Design Talk: DesignCrime5

I was invited to talk on the DesignCrime5 panel for the Cannt Festival. Organised by Steve Price and Max Fraser, its for all the unlucky sods not invited to Cannes. DesignCrime5 is a bit like the TV show room 101 and, in homage to the Olympics, this years theme was Patriotism.

My nominations included interior homewares brandishing flags such as, cushions, fridges and ovens - particularly John Lewis' latest range - formidable rot and best left to the mess hall. Irish pub's, of which there are (8 in Rome alone) are patriotic scurge of any self-respecting city. Australian by birth, my focus was slightly different to the rest of the panel. The Australian flag got a mention & Tourism Australia's Oprah campaign.

The worthy winner/loser for this year went to P&G's recent campaigns using patriotism to coincide with the Jubilee and Oympics.

https://twitter.com/designcrime5

http://www.designcrim.es/

Away Shirts nominated by Albion design

Nice Print

I just popped into KK Outlet on my way home tonight and Hugh Barrell from The Peckham Print Studio was there. He gave me an edition of his mum's birthday prints. The yellow is metallic. Love it!

new project

I just won a new project. I'm pretty excited about it. Here's a sneek peek...

Design event again

During CDW I went to see Ross Lovegrove and Morten Villiers Warren debating 'Can design be sustainable?'.  The panelists commenced a downward spiral conversation closer by quoting tired old shock statistics which we've all become part desensitised to and part crippled by. We've all been in conversations where some ruddy pain in the neck starts trying to convince you not to recycle as it's a pointless waste of time....blah blah blah. Frustratingly, the debaters knowingly, nay, hypocrytical criticised the education system whilst simultaneously fundamentally blocking constructive discussion of  how   design    can       be        made           sustainably . .      ... The subject of the debate. Nothing ever came from nothing.

Anyway, for what its worth, there's alot that can be done to make/create differently to how things are done now. We just need to explore, experiment and believe in it. Knowledge sharing is the start, not moaning. 

A good place to start is here.

For an inspirational design event, see an earlier post here. 
For a more reasonable review of the debate see here.

Farmiloe Building

Not Tea

This is not a post about tea. I haven't had any new tea lately. It's mostly about aperol spritzers and the little window of sunshine that we had a few weeks ago. There’s been a few restaurant openings and I’ve eating well.  


Shrimpy's, by the lovely guys from Bistroteque opened last week. Yummy texmex - in King's Cross Filling station designed by Carmody Goarke. Go enjoy a Tom Collins with the gorgeous [read incredibly hot] chef, Tom Collins. 


They have also just completed the refurbishment of Bistroteque, which now features bench chairs from Another Country. Paul de Zwart founded another country and is doing an installation with me for a project acoss the road form St Paul's Cathedral. More on that later. 


Mark Hix’s Tramshed in Shoreditch opened with Damian Hirst’s cockNbull. Can’t say I loved my pureed cauliflower cheese as much as I would have if they just served it traditionally…

Shrimpy's designed by Carmody Goarke

Worth it alone for the complimentry pork scratchin's. Yum

The Tramshed

Wilton's Music Hall

Last night, draped in as much sparkle and eye kohl as I could muster, I taxied down to Wilton's Music Hall to see The Great Gatsby. Late and flustered, the usher found me a pew. The beauty of the decayed interior distracted me from the play, which bounced along fairly quickly to intermission. I grabbed a punch whilst friends sipped on Mint Juleps, Sidecars and other nostalgic coktails in keeping with the eve. I heard some average reviews of the play, but in the setting I was transported to its era when amateur dramatics and music Halls were the hot entertainment. I loved it! After the play we danced to the jazz band whilst Charleston experts put us to shame. I didn't take any pictures but thought I'd share some of the web that capture the spirit.

Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchannan

Wilton's Music Hall requires funding for completion of their restoration to make the property structurally sound. See here.

Do-Ho Suh

‘Cause and effect’ by one of my favourite artists, Do-Ho Suh at Waddeston Manor. I saw his exhibition at the Serpentine 2002 and loved it...

had to post my new pucci dress...

Surfers

Surfers have remained a bit heroic for me. I wish I could spend my life according to the tides and braving the sea's fury for thrills. Photographer Joni Sternbach has found that the spirit of surfing entered her photography by serendipity. Here are some beautiful shots, almost anthropological in appearance and very soulful.

A short by Johnny Abegg Films of her artist in residence in Byron Bay here

Example of a good design event

At showroom parties I tend to grab the closest drink and find some friends to kill time with whilst I keep an eye on where the free food is coming from. Sad, I know. I usually try to avoid them as much as possible. However, the other night I attended Viaduct Furniture's dinner to flesh out and mull over design and food.

