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      Bethan Laura Wood wraps boudoir in swirling marble-like pattern

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      A psychedelic print in summery shades adorns the walls, bedspread and furniture inside Summer Room, an installation at Milan design week by British designer Bethan Laura Wood.

      Wood created the site-specific installation inside the art gallery Nilufar Depot as a reference to Ornate, a furniture exhibition set inside a boudoir that she debuted at Milan design week 2021.
      Wood has installed Summer Room inside Nilufar Depot”Summer Room is a continuation of the solo show Ornate that I had in September,” Wood told Dezeen.
      “I wanted to show the Ornate project in a very different environment. I specifically picked colours and added in a lot of yellow and greens to kind of have this kind of sugar summery colour tone which is slightly different,” she said.
      The living room and bedroom are furnished in a psychedelic printThe living area is wrapped in Wood’s new design Endless Meisen – a looping repeat pattern made from high-resolution scans of bespoke Alpi Wood veneers.

      This pattern was then used around the two-roomed interior to upholster bedding, cushions and also furniture such as the desk and shelving unit.
      The bedspread is covered in the same bold patternVisitors can wander from the living room through to the boudoir – the traditional term for a woman’s bedroom or private interior space, in another nod to the Ornate exhibition.
      “In here we wanted to play with what it looks like in a much more enclosed space, and with a much darker background behind aluminium so that it really kind of pops in a very different way,” she explained.
      New objects installed in the maximalist space include Temple Panda wall sconces, while a wiggly headboard above the bed is among previously featured items.

      Bethan Laura Wood’s Ornate exhibition features furniture informed by boudoirs

      In the corner of the living room is a new piece called Trellis Column, a hanging light that Wood designed to recall the metal structures often found behind traditional lighting fittings.
      “When I visited factories like Venini or these old school glass houses, a lot of the armature behind the light fittings is something I’ve always found really beautiful,” she said.
      “I really wanted to make a project where the armature and the decoration were more in conversation rather than the decoration [alone].”
      Wood has displayed a hanging light called Trellis ColumnNilufar Gallery showcases existing and new pieces by 24 other designers selected by Nilufar’s gallerist Nina Yashar, who founded the centre in 1979.
      Other projects by Wood include an installation of giant canapé-shaped sculptures and a group exhibition that explores the friendships between designers.
      Photography is courtesy of Nilufar Gallery.
      Summer Room is part of Milan design week 2022, which takes place from 6 to 12 June 2022. See Dezeen Events Guide for information about the many other exhibitions, installations and talks taking place throughout the week.

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      Lee Broom presents Divine Inspiration lighting in theatrical Milan exhibition

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      British designer Lee Broom has unveiled his largest exhibition at Milan design week to date, showcasing six new lighting designs in a setting that echoes brutalist architecture and places of worship.

      As part of the exhibition, called Divine Inspiration, Broom has taken over an entire building in Milan’s Brera district and filled it with more than 100 lights.
      Across a series of rooms, the designer is presenting pieces that borrow from the monumental, ethereal quality of religious buildings and artefacts, particularly those designed in the mid-20th century.
      Divine Inspiration is Lee Broom’s largest-ever Milan exhibitionDesigns on show include Vesper, a geometric pendant design with its roots in modernist cathedral lighting, and Requiem, which takes the form of draped fabric.
      “I have always loved brutalist architecture, even as a child,” said Broom, reflecting on his early years growing up in Birmingham and visits to buildings such as the now-demolished Central Library by John Madin.

      The exhibition showcases six lighting designs in a church-like setting”I wanted this collection to be mainly inspired by that,” he told Dezeen. “But when I started researching, I discovered the places I was most drawn to were places of worship.”
      “This led me on a fascinating journey to researching cathedrals, temples and churches, from antiquity to mid-century to the present day,” he added.
      “I wanted to create a lighting collection that invoked that same sense of awe and mysticism as those buildings and their interiors.”
      The tile-like Pantheum light illuminates a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed urnThe exhibition starts in a relatively small room that Broom describes as being like a decompression chamber.
      At its centre is a large-scale stone urn designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, in a nod to the Unity Chapel built by the modernist architect in Illinois in 1908.
      Illuminating this space is the Pantheum wall light, which takes its cues from the coffered concrete ceiling of the Pantheon in Rome. Several of the lights are arranged like tiles, cast in Jesmonite and sandblasted to give a rough texture to their tiered forms.
      A six-metre-long pendant of fluted Hail lights is reflected in a mirror belowThe next room is a large hall, where Broom’s fluted aluminium Hail lights are arranged to create a six-metre-long hanging installation, positioned above a mirror to create the impression that the pendant stretches into infinity.
      “When you walk in, you see a 12-metre extension of this light,” said Broom. “The idea is to reference the idea of the rapture, of going up into the heavens.”
      The Altar pendants consist of illuminated tiles encased in sculpted oakA staircase leads up to a mezzanine showcasing the slender Altar pendants, which combine illuminated tubes with a smooth body of carved oak.
      These are organised around a contemporary altar, where a matching carved-oak font is framed by a large vertical disc of stainless steel.

