Design Frontiers comes to Somerset House


On the 18-24 September, Somerset House will be opening its doors to 30 international designers and leaders of the industry in a new group exhibition called Design Frontiers.


The exhibit brings together a diverse range of industries including automotive, fashion, product and design to graphics, digital and performance, all with one thing in common: innovation. The designers will be showcasing products that represent the intersection of future thinking and commerce and starting conversations about the relationship between designer and client and how it can move the industry forward.

During the exhibit, designers will be working in partnership with their preferred clients to create installations to exemplify how they are testing the frontiers of the industry.

It all sounds very exciting, so we thought we would bring you our top picks of the designers who are not to be missed:

Ian Callum, Director of Design at Jaguar

Spanning over two rooms at Somerset House, Jaguar is set to have the most standout installation.

The interactive and immersive experience will provide visitors with a glimpse of the creative imagination that goes into designing these iconic cars. It will also look to the future of Jaguar and its potential for innovation.

Tord Boontje and Swarovski, Luminous Reflections

Tord Boontje redefines the chandelier in his collaboration with Swarovski. The installation promises to be a glittering display of their new chandelier and crystal lighting components range inspired by light and water.

PriestmanGoode, ‘Please Don’t Feed the Designers’

For its installation, PriestmmanGoode have chosen to move part of its design studio to Somerset House. ‘Please Don’t Feed the Designers’ aims to give visitors an accurate idea of how designers work. From the visualisation to material specialists, the installation will cover the whole creative process. Visitors will leave with an insight into what it’s like working on the frontiers of the future of transport.

Benjamin Hubert of LAYER, AXYL and NOLII

LAYER is collaborating with not one but two partners to take over three rooms of the West Wing of Somerset House. The AXYL collection sees the agency partner with British Furniture company Allermuir. The collection is a range of sustainable furniture with a distinctive format. The furniture will be housed in an architectural installation that showcases Allermuir’s commitment to products with impact and longevity.

LAYER will also be launching its new lifestyle-focused tech brand, NOLII, which is co-founded with design and tech entrepreneur Asad Hamir. The installation celebrates the beauty of being connected through technology and will showcase the inaugural collection.

We caught up with Benjamin Hubert, founder of LAYER to find out a little bit more about his furniture project, AXYL:

The furniture industry is a very saturated market, how did you manage to create something new with AXYL?

Whether it’s stand out or not you will have to make your own mind about that. It was just through iteration so Allermuir are based in the north of the UK and they are big in the US. They came to us a couple of years ago and asked for this series of furniture, we had a lot of discussions around it; initially we were resistant partly due to commitment issues. They invest heavily into proto-types and tooling, which means as a designer you are free to do something that you might not be able to do for another company. In answer directly to your question, we experimented with lots of different concepts and models and sketches and things. So we had loads of concepts on the board we pushed the one we thought was strongest and Allermuir really liked it. Then it was a case of just making lots of them until it was right.

The furniture is recyclable, what materials did you use to ensure this and did it compromise the design?

The furniture is made with aluminium and recyclable plastic. So aluminium is sustainable after you have produced it, you can knock it down you can make new things. We used recycled aluminium so it was a natural choice, not particularly unusual, but very efficient and light weight. The plastic is a composite of wood fibre and plastic, so really strong, but again biodegradable and recyclable. So the only challenge was that it was a high volume production furniture company, so it meant that it had to be really cost effective. It was finding that balance between producing something high volume but also keeping in mind recyclability.

As part of the installation you are taking over a café, can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Yeah so it’s a smaller part of it, so in the courtyard at Somerset House we will remove all the furniture there and replace it with ours so people can experience the furniture. It’s not a piece of art, the installation makes it feel like that you know, untouchable things on plinths, but it’s just a chair, so you have got to be able to sit on it!

 

 








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