Viaduct's table talk

The agenda for the intimate evening was a charming cast of speakers who talked to us about their views and experience of food and design... or as Viaduct put it "about how great food and design can improve the quality of life. By exploring some of the links between food, creative design, urban regeneration and communities..." My friend James' latest passions and interests seem to find their way into the events calendar for his showroom. In my experience this kind of his personal approach is a rarefied thing in today's design community. The event had a whimsy and intelligence that dodged the typified design events of cocktails and back-slapping.

The evening was linked to the exhibition Show 4 - Food and Chairs Shared, a collaboration with local chefs to come up with menus to go with chairs. Three amazing restaurants participated with some pretty funny meals. I have included some menus in my earlier post.

Back to the dinner... first up to talk to us was Daniel Charny, curator, designer and senior tutor of the Design Products Programme at the RCA, who pondered if design is in a requiem or a renaissance. He reminds us that craftsman's skills are being lost at an alarming rate, even in food production. Reassuringly, he shares some examples that subvert copyrights and manufacturing norms with more an open-source approach to making through DIY-type experimental design. This process is about pulling things apart and experimenting with processes and materials which the aims to take the power away from the large scale manufacturers. This hands-on approach may help create new crafts and skills.

Which leads us into the realm of DIY with the food industry, such as allotments and foraging as talked about by Sam Clark. Can foraging in the city help to increase knowledge of what is local, seasonal and reconnect city dwellers to their community? Watch this if you like some encouragement.

Rebecca Hossack, (gallerist and pioneer of the proposed Noho Square allotments project) and Euan Mills (Planner and Chatsworth Rd visionary) both talked about their bloody-minded determination to save their local borough's trees and community markets. Both these projects were fundamentally linked to bringing communities together through buying, growing, selling or eating food.

Fleet Architect's Jaime and Kerry at Chatsworth Rd Market

Ultimately, design events are all too absent-minded within furniture and interior supply industry and dumbing down is everywhere. Every decision we make as designer has an impact on the environment and quality of life. Encore Viaduct! ...plus some bloody nice babaganoush too!

For more from the dinner listen to Monocle's interviews

Excellent food website 

See Viaducts food & design recommendations, read here.

Cradle to Cradle

I wanna eat this chair...

Viaduct furniture's exhibtion, Show 4 - Food and Chairs Shared. Do we select our dining room furniture to suit our cooking styles? This is the starting point for the latest exhibition at Viaduct, who collaborated with some local chef's in Clerkenwell: Fergus Henderson, St.John; Sam Clark, Moro; Michael Belben, The Eagle. Here are some of my favourites...

SM05 mesh chair from Pastoe by Fergus Hendersen

Like a futuristic oyster, beckoning its diner. Will you become its pearl, or just another bit of grit.

Oysters have a wonderfully minerally  and metallic taste. I recommend licking this chair for heightened sensation (Tabasco optional)

Tom Dixons Peg Chair by Sam Clark

Although growing up in Battersea in the 70s . I would often sneak across the river to Chelsea's glamorous Kings Road. There, one of the many iconic shops was habitat. These chairs reminds me of habitat in that era. And with it the food influences that were many in the street. Most of all asterix gallet house, serving the most delicious gruyere and ham pancakes. Habitat and pancakes were a big part of my early life.

Houdini chair from e15 by Sam Clark

The top half of this chair looks like the most elegant new design for a  barbecue. With a few modifications how beautiful would it look in your garden? Unfortunately without a working prototype I will have to burn the whole chair.  With care and love of course.

Hot smoked Wilde salmon.

Place a lightly salted salmon on a baking tray on the seat of the seat. Drizzle with a little olive oil and cava wine. Cover the whole top of the chair tightly with tinfoil.  When you're ready to eat light a blowtorch and set light to the front lip of the chair. The fish should hot smoke within 15-20 minutes. Remove the tinfoil, wipe off any ash with a damp cloth. Serve hot or at room temperature, with mayonnaise.

Colour & Light Delight

LED lighting is something, as a designer, I'm having to get used to working with. I don't really fully understand the behaviour of light and colour in all ways but ever since I opted to study it for my science project at school age 13 I've been fascinated.

Lighting is always the the bit of magic in a space and the lighting piece/experiment by Dennis Parren below is magic! Apparently it's called 'additive mixture' as your eyes perceive both colours of both light sources... Back to school -

You are probably used to mixing colors as pigments—like paints or food coloring. In such situations, colors subtract. The more colors you put in, the less color you get; that is, you get closer to black, the absence of color. In pigments, for example, blue and yellow make green.
Lights are different. When you put more light in, the colors add. The more colors you put in, the closer you get to white, the mixture of all colors. With light, though it seems weird, red and green make yellow. The other two combinations are more intuitive: Red and blue make MAGENTA; blue and green make CYAN.

Read here if you want to try understand this.

Dennis Parren of the Design Academy Eindhoven 2011 grad show...
CMYK Lamp Colored shadows with Led light 
It is not designed to demonstrate how and why, but to show that light is the true custodian of color... Taking advantage of LED-light technology, I have been able to create a lamp that has never been.