      Twelve unmissable exhibitions and installations at Milan design week

      A grand installation of the extruded aluminium Vesper lights takes over the next space.
      Here, Broom’s team designed a stained-glass decal informed by mid-century designs and applied it over the windows. The brushed silver and gold-coloured lights are suspended in front, arranged both vertically and horizontally.
      “It’s a dramatic, ecclesiastical moment but it’s uplifting because of the colours and the amount of natural light,” said Broom. “You get to see all the different angles of these lights. They’re like brutalist sculptures with these modern, illuminated connections.”
      Dozens of Vesper lights are installed in front of windows with a stained-glass effectThe penultimate room is a basement featuring Chant, a light inspired by glass blocks, while the final room showcases the four different forms of the Requiem light.
      Unlike his other products, Broom makes each Requiem light himself by hand. The process involves dipping fabric into plaster and sculpting it around illuminated rings, tubes or spheres.
      “The process reminds me of draping fabric on a tailor’s dummy,” said Broom, who studied fashion design at Central Saint Martins before becoming a product designer.
      The Chant lights take their cues from glass blocksRequiem comes in four versions and Broom will make a limited edition of 15 for each.
      “I’ve been in business for 15 years and things have grown rapidly,” Broom explained. “So I thought for this piece it would be really nice to get back to basics.”
      “I really wanted to get my hands dirty and actually get my hands physically on the pieces,” he added. “The idea was to make them look like pieces of draped fabric with light sculptures inside them. But they’re actually solid plaster.”
      The final room features the four limited-edition Requiem lightsBroom has created many extravagant Milan exhibitions in the past, including the celestial Observatory in 2018, the carousel-style Time Machine in 2017 and the Salone del Automobile delivery van in 2016.
      The designer hopes that the Divine Inspiration exhibition – and the soothing soundtrack that plays throughout – will provide visitors with a calming, ethereal experience.
      The Requiem lights look like draped fabric. Photo by Arthur WoodcroftAlthough he doesn’t describe himself as a religious person, Broom believes that places of worship have a uniquely powerful ability to provoke introspection and reverence.
      “The key thing is to take people on an emotional journey,” he said. “I don’t see why design can’t evoke some of the same emotions we feel from art, architecture or theatre.”
      The photography is by Luke Hayes unless otherwise stated.
      Divine Inspiration is part of Milan design week 2022, which takes place from 6 to 12 June 2022. See our Milan design week 2022 guide on Dezeen Events Guide for information about the many other exhibitions, installations and talks taking place throughout the week.

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      Jacquemus creates surrealist interpretation of his own bathroom for Selfridges pop-up

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      French fashion designer Simon Jacquemus has opened a series of surrealist pop-up installations at London department store Selfridges, including a luxury-bag vending machine and a swimming-pool changing room.

      Titled Le Bleu, the installation occupies a number of locations across the store, including its creative retail space The Corner Shop and the Old Selfridges Hotel, a former hotel space that is now being used as a pop-up venue.
      The pop-up installations are located in and around Selfridges on Oxford StreetThe Corner Shop, which functions as the installation’s main retail space, features pale blue tiles blanketed across its interior. In its window, a large transparent tube of toothpaste spills ribbons of red and white gel.
      An oversized bathtub, sponges, shower facilities and sinks were also installed in the space, where they function as display areas for a selection of exclusive Jacquemus products and pieces from the brand’s Spring Summer 2022 collection.
      An oversized glass with a fizzing tablet is among the designsThe pop-up spaces were designed as a “surrealist reimagining of Jacquemus founder Simon Jacquemus’ very own bathroom,” Selfridges said.

      “I wanted to create crazy and unrealistic installations, all related to water and bathroom imagery,” said Jacquemus, founder of the eponymous brand.
      The designer was inspired to create one of the installations, an oversized glass, after seeing a tablet fizzing in a glass of water.
      “I also love how the giant tablet glass would also be very ‘eye calming’, a kind of visual ASMR installation in the middle of the Corner Shop,” he said.
      A 24-hour vending titled 24/24 is located behind the storeOn Edwards Mews behind Selfridges, a life-sized vending machine stocked with exclusive editions of the brand’s Chiquito and Bambino bags can be accessed for shopping 24 hours a day.
      A large circular opening marks the entrance to the space, a square room lined with five-by-five rows of bags and accessories displayed in oversized, deep blue-hued vending machines.
      Le Bleu includes three installationsAt the Old Selfridges Hotel, the final pop-up – a sensory installation titled Le Vestiaire – references swimming-pool changing rooms.
      Visitors are greeted by the now-familiar blue tiles, which cover the walls, floor and furniture of the space.

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      A curved welcome desk was positioned in front of a tile-clad wall that holds a collection of rolled-up towels.
      Blue lockers and changing cubicles line the walls at the rear of the space and include “3D experiences” that draw on the iconography of surrealist French filmmaker Jacques Tati.
      It follows a number of installations that have taken place across Europe’s fashion capitals”Each experience is very different and playful, but my favourite would be Le Vestiaire, as it’s the first time we have invested in a space like this, with 3D experiences and crazy installations with our Jacquemus products,” said Jacquemus.
      “I wanted to recreate an accumulation of lockers with different 3D experiences inside, inspired by Jacques Tati movies.”
      Smaller installations were incorporated within the interior of lockers and behind cubicle doorsThe three pop-up installations are open from 3 May until 4 June 2022.
      The installation is the latest edition of a series of Jacquemus’ vending machine pop-ups located across Europe’s fashion capitals, including Milan and Paris.
      It was inspired by Jacques Tati filmsIn 2019, Jacquemus designed a Parisian restaurant named Oursin that featured whitewashed walls, colourful ceramics and rattan furnishings in an effort to “perpetuate summer”.
      French fashion brand Balenciaga recently transformed its Mount Street store into a temporary faux fur lined pop-up dedicated to its Le Cagole line.
      Images are courtesy of Selfridges.

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      Space Caviar creates “liquid landscape” inside Uzbekistan pavilion at Venice Art Biennale

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      Italian studio Space Caviar has constructed Dixit Algorizmi: The Garden of Knowledge, an indoor garden with reflective steel steps for the Uzbekistan pavilion at this year’s Venice Art Biennale.

      The installation at the Uzbekistan National Pavilion mirrors the interiors of the Quarta Tesa, an old shipbuilding warehouse at the Arsenale – one of the international contemporary art exhibition’s two main sites.
      Dixit Algorizmi: The Garden of Knowledge is the country’s first pavilion at the Venice Art BiennaleThe layout of the 500-square-metre garden is informed by the garden at the House of Wisdom, an academic centre in 9th-century Baghdad where medieval scholars, including the renowned Persian mathematician Muhammad al-Khwarizmi, studied.
      Visitors at the 59th Venice Art Biennale can walk across the shiny floor of the installation and sit on glossy steps around what resemble traditional water basins.
      Space Caviar drew on the forms of historic Islamic gardens”Gardens are very important in the tradition of Islam and the Arabic tradition in many parts of Central Asia,” said Joseph Grima, co-founder of architectural research studio Space Caviar.

      “While today we’re accustomed to thinking of buildings and enclosed spaces such as research labs and universities as the space for the production of knowledge, in the days of al-Khwarizmi, gardens were typically the points of encounters, of discussion,” Grima told Dezeen.
      The pavilion is inside the Venice ArsenaleSpace Caviar constructed the interiors of Uzbekistan’s first pavilion at the Biennale in Venice from pine wood and sheets of stainless steel, which Grima chose to create the illusion of water.
      The material choice also means that when the installation is dismantled at the end of the seven-month-long Biennale, the steel can be melted and turned back into metal sheets once again.
      Stainless steel covers the floor”Stainless steel was chosen to create the effect of walking on water — one of the perceptions that you have when you are inside the pavilion is that you are in a liquid landscape,” Grima explained.
      “This was one of the effects that we wanted to achieve with the pavilion, we wanted to create a landscape that was kind of a miracle, that suggested a dream more than a literal garden,” he added.
      “We see it as a technologically augmented landscape in that sense.”

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      Throughout the Venice Art Biennale, the Uzbekistan pavilion will host a program of workshops and public events on the history of technological development in art with digital artists such as Andrés Reisinger.
      Visitors will also be able to listen to Uzbek piano compositions against a backdrop of floral sculptures and hanging clouds of sea lavender by Berlin-based Studio Mary Lennox.
      The steel will be melted into sheets and reused when the pavilion is dismantled”We tried to transform our pavilion into an Islamic garden so that visitors could sit by the water, listen to various sounds, smell the air and enjoy the botanic installation,” said Gayane Umerova, executive director of the art and culture development foundation under the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Uzbekistan.
      “The Islamic garden is a place of rest and reflection par excellence, it provides means for contemplation through sensory experience – aromas, plants, water,” she told Dezeen.
      “Undulating waters and ambiguous lines together with plants and smooth surfaces offer a meditative yet contemporary attitude to the interior of the pavilion, bringing together traditions and new technologies,” she continued.
      Bunches of sea lavender hang from the ceilingGenoa-based Space Caviar was founded by Joseph Grima and Tamar Shafrir in 2013. The studio focuses on the intersection between design, technology, critical theory and the public space.
      Previous projects have included an algorithmic journalism machine that produces magazines on the fly and an exhibition at Biennale Interieur that explored how perspectives on the home have changed over time.
      Last year Grima took part in the Dezeen 15 virtual festival, where he proposed a new type of non-extractive architecture that conserves the earth’s resources.
      Photography is by Gerda Studio.
      Project credits:Curation: Space Caviar and Sheida GhomashchiCommissioner: Gayane Umerova
      Venice Art Biennale takes place from April 23 to November 27 in Venice. See Dezeen Events Guide for up-to-date details of architecture and design events around the world.

