Who says a pair of glasses can't be a piece of art? After all, what's sitting on your face gets a whole lot more attention than what's hanging in your living room. With this in mind, interior designer and architect Ron Arad is taking his creative expertise and, in his own words, resting it "on the ears and noses of a great many people". Turning his hand to eyewear, Israel-born and London-based Arad debuts his first collection for pq. Baffled by the lack of innovative design in the optical industry, pq focuses on escaping the ordinary, with glasses that sidestep that one-size-fits-all mentality. Instead, the collection features frames with an A-shaped central bridge that can be adjusted to suit each wearer, as well as hinge-less frames that spring closed naturally.

In an idiosyncratically quirky twist, each design in the collection is named after a different London Underground station, from the retro Kinks-esque 'Waterloo' to the somewhat more eccentric 'Notting Hill Gate'. Ever the visual artist, we hear the inspiration behind the name pq comes from the idea that the letters, when combined together, look like a pair of glasses. With prices starting at £500, could this be the future of eyewear?

Josie Sampson

 

If you happen to be fleeing across the channel to Paris your timing couldn't be better as - besides the obvious one of being in Paris - the city-wide festival Designer's Days is in full swing. As part of this, Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake has collaborated with Italian lighting company Artemide to create a collection of LED lamps. IN-EI (Japanese for "shadow, shadiness, nuance") is a collection of free-standing, table and hanging lights that unfold from flat 2D shapes into 3D shades, each one a single piece of fabric made from recycled plastic bottles. The fibres used in this material mean that the lamps are entirely self-supporting with no frame inside and can be easily folded away or lightly moulded to your lamp shape of choice.

 

 

A Sculpture of Shadow and Light: IN-EI Issey Miyake is at Issey Miyake boutique, 11 Rue Royale, 75008 Paris as part of Designer's Days until 30th June.

 

Images courtesy of Hiroshi Iwasaki

Above Image: Kabiljo Inc - Occupy!

 

Every year, Salone Internazionale del Mobile promises to offer us an exciting melting pot of design, with this year's show proving to be no different. Here we bring you our roundup of 2012's most innovative installations and creations, from big-name exhibitors to hotly emerging designers.

 

Claire-Anne O'Brien - Knitted Furniture & Booo! Studios with Front - Surface Tension Lamp

 

Bored of your winter knits? Claire-Anne O'Brien puts a uniquely contemporary spin on hers with her knitted furniture. Her playful designs manipulate standard forms and scales of knitting.

 

This quirky light installation by Booo! Studios for Front has been designed to draw on the long life of LED bulbs. The Surface Tension Lamp combines a metal base with a constant cycle of bubbles to create an ever-evolving lampshade. In the ten years it will take for the LED to burn out, the bubbles will have delicately formed approximately three million different shades.

 

Canon - Neoreal in the Forest & Ashley Temudo - Super-able Table

 

This installation by Canon recreates the beauty of a wild and unpredictable forest. Giant sculptural screens draped in fabric project a constantly transforming spectrum of colour and sound, filling the exhibition space.

 

Ashley Temudo's Super-able Table has been cleverly designed to challenge society's preconceptions of weakness. Upon first glance, the table looks delapadated and unstable. In fact, the holes used to create this image are highly functional, smartly holding glasses and mugs with an even stronger balance than your average table top.

 

Zhang Ke with Moroso - Hidden Dragon Sofa & Makoto Tanjiri with Toshiba - Passing on Project

 

Interior design meets ancient Chinese folklore with this piece by Zhang Ke for Moroso. It's designed to represent a dragon. With smooth curves and peaks like a mountainous landscape, the Hidden Dragon sofa encourages interaction between all those who sit on to it by having no set direction. Seemingly floating just above the floor, it's as though the mountain is reflecting in water.

 

The Passing on Project installation by Makoto Tanjiri was created in response to the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan to resemble the moment that light is born. Upon entering a completely dark room, visitors are each given a translucent acrylic cube. Passing through a hidden tunnel, cubes can be placed into a shallow pool of water where they illuminate on contact. With each cube placed in the water, this installation slowly begins to resemble a city scape at night time.

 

Kabiljo Inc - Occupy! & Paolo Navone with Barovier&Tosa - The Secret Garden

 

Design studio Kabilijo Inc created Occupy!, an exhibition designed to represent the 2011-12 occupy and protest movements by calling both political and aesthetic demands on design into question. Created from the uncovered springs of a disused mattress, the seating is made comfortable and functional through the addition of brightly coloured balls of yarn.

 

Paolo Navone worked with Barovier&Toso to create The Secret Garden, a clandestine beauty hidden from the outside world. 11,000 hazelnut branches have been woven into little huts, housing thousands of murano glass chandeliers inside. Visitors sneak a look into the spaces through tiny gaps, catching a glimpse of the glass secretly concealed inside.

 

United Colors of Benetton - Objet Préfére/Objet Coloré

The United Colors of Benetton exhibition combines two collections in collaboration with Fabrica and the cultural centre Grand-Hornu Images in Belgium. Objet Préfére presents fifteen pieces of furniture created around a favourite object. Objet Coloré showcases store display fittings, designed to mix surfaces, forms and multicoloured geometries to best present United Colors of Bennetton apparel.

 

Text by Josie Sampson

Images courtesy of:

1.  via ARTBoom & via Booo!

2.  via Designboom& via Ashley Temudo

3. via Indesign Live & via Passing on Project

4.  via Designboom & via Barovier&Toso

5. via Emanuele Tortora/FABRICA