DESIGN SHOW ATTRACTS LEADING GLOBAL TALENT
Environmental sustainability highlighted at IDS Vancouver
One of the best things about design shows like IDS Vancouver, which ran recently at the Vancouver Convention Centre West, is the international talent they attract.
Detroit-raised, Wisconsin-based architect Michael Ford of BrandNu Design spoke and ran workshops at the show on a new form of architecture, which he’s termed “hip-hop architecture.”
Hip-hop is made up of four elements, says Ford: the DJ, the MC, the graffiti artists and the breakdancer, and hip-hop architecture is about turning these elements into architectural elements.
“There is a chair that I created,” he says, “that’s based on the structural stability of breaking (break dancing).”
This “structural stability,” Ford says, is represented by the configurations of the dancers’ bodies when they freeze in different poses, his chair being a physical representation of these poses.
The driving force behind Ford’s work, he says, is to encourage those who are “under-represented” in the world of architecture to consider it as a profession.
“Here in the U.S.,” he says, “less than three per cent of architects are African-American, and the reason I decided to dedicate my career to hip-hop architecture was in the hopes of increasing the number of minorities within architecture, urban planning and interior design.”
Finnish trends experts Susanna Bjorklund was another international guest at IDS Vancouver as curator of the What the Hel exhibition — an expose of leading designers from Helsinki — and an expert on all things design.
“I design exhibitions,” says Bjorklund, who curates the trend installation Signals at the annual design fair Habitare in Helsinki, which she says is kind of like the Finnish equivalent of IDS. “Then I teach and do trend reports and go around the world as a speaker. It’s all related to design somehow.”
One of the biggest design trends Bjorklund says she’s noticed is the movement toward environmental sustainability in the industry.
“There’s much more awareness these days,” she says, “and that’s something I’m quite happy and positive about.” Bjorklund lectures on design at the Lahti University of Applied Sciences and Helsinki Design School, and says that for her students, sustainability is not a trend, but an “ingredient” in their design process.
“They are really seriously thinking about how they can use methods to create less waste,” she says.
When people think of Scandinavian design, she says, they often think of a white, minimalistic esthetic, but her What the Hel exhibition was the opposite.
“I’ve always loved colour,” she says. “I’m not very Scandinavian in that sense, I guess, but also I feel that every trend has a lifeline, and so I think there has been for such a long time this white, minimalistic, Scandinavian esthetic, and now I feel it’s come to an end. It’s going away, and we are getting much more colour, much more prints.”
The designers Bjorklund included in What the Hel all have “very strong handwriting,” meaning their brands are easily identifiable because of their unique style.
“There’s a company called Lapsett Group Oy,” she says.
“They do playgrounds for kids all over the world, but now they ’ve started to do a seniors’ playground, meant for the elderly, so they can exercise also, and have fun, of course.”
Design trends, says Bjorklund, are coming and going faster than ever, with everyone being so connected online, so her advice for people is to ignore them, and follow your gut.
“I’m also always encouraging people to do what they feel like, and follow their own personal taste, and who cares what the trends are,” she says. “Especially when you think of home, people should really listen to what they like and trust their own instincts.”