IN-BETWEEN Design Platform founders Bilgen Coşkun and Dilek Öztürk shared their 2019 Design Concepts and Maison&Objet experience at Assembly Ferko Signature on December 19, in collaboration with Maison & Objet.
Environmental crises such as climate change, natural resource consumption, plastic use, and threats to ocean creatures and the food chain lead us to re-evaluate our consumption habits and production styles. When the attitudes we develop individually are combined with production in the design scene, they cease to be individual and spread to wider areas of influence.
Macro-scale social and economic transformations; It has long been a movement in the world of architecture and design and has become a representative of its time. In her book "Design as An Attitude", one of the most important design critics of 2018, Alice Rawsthorn talks about using design actively and strategically in different fields such as politics. We actively respond to the transformations in the world we live in today, not only in theory but also in practice, and we all feel a mission and responsibility to create a positive impact on society.
The January 2019 theme of Maison & Objet, one of the most comprehensive design events in the world; He argues that in this process, the concept of identity is questioned and a new concept of universal belonging develops through identity.
The January 2019 theme, determined by Maison & Objet in collaboration with global trend agency Nelly Rodi, is “Excuse My French!” It develops on creating a contrast to everything that is cliché about identity. Excuse My French! References representing cultural and social heritage are translated under 4 different themes today:
new wave
The new generation that believes in multicultural production symbolizes a new movement that allows hybridization, accepts difference and celebrates the differences of the world. This trend; Open to change, discovery, sharing, collaboration and fusion.
Dimore Studio
Dimore Studio and Dimore Gallery, founded by Britt Moran and Emiliano Salci, who continue their work in Milan, are among the most important representatives of this movement today.
Dimore reinterprets the maximalist style, especially in interior spaces, as a response to the minimalist attitude that has developed under the leadership of Bauhaus and other modernist schools for more than 100 years. Dimore brings together pop and vintage elements, creating a dialogue with the audience through curated, emotional storytelling powerful environments.
Pet lamp project is a project that interprets design on social entrepreneurship and integrates craft culture into the contemporary design scene. The project transforms waste PET bottles by reusing them using local weaving techniques. It is one of today's best examples that represents our sensitivity to our social and physical environment through a design project that creates social benefit.
new technology
New tech; The new generation of entrepreneurs represents a movement that develops new markets and products through technology and networks. In this trend; Concepts that appeal to the five senses through manipulated reality with the possibilities of smart tools and technology come to the fore.
Olivier Van Herpt is one of the most important representatives of this trend in the contemporary design scene today with the three-dimensional ceramic objects he developed. It represents a new aesthetic understanding created with materials developed through 3D technology. The designer takes a "disruptive" approach in developing production tools to realize the design, and also triggers human-machine interaction and collaboration. Olivier opens an important topic for today's design debate on whether the product or the tool designed to produce the product has design value.
Benjamin Hubert is the representative of the "smart industrial aesthetics" concept within this movement. He is also an active entrepreneur. It offers safe and new opportunities to the user in that smart products are not a scary future, but helpful products that we can use in our daily lives. At the same time, with its collaborations, it stands out as one of the most important representatives of the generation that responds to today's changing world with its constructive productions.
production house
Small production houses have had a revolutionary impact on the design landscape from past to present. The distribution of the creative product development cycle as furniture, accessories and objects is located on a selective and exclusive basis in this landscape.
A generation that produces by hand and concentrates on one area and develops its own "mono-concept" constitutes today's "design houses".
Canadian lighting brand BOCCI is one of the most important representatives of the artisanal process, which opened to the world from a workshop and captures a different form with the logic of hand production in each product. With its experimental design approach, the brand establishes a bond between creative management and craft.
Classic with a twist
The coming together of different styles, the meeting of unexpected worlds, important values that change the perception of classical in the world. Style in this trend; It is interpreted as a combination of ancient and contemporary values.
Mansur Gavriel is one of the most important representatives of this trend today, in terms of making users experience the brand style in retail, web and communication channels.
Gavriel, who founded the first luxury consumption brand of the Millennial generation, continued his brand, which he started with a "bucket" bag, with minimal clear cuts and forms, while also developing a unique color palette. Mansur Gavriel fiction; From the product to the store, from the online experience to the sales platform; It is based on a club concept.
Nada Debs is a designer who lives between Beirut and Japan, completed her education at Rhode Island School of Design in the USA and continues her work in Beirut today. Nada is a representative of the generation that combines the experience gained globally with the local. She combines textures and knitting techniques from Japanese culture with Beirut craftsmanship. Thus, it represents designers who respond to the environmental and social crises we experience today by using existing materials, references and cultural heritage and adding a personal interpretation, without the need to discover and therefore consume anything new to make a new design.
Sebastian Herkner, who was selected as Maison&Objet designer of the year in 2019, is the representative of the culture of collaboration. He combines tradition with technology and craft, learns from the street, and changes the hierarchy we are accustomed to in the design and consumption cycle.
This year, we will see young talents from China at the Maison&Objet Rising Talents awards. Young designers who will highlight China's design potential were selected by the jury team consisting of Liu Xu, Xing Tong-He, Qu Guangci, Tom Dixon, Luca Nichetto, Neri & Hu.