TRENDS IN DESIGN - PART 2

Urban Capital's Trends in Design series is back in Ottawa with three new design presentations to inspire and share ideas with the city, starting this week. The topics sound really interesting.

Night 6 | SEP 13 2012

Designing Modern Furniture 

Gus* is a really neat modern furniture design company with a lot of beautiful pieces. Furniture designer David Podsiadlo will be talking about the process and challenges of designing, manufacturing and selling modern furniture. 

Night 7 | OCT 11 2012

Graphic Design is Our Access to the New World

The Ontario College of Art and Design University has a very unique architecture that has most definitely become a landmark in Toronto. Roderick Grant who's a professor, designer and co-chair of the Graphic Design Program, will be talking about the relationships between graphic design and the world we live in. 

Night 8 | NOV 8 2012

Landscape Design without Grass 

If you've been to Montreal, you're probably familiar with Claude Cormier's awesome projects like the Pink Balls or the lipstick forest in Montreal. I noticed his work in Montreal before but never knew who designed them. Now I know! He's got a lot of very interesting projects in various cities around the world and one in Gatineau. I can think of a lot of places where his work would greatly enhance the city of Ottawa... starting with Sparks Street :) That should be fun. 

Check out my previous posts about last year's presentations on the links below. 

NIGHT 1 | Fashion Trends 

NIGHT 2 | New Thinking in Designing Cities 
NIGHT 3 | Where Industrial Design is Taking Us 
NIGHT 4 | Architecture in Our New Century 
NIGHT 5 | Interior Design Thinks Small

Tickets are available via Urban Capital's website at $20 per night or $40 for all three evenings. All the proceeds will go to Migrating Landscapes, Canada's official entry for the 2012 Venice Biennale in Architecture. 

source : Urban Capital' | Gus* | Emily Care Recuit | Claude Cormier | Cityzen | Design Boom

OTTAWA'S OPEN HOUSES WEEKEND

Every year since 2002, the city of Ottawa as well as a dedicated group of volunteers, organize Doors Open, an event that celebrates the city's building heritage, architecture and design. This year, on June 4th & 5th, several buildings, such as the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, the Shenkman Arts Centre and the Embassy of France, will open their door to visitors.

A full list of the participating buildings are included on the city's website. There's also a handy Google map to help plan the day. I doubt it would be possible to see them all in two days, but there are certainly a lot of interesting modern buildings on the list. Not to mention a Geocache event going on at the same time.


Photos : City of Ottawa | Informatics | Flickr | French Embassy

Industrial Design Exhibition

The industrial design department from Carleton will be hosting their 33rd Industrial Design Graduation Exhibition from Saturday, April 16 to Tuesday, April 19, 10 AM to 5 PM.

The exhibition will showcase projects centered around six different topics : Mobile Life, Firetactics, Adaptive Sports, Connected, Lota Renovation and Workspace Next.

• Mobile life : new product opportunities under the theme of travel and communication
  
  
• Firetactics: products to support firefighters


• Adaptive sports: new products that will increase the participation of individuals with specific disabilities, enabling an athletic life style.
  
  
• Connected : products to connect remote populations to meaningful opportunities through the use of technology.
  
  
• Lota renovation : practical solutions for the revitalization of the town of Lota, Chile.
  
  
• Workspace next : investigation of the impact of the mobile worker and its effect in changing the office environment.

For more information, check out IDES Graduates 2011

images : Industrial Design Carleton

Miele official launch in Ottawa

Miele recently opened a new showroom on Bank street and had an official grand opening event this week. I got a chance to go and check out their sleek modern German appliances and try some of the excellent food prepared for the occasion. Love it!



Called Miele Gallery on Bank, it is "the first free-standing, independently owned appliance store in Ottawa that exclusively sells Miele appliances". I'm pretty sure it will make a lot of designers, decorators and design savvy people very happy. Even the inside of the fridges were staged!




I'm always happy to see places like these open in the city. I think and hope it is the first of many hip businesses to set root in this area of the city. Add to that several new modern condos being built in the same area, it is bound to become one of the hippest places in Ottawa. I sure hope so. In the mean time if you're in the area, you might want to go check it out on Saturday as there should be more cooking demonstrations sometime between 9:30 am and 5:00 pm.

Photos : MOOT

Ottawa Home and Garden Show raising the bar

As you might already know, the Ottawa Home and Garden show is going on right now until March 27, 2011. I really think many Ottawa exhibitors have stepped up their game because a lot of the booths are looking a lot nicer and more polished than before. Don't you think?

I think those who worked hard to make their booth visually appealing deserve to be mentioned. So here's my list of "best in show" booths in the "Home and Decor" section (in no particular order):











A special mention must go to the really cool animal-shaped ottomans. We had to bring one home :)


My main contribution this year was the urban lounge sponsored by IKEA, Mikaza Home and Permacon.




I also had in bit of influence in other features such as the two model homes, the stage, the artist gallery and the foodies section.

There's one day left, if you want to go check out the exhibitions.

Trends in Design : Night 5

Last Thursday was the last night of the Trends in Design series and this time it was hosted by Elaine Cecconi of Cecconi Simone, a renowned interior design firm based in Toronto. If you're an "HGTV connoisseur", you might have seen her and/or partner Anna Simone in Design Interns (amazing show). They also appeared in other shows such as Designer Superstar Challenge and Big City Broker.

Cecconi Simone are well known for their innovative and unique design and have done many condominium projects. During the lecture, Elaine gave an overview of how condo's have evolved over the past couple years, and the various innovative solutions they came up with to maximize the use of the available cubic feet (as opposed to square footage). She showed some beautiful examples such as the possibility of completely closing off your kitchen in the Tableau project in Toronto, a clever use of storage where the backsplash would be in a kitchen and their signature candle fireplaces for condos.






She also showed us some really neat amenity rooms such as the the video-game room and spa room. I'm glad she like my idea of the workshop room (allowing condo dwellers to have a space to do little projects such as painting a piece of furniture). It will be interesting to see if they integrate it in a future condo project.



All in all it was a great night. The room was packed, the conversation/question period was interesting. I'm a bit sad that this was the last presentation from this series, I really enjoyed them. Hopefully there will be more to come. David Wex, from Urban Capital, is considering doing this again in two years.


Photos : Urban Capital | Tableau condos | MOOT |

Trends in Design : Night 3

The third night of the Trends in Design series was really interesting. This time the speaker was Julian Goss, program chair of the industrial design department at the Ontario College of Art and Design. He's also a teacher, a consultant, a designer and a very fun speaker to listen to.



After giving us a bit on info on his background, he started with sculpture in Glasgow, he walked us through the history of design, highlighting the major eras of industrial design from the 50s until today as well as where we might be heading. According to Goss, globalization has impacted design in general. It was also interesting to find out that from the outside (he's originally from Scotland) Canada is "the most awesome and confusing country" when it comes to design and "NAFTA decimated product design". Nevertheless, companies such as RIM, Cervélo and Teknion are great Canadian companies that deserve a bit of the spotlight.

EQ3+ is in town

Last week EQ3 and Azure magazine launched a new partnership between EQ3 and designer brands such as Herman Miller, Alessi, Stelton, Vitra, Pablo and Design House Stockholm. I had a chance to check it out during the launch party at EQ3 Byward, there were some neat items on display including iconic pieces and great gift ideas as you can see in the photos below.








It will be interesting to see what can be purchased through EQ3+. Vitra, for example, has a lot of neat items including cute mini Panton chairs for kids. This is great news for Ottawa's design community and the design savvy since iconic items will now be more accessible in Ottawa