Designer's Drawings

This article was first published in Architecture Ireland #259

October saw the opening of the first major retrospective of the work of Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, prolific and influential French product designers, in the Centre Pompidou-Metz in north-east France. The exhibition is entitled Bivouac, meaning a temporary encampment, and as such the gallery space will be inhabited by the Bouroullec’s work until July 2012. As much a testament to the brothers’ immensely accomplished designs, the exhibition is also an insight into the process employed by the designers, with finished products shown alongside prototypes, and mass-produced objects paired with those which have been hand-crafted.

: Fund: It

Fund:it is a new initiative from the people at Business to Arts, and is the first Irish-centred crowd funding platform. Fund:it works in a similar way to sites such as Kickstarter and Pledge Music, whereby many people donate a little money in order to help a creative idea they're into become a reality. Be it an album, a book, a series of artworks or even a feature-length documentary (such as Urbanized by Gary Hustwit, which I pledged a little towards, what with it being awesome and all), you can get behind a project you'd like to see materialise, and by pledging a little (or a lot for some rewards) you can potentially bring about some creative awesomeness.

Dansk Arkitektur Center

(image by Philip Kennedy)

I visited the Danish Architecture Centre (spelled in Danish above because architecture looks cool with 'k's in it...) to see an exhibition called "New Public Spaces", which was about new, well..em..public spaces in Denmark, and the sometimes unexpected ways that people have been using them. Though the show wasn't mind blowing, the bookshop was pretty cool. I would have liked to spend more time browsing their impresssive range of books on art, design and architecture. I'll definitely call in again the next time I'm in town.

Featured

This weekend's activities included working on a small feature for House & Home magazine, which meant visiting lots of design stores and online shops. What a drag. Pick up a copy of the mag in March sometime for a design masterclass of ... em ... local proportions.

Irish Hot 100

The results are in, and i like local* is officially hot! House and Home magazine have compiled the Irish Hot 100, consisting of people, places and products worth knowing about, and you can see all 100 in this months issue, out today. Not only does i like local* feature, but so do personal favourites such as Colm Keller, Gordon Byrne, Vaugh Shannon, Made*, a shop, Green Nineteen and many more. Also, kudos to fellow bloggers Zita Spring and Blanaid Hennessy who are featured too. Hooray for everyone!

Print and Press

Every time I visit Edinburgh I make a beeline for Analogue Books on West Bow, just at the Grassmarket. A bookshop and exhibition space, Analogue is home to a really good selection of art and design books and magazines, one of which I couldn't leave without (pictured below: the reason for its purchase will be revealed soon...). I'm also told the exhibition space in the back will host work by the dreamy Anthony Burrill in the near future.