no longer hosting the central contemporary design hub that is Design Fields. The move sent it to a pop-up location, set on the green Spa Fields; and while some may argue that isn't Clerkenwell proper, we appreciated the green repose in the sunshine, witnessing designs arriving fresh from Salone del Mobile by the likes of Petite Friture, Dedon and H Furniture, as well as noteworthy new releases from +Halle and Another Brand.

Icon's House of Culture returned for a second year, and though hopes were high for the re-location to nightclub Fabric, it didn't have the show stopping quality of the Old Sessions house from last year. The range of brands on view, however, made it worth the trip, with Expormim, & Tradition and Stellar Works displaying their eloquent new pieces.

Tom Dixon put on a ceremonial show of his Milan releases. Settling inside the Grade I listed St James Church, just off Clerkenwell Green, the 17th century space was a grand backdrop for the glistening wares. Taking centre stage in the nave was an enchanting chandelier made out of the brand's 'Curve Pendants', set to stay as a permanent design fixture.

A wealth of new spaces showed for the first time, including newcomer BD Barcelona, who opened its  inaugural London space to coincide with the release of a Salvador Dalí-inspired chair. Meanwhile, design emporium Clerkenwell London played host to 'Go' – a new 3D printed wheelchair by Benjamin Hubert, alongside a crafted exhibition titled ‘Design Undefined’ that included a plethora of experimental works such as geometric cakes by Kia Utzon-Frank, a materials installation by Matter and handmade oak pieces by Tree Couture in the forest escape basement space.

As always, site-specific installations took up the outdoor spaces. A transfixing tiled installation, 'Billboards' by Giles Miller and British Ceramics Tile, guided guests along the exhibition route, and a flowing plywood pavilion by GCSE students titled 'Future of Design' in the garden of St John's Square marked the show's first educational project.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Clerkenwell Design Week website

Sam Jacob Studio, the London-based architecture practice set up by FAT co-founder Jacob, has just launched 'One Thing After Another', an installation in collaboration with manufacturers Sto. The exhibit, presented at the Sto Werstatt gallery space as a part of Clerkenwell Design Week, explores the possibilities of digital fabrication using as its starting point a mundane yet quintessential form of architecture: the humble garden shed.

Through his installation, Jacob aims to enter the debate around the ethics of digital ownership and replication, recently brought back to the spotlight when German artists Nora Al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles secretly 3D-scanned the head of Nefertiti from Berlin’s Neues Museum with the intention of initiating a dialogue on the notion of possession. When they released the CAD files for public use, they provided the world with the opportunity to download and print a copy of the bust for their own.

'What is architecture's place within this digital analog dialogue?' asks Jacob. ‘One Thing After Another' is part of a series of projects we’ve been working on that explore the possibilities of digital inputs and outputs,’ he explains, ‘they explore how objects can be transmitted through forms of technology and how that transmission leaves its trace within architectural substance.’

The installation is composed of three parts, borrowing the format of the Russian nesting doll and using a shed bought on eBay as a prototype. ‘This ‘post-digital’ architecture is more than a building: it’s information that remains in flux, that can be evaporated, distilled and precipitated between digital file and physical construction then back again’, says Jacob.

A small 3D printed version of the shed is situated within the original one. They both sit with a much larger, scaled up version, constructed from a number of CNC milled pieces from Sto’s innovative material, Verolith. This lightweight material consists of 90% perlite, a type of volcanic stone. To finish, the new shed’s interior is lined with StoVentec, a glossy coloured glass panelling.

‘One Thing After Another’ highlights the exchange of information between the digital and the physical world, embracing a new and alternative angle that looks into imperfections in construction, fidelity, and architectural representation in our ever growing digital world.

INFORMATION 

'One Thing After Another' will be on show at Sto Werkstatt until the end of June 2016. For more information, visit the website

Photography: David Parry

Yet another design brand has taken over territory in London’s design friendly Clerkenwell. This time, shipping in from Spain is BD Barcelona. Opening its first UK showroom during Clerkenwell Design Week, the brand brings an artistic aesthetic to a gallery setting on Berry Street.

The space is stocked with avant-garde and occasionally eccentric pieces from a long list of collaborations with Ross Lovegrove, Doshi Levien and Neri & Hu. All follow BD Barcelona’s brand credo ’Design meets art’. Among the many pieces on view are designs fresh from Salone del Mobile, such as Swedish duo Färg Blanche’s patterned and sewed wooden armchair, and the Campana Brothers’s aquarium-inspired ‘Aquário’ cabinet.

