Scandinavian Design Report 2011: Fairground Attractions

Benjamin Hubert
Crane/Örsjö
A few years ago British designer Benjamin Hubert was frustrated at how little work he had on so he decided to make contact with some design companies he wanted to work with. His foresight is now paying dividends. In February he launches two new products at Stockholm Furniture Fair, and another nine in Milan in April.

This minimal task lamp, Crane for the Swedish lighting company Örsjö, is inspired by the clean lines of a construction crane: a simple clamp base holds the lighting “rod”, which uses an LED strip as its light source. The look is intentionally industrial and references Örsjö’s history in metal work. The tubular light is 50cm long and is covered in a perforated metal sheet, letting light escape in all directions. “In a happy accident, the space between the LED strip and the metal creates a mesmerising 3D effect,” says Hubert.

Thomas Bernstrand
Ivy/Swedese
97.3 degrees. That’s the angle that the corner of the Ivy shelf needs to be in order to look right.

“0.1 degree makes a huge difference to how the piece looks,” says designer Thomas Bernstrand of his new shelving unit for Swedese, and he thinks that the most difficult part of the project was that angle. “It looks a bit like ivy, growing along the wall in the same unpredictable way.”

Ivy is a stackable shelf made up of five individual pieces, but can grow taller or shorter as well. The individual shelves can be stacked as the user sees fit, but Bernstrand himself prefers this messier, assymetrical way. Ivy comes 
in either an ash or pine finish.

Luca Nichetto
Timeline/Skultuna
Timeline, a brass bowl from designer Luca Nichetto, is a family affair. Inspired by the brass doorknockers at the entrance to his grandmother’s Venetian home, Nichetto’s product neatly riffs upon childhood memories of the way they grew tarnished. Timeline launches at a Stockholm Design Week exhibition called Synapsis, Stockholm Meets Venice.

The bowls, produced by the 400-year-old Swedish brass manufacturer Skultuna, are small, measuring less than 10cm across, and are unadorned save for the incisions that score their surfaces into stacked rings of varying width. When new the bowls gleam like gold, but their aesthetic becomes increasingly antique as oxidisation occurs.

Andreas Störiko
Volo/Lammhults
Volo means “I fly” and the idea is to make this light, easy-chair hover. It is the first collaboration between German designer Andreas Störiko and Swedish manufacturer Lammhults. Inspired by the light forms of the Bat chair, this is a more solid version of the mid-century classic. But the original inspiration came from a tree in Singapore. “I was sitting in a taxi in Singapore and I saw a tree that’s called Flame of the Forest. The stem parts right away when it 
comes out of the ground in order to create a lot of shade,” says Störiko.

The chair’s four legs radiate out from a circular aluminium base just like the tree. The robust outline of the chair’s seat is covered in leather, and from this frame a thin, flexible membrane is suspended like a net. It comes with a headrest that attaches with magnets and a detachable seat, making it easy to strip Volo back to its most basic parts.

Scholten & Baijings
Glacier silt/Hay
One of our favourite exhibitions during last year’s Milan Furniture Fair was by the Dutch design duo Scholten & Baijings, so we were happy to see that their artful graphics have been picked up by yet another manufacturer. Danish design brand Hay is releasing a series of bed linen, towels and rugs by the Dutch designers this spring.

Made from 100 per cent wool felt balls, the Dot series of carpets are extraordinary works of art. The balls, in their thousands, are stitched together by hand to create these soft, squishy rugs. “You don’t realise it at first,” says Carole Baijings, “but when you look up close you can see that it isn’t a woven carpet, but made up of these separate elements.” The balls create an asymmetrical grid print against a grey background and each carpet is named after the grid colour. Elephant Breath is our favourite (not pictured).

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Benjamin Hubert

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