Exhibitions: Exploring the Future at London's Design Museum

A centerpiece of an upcoming exhibition at London's Design Museum is a crowd-sourced piece of furniture. It's an idea that Made.com has pioneered in the last several years. Image courtesy Design Museum.

This is one of those times when we can’t even begin to fathom the changes happening around us. It’s particularly true for design, and an upcoming exhibition at London’s Design Museum seeks to explore its future in a new and provocative way. In conjunction with the pioneering furniture retailer Made.com, the museum’s show The Future is Here: A New Industrial Revolution will explore the potential for democratizing the design process via new means of production. One of the key components of the exhibition will be a publicly commissioned piece of furniture that will be market-ready when the show opens on July 24. Starting April 8, people will have a chance to vote on the shortlist of designs that were submitted last month in response to the show’s brief. We recently spoke to curator Alex Newsom about the show, its genesis and the implications for the future of design.

Click to read more ...

Events: NEXT by Daltile

Mark your calendars for Thursday, April 18, and get ready to see the future as Daltile hosts NEXT in Downtown Los Angeles. It’s a celebration of the NEXT design trends, products and services in the flooring industry showcased at loftSEVEN, the penthouse event space atop the historic Haas Building. Meet, greet and mingle with colleagues at the stunning property designed in 1915 by Morgan, Walls & Morgan—itself a cutting-edge structure in its own time.

RSVP here; to have some of your special projects featured in their gallery, contact Zoe Rahimi. See you there.

Web Exclusive: A Conversation with Jill Paider

Photographer Jill Paider's work, including this breathtaking shot from the Sydney Opera House, appears in the new print edition of FORM. Photograph courtesy Jill Paider.

For our March/April urban design issue, FORM features the stunning work of photographer Jill Paider. As a special Web extra, we had the chance to talk to her about her career and philosophy. Look for more special FORMmag.net-only features in the coming days, weeks and months.

Click to read more ...

The Hackable Building: From Corporate to Cool for Tech Tenants

At Latitude 34 in Los Angeles, Gensler is re-conceiving office space for a new type of client. Jack Skelley tells us how. Rendering courtesy Gensler.

By Jack Skelley

While the commercial real estate market remains in the doldrums, with high vacancies and low rents, one submarket is on fire: Tech. Companies such as Google and YouTube are expanding into Southern California, for example, and gobbling up all the “cool” buildings. You know, old bow-truss warehouses turned into creative space that feels authentic, textured, scaled to the individual, and not “corporate” like most traditional office buildings.

Click to read more ...

Showroom: Coryne Lovick Makes Modern Comfortable

Coryne Lovick's Z Chair features a zig-zag profile. Photo courtesy Coryne Lovick Collection.

Some people collect stamps. Others collect teapots. Designer Coryne Lovick collects chairs. The interior designer has been acquiring them for years—scouring flea markets for intriguing seats and amassing a collection that has come to require storage. In her design work, too, chairs have played a starring role. “When I put unique chairs in my own jobs, they were almost pieces of art on their own and could set a room apart,” she explains. And therein lay a problem.

As a chair aficionado, always looking for stunning seating statements for her projects, Lovick says she “saw an increasingly growing hole in the marketplace for interesting, different and comfortable chairs.” She took matters into her own hands and recently launched her first-ever furniture collection featuring a range of chairs inspired by some of her vintage finds. The line runs the gamut from contemporary riffs on classic designs such as wing chairs and club chairs (complete with cabriole legs) to more modern looks.

The Z Chair also comes in an armless option—perfect for use as a dining chair or occasional chair. Photo courtesy Coryne Lovick Collection.

In particular, Lovick’s Z Chair has a particularly 21st-century feel. Based on a vintage design that captured her heart, “The shape of this chair is totally unique for the marketplace,” she says. “You can add buttons to make it retro or add nail heads to make it more traditional. Although I present it as a dining chair it works as a side chair in any living space. Upholster it in a multicolor hide and it becomes quite a conversation piece and really makes a statement in the room.”

If you’re LA this week for the Pacific Design Center’s Westweek, stop by the Mimi London showroom there to check out her collection. The space “is a true icon of the design industry,” Lovick notes.