Dezeen Showroom: lighting brand Verpan has reissued Verner Panton's Spiegel lamp, which was designed in 1969 for the interiors of a Hamburg publishing house.
The Spiegal Lamp is a large quadratic lamp with a circular, domed recess at its centre that houses its light source.
The lamp can be arranged in a group
A hemispheric shade covers the light source, mirroring the domed recess and softening light within rooms and spaces.
The lamp can be mounted individually or as a group to form a modern and contemporary art piece and light installation.
The lamp can be mounted on a wall
It has a brushed aluminium finish and aims to provide ambient lighting within any space.
About Dezeen Showroom:Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen's huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.
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Dezeen Showroom: product designer Charles Kalpakian has created a collection of seating made from U-shaped wooden frames for Parisian furniture brand Kann Design.
Two sofas and a chair are designed with a wooden base
Comprising three-seater and four-seater sofas and an armchair, the seating has a solid wooden base and an internal wooden frame.
It also includes elastic belts and HR foam. It is upholstered in a variety of colours, and its pillows are made from dacron fibres, which is a synthetic polyester material.
Fabric in various colours upholsters the furniture
"The strong presence of the fabric material of the Timber collection gives it the appearance of a comfortable cloud that seems to levitate above the ground," said Kalpakian.
"The floating effect is reinforced by the oak frame which disappears under the structure to appear only at the back and on each side of the armrests."
About Dezeen Showroom:Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen's huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.
Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership content here.
Named Alif after the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, the mobility pavilion stands at one of the main entrances to the site, which is marked by an Asif Khan-designed gateway. Its name was chosen to symbolise the start of the process of movement.
Foster + Partners has designed the Mobility Pavilion at Dubai Expo
The Foster + Partners-designed building has a distinctive trefoil shape with three large petals that cantilever outwards from the building's base.
Each of the petals was built to contain a gallery with immersive exhibitions designed by London-based design consultancy MET Studio.
The pavilion anchors the mobility district
"The core concept was to create an internal vessel for Expo's three sub-themes of mobility, this provided the trefoil plan, each theme having its own 'hall'," said Gerard Evenden, senior executive partner at Foster + Partners.
"Creating an engaging external landscape for all people to enjoy was our next idea," he told Dezeen. "Finally, making the building sustainable and adaptable for legacy underpinned how we realised the design in detail."
The pavilion is wrapped in stainless steel louvres
The pavilion, which will remain on the site after the Dubai expo ends, is wrapped in a series of horizontal aluminium louvres.
Designed to evoke a feeling of movement, while referencing chrome fenders and aircraft wings, the louvres shade windows in the building's facade.
The pavilion has three entrances
"We referenced wind tunnel images and aeronautical elements to capture the idea of movement in the external envelope of the building, the horizontal bands flow around the building, widening to allow light inside and lifting to create the entrance canopies," said Evenden.
"We wanted to reflect and capture movement around the building so the curved fins reflect surrounding movement and light, they also allow the pavilion to transform from day to night, picking up the colours and light of the Expo."
"The use of stainless steel references aircraft wings, rockets and racing cars," he continued.
"It was also chosen over aluminium because of its performance in the environment and the ease of fabrication to accommodate the building’s complex geometries."
The pavilion contains the world's largest lift
Visitors enter the pavilion at one of the three entrances between the petal forms where the aluminium fins are raised.
They proceed to a circular passenger lift, which according to the expo's organisers is the world's largest lift, that takes them to the top of the building.
The pavilion exhibits aim to tell the story of mobility
Visitors then proceed down walkways that lead to each of the gallery spaces. The first looks at the history of mobility and contains three nine-metre-high statues created by Academy Award-winning design studio Weta Workshop.
The second gallery explores the modern era, while the third focuses on the future.
"Good expo pavilions are always about the harmony between architecture and visitor experience, the building is as much an exhibit as what's inside," explained Peter Karn, creative director of MET Studio.
"Here it is the navigation through the space that really connects the two. The large central platform lift takes visitors to the top and then a series of descending ramps bring them down through each of the immersive acts," he continued.
"This sense of constant movement, as if you are unravelling the story of human mobility as you move, really heightens the experience."
The final exhibition hall is focused on the future
At the base of the building is the exit alongside a cafe and gift shop. A series of private spaces for events are located above the exhibits on the top floor.
Surrounding the pavilion a 330-metre track, which will be used to demonstrate current innovations in transport, encircles the building.
In the context of the coronavirus pandemic and the environmental crisis, six Oslo-based designers present furniture designs that anticipate a more positive future.
Ny Normal is an exhibition of new works from Fold Oslo, a collective made up of designers Vilde Hagelund, Sovei Giæver, Anna Maria Øfstedal Eng, Poppy Lawman, Tobias Berg and Kathrine Hovind.
Ny Normal features the work of six Oslo-based designers
All six designers have taken one of their past designs and evolved it further, creating a version they feel is more suited to "our new normal".
"The objects in the exhibition have developed alongside our current worldwide norm, intertwining old conversations into new interpretations," explained Poppy Lawman.
All six designers have further developed one of their previous projects
"We are not alone, we believe in scrutinising the status quo," she told Dezeen. "We see many searching for new approaches to apply to our newly opened up world."
"It is time for all to seize this rare moment and make an unprecedented reset."
Poppy Lawman's Papirstein Stol is a lounge chair partly made from compressed paper pulp
Lawman's contribution is a lounge chair made from "papirstein", a natural and biodegradable material she developed by compressing paper pulp.
Previously the designer used this material to create a stool, which featured in the Norwegian Presence showcase in 2020. In this latest iteration, it becomes the seat and backrest of a steel-framed chair.
Trees inspired the Viride dining table and chair by Anna Maria Øfstedal Eng
Anna Maria Øfstedal Eng presents a dining table and chair, both sculpted from ash wood, at the Ny Normal exhibition.
Intended to challenge the linearity of modern furniture, her designs have a knobbly form based on the shapes of tree branches and roots.
Kathrine Hovind's Kvarv chair is designed to look like wooden logs
Kathrine Hovind has designed a chair that celebrates a Norwegian construction technique called lafting, which utilises solid tree logs.
Wooden cylinders form the legs, sides and backrest of the design, called Kvarv.
Vilde Hagelund hand-carved birch wood to give texture to her Armarium cabinet
Another designer working in wood is Vilde Hagelund. Her design, called Armarium, is a hand-carved birch cabinet with intricate details that exaggerate the natural texture of the material.
Tobias Berg's design is a side table supported by overlapping surfaces with playfully curved cutouts, while Sovei Giæver has designed a geometric pine bench with an accompanying blue storage box.
Curved cutaways give an unusