Mirror on a yr of trailblazing design with a glance again on the prime ten design tales of 2024 – as chosen by you, the readers. Wallpaper* journal’s most-read design tales of the yr level to thrilling firsts, like David Lynch’s debut set up at Salone del Cell, and Patricia Urquiola and Kvadrat’s upholstery textile comprised of 100 per cent ocean-bound plastic. There are additionally collaborative triumphs, reminiscent of Rimowa and La Marzocco’s new espresso machine; and the celebration of a design traditional, the Rubik’s Dice.
High 10 design tales of 2024
Patricia Urquiola and Kvadrat’s sustainable upholstery
(Picture credit score: Neil Godwin at Future Studios for Wallpaper*)
Named Finest Recycled Materials on the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2024, Patricia Urquiola’s Sport textile for Kvadrat was a collaboration with Swiss firm #tide and is the world’s first upholstery textile made from 100 per cent ocean-bound plastic.
The post-consumer plastic used is collected inside 10km of the shoreline of Thailand, as a part of #tide’s dedication to stop the supplies from reaching the oceans.
The ensuing sportswear-inspired material options refined tactile patterns enriching the floor and a color palette outlined by vibrant shades of purple, inexperienced and blue, in addition to a collection of neutrals.
Author: Rosa Bertoli
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Design Dynasties: the powerhouse households of Italian furnishing
(Picture credit score: Bea De Giacomo)
Wallpaper* met with eight Italian households who, technology after technology, have set the requirements of furnishings design throughout the globe. These ‘Design Dynasties’ generously shared the non-public tales and experiences behind their success with our author Laura Could Todd. They spoke of their longest-serving items and the dynamics which have emerged from being each a household and a enterprise. Via her pictures, Bea de Giacomo captures glimpses of their familial settings and their most cherished designs.
Author Laura Could Todd
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A brand new period for Iittala
(Picture credit score: Company Leroy)
‘Imperfect’, ‘disruptive’ and ‘unpredictable’ aren’t phrases typically related to Finnish design, least of all with Iittala, certainly one of its founding fathers. However new inventive director Janni Vepsäläinen shouldn’t be afraid to make use of all three and apply them to the 143-year-old firm. Iittala now hails a brand new period, led by Vepsäläinen, and marked by a brand new brand and collections that pay homage to Aino and Alvar Aalto’s heritage.
Throughout Stockholm Furnishings Truthful 2024, Vepsäläinen unveiled her first assortment, inside a former nuclear reactor within the metropolis. It wasn’t your common debut; London-based composer and artist Damsel Elysium carried out a bit utilizing glass ‘devices’, starting from 2m-long horns to bells and bottles, all hand-blown within the Iittala manufacturing unit close to Helsinki.
Author: Emma O’Kelly
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Ikea and Uncooked Coloration’s vibrant crafts
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Ikea and Uncooked Coloration)
‘Tesammans’ means ‘collectively’ or ‘in firm’ in English. It’s also the title of the most recent collaboration between Ikea and Uncooked Coloration, a studio based mostly in Eindhoven and based by Christoph Brach and Daniera ter Haar. The gathering is stuffed with playful designs, vibrant textures and an attention grabbing color palette.
Ikea’s inventive temporary to the pair was direct but liberating – reveal the potential of the spectrum. ‘Uncooked Coloration possesses a particular grasp of color’s efficiency, its emotional affect, and its function in shaping our dwelling environments,’ Maria O’Brian, inventive Chief at Ikea of Sweden advised us. ‘We purpose for this assortment to spark creativity and empower people to craft vibrant and cheerful dwelling areas of their every day routines.’
Author: Yoko Choy
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David Lynch presents ‘A Considering Room’ at Salone del Cell
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of David Lynch and Salone del Cell)
Guests to Salone del Cell 2024 have been supplied a brand new cinematic expertise. The revered director David Lynch – identified for cult movies like Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire and Wild at Coronary heart – designed an exhibition entitled ‘Interiors by David Lynch. A Considering Room’ on the grounds of the Rho Fiera. The exhibition marked a brand new sort of enterprise for the Oscar-winning auteur, however in accordance with its curator, Antonio Monda, former creative director of the Rome Movie Competition, it got here not completely out of the blue.
