Is there life in Peckham?

From the great words of Alexie Sayle's 'Ullo John got a new motor!', "Is there life in Peckham?"

Well every summer since it’s inception in 2007, it has been home to Bold Tendencies – an incredible outdoor sculpture exhibition featuring large-scale pieces of work from new up and coming artists. Taking place at the Peckham multi-storey car park, which is frankly, just a car park. But, Bold Tendencies transforms the concrete wasteland of Peckham’s car park into an exciting and new place for public use and it's all thanks to Hannah Barry, who has single-handedly introduced Peckham as a prominent area to check out what's newest in the art scene. Alongside the exhibition space, the car park is also host to a bar/restaurant, Frank's, which boasts Campari cocktails and alfresco dining.
This time round, Bold Tendencies will feature the likes of geometrically inclined Eva Berendes, and Jess Flood-Paddock whose Gangsta’s Paradises series of giant shellfish went down a storm at the Hayward Gallery Project Space. Opening night for the show is on June 30th and is sure to be awesome. Drinks sponsored by Beck's, rooftop views of London, crazy impressive artworks...
Frank’s Café's unique build is thanks to the guys at Practice Architecture, who have contributed two new sculptures to this years show. They are known for their clever salvaging, and one of Practice Architecture’s formative projects turned a derelict petrol station in Clerkenwell into a handmade pop up cinema. Relying on the help of volunteers, the guys are testament to the power of replacing innovative ideas with weighty budgets.
Bold Tendencies do non-profit work that aims to showcase work by international artists. If you fancy becoming a ‘Peckham Patron’ and supporting the project click here. See you at the show.

Road for thought.

La ville molle (part III) from Raum Raum on Vimeo.

La Ville Molle: Benjamin Boré

Take 3 1/2 minutes and have a look this video by architect Benjamin Boré brought to us by one of our favourite art and design blogs, This is Colossal. The project originated through Benjamin’s desire to “question the harshness of the city.” So, using a giant water-filled pocket, he created the above liquid brick installation, ‘La Ville Molle’.
The project is in collaboration with Raum à La Box in France and its title literally translates to ‘City Soft’. It’s part of an exciting trend of architects becoming more and more conscious of the relationship between individuals and their environments, and realising ways in which to explore and apply it in their practice. As much as we’re conscious to protect our natural environment, the drive to develop our urban environment tends to be just as strong.
The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York recognises ‘the critical impact of the built form, how it is experienced, mediated, remembered and imagined on the quality of our daily lives.’ The initiative was originally established in 1967 and since then they’ve became a place to debate and experiment with the wild theories of progressive architects.
Although perhaps in part a tongue in cheek gimmick today, these people are changing the cities around us with projects such as this and we're excited by the prospect to see how this relationship will mould a new face for our collective cityscapes tomorrow.

Cool Commercial Floor Opportunities

Floorink by Forbo This new vinyl flooring can be used to create unique and bespoke flooring focal points in commercial interiors. With state-of-the-art digital printing by Printed Space any image can be applied, while still carrying a 10-year guarantee. In many ways this can truly mean endless opportunity to create a point of difference. Within our work we can on occasion be limited by what's either affordable or available (i.e. actually exists and has been invented yet!) for a client concept. It's all too easy to simply either write the floor off or have it play a lesser or small part of a retail design concept which is a huge opportunity missed. A product such as Floorink lessens the excuse that the floor can't play an important contributing factor to any space. With such options available to the concept palette there is every chance that the floor can be brought in to bring its own 'sticky' point to the space as a whole; no longer the poor cousin! forbo.com

