Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec’s first retrospective will occupy 1,500 sq m of the Centre Pompidou- Metz including their designs for Vitra, Alessi, Established & Sons and Cappellini.

Their 15 year international design collaboration has resulted in various high profile pieces including the Piani lamp for Flos, the Steelwood collection for Magis and the 2008 Clouds project for the fabric manufacturer Kvadrat which shows the brothers scope from product design to ‘architecture.’ Their award-winning work is being collected by the Centre Pompidou, MoMA, Design Museum and Musée des Arts Décoratifs - most of the world’s top art and design institutions.

Imagined as a temporary encampment (hence the name) Bivouac showcases scenographic elements and movement is created by contrasting scales, transparency and superpositions.

Visitors are invited to wander  through the gallery, moving between prototypes and finished objects, mass-produced and hand–crafted works.
Bivouac highlights the immense diversity of their work including concepts, material research & technology and economies achieved in production. The exhibition also addresses key concepts in the Bouroullecs’ research: objects which are nomadic, ephemeral, modular, organic and flexible.

The Centre Pompidou-Metz in France will be hosting the Bivouac exhibition by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec from October 7th 2011 to July 30th 2012.

Photos: Tahon & Bouroullec

We absolutely love the location where Claudia Schiffer shot her new campaign. In this week’s Net-a-Porter magazine the supermodel, businesswoman, designer and mother reveals her style secrets and models her fabulous new SS12 collection.

Nothing beats this prefabricated  garden shed/greenhouse.This project is a collaboration between Helsinki architect Ville Hara of Avanto Architects and designer Linda Bergroth of Hel Yes!. The pair launched their greenhouse and garden shed kit for the gardening market in 2010. It combines a green house with storage space and comes in ready made elements that can be assembled by simply using a screwdriver. Linda customised one of the prototypes to create her own summer house studio located on a distant island in eastern Finland. Linda added timber floors, solar panels for lighting, entry steps and a footpath made out of reclaimed bricks.

Imagine waking up on the waters edge of a remote Helsinki Island, whilst all the clutter is tucked away neatly in the storage compartment at the back. Heaven!

Photos is by Arsi Ikäheimonen

Alexander Seton has earned a growing reputation based upon producing carved marble and stone sculptures that play on optical illusion and the perception of surface. The work uses the tension and often contradiction between the traditional skill of carving and use of contemporary subject matter and concerns.

In this exhibition Alexander explores the heated debate of flags whether draped, folded or hanging. His ‘Flags’ exhibition at Lismore Regional Gallery, his first solo show in a public gallery, serves to remind us that every flag tells a story.

Carved out of marble – yet appearing light and cloth-like, Seton’s flags refer to the past and present. His traditional material brings its associations with history, and the exquisite craftsmanship of generations of stonemasons and sculptors who have used it previously. Alex treats his favourite stone with this same skill and precision and respect. He says it is ‘not only its incredible plasticity as a sculptural medium, but also its loaded history. As a medium it’s very quiet and slow – in a world of shouting instant mediums competing for attention.’

In focussing his attention on the flag, Alex locates a simple emblem which can symbolise everything a nation could be. Flags, the artist says, are ‘particular expressions of our patriotism, nationhood, and the problematic relationship that every thinking individual has with ideas of civic duty, loyalty and dissent.’ The neutral character of white marble invites us to look at where we are as individuals and as a nation. Within the exhibition itself, some works provoke us to state or at the very least consider our stance whilst others express discontent at campaigns for patriotism and give a light-hearted plea for tolerance.

Alexander Seton ‘Flags’ runs from 17 December 2011 to 29 January 2012 at Lismore Regional Gallery

Fashion Designer Isabel Marant is renowned for her cult ‘bohemian style’, French fashion label whilst her husband Jérôme Dreyfuss creates a range of  bags and accessories with a similar style. Both their ranges are to die for!

If you thought this duo couldn’t get any more chic, think again. They recently spoke about their weekends spent at their rustic cottage, surrounded by acacia trees on the banks of Loing River, in the French countryside of Fontainebleau . With a strict embargo on fashion talk the cottage serves as a retreat from the couple’s hectic working week. Just 35 miles from Paris, the rustic surroundings are nevertheless far removed from city life and is. “Aside from people paddling on the river, you hear only nature,” Marant says. With a picturesque setting and even a treehouse for the couple’s 8 year old son, Tal, a rustic getaway has never looked so good!

