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    Last chance to feature in Dezeen’s guide to London Design Festival 2024

    Dezeen Events Guide has announced the final call to feature in its digital guide to London Design Festival 2024, which takes place from 14 to 22 September.

    The guide highlights the activities taking place across the city’s 11 participating districts, including exhibitions, talks, open showrooms and product launches.
    Visitors can explore different design disciplines, including interior, urban, fashion and bio design, as well as architecture, crafts and art.
    This year’s festival guide also includes an interactive map, spotlighting the key events and their locations around London.
    Last call to feature in Dezeen’s digital guide to London Design Festival

    Get in touch with the Dezeen Events Guide team at [email protected] to book your listing or to discuss a wider partnership with Dezeen. There are three types of listings:
    Standard listings cost £125 and include the event name, date and location details plus a website link. These listings will also feature up to 50 words of text about the event.
    Enhanced listings cost £175 and include all of the above plus an image at the top of the listing’s page and an image in the listing preview on the festival guide homepage. These listings will also feature up to 100 words of text about the event.
    About Dezeen Events Guide
    Dezeen Events Guide is our guide to the best architecture and design events taking place across the world each year.
    The guide is updated weekly and includes virtual events, conferences, trade fairs, major exhibitions and design weeks.
    For more details on inclusion in Dezeen Events Guide, including in our guide to London Design Festival, email [email protected].
    The illustration is by Justyna Green.

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    Marie & Alexandre takes over Appartement N°50 at Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse

    French designers Marie Cornil and Alexandre Willaume have filled an apartment in Le Corbusier’s iconic Cité Radieuse housing block in Marseille with custom furniture, including a leather-and-metal armchair informed by the architect’s work.

    Marie & Alexandre is the latest design studio to create a scenography within Appartement N°50 after it was restored to its original condition by owners Jean-Marc Drut and Patrick Blauwart.
    Marie & Alexandre has taken over Appartement N°50 at La Cité RadieuseInfluenced by the creative salons hosted by the apartment’s original occupant – school teacher Lilette Ripert who lived there from 1952 to 2000 – Drut and Blauwart invited the likes of Jasper Morrison and Konstantin Grcic to transform the space and opened it up to the public during the summer.
    The duplex apartment, completed in 1952 and later classified as a historical monument, hosted installations by well-known designers every second year from 2008 to 2018.
    The duo created a series of custom furniture for the flatNow, the programme has returned after a six-year hiatus with an intervention by Marie & Alexandre, who created several bespoke pieces to be exhibited alongside some of their existing works.

    The duo is known for their collaborations with artisanal producers, and research into materials and making processes that inform their designs for unique or limited-edition objects.
    Among them is a desk formed from stacked glass boxes”We wanted this exhibition to combine our work from the past four years and for the pieces to highlight the numerous workshops and techniques we have worked with recently,” the duo told Dezeen.
    The designers met while working at Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec’s studio in Paris and subsequently began developing their own projects through a series of workshops and residencies.
    The same standardised boxes can also be used to form a shelving unitSince 2022 their work has been exhibited by Galerie Signé, whose founder Maxime Bouzidi helped to facilitate the collaboration with Drut.
    One of the pieces created specially for the exhibition is a series of coloured glass boxes developed with help from manufacturing company Glas Italia that responds directly to hues found in the apartment.

    Alex Israel projects Bat Signal from roof of Le Corbusier’s Cite Radieuse

    The use of glass was inspired by the orientation of apartments within the Unité d’Habitation complex, which receive both morning and afternoon light. Each piece incorporates two coloured strips that create a third colour where they overlap.
    Le Corbusier’s ideas about using modular elements to create harmonious proportions informed the design of standard-sized boxes that can be stacked to create totemic shelves or combined with a tabletop to form a desk.
    Marie & Alexandre’s rippled glass table was born from a residencyMarie & Alexandre developed further pieces for the exhibition during a residency at the Lycée Jean Monnet academy in Moulins, including a glass table and various furniture items made in wrought iron.
    Collaborations with staff and students at the school informed the creation of the rectangular table, which features a rippled surface made from industrial float glass.
    A sling-seat armchair was designed to respond to the weight of the sitterDuring the residency, the designers experimented with metal forging and designed an armchair with a leather sling seat, produced by Cressange metal workshop Flammes de Créations.
    The chair’s simple forms reference the furniture designed by Le Corbusier and frequent collaborator Charlotte Perriand. It features a metal framework with three detachable legs and a tensioned seat that responds to the weight of the sitter.
    The aluminium kitchen table is height-adjustableFor the kitchen, Marie & Alexandre created a height-adjustable aluminium table to fit the limited space. Made by Atelier BLAM in Nantes, the piece features subtle bumps where the legs attach to the top.
    The duo’s experiments with ceramics include a tile collection created in collaboration with the Alain Vagh factory in Salernes, as well as chairs with coloured backs that were produced for the exhibition by ceramicist Jean Marie Foubert.
    The designers said they were appreciative of the opportunity to display their work in such an iconic location, adding that they set out “to proceed with the same intention as the previous exhibitions as if visitors were coming to see an inhabited apartment”.
    Ceramicist Jean Marie Foubert helped to create a series of chairs with coloured backsThe exhibition will be on display until 15 August before travelling to Paris, where it will be adapted to occupy Galerie Signé from 5 September to 21 October.
    Marie & Alexandre follows six other design studios, whose work has been presented at Appartement N°50 following its restoration.
    These include Pierre Cardin, who added colourful furniture and artwork to the space, and the Bouroullec brothers whose scenography featured their SteelWood furniture and Clouds wall hangings.
    Marie & Alexandre at La Cité Radieuse, Apartement 50 is on show at La Cité Radieuse until 15 August. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world. 

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    Orange floors create “golden afterglow” in Aranya fashion store by Say Architects

    Chinese studio Say Architects has designed a concept store for fashion brand Nice Rice in the seaside resort of Aranya, featuring bright-orange tiles and furniture intended to evoke the colour of a sunset.

    Having previously designed stores for Nice Rice in Shenzhen, Chengdu and Shanghai, Say Architects conceived the interior as a response to the store’s setting near the port city of Qinhuangdao, also known as the Aranya Gold Coast.
    Say Architects has designed a concept store for Nice Rice in Aranya”Due to the individuality of the site and the splendid geolocation, we hope to bring the orange sea of Aranya inside and build a gold coast that never ends by using light as expression, creating undulating volumes, intertwining lights and shadows,” the architects said.
    The 290-square-metre store is arranged over three floors, with retail spaces on the lower two storeys and a roof terrace accessible from the top floor.
    Glossy orange tiles reflect light onto white walls, creating a “golden afterglow” effectThe building’s minimalist facade features an illuminated sign with the company’s logotype over the entrance and a horizontal window above.

    A glazed entrance provides a view into the store, where bright orange surfaces create a vibrant contrast with the shop’s monochrome exterior.
    The glossy orange tiles reflect light onto the white walls, creating an effect that the architects describe as a “golden afterglow”.
    A leather bench provides a minimalist seating area on the first floorInside, a full-height void connects the shop’s three floors, with a vaulted ceiling directing light from a window on the top floor down to the levels below.
    Say Architects designed each floor with a symmetrical layout that enhances the calm and serene atmosphere within the store.
    Clothes rails in the Nice Rice store are designed to resemble breaking wavesOn the ground floor, a pair of freestanding units are used for serving customers, while changing rooms are positioned on either side of a second entrance to the rear of the space.
    Clothes rails on both sides of the room are designed to resemble breaking waves, curving outwards from the wall to create space for hanging clothes underneath.

    Tile mural fronts Cult Gaia Miami boutique by Sugarhouse

    On the first floor, a geometric leather bench provides a seating area, while a simple display podium is located close to the transparent balustrade overlooking the triple-height void.
    Throughout the store, windows of varying sizes create a play of light and shadow on the internal surfaces that changes throughout the day.
    A full-height void connects the three floorsStaircases on both sides of the building ascend to a roof terrace that is floored with the same tiles used inside the store.
    A sheltered area with matching orange benches allows this space to be used in all weather.
    The building’s staircases lead to an outdoor roof terraceSay Architects is based in Hangzhou and is led by architects Yan Zhang and Jianan Shan.
    The studio works across architecture, interior and landscape design, with previous projects including an accessories store formed almost entirely of translucent resin and a grooming salon for pets featuring a sunken cafe and a paddling pool.
    The terrace is finished in the same tiles as the interiorAranya is built on the site of a failed real estate development and aims to provide a haven for overworked young urbanites seeking a coastal escape.
    The exclusive gated community contains several architecture projects that have helped elevate its profile including an art centre designed by Neri&Hu, a monolithic concrete concert hall and a chapel raised above the beach on stilts.
    The photography is by Wen Studio.

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    Sullivan’s Fish Camp designed so “guests can’t be sure if it’s 1982 or 2024”

    South Carolina-based studios SDCO and Basic Projects have overhauled a seaside restaurant in Charleston with a nostalgic design that extends across everything from interiors to memorabilia.

    Contemporary details feature throughout the redesigned Sullivan’s Fish Camp, but are interwoven with retro elements to create an aesthetic that respects the restaurant’s long history.
    Sullivan’s Fish Camp is a family-owned diner that first opened in 1988Located on Sullivan’s Island, at the entrance to Charleston Harbor, the family-owned diner has been serving cold beers and seafood to locals and beachgoers for over 35 years.
    Amy Pastre and Courtney Rowson of brand strategy studio SDCO worked closely with Kate and Ben Towill of interiors studio Basic Projects to bring a cohesive visual identity throughout.
    Large hand-painted letters boldly spell out the restaurant’s nameBold typography, cartoon-style illustrations, vintage art and furniture, and playful messaging all feature in the reimagined restaurant experience.

    “The design intent was to create a world that conjures the delight and affection that generations of beachgoers had for the original, family-owned restaurant,” said Pastre and Rowson.
    “Some details feel modern, some nostalgic. Experienced together, guests can’t be sure if it’s 1982 or 2024.”
    The graphic design identity includes drawings of the building’s exteriorOn the outside, Sullivan’s Fish Camp is spelt out in large hand-painted letters across a projecting red roof canopy, identifying the restaurant as a local landmark.
    Other graphic-design identifiers include drawings of the building’s exterior and two hand-drawn characters: a “cheery flounder” and Captain Sully, a “salty sea captain-meets-fish”.
    Both vintage and contemporary artworks cover the wallsThe restaurant’s interior walls are covered in artworks that continue the seaside and maritime themes, from a stitched portrait of a fisherman to a lobster painting by local artist Katherine Dunlap.
    Commissioned works include fish illustrations by “Carolina legend” Duane Raver, whose work also features on the placemats, and a large sculpture of a marlin fish.

    “Talented people are flocking” to Charleston for creative opportunities at a slower pace

    “It was important to preserve what felt inherently right for the story and space,” said Pastre and Rowson.
    “We wanted to pay homage to seaside fish camps while bringing modernity to the brand and experience,” they said. “No corner was left untouched.”
    Artworks include a stitched portrait of a fishermanThe designers commissioned a local joiner to build furniture elements, including tables, seating banquettes, and a counter that frames the merchandise display and walk-up ice cream window.
    Basic Projects sourced many of the other furniture and lighting elements from antique markets, as well as from Ebay and Etsy. A stained glass pendant lamp is one of the most striking finds.
    “My background is in film set design, so I loved every bit of the sourcing,” said Kate Towill.
    A counter frames the merchandise display and a walk-up ice cream windowDurability was an important consideration; heavy rain and high tides can cause the restaurant to flood, while beachgoers bring plenty of sand in on their feet.
    “We welcome sandy and salty beachgoers,” said Towill.
    “The floors are VCT (vinyl composition tiles) and all the wood is pressure-treated and sealed with marine-grade sealer.”
    Illustrations by “Carolina legend” Duane Raver feature on the placematsSDCO designed an extensive range of merchandise, including key chains, hats, tote bags, sweatshirts, T-shirts, bottle openers and bumper stickers.
    Custom design also extends to the tableware.
    Cups are emblazoned with the Sullivan’s Fish Camp branding, while plates feature scalloped seashell illustrations that reference the border of the original 1988 menu.
    T-shirts feature Captain Sully, a “salty sea captain-meets-fish””The result is a feel-good space that quite literally takes you on a journey through food, drink, design, nostalgia and souvenirs that create indelible memories,” added Pastre and Rowson.
    Sullivan’s Fish Camp is the latest in a series of notable design projects in Charleston, a town that has seen an influx of creatives over the past decade.
    Others include boutique hotel Post House, also designed by Basic Projects, and the newly opened International African American Museum, designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners and Moody Nolan.

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    You can still be listed in Dezeen’s guide to London Design Festival 2024

    Ahead of London Design Festival’s 22nd anniversary, there’s still time to feature in Dezeen Events Guide’s digital guide to the festival.

    The 2024 edition takes place from 14 to 22 September, inviting hundreds of thousands of people to 11 districts in the UK’s capital city.
    If you’re hosting an event as part of the festival programme – including an exhibition, workshop, product launch, talk, tour, fair or market – you can feature in our guide and festival map.
    The London Design Festival (LDF) celebrates a range of disciplines, including craft, art, architecture and fashion, as well as graphic, interior and urban design.
    There’s still time to be listed in Dezeen’s digital guide to London Design Festival 2024

    Get in touch with the Dezeen Events Guide team at [email protected] to book your listing or to discuss a wider partnership with Dezeen. There are three types of listings:
    Standard listings cost £125 and include the event name, date and location details plus a website link. These listings will also feature up to 50 words of text about the event.
    Enhanced listings cost £175 and include all of the above plus an image at the top of the listing’s page and an image in the listing preview on the festival guide homepage. These listings will also feature up to 100 words of text about the event.
    Featured listings cost £350 and include all elements of an enhanced listing plus a post on Dezeen’s Threads channel, inclusion in the featured events carousel on the right hand of the festival guide homepage for up to two weeks and 150 words of text about the event. This text can include commercial information, such as ticket prices and offers and can feature additional links to website pages such as ticket sales, newsletter signups and more.
    About Dezeen Events Guide
    Dezeen Events Guide is our guide to the best architecture and design events taking place across the world each year.
    The guide is updated weekly and includes virtual events, conferences, trade fairs, major exhibitions and design weeks.
    For more details on inclusion in Dezeen Events Guide, including in our guide to London Design Festival, email [email protected].
    The illustration is by Justyna Green.

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    Danielle Brustman designs Harbour Early Learning facility to “inspire delight and joy”

    Bold colours and graphic elements that represent the sea and sky add personality and context to the interiors of this Sydney children’s centre by Australian designer Danielle Brustman.

    Brustman was responsible for the interior package of the Harbour Early Learning educational facility, which is situated in the city’s Vaucluse suburb and aims to connect children with educators, nature and the broader community.
    The brief for the project called for a high-quality facility arranged over three levels with a focus on design integrity and the well-being of both the children and staff.
    Danielle Brustman has designed the interiors of Sydney’s Harbour Early Learning facilityBrustman employed oversized graphic elements throughout the spaces to help stimulate the imaginations of the children and create thematic experiences that respond to the building’s harbourside setting.
    “I wanted the design to inspire delight and joy for the people occupying the spaces,” the designer told Dezeen.

    “I also wanted to create a healthy space using environmentally sustainable and quality materials that would stand the test of time and toddlers!”
    The educational children’s centre responds to the building’s harbourside settingBrustman worked closely with architects SJB and Supercontext, as well as with landscape designer Fiona Robbe and signage experts Citizen to deliver a range of bespoke indoor and outdoor play and learning spaces that reflect the client’s educational philosophy.
    The building’s external and internal spaces were designed to reference the surrounding nature, with large openings framing views of the neighbouring mature fig trees.
    The interior was heavily influenced by the building’s seaside context, with each room given a specific theme including the Sky room, Sunset room, Rainbow room, Under the Sea room and Boat room.
    Oversized graphic elements and large openings frame neighbouring mature fig treesThe themes lend the rooms a unique character whilst reinforcing the thoughtful layout of spaces, with water-based elements on the ground floor and sky references on the upper floor.
    Graphic details were used throughout the interior to complement architectural features, including the arched windows and circular skylights.

    CLOU Architects stacks blocks to form kindergarten in China

    Marmoleum flooring and carpet inlaid with geometric shapes also feature alongside bespoke murals depicting simplified elements like waves and clouds.
    The raw materials and neutral tones used for the exterior give way to more vibrant hues inside the building.
    Murals, marmoleum flooring and carpet inlaid with geometric shapes depict seaside waves and cloudsBrustman selected colours that she said have “a slightly muddied feel to them” to maintain consistency and a connection to nature.
    “It was important that the colour and materials palette was unique in each room but there was also a cohesive thread throughout,” she added. “The palette was designed to be enjoyed by both children and teaching teams.”
    Materials that appear on the building’s exterior, such as raw concrete and pale wood, recur in the reception area where they contrast with colourful elements that help with wayfinding and circulation.
    Primary colours, including a vibrant blue staircase, inform a palette enjoyable to children and teaching teamsThe primary hues in this space reference the work of Dutch abstract painter Piet Mondrian, while the blue staircase in particular evokes the colours of Sydney Harbour.
    Wherever possible, Brustman chose furniture that was designed and made in Australia, focusing on pieces that are robust enough to handle being used by children.
    Many of the furnishings have a graphic quality to them, including the Love benches by designer Daniel Emma, the stacked-cone pendant light by designer Edward Linacre and the Big Friendly sofa designed by CJ Anderson for Dowel Jones.
    Graphic furnishings are featured throughout the interior design, including the Love benches by Daniel EmmaBrustman is based in Melbourne and specialises in residential interior design and commercial design for the education, hospitality and retail sectors.
    The designer’s previous projects include a children’s centre in Melbourne featuring similar graphic elements in various pastel hues and a hair salon decorated using the client’s signature yellow colour.
    The photography is courtesy of Harbour Early Learning.

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    Barbie exhibition aims to show toy is “worthy proposition from a design point of view”

    The Barbie dolls and Dreamhouses featured in Barbie: The Exhibition at London’s Design Museum reflect shifts in visual culture over the famed toy’s 65 years.

    With over 250 objects on display, Barbie: The Exhibition opens today and examines the history of the doll since it was created by Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler in 1959.
    Barbie: The Exhibition opens today at London’s Design MuseumAccording to curator Thom, the exhibition was conceived to unpack the toy’s design influence over the last 65 years and explore the “myriad technical, aesthetic and cultural decisions that go into creating Barbie”.
    “What I would really like visitors to take away from the show, whether they’ve come as Barbie fans or Barbie skeptics but with an interest in design, is that there is actually a very complex and intentional set of design processes that go into creating the dolls and the accessories,” said the curator.
    A first-edition Barbie is included in the collection”And that intentionality does reflect the social context in which any given Barbie is being produced,” she told Dezeen at the Design Museum.