‘Just a few years earlier I introduced Lynch the lifetime achievement award on the Rome Movie Competition, and once I visited him in Los Angeles I discovered him sharpening a desk. I requested him, what are you doing? And he advised me he designs furnishings now,’ recounts Monda. ‘So when the Salone del Cell invited me to fee a filmmaker for this particular occasion, I knew he was the actual deal.’
Author Laura Could Todd
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Rimowa and La Marzocco’s compact espresso machine
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Rimowa and La Marzocco)
Rimowa, globally identified for its premium baggage, united with La Marzocco, an professional in espresso equipment, to current a rigorously crafted Linea Mini espresso machine celebrating German and Italian design and engineering.
Merging Rimowa’s signature grooved aluminium with La Marzocco’s engineering, the Linea Mini is a compact design accessorised with bespoke compartments, and packs an inventive punch along with your morning shot of espresso.
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Ido Yoshimoto’s sculptural items
Ido Yoshimoto’s workshop in Inverness, California
(Picture credit score: Images: Brian Flaherty. Artwork course: Michael Reynolds)
We visited sculptor Ido Yoshimoto at his California studio, the place he spoke about his work with wooden, from his starting as an arborist to his sculptures and furnishings made with native reclaimed materials – whether or not salvaged cedar, walnut or cypress, or old-growth redwood downed by catastrophe.
For Yoshimoto, making artwork is a approach to determine how issues work, and easy methods to repair what’s damaged. Generally it’s simply repairing an previous pepper grinder or cleansing a fish. Nevertheless it’s additionally about dwelling as nature, not with nature, an expression of curiosity and connection. Making artwork makes the world really feel much less mysterious as a result of it’s tinkering in its highest kind.
Author: Shonquis Moreno
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50 years of the Rubik’s Dice
(Picture credit score: Courtesy Ernő Rubik)
Hidden away in Budapest’s Buda Hills stands Hungarian inventor Ernő Rubik’s minimalist five-storey abode. Adorned with a number of scenic terraces, it stars an elevator that conveniently glides between ranges and furnishings of Rubik’s personal design. ‘Sure, I made different issues, too,’ he advised Wallpaper* on a tour by means of his comfy rooms, ‘however folks solely need to discuss in regards to the dice.’
The dice, in fact, is the Rubik’s Dice, the bestselling 3D mixture puzzle that the inventor dreamed up again in 1974. Twisting and turning into some 43 quintillion permutations, the six-sided dice is clad in vibrantly tinted squares that beckon enthusiastic downside solvers.
Fifty years after its beginning, we spoke with Rubik in regards to the historical past of a design traditional.
Author Alia Akkam
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Air Play Moon Safari
(Picture credit score: Antoine Jorel & Pierre Claude)
Whereas the ‘Air Play Moon Safari’ tour was in full swing throughout Europe, the USA and Mexico throughout 2024 (they’re taking part in 2025 dates too), we explored the design of the French band’s White Field stage. They performed their intimate, retro-futurist traditional album, in full, from a five-sided, white-walled, 21:9 aspect-ratio letterbox that confronted its voyeuristic audiences like Hitchcock’s Rear Window property as reimagined by Californian modernists. ‘It could possibly be a house, it could possibly be our world, our head… our architectural idea,’ they stated of the undertaking.
Author Simon Mills
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Designing the Olympics
(Picture credit score: Courtesy Paris 2024)
How do you start to design the Olympics? On the eve of this yr’s occasion, we pulled up a pew with Joachim Roncin, the director of design for Paris 2024, to be taught extra about gender-free mascots with a genital likeness and medals comprised of the Eiffel Tower.
This had been a five-year task with a sprawling, impossibly broad scope, a tough deadline, a world viewers and – ideally – a constructive legacy that can span generations of future residents. The warmth was actual.
Author Hugo Macdonald
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Supply: Wallpaper