Photography by Adrian Gaut

The Jury for this year’s World Architecture Festival have revealed the winning projects from around the globe during the 3 day event in Barcelona, Spain.

The ‘In Between House’ designed by Koji Tsutsui & Associates, winner of the ‘World’s Best Villa’ has particularly caught our eye!

Surrounded by Japanese larch trees in a mountainous region of Japan, this house seamlessly blends into the natural surrounding. The architects designed this house as a cluster of small mountain cottages using local materials.

There is a simple clarity in the interior & exterior detailing, the spacial configuration, integration on the site and craftsmanship of construction.

Photography by Iwan Baan

We have always absolutely loved the work of Japanese Artist/Designer Tokujin Yoshioka, so were overjoyed to hear he was having a major solo exhibition in Sydney presented by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF).

The exhibition titled Waterfall explores Tokujin Yoshioka endlessly inventive work. Known for the simplicity and ingenuity of his concepts and holistic approach to design, Tokujin’s interdisciplinary practice has garnered him much attention since founding his studio in Tokyo in 2000.  Tokujin experiments with a sophisticated play of materials and shapes using his art as a means of communicating something fascinating, surprising, joyful and unexpected.  SCAF has invited Tokujin to create an extraordinary installation transforming the gallery space and giving Australian audiences a rare opportunity , over three months, to view the work of this influential designer.

Born in Japan in 1967, Tokujin’s professional career started whilst working in collaboration with Shiro Kuramata and Issey Miyake. The ten year association with the famous fashion designer has produced numerous important projects including Issey Miyake Making Things at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris (1998).  Tokujin has collaborated with various companies inside and outside Japan including Hermès, BMW, Toyota and Swarovski.  His works are held in permanent collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Exhibition Dates:

17 October 2011 – 17 December 2011

Broached Commissions, founded by creative director Lou Weis, are annual international design collaborations that use an event in Australian history as inspiration for each new collection. All commissions result in made to order or limited edition furniture and objects for commercial sale.

The inaugural commission for 2011 is ‘Broached Colonial’ which references the period of 1788-1840, when the industrial revolution was transplanted from Britain to Australia. The Australian frontier mentality is a strong part of many design practices and the Australian psyche: a ‘makedo’ sensibility that results in a determinedly simple and rustic, repurposed aesthetic, a persistent trend from the colonial period.

The three founding and permanent designers: Trent Jansen, Adam Goodrum and Charles Wilson began their dialogue with Broached Colonial curator John McPhee, who lead the group on a fascinating journey into the human and industrial stories of the applied arts of the colonial period. This set the historical context for a two-year research and development process.

The selection of guest designers Max Lamb, Lucy McRae and Chen Lu have added a wealth of diversity in their design responses to the period.

Exhibition Dates:

Melbourne: 27 October—5 November 2011. 21 Bouverie St, Melbourne

Sydney: 10—17 November 2011. Former Paramount Pictures Building, 80 Commonwealth St, Surry Hills

For Chanel Spring Summer 2012 Karl Lagerfeld has created a magical underwater world. The Grand Palais was transformed by huge, blinding white sea shapes—corals, shells, sea horses, stingrays—and Florence Welch arose like Botticelli’s Venus on the half shell to sing “What the Water Gave Me.”

Karl created a dazzling collection based on the set’s modern forms of the ocean designed by Architect, Zaha Hadid.
There was an impressive, graphic modernity in the outfits. Lagerfeld used new fabrics that brought an iridescent mother-of-pearl shimmer to the collection—the lightness literally shone through. That was also why Lagerfeld strung pearls, instead of belts, around waists andSam McKnight dotted pearls through the models’ slicked-back hair.

It was enthralling to watch the way he translated  his underwater theme into the traditional Chanel vocabulary.

Congratulations Karl Lagerfeld!

Australian skincare brand Aesop have launched in New York with a kiosk at Grand Central that’s made from over 1000 copies of the New York Times. The newspapers were stacked, torn and bound in a wooden frame then topped with sheets of powder-coated aluminium. The kiosk is Aesop’s first venture into the American market and was designed by Brooklyn architect Jeremy Barbour of Tacklebox.