Maid of Bond Street

A sequence of 25 brass studs set in a polished concrete floor – metal casts of lipsticks, fake eyelashes and even a credit card seem arbitrary at first but they tell a tale of decadent luxury. Worldly Cares and Love Affairs is the brainchild of British conceptual artist Jonathan Ellery and directly inspired by David Bowie’s Maid of Bond Street, a song released in 1967 about the materialistic life of a rich and spoilt London girl. Although small in size (each stud measures 100 mm in diameter), Ellery’s installation is one of the key features of Mulberry’s new flagship store in Bond Street. Beside Ellery’s critical take on luxury, one wonders if his inspiration is Christina Ong. The Singaporean entrepreneur and major shareholder of Mulberry is nicknamed the Queen of Bond Street for her creative flair in Bond Street’s fashion franchises. The latest store by Mulberry challenges the status quo of the luxury market, by commissioning controversial artist Ellery and by getting Universal Design Studio (UDS) on board to design the interior space. ‘What Mulberry wanted was a space that expresses what a progressive company it has become,’ explains Hannah Carter-Owens, associate director at UDS. ‘For this reason the design evolved into a mix of contrasting interior elements.’ The design studio envisaged an unconventional layout and a palette of materials to complement Ellery’s brass studs, beginning at the striking entrance doors, which feature geometrical brass details. A curved stone dry wall wraps the retail space at street level. This clever feature also reshapes the otherwise rectilinear space and helps to regulate the temperature of the interior. To counterbalance the solidity of the wall, the rest of the space has been kept deliberately flexible and is visually permeable from the entrance. Here the polished concrete floor is dotted with delicate mobile structures constructed from unfinished oak wood. These scaled-down architectural pieces resemble follies – referencing the picturesque landscape of rural Somerset where Mulberry originally started. By contrast, the deeper part of the store features geometrical brass plates – also echoing Ellery’s studs – that form the cladding to a more secluded space dedicated to the clothing division of Mulberry. ‘More than following a set brief, we started a very long conversation with Mulberry and worked together all the way, developing ideas through model-making and prototyping individual components and details,’ says Carter-Owens. One could question how raw materials such as stone and concrete, unfinished woodwork and brass are expected to convey the finesse of luxury. However this unexpected combination of materials has more to say about the way Mulberry combined two worlds in one: the rural and the urban. Despite major changes at the top of the company in recent years, the new flagship store combines the contrasting elements at the heart of the company. ‘The idea was to create something that would allow for a degree of flexibility, a simple shell yet very flexible – a store that won’t tire, a place that will stand the test of time’ says Carter-Owens. Founded in 1971 by Roger Saul and his mother, the company grafted a quintessentially rural British care for materials and details to an urban aesthetic. This new store restates these values even though Mulberry was taken over by Challice Group (a corporate company headed by Ong) in 2004 and has since been incorporated into another of her business ventures. That is the multi-brand umbrella company Club 21 UK, which includes such fashion brands as Armani, Donna Karan and Dolce & Gabbana. In a time when corporate homogeneity appears to have affected even luxury brands – let alone the rest of the market – it is refreshing to see Mulberry wittily question their own values with the thought-provoking work that was commissioned from Ellery. Similarly, the design work by UDS offers an opportunity to reflect on the nature of luxury. Luxury is not about cluttering a space with redundant displays of expensive materials. Instead it is deliberately selecting a few pieces that resonate with core aesthetic values – and Mulberry does that well. Article appeared in Blueprint magazine February 14, 2011 by: Gian Luca Amadei . This article has been published as originally listed. It absolutely highlights some of the thinking within Forma and our belief in what we term 'sticky points' to create moments or points within the retail experience that leave strong positive impressions on the customer so enhancing the likelihood of repeat custom.

Beginning to Click

In March retail designers predicted in FX that far from replacing traditional stores, virtual and real retail will develop side by side, happily augmenting each other. Doug Barber, who founded retail design agency Barber Design in 1999, takes that a stage further, describing a virtual reality that could be a seamless extension of the 3D environment – and one that retail designers can make their own. Without doubt the increasing use of ecommerce for retailers has made a huge impact on the profits and brand presence of those canny enough to jump on board in recent years. Initially, websites were unsophisticated and only offered limited products and an online experience that didn’t match the real store experience. However, with the arrival of broadband and a multitude of options, such as zoom in and out facilities, catwalk showcases, spin rounds, music and the ability to shop with friends, the online experience is becoming closer to the real life one. Thus far, the missing link has to be the physical ability to navigate around stores and immerse oneself into the actual brand environment – we’re still lumbered with what is essentially a two- dimensional cyber-space. Wouldn’t it be great if you could pop over to New York and view the latest Top Shop flagship store online, wander around it and see the product on display, letting your eye take you to whatever catches its fancy, chat with a virtual shopping assistant, before going ahead and buying? Or how about an online trip down Oxford Street with your friends, navigating in and out of shops to see their latest offers. With this kind of scenario in mind, we’ve been working with a gaming company, developing test- bed solutions to enable customers to navigate into branded stores on virtual high streets and shop for products on display. This has a number of benefits. Customers can immerse themselves into a brand’s environment and get to grips with what they really stand for. Opportunities are being developed to virtually wander down aisles and check out the latest offers, or even enter VIP rooms to look at ‘special membership offers’ or view live events, streamed on demand. The possibilities are almost endless and there are several routes a client could take. A simple showcase of a branded environment, a virtual re-creation of what the designer has already created for the high street, or even a whole new virtual world developed without the limitations of a 140 sq m box. As in the real world, we recognise that product and windows need to be changed regularly to reflect the real-world offer, and this will all be possible. The synergy between what’s happening in store and what’s happening online to a brand needs to be consistent and vital, and we are currently working through the technical feasibility of doing this. While this is a chance to enhance a brand’s online presence, we know as retail designers that customers all shop in different ways. People should need to be given the opportunity to get online and buy what they want quickly. But we also want to make this a longer, more realistic experience. We know that people go to physical shops with certain purchases in mind, but that browsing often leads to other purchases. This is something we hope to replicate. We need to work with a client that wants to put these theories into practice. The framework of possibilities is currently being developed, and we can then apply this to an actual physical brand space. This is pioneering technology and there may be many doubters. But hey, 15 years ago some people said we didn’t need email because we had faxes. I hope that one day we can shop online with friends – wherever they are – at exciting online shopping centres where we can immerse ourselves in the branded environment. This is a clear opportunity for real-world retail designers, basically an extension of what we do already when we develop a store concept that then gets built. Soon we will be carrying that process into creating 3D online environments, that either replicate what we’ve just done for the client, or take the brand to new unexplored territory. This article was first published in FX Magazine.

Swarovski Wallpaper Fit for a King

Swarovski Elements has launched its first collection of wallpaper, with designs incorporating Swarovski crystals. Designed by British wallpaper designer Karen Beauchamp in collaboration with the brand's design team, the collection uses the innovative technique of 'crystal printing' to create dazzling patterns. The launch took place in Portland Place, London, in the house where the Oscar-winning film The King's Speech was filmed - perhaps an aptly regal location for the glam and bling of a Swarovski event.

The collection comprises nine designs featuring Swarovski crystals and two coordinating plain wallpapers, each in a range of colourways. Versailles (top image) is at the contemporary end of the collection, with a metallic leather aesthetic and clusters of crystals in a grid design. For our simple tastes, our favourite is Diamond Trellis, a geometric and playful design that uses the crystals in a simple way with dramatic effect (above).

Satellite Voices is Live

It’s official. Satellite Voices has launched and is now live. Head on over to Satellite Voices to see the Dazed and Confused and Swatch backed cultural and collaborative platform, bringing you instant access to a global creative community. A network of editors in seven major cities; Paris, Moscow, Rome, Munich, Dubai, Shanghai and Santiago will be celebrating their city by bringing together local talents in fashion, music, art+design, film, photography and culture. Look out for daily interviews, mixtapes and find out about the hottest local events. With the ability to select within topics or cities, the young and visionary creatives of the world are at your fingertips, prepare to be inspired. Satellite Voices is looking to revolutionise how you take in information from the Internet, handing you only the best bits and as you can see there's lots there. Go... check it out for yourself. This is a great creative platform and it reaches a worldwide audience. We are impressed. See it now here.

Dave Hakkens’ Edible Pens

Running with the idea that a pen is 90% waste, that you only need the ink/point and the rest is added for writing comfort, Dave Hakkens has created a pen that makes good use of that waste - by making it edible. From simply wanting a pen that he could chew on without getting ink everywhere, Hakens based the pen design on candy necklaces and even made the ink edible. It also doesn't melt in your hands. Not sure if we'd actually want to eat our pens as a regular snack but the idea is still very cool.

See more of the edible pens here.