Earl Grey Tea is Heavenly

I love teas so I've decided to put down a post on them starting with Earl Grey tea. It is absolutely my favourite mid-morning beverage. A real luxury. 

Wedgewood Plato teacup and saucer

I met a man whose business was buying and selling tea. I asked him what his favourite tea was and he said first flush darjeeling. I've heard before that this is the connoisseur's choice. I totally fail to see what the fuss is! When I told him my favourite was Twinnings Earl Grey tea (cringe) he raised an eyebrow and told me that Twinnings recipe remains a trade secret - noone has ever been able to replicate it.

Sifting Tea Phillips 1882:91 

Apparently the 2nd Earl Grey (3 March 1764 – 17 July 1845) was gifted from a Mandarin a blended tea that used the bergamot to counter the limey water found in Howick Hall Northumberland, where the Earl lived. It was so popular at the Lord and Lady's parties that the recipe was eventually sold in shops. 

The traditional base is a Chinese black tea. I find it too light when made with Sri Lankan orange pekoe. The bergamot quality can vary amongst brands so choose well. Anyway, it is said that Heston Blumenthal is a fan so I wont be put off by the naysayers.  I'm planing to give some of these a go:

• Fortnum and Masons Smokier Earl Grey Tea - Created in response to a request from the Palace for a smokier Earl Grey, this unique blend combines traditional bergamot with a touch of Lapsang and Gunpowder tea, combining the best qualities of all three. For years it was the only Earl Grey available at Fortnum's and remains popular for very good reason. 
• Algerian Coffee House's Imperial Noon -  A blend of Lapsang Souchong and Keemun with jasmine flowers and bergamot oil. 

See Mariage Frères for advice on brewing tea properly here

For a serious tea history by a very serious academic type see here

Recently I bought a jar of Earl Grey Tea Marmalade from Gail's Bakery for my friend. It is bloody good - and I don't eat marmalade. Here are some other ways to use Earl Grey tea that I've come across...

EARL GREY TEA COCKTAIL

This can be served with gin or vodka

Ingredients 

6 Earl Grey tea bags 

50g granulated sugar 

crushed ice 

200ml gin or vodka

juice of 1½ lemons 

a few pinches of saffron, to garnish (optional)

1 Steep the tea bags in 200ml just-boiled water for 4 minutes, adding the sugar and stirring until dissolved. Remove the tea bags.

Thanks Telegraph!

RHUBARB WITH EARL GREY TEA, CARDAMOM, AND ORANGE ZEST

Serves 6 fairly indulgent servings

3 cups roughly chopped (1-inch pieces) Braeburn apple, from 2 peeled apples

3 cups roughly chopped (1-inch pieces) rhubarb, from about 6 long thin ribs (just under 1 lb)

Juice of 1 small Meyer lemon

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons pure cane sugar

Seeds of one green cardamom pod crushed well with mortar and pestle

2 bags of Earl Grey tea steeped in 3/4 cup just-boiled water for 3 minutes and then cooled

Zest of 2 Valencia oranges

Vanilla ice cream to serve

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Place chopped rhubarb and apple in a medium casserole dish or oven-safe pot.

Add remaining ingredients (retaining the zest of one orange and vanilla ice cream for later) and gently toss. I advise tasting one chunk of apple and one chunk of rhubarb at this stage. They will both be nicely sugar-coated and crisp.

Bake uncovered for 15 minutes. Stir (it will smell so good). Bake an additional 15 minutes. Fruit should be tender and kitchen should smell even better than it did the first time you opened the oven door.

I let this batch cool slightly (5-10 minutes), spooned some into a bowl, and topped it with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream. I ate the rhubarb as the ice cream melted on top. 

Thanks to this blog!

DEAN & DELUCA'S TEA INFUSED YOGHURT POUND CAKE WITH EARL GREY TEA ICING

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups cake flour (I used Giusto’s Vita Grain cake flour)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup Greek yogurt

1 1/3 cups sugar, divided

3 extra-large eggs

2 teaspoons grated orange zest

1/2 teaspoon Madagascar vanilla extract

1/2 cup olive oil

1/3 cup water

1 Earl Grey tea bag

For the icing:

1 cup confectioners’ sugar

2 tablespoons Earl Grey tea

First, brew about a half cup of Earl Grey tea. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 1/2 by 4 1/4-inch loaf pan. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt into 1 bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, 1 cup of sugar, eggs, orange zest and vanilla. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. With a rubber spatula, fold the vegetable oil into the batter, making sure it’s all incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 50 minutes, or until a cake tester placed in the centre of the loaf comes out clean.

When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Carefully place on a baking rack over a sheet pan. While the cake is still warm, pour the tea mixture over the cake and allow it to soak in. Cool.

For the icing, combine the confectioners’ sugar and Earl Grey tea and pour as much as you like over the cake.
Thanks Dean & Deluca's

Earl Grey tea & cake for 

Sunday with Gillesz