    “I want people to realise that Barbie is a worthy proposition from a design point of view,” she added.
    The show features dolls throughout Barbie’s 65-year historyCreated by architecture firm Sam Jacob Studio, the exhibition design includes iridescent colourful plinths and cylindrical toy packaging-style cases displaying past and present-day Barbies and their accompanying Dreamhouses and accessories.
    Among the collection is a first-edition, hand-painted doll from 1959, positioned next to archival footage of the earliest Barbies being manufactured in Japan. The exhibition also features Christie, the first Black Barbie designed in 1968, and the first Hispanic and Asian Barbie dolls created by Mattel.
    An entire section is dedicated to the evolution of Barbie’s hairThere is a specific section dedicated to the evolution of Barbie’s now 76 hairstyles available in 94 colours, crowned by a bespoke chandelier made of dolls’ hair.
    “In the 90s, I found that a lot of the Black Barbies had straightened hair,” said Thom. “Today, Barbies come with different hair textures.”
    “Obviously, hair play is fun. Children like to brush Barbie’s hair. But there’s more to it than that. How Barbie’s hair is represented is a way in which the importance of her is conveyed to children,” she added.
    The show highlights past and present furniture trendsBarbie dolls from the 2016 Fashionista line are also on display, which were created to include more body types and skin types. Launched last year, the first Barbie doll with Down’s syndrome also features in the show.
    “I think since the Fashionista line redesign, there has been a much more concerted effort to provide as many different visual frames of reference as possible in the doll line so that in theory, every kid can see something of themselves,” said Thom.
    “I’ve found that more recently, there’s that level of attention to cultural details,” added the curator.
    Sam Jacob Studio created the exhibition designElsewhere in the exhibition, a selection of Dreamhouses chart how architecture and furniture trends have influenced the Barbie universe.
    Designed in 1962, the first Barbie Dreamhouse is on display. Created entirely out of cardboard, the single-storey home features mid-century modern furniture similar to the designs of Florence Knoll, the late pioneer of the modern open-plan office.
    The first Barbie Dreamhouse didn’t have a kitchenWith the absence of a kitchen, the first Dreamhouse positioned Barbie as an “independent woman”, argued Thom, created at a time when it was “virtually impossible” for an American woman to gain a mortgage without a male guarantor.
    Visitors can also find the yellow-hued A-frame Dreamhouse from 1978, complete with a pitched roof and angular windows, which recalls the early work of California-based architect Frank Gehry.
    “It was a little avant-garde for its time,” reflected Thom. “The house doesn’t look very Barbie by our contemporary understanding of Barbie – no pink whatsoever – but these moments in Barbie’s design history reflect what was going on in the world of design,” explained the curator.
    Later Dreamhomes reflect more decorative architecture trendsLater architecture trends also feature in the show, with a Dreamhouse from 1995 revealing a return to more traditional American 19th-century motifs including corner turrets and decorative mouldings, with all-pink, “chintzy” sofas placed in the interior.
    “It’s this kind of colonial-style architecture with sash windows, a portico and vines climbing up the side,” explained Thom.

    Kartell recreates pink Philippe Starck-designed chairs to seat both humans and Barbies

