Meet Dixon – a drinking fountain for a contemporary age
DES is developing eye-catchingly good looking fountains for the contemporary age. So here’s Dixon, a minty-fresh fountain designed & built by Simon Harlow & Lewis Harley, founders of Mirrl of Glasgow, & keen fountaineers.
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Design for our Times
DES presents three talks bringing together designers, architects & academics to debate fresh ideas, explore new materials & imagine a brighter future. All three conversations, Design in Postnormal Times, Material World & Circular Thinking in Design are now available to listen / watch again online.
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Shroom with a view
Recent graduate, Catriona Brown had long thought the ubiquitous plastic tree protector was a blot on the landscape, so she set out to design an alternative. Here Catriona tells the story of Shroom, her newly designed tree protector made of mycelium.
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Shop Window
DES brings word of new Creative Spaces at Marchmont House, upcoming funded residencies at Cove Park & awards from QEST. And exceptional objects to buy . . here’s Urpflanza, a new lighting project by Rachel Adams inspired by the brilliance that is brassicas!
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Questions & Answers / Leonie Bell
Leonie Bell is V&A Dundee’s new director. Here she discusses her role, the vital importance of design in the age of a pandemic & her delight in the clothes of Mary Quant & Jean Muir.
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Questions & Answers / Christina Gaiger
Christina Gaiger was recently appointed the youngest president, to date of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. Here she talks to fellow architect Andy Summers about her career path, cycling routes & activism in architecture.
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DES suggests . . . dancing, reading, watching & listening
DES signposts interesting things to see & do.
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Your own sweet time
Contemporary horology is flourishing . . Scotland’s watchmakers Paulin, Instrmnt & anOrdain are making sure that time still moves, beautifully. Watch enthusiast James Hall celebrates the tick & the tock.
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Questions & Answers / Jack Brindley of Pavilion Pavilion
Jack Brindley opened Pavilion Pavilion last year in Glasgow. Both a studio for his own practice & a gallery, where the territory between contemporary art & objects of use is explored. Summer 2020
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Weave been waiting . . . says Beca Lipscombe
Archie Brennan was arguably the most inventive tapestry weaver of the 20th century. Here designer, Beca Lipscombe celebrates his work & spearheads a fundraising campaign lead by Edinburgh’s Dovecot Studios and the Art Fund, to present a show of Brennan’s work. Summer 2020
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Touch
‘Our fingertips contain a density of nerve endings and their differentiation is almost comparable to our eyes . . ’
educator & artist Stuart Bennett explores touch in our new touch-adverse era. Summer 2020
Questions & Answers / Alice Twemlow
The author of Design in Postnormal Times & recent speaker in DES’s Design for our Times, Alice Twemlow confronts trash, future fossils, digital detritus. Here she explores both deep time & the deep future & celebrates the work of the Scottish Enlightenment geologist, James Hutton. Spring 2020
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Questions & Answers / Cooking Sections
‘Spatial practitioners’, Daniel Fernández Pascual & Alon Schwabe founded Cooking Sections in 2013. Here they discuss Climavore, their project on the Isle of Skye & why what we eat should focus our minds on food supply chains & ecosystems. Summer 2020
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Travels by Design | Bute Fabrics
Episode Four – Bute Fabrics, its history and very contemporary collaborations with artists & designers including most recently, Ilana Halperin. Helen Voce reports from the island set in the Firth of Clyde
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Woof
Kate Morgan writes about the process and practice of chair caning, and how this newly-learnt skill is offering sound, rhythm and vision within a quiet, lockdown Glasgow interior. Spring 2020
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Questions & Answers / Formafantasma
Designers Formafantasma explore materials, their origins, use and impact. In their recent exhibition Cambio at the Serpentine Galleries in London, they examined the life and after-life of trees. Here they discuss design & ecology. Summer 2020
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Climate House
Thanks to support from Outset Contemporary Art Fund through their Outset Transformative Grant, Inverleith House, which sits at the heart of the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, is to be transformed in to Climate House. Emma Nicolson tells us more.
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Travels by Design | Sanquhar Gloves
Episode One – The life & times of the Sanquhar Glove. Helen Voce’s first dispatch in a series that explores place and making from around Scotland.
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Questions & Answers / Jude Barber
Architect Jude Barber discusses thinking afresh & motivation, recalling a 2014 project with author Louise Welsh entitled Empire Cafe. A founding member of Collective Architecture, Jude recently ran as a candidate to become president of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Summer 2020
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Travels by Design / Here & Now
For her final dispatch on place & making, Helen Voce has travelled online to view this year’s degree shows across Scotland to report on contemporary responses to the local.
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