Continuing this week’s focus on Salone Internazionale del Mobile, aka the furniture exhibition in Europe, today’s snapshot focuses on two design duos.
Hailing from London, UK, is design duo &Made. Having graduated from Goldsmiths College in London, David Cameron and Toby Hadden set up shop around the corner from the esteemed institution and are already courting interest from major design houses.
At Salone, they are exhibiting their recent Climatised Objects series as part of Great Brits - Ingenious Therapies. The exhibition takes place at fellow Brit designer Paul Smith’s European HQ and is certainly a fitting location for &Made’s curious objects: amongst several items, Schlong is a serpentine multi-plug power-adaptor and EitherOar is a table that becomes a life-raft in critical situations.
Boaz Cohen and Sayaka Yamamoto, are opening their new studio with the PLAY! series. Five objects, each transposing children’s play-objects into grown-up situations, a simple concept and one that results in instantly endearing pieces. The See-Saw Bookshelf, utterly self-explanatory in title, provides book storage and, in a playful way, enables those using it to visually quantify the value of different books, based upon their weight. With clarity of vision and construction comes the Swing Lamp; made from acryl-glass, rope and an LED lighting unit, while someone swings on it, the seat lights up the darkness with a warming glow.
Cohen and Yamamoto’s work incorporates adult play in a very effective way - there’s certainly an encouraging effervescence to the work they output, even the studio name, BCXSY is cheeky. This humour is fused with solid design principals though, resulting in objects that fulfil their utilitarian fundamentals and also engage with the viewer, or user, sufficiently to provide the intended impact of the concept.
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