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      Bethany Williams: Alternative Systems opens at the Design Museum

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      An exhibition highlighting London-based designer Bethany Williams’ waste-combating, social-driven vision for the fashion industry has opened at the Design Museum.

      Exhibited in the atrium of London’s Design Museum, Bethany Williams: Alternative Systems is a celebration of Williams’ work which explores and responds to social issues through the use of community-led enrichment initiatives.
      Bethany Williams: Alternative Systems is a free display in the atrium of the Design MuseumA number of key works by the designer were exhibited across the four walls of the atrium’s balcony gallery, which is free to entry.
      Mannequins are displayed among textiles samples, photography and raw waste materials in efforts to highlight the studio’s commitment to sustainable fashion.
      The display was chosen to be shown in a free entry space in the museum”I decided to organise the display thematically rather than by collection,” said Design Museum’s head of curatorial and interpretation Priya Khanchandani.

      “It opens with a section about the studio specifically and then there’s a part about creative process, intellectual references and the way in which they propose alternative infrastructures of working, followed by a section about reuse and another about community collaborations,” she told Dezeen.
      “Bethany’s work not only tackles the question of the environmental impact of design, but it also has an amazing social purpose.”
      The exhibition design was completed by EditWilliams is a fashion designer, humanitarian and artist. She graduated from Brighton University with a degree in Critical Fine Art before receiving a master’s from the London College of Fashion in Menswear.
      She launched her namesake brand in 2017 and has strived to spotlight and respond to social and environmental issues, her works see her partnering with local grassroots programs and manufacturing collections using waste materials.
      Garments are exhibited alongside research, drawings and materialsA section of the display exhibits Willliams’ work as part of the Emergency Designer Network. The initiative is a collaboration between herself and designers Phoebe English, Cozette McCreery and Holly Fulton.
      The group of creatives, with their textile manufacturing knowledge and teams of volunteers, produced 12,000 scrubs, 100,000 masks and 4,000 gowns for frontline healthcare workers during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic.

      Waste crisis a “design-made mess” says Design Museum show curator

      Waste from packaging tape sourced from Rimini, Italy was handwoven and constructed into functional items and garments as part of Williams’s Autumn Winter 2018 collection, which was on display.
      “I felt it was very important to show not just the finished garments, which you would see in a retail fashion context; being a museum display I wanted to add other layers of information,” explained Khanchandani.
      Williams’ work merges streetwear and craft”There are process materials like drawings and sketches, and also source material,” said Khanchandani. “For instance, a jacket made of waste newspaper is shown alongside some of the waste material, the Liverpool Echo, which is dangling next to the garment.”
      “You’re able to see the journey of the objects from inception, to finished product.”
      Williams has collaborated with San Patrignano, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmeEach season, the fashion studio collaborates with different local charities and grassroots programs and donates a percentage of its profits to its causes.
      “With our work, we hope to continue to reach new audiences, encourage inclusivity and positive change for the fashion industry,” said Williams. “The Design Museum continues to be aligned with this via the exhibitions curated, including their Waste Age exhibition, which we featured in last year.”
      “We are so proud to showcase our new exhibition: Bethany Williams: Alternative Systems, a celebration of the new way of working proposed for the fashion industry by the studio’s work.”
      Dresses and corsetry feature boning constructed from waste materialsThe opening of Bethany Williams: Alternative Systems was timed to coincide with Williams’ Autumn Winter 2022 collection, titled The Hands that Heal Us, which was presented at the museum.
      The collection included a cactus leather jacket, and garments made from recycled and organic-based denim with detachable metal hardware that aid the recycling process at the end of its life.
      A skeleton suit was informed by a 19th-century children’s playsuitIn 2016, Williams graduated from London College of Fashion and showed her MA graduate collection in the university’s show as part of London Fashion Week.
      Last year’s Waste Age exhibition at the Design Museum, which featured Williams’ work, explored how design has contributed to the increasing throwaway culture and how people can create an alternative circular economy that doesn’t exploit the planet.
      Photography is by Felix Speller.
      Bethany Williams: Alternative Systems is on display at the Design Museum from 22 February 2022. See Dezeen Events Guide for all the latest architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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