The opening coincides with the launch of a Salvador Dalí-inspired chair titled ‘Invisible Personage’, which takes centre stage in the space. Drawing on Dalí’s eerie 1935–36 work Singularities, Oscar Tusquets Blanca, an architect and BD Barcelona’s co-founder, designed the chair with the image’s texture in mind, realised in a powder pink hue. The brand began showing Dalí’s works back in 1972 with his abstract lighting; and it has since continued to reproduce his experimental designs, many of which – like the conceptual brass ‘Leda’ armchairs – are on display in the new space.

The rest of BD Barcelona’s works maintain a similar surrealist synergy – as seen in Jaime Hayon’s whimsical ‘King Kong’ mirrors, suspended above Cristian Zuzunaga’s vibrant pixilated sideboard from 2015, ‘Dreams’. The showroom interiors have been given a simple monochrome palette, allowing the fanciful pieces to express themselves.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the BD Barcelona website

The reassuringly familiar typeface used across London’s transport network turns 100 this year, making it one of the world’s longest lasting examples of corporate branding. Commissioned by the Underground Group’s commercial manager, Frank Pick, in 1913, designed by calligrapher Edward Johnston and introduced in 1916, the sans serif design brought clarity and uniformity to London’s complex network of stations, which had previously each used a jumble of signage and typography.

To mark its centenary, Transport for London (TfL) has teamed up with 11 UK graphic and design agencies, who have each created a poster dedicated to the typeface. Among them, legendary typographer, designer and letterpress master Alan Kitching has used the tube line colours from Harry Beck’s 1933 Underground map to create a multicoloured drop shadow behind the Johnston font; award-winning agency Magpie has conjured a playful ode to Johnston’s legacy with a simple and direct message – ‘Politley telling Londoners where to get off since 1916’; while Thomas.Matthews has layered the underground’s distinctive seat fabric pattern (also designed by Johnston) into a rich composition that ‘aims to communicate the hustle bustle of London and the constant presence of Johnston in our everyday journeys’.

Other participants include Build, Monotype, Pentagram, Sawdust, SEA, Studio Frith, Studio Parallel and The Beautiful Meme, whose posters will be on show and for sale at TfL’s Johnston Pop-Up Shop in the 'Additions' exhibition at Clerkenwell Design Week from 24–26 May and at an exhibition entitled 'The Language of London', to be held at Hoxton's KK Outlet concurrent with Clerkenwell Design Week, from 16–28 May.

'The Language of London' is not a stand-alone event; it is in fact part of a much wider 18-month programme of events, exhibitions and competitions titled 'Transported by Design', which was specifically set up to showcase the link between transport and good design and how it has kept London working and growing into the 21st century.

INFORMATION

The ’Johnston 100’ posters will also be on show on the Underground during June. The poster designs will be available to buy online from 16 May via TfL’s website

For the sixth time, Clerkenwell Design Week takes over London with its eclectic selection of design and furniture, merging commercial drive with design festival flair.

More than 80 showrooms across the area have opened up their doors to showcase new and recent launches, while the festival’s own venues continue to combine impressive settings with contemporary brands’ work. The Design Factory returns to the historical Farmiloe Building, with a few new launches  - most notably, David Rockwell’s perfectly formed collection for Stellar Works, previewed here in advance of a bigger launch later in the year - and many brands presenting their recent Salone del Mobile news to the London crowd. The other spaces in the area, like the Crypt of St James’ Church and the cavernous house of Detention, present small selections of works that range from young designers’ first creative experiments to more established British brands.

Icon’s House of Culture, located in the stunning Old Sessions house (rumoured to imminently be transformed into a private members’ club) provided a welcome addition to the district, offering a new format to the usual fair-like setups of Clerkenwell. Inside its imposing halls, Moroso and PP Møbler shared a space enriched with a botanical touch, while upstairs, Danish brand Gubi turned a whole room into an elegant Danish lounge. Fritz Hansen has a sneak peek of their ‘7 Cool Architects’ project here too, a literally-titled initiative which is giving new life to Arne Jacobsen’s 'Series 7 Chair', now in its 60th year of life. Snøhetta, Jean Nouvel and Neri & Hu feature amongst the ‘cool architects,’ each of whom was invited to re-invent the chair’s function while leaving its iconic seat intact.

As is now tradition, the city’s creatives take over Clerkenwell through site-specific installations too, aiming to link the area together whilst doubling up as open-air hubs of activity. Designer/maker Sebastian Cox and sculptor Laura Ellen Bacon were commissioned by AHEC to play with hardwood and explore its versatility. Their ‘Invisible Store of Happiness’ features American Cherry and Maple woods, steam-bent into twisted and curled strips which create a dramatic installation placed under the impressive St John's Arch. In nearby St John’s Square, Architects Cousins & Cousins present a multi-coloured pavilion in collaboration with Gx Glass. The jewel-like structure is an alternation of opaque and see-through panels of glass in a combination of pink and yellow tones.

Off-site highlights include British tiles company Bert & May’s new ‘Spaces’ venture which offers contemporary compact living solutions, inaugurated with a Barge designed in collaboration with stylist Laura Fulmine and RaT Architecture. Down the street, Vitra hosted a small retrospective of Jean Prouvé’s furniture as part of the Swiss company’s partnership with G-Star. The collaboration’s second installment is focused on office furniture, reviving ten pieces from the 1940s, ranging from seating to lighting and presented alongside the Prouvé Bistro, by far the area’s most covetable food pit-stop. 

Now in its fifth edition, Clerkenwell Design Week has once again gathered its roster of international brands, local artisans and young designers to the London district. With a programme featuring events, talks, installations and new launches, the three-day festival takes over a clutch of local landmarks as its main hubs, creating a lively contrast between historic architecture and contemporary design.

Acting as a central focus for the area is 'Tile Mile', a collaborative project presented by Turkish Ceramics with design practice Russ + Henshaw. The designers have interpreted the classic Turkish patterns with a site-specific installation that takes over the 16th century St John's Gate in the heart of the district.

As with past editions, the fair's venues are dotted around the neighbourhood, with four centres holding distinct exhibitions. For the fifth year, the Victorian Farmiloe Building forms the striking backdrop to Design Factory, where a cascading lighting installation by Jaguar and Foscarini welcomes visitors to a showcase of international furniture brands, including Stellar Works, Discipline, Zeitraum and Artemide.

Further up the road is Detail at The Order of St John, which presents decorative design solutions and a display of highlights from the collaboration between Edra and the Campana Brothers in the underground crypt. Meanwhile, Platform returns to the cavernous House of Detention, displaying young craft, while the newest introduction to the hubs is Additions, a smaller show dedicated to lifestyle objects and held at the Crypt on the Green, adjacent to St James's Church.

Alongside the temporary exhibition spaces, the area's resident brands further animate the week by opening their showrooms to display new projects as well as their existing collections. One of the most striking is Vitra's exhibition, titled 'Tailor my Tom Vac', a showcase dedicated to Ron Arad's iconic chair design. Twenty-two architects and designers have been asked to re-interpret the piece with interventions that range from discreet paintjobs to outlandish transformations.

Clerkenwell Design Week is spreading its wings for its fourth and largest edition to date, offering design pilgrims a boosted line-up of product launches, exhibitions, installations, debates and workshops across three action-packed days in May.

With over 250 product showrooms, a plethora of creative and design studios, and the densest population of architects in the world, Clerkenwell has emerged as the UK’s indisputable design district. While the festival may not elicit the same level of frenzy as the recent Salone del Mobile, it is nonetheless a testament to the city’s increasing appeal to heavyweight brands - and likewise serves as a gateway for fledgling brands to an international design platform.

For the fourth year running, the Farmiloe Building is hosting the lion’s share of exhibitors, with the likes of Dare Studio, Plumen and Swedese presenting their collections. Italian lighting brand Foscarini is making its inaugural appearance at the festival, taking pride of place in the atrium with a site-specific installation, alongside a showcase of its best-sellers on the ground-floor.

The subterranean dungeon at the House of Detention offers a one-stop hub for up-and-coming talent, such as Foundations Rugs, which is launching a diffusion range of hand-tufted rugs, while another returning venue Order of St John is a sourcebook for decorating trends.

On display at the festival’s new pavilion focusing on surfaces, ceramic artist Lubna Chowdhary is presenting a series of ten Domus-tiled tables, modeled after Enzo Mari’s ‘Autoprogettazione’. Meanwhile, Domus is premiering Patricia Urquiola’s new collection for the brand, ‘Azulej’, in its showroom on Great Sutton Street.

This year also sees a slew of archi-centric fringe exhibits spilling out across Clerkenwell. Giles Miller Studio has installed a stainless steel and brass 'pixel' sculpture in front of a medieval gate. In another pop-up pavilion, not-for-profit organization Architecture for Humanity has created a village of four themed huts that embody the ethos of the charity. And the Zaha Hadid Design Gallery has also opened its doors to the public for the first time, offering a look at a never-before-seen archive of architectural models of both past and future projects.