    Shifts in fashion over the years are also acknowledged in the show, with various displays documenting Barbie’s many looks. There is a doll with a cropped hairstyle wearing a tiny version of a dress from the late designer Yves Saint Laurent’s 1965 Mondrian Collection, while a host of more “everyday” Barbie garments were arranged within a bright pink cabinet.
    Although Thom explained that the exhibition has been in the works for a few years, as opposed to a response to last year’s high-grossing Barbie film directed by Greta Gerwig, the show features a pair of fluffy pink mules and the multicoloured roller-skating look worn by actor Margot Robbie in the movie.
    “We had a fascinating, kind of informal chat with the set designers about their process,” said the curator.
    Select pieces from last year’s Barbie film were also includedShe also explained why the museum sought the exhibition design of Sam Jacob Studio.
    “We wanted to work with Sam because we felt that his aesthetic, which is obviously very pop-inspired, very playful and colourful, would be a great fit for how Barbie has been presented over the years.”
    “Almost all the objects in the show are tiny,” added Thom. “So we wanted to design something that gave her a sense of presence, and almost in some cases monumentality.”
    “We needed to come up with a design that worked with that, but also augmented it,” she explained.
    The show aims to present “Barbie as a reflection of culture””The idea that Barbie is a reflection of culture I find interesting,” considered Thom, who noted the inclusion of various dolls in the exhibition designed with specific “careers” – Barbie has had over 250 of them in her history.
    “Because it does suggest that her meaning, or meanings, are in the eye of the beholder – the eye of the consumer. And I think that’s one of the reasons for her longevity,” continued the curator.
    “I think there can be a tendency to write things off that might be feminine-coded or child-orientated, as being somewhat lesser when it comes to design,” she added.
    “Barbies are toys – they are mass-produced. They are designed first and foremost to be played with. But that doesn’t negate the possibility that they are important objects.”
    The photography is by Jo Underhill.
    Barbie: The Exhibition is on display at the Design Museum from 5 July 2024 to 23 February 2025. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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    Max Radford Gallery opens London showroom to get people “in front of real objects”

    Max Radford Gallery has opened a permanent space in east London that shows collectible designs from its past shows, including pieces by Carsten in der Elst and Amelia Stevens.

    Located in Hackney Downs, the showroom displays works that the gallery first showed at Belgium’s Collectible design fair, as well as pieces from earlier exhibitions.
    The showroom is located in east LondonBy combining works from different stages of its designers’ careers, the gallery aims to showcase how the artists it works with have developed over the years.
    “It’s a privilege to be able to track a designer’s development and change in their practice across a few pieces in the same space,” founder Max Radford told Dezeen.
    It features pieces by 15 designersThe gallery, which launched in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, focuses on emerging artists. By opening a physical space, it hopes to also help them reach a bigger audience.

    “The Max Radford Gallery seeks to platform emerging creatives who are working in the grayscale between art and design with a London-centric focus,” Radford said.
    “This has always been the particular area that the gallery has been engaged with and stems from a need for physical spaces to see these types of works in London, rather than just on social media – as the only option was when the gallery was beginning.”
    Collectible furniture designs are on display at the galleryAmong the artists showing in the space are In der Elst, whom the gallery had previously included in its Hard Knocks show, and Stevens, who took part in Max Radford Gallery’s exhibition at the Aram Gallery.
    The new space also showcases furniture and accessories by designers Georgia Merritt, Fred Thompson, Grace Prince, Nic Sanderson, Inga Tilda, Eddie Olin, EJR Barnes, Ty Locke, LS Gomma, Natalia Tifantilyi, Andrew Pierce Scott, Louie Isaaman-Jones and Matthew Verdon.

    Aram and Max Radford Gallery showcase emerging designers in Now 4 Then exhibition

    Max Radford Gallery is now located in a minimalist studio, which its founder intends to keep as a paired-back space.
    “The showroom is a beautiful white-painted studio space with just over half of the floor plan having triple height up to skylights, producing beautiful changing light across the day,” Radford said.
    “We haven’t made any architectural changes to the space and are not sure that we will, potentially with the exception of some sort of temporary mezzanine in the triple height space for an exhibition-specific installation,” he added.
    Max Radford Gallery focuses on emerging designersBy opening a permanent gallery, Radford wants to support London’s community of emerging designers.
    “It’s for the community aspect that is introduced by the communal use of creative space; there is a burgeoning community of designers and artists in London with lots of crossovers through universities and workshops that support and raise up its members,” he said.
    “Facilitating a space for communities like this to express and interact seems like a key aspect to supporting what is going on here in London currently,” he added.
    The showroom features pieces from previous exhibitionsHe also hopes that the physical aspect of the space will encourage people to see design pieces in person.
    “It’s as simple as getting people in front of real objects, not just heavily retouched or rendered images of them,” Radford concluded.
    The photography is by Richard Round Turner.

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