IDS Vancouver: Top speakers dish on the future of design and how it will feed our souls
Credit to Author: Mary Beth Roberts| Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2019 13:26:47 +0000
As show-goers arrive at Vancouver Convention Centre West, Emily Forgot’s entrance installation will set an upbeat tone.
Forgot, whose Neverland exhibition at the London Design Festival in 2016 first showcased her wooden architectural Assemblages , describes her work as playful, bold and surreal. For Sense of Place, she has created 15 original works that will be for sale with 50 per cent of the proceeds going to IDS’s charitable partner, Out In Schools. These works will be part of a larger installation inspired by the shapes and architecture of Canadian Modernism.
Forgot finds pleasure in discovering beauty in what many people may see as ordinary.
“Travel does inspire me a lot, but equally, taking a different route to the shops can throw up something inspiring either in the architecture, the typography on signage or just an unusual colour combination,” she says.
However, she says, the Royal Institute of British Architects library is a special source of inspiration. “I always leave the RIBA library feeling completely inspired—leafing through archival interior [design] magazines and discovering makers and designers I would never have come across online.”
Forgot’s design philosophy, “To create work that makes people smile and to acknowledge that our output as modern makers stands on the shoulders of an amazing design history,” will form the basis of her talk at 1 pm on Friday, September 27, on the Caesarstone Stage.
House & Home’s new editor-in-chief, Emma Reddington, will talk trends with founder and publisher Lynda Reeves.
Lynda Reeves, the founder and publisher of Canada’s House & Home magazine and its French-language counterpart, Maison & Demeure, will discuss a range of design-related topics with House & Home editor-in-chief Emma Reddington and Vancouver-based designer Kelly Deck.
Describing her own design style, Reeves says she likes to create rooms that are polished and a reflection of the people who live in them. “I don’t like pure modern, minimal rooms because I cannot live that way. I like a few layers, and to mix periods and global influences,” she says, adding the she has a desk from her grandparents made by one of Napoleon’s cabinet makers.
As a keen observer of design Reeves is noticing the use of buttery brass—burnished, not shiny—used to clad islands, exhaust hoods and drawer fronts. “Also, custom hardware on cabinets that combines this brass with leather and wood really ups the quality of any kitchen cabinet,” she says. “Pale mahogany used for kitchen cabinets and doors and shutters, not stained and left natural, is bringing me back to wanting wood again—unpainted.”
Reddington and Reeves will focus their discussion on trends—those that made it, and those that didn’t. A West Coast native who now lives in a 1905 Victorian home in Toronto with soaring ceilings, original floors and fireplace, Reddington believes homes filled with possessions collected over time are the most attractive.
“It takes time to create a really beautiful home. It’s not fast design, it’s slow design,” says Reddington, who is enjoying a move to sculpted shapes in furniture design where the furniture itself can look like a piece of art or a standalone sculpture.
She is also the author of NOMAD: Designing a Home for Escape and Adventure (Artisan; available in October), a book that required her to travel around North America and Europe to interview people who have chosen to live more unconventional lifestyles in boats, tiny homes, buses and other transportation modes. She notes their lifestyle is often more challenging than their Instagram accounts may show.
“Things that are quite easy for us are not always easy for them, they have to think: Is there enough water to make coffee and wash the dishes?” says Reddington.
Reeves will also discuss predictions for what we can expect in design and decorating with Vancouver-based interior designer Kelly Deck, who will share her signature style and tips on how to create a great space.
“The quality of your user experience in your own home—the things you touch and feel—is so important,” says Deck, whose company, Kelly Deck Design, focuses on interior design for high-end custom homes. Interior design goes beyond beauty, she adds. It doesn’t matter how beautiful an object is unless using it is effortless.
She advises people who are designing a home or planning a reno to make selections based on how the object or product will impact their own user experience. As an example, one of the things in her own environment she enjoys using is a Kallista faucet.
“It’s single lever, the metal is beautiful to touch, its usability is effortless, and it has a beautiful silhouette. Every time I use it, I think, thank goodness we bought it,” she says.
Lynda Reeves will speak with Kelly Deck at 1 p.m. on Sunday, September 29; this will be followed at 3 p.m. by Reeves in conversation with Emma Reddington.
“Eating designer” Marije Vogelzang will talk about the culture of eating on September 27.
Keynote speaker Marije Vogelzang designs the act of eating to change people’s perspectives. At IDS, she is also responsible for the Central Feature: Seeds. The installation, described as a “forest of ribbons,” focuses on the symbolism of actions in the kitchen and traces the journey of a seed returning to earth.
Vogelzang, who founded the Dutch Institute of Food & Design in 2016 and heads a new food design department at the Design Academy Eindhoven, recalls her fascination with food from an early age.
When the family had visitors, Vogelzang made a variety of canapés using the same ingredients, but varying the shapes or how the snacks were presented. “I would try to guess which person would choose which canape—it’s not about the food itself, it’s about how people react to it,” she says.
Vogelzang uses design, not necessarily to design products, but to give people a new perspective on food and sometimes new perspectives on life through food, enabling them to think differently about the subject of food.
When she started exploring eating design 20 years it was more difficult to explain and people often didn’t understand why it was necessary, says Vogelzang. Now the growing interest in food and a desire to connect with one’s senses—along with discussions about food security—makes her work increasingly relevant.
She will be speaking at 3:30 pm, Friday, September 27, on the Caesarstone Stage.