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It’s been difficult for tokyobike fans not living in Japan to get ahold of one of the company’s well respected city bikes, but on May 17th their London shop will officially open. To celebrate Dezeen is giving away a single-speed tokyobike worth $840. To enter, just show up to the opening party in Shoreditch this Thursday night. The winner will get to ride home on the bike that evening, and five runners up with get Gropes leather handlebar grips worth $40 apiece.
If you’re unfamiliar with tokyobike, it’s a small, independent bicycle manufacturer founded in 2002 in Yanaka, a suburb of Tokyo. The name references the bike’s purpose. “In the same way the mountain bike was designed for the mountains, so tokyobike was designed for Tokyo.”
So what makes a bike suited to zipping around the streets of a congested city like Tokyo? “Smaller 650mm wheels and slim, compact, steel frames make the bikes easy to handle and light to ride. More about slow than fast, tokyobike is as much about discovering your city and enjoying the ride as it is about the destination.” It might not be best choice for a bike messenger, but it will do quite nicely for the rest of us.
Before setting up shop in London, tokyobikes hit the streets of Milan for Salone del Mobile – watch a cute video of design week goers biking to events.
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Is it just me or does the Medici chair by Konstantin Grcic, a Munich-based industrial designer, look like a much improved version of the classic Adirondack chair? Not that I don’t like the Adirondack chair – I have half a dozen on my back patio – but Grcic’s chair is the meeting point between American NorthEastern traditional and European chic.
Designed for the Italian furniture manufacturer Mattiazzi, the chair was actually “born” on their factory floor. Grcic said “The chair was inspired by the material, the machinery and, of course, the skill and craftsmanship of the people we worked with…Right from the beginning, I was looking for a distinct grammar for my design, a language that would express the characteristics of wood. I liked the idea of working with planks. They signify the very beginning of the production process – a tree trunk that is cut into slices. I like the way in which a carpenter joins wood. It is immediate and direct. The construction remains visible and easy to read. Structure turns into form.”
Medici comes in three different kinds of wood: Walnut, Douglas Fir (in natural and yellow) and, for outdoors, thermo-treated Ash.
“Designing for Mattiazzi was like a personal time travel. It took me all the way back to my professional roots. At the very beginning of my career, I was trained a cabinet maker. Working with wood is what I learnt from scratch. It is where it all started for me.”
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Even after Salone Del Mobile is over, I’m still thinking about The Front Room’s presentation at Ca’Laghetto, Via Laghetto, which featured a number of remarkable designers, including the Rotterdam-based Earnest Studio headed by Rachel Griffin. For Milan this year she presented Swell, a series of stools and benches that put an emphasis on the production process by cutting costs at every stage.
“Upholstered furniture typically uses foam created in massive block molds and cuts it into smaller pieces that are added to a separate frame. Swell integrates these production elements by using the frame and fabric as the mold for the foam. This also allows the foam to acts as a binding agent, eliminating costly handwork.”
Griffin goes on to explain that Swell simplifies the production process. Instead of molding massive blocks of foam, cutting them down to size, gluing them to a wooden frame and then sewing the fabric on top, “Swell uses the fabric and frame as the original mold for the foam.” The result cuts down on production time and materials and, because the foam fills the fabric, “no material is wasted as cut-offs.” Furthermore, the foam acts as a binding agent between the fabric and frame so there’s no glue, extra adhesive or sewing necessary. And since the foam expands in the fabric in a slightly different way each time, every piece is unique.
Swell Stool and Bench are available from The Front Room’s online shop for $393 and $542, respectively.
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After conducting an ergonomic study of office seating, designers Agata Karolina and Dana Cannam collaborated on the Hummingbird rocking chair, which was included in The Front Room‘s stellar presentation at Ca’Laghetto, Via Laghetto, Milan, during the Salone Del Mobile 2012. We usually associate a rocking chair with slow evenings on the porch, but Karolina and Cannam designed the Hummingbird to act as a meeting place between work and relaxation. When you’re seated upright at your desk it acts as a normal desk chair, but with just a slight tilt and shifting of weight “the chair creates an embracing sensation, producing the feeling of calm.” It’s perfect for an afternoon work break, just tilt back and away from your desk, relax, and then shift your weight forward when you’re ready to get back to your busy day.
I love the use of color and materials (I’m a sucker for anything with felt) and how it comes with a blanket that rolls up like a rucksack during the work day and unrolls when you want to take a break – and maybe a nap, too. From Karolina and Cannam:
“The hummingbird is a contemporary take on a classic rocking chair. The name reflects the calm state of suspension between being engaged and deep relaxation…The objects that surround us must adapt to a richer mix of uses, housing types, living and work situations. The Hummingbird accentuates this dynamic lifestyle without sacrificing the value of history and simplicity.”
Hummingbird is available from The Front Room’s online shop for $4,204.
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It took designer Jasper Morrison four and a half years to perfect his new line of outdoor furniture for Kettal. The stackable tables, chairs, a sofa and lounger were made especially lightweight to make moving them into winter storage as easy as possible. The collection was shown as part of Kettal’s display at Salone del Mobile in Milan, along with pieces by their other designers, like Patricia Urquila.
Apparently, it took Morrison almost five years to design the collection because he spent much of the time researching outdoor furniture products, analyzing standard codes and testing materials for durability. I like his clean, streamlined collection because it reminds me of the simple, well-made, modern patio furniture my grandparents had in their backyard. Like Park Life, those pieces were built to last. In fact, many of those pieces currently furnish the pool area at my cousin’s home. That kind of generational lifespan is one of Kettal’s biggest selling points – along with considered design, of course. Morrison took ergonomics seriously in his approach to make leisurely summer afternoons as comfortable as they ought to be.
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The following words from the Minispace…She loves the ocean, is great at entertaining guests, and likes to hang out in style outdoors.
You already know the Airstream trailer from supporting roles in Hollywood films, and as a favored mode of transport for nomadic hipsters. Now, the iconic “silver bullet” is hitting the party circuit.
above: the swan and egg chair by arne jacobsen inspires the bullet’s interior.
Who’s playing chauffeur, you ask? Why, a brand new MINI Cooper S Clubman, of course! The trailer, which showcases an über-chic custom-made interior by Copenhagen’s Republic of Fritz Hansen, will be making cameos at events, exhibitions, and design fairs around the world. The first spotting will be at the Salone del Mobile show and the INTERNI DESIGN ENERGIES exhibition in Milan, Italy (April 21-30 2009).
A bit of an odd market ? Well, image is everything and this hasn’t been tried before. Upon reading the copy before seeing the images one expected the Clubman “woodie” with “bullet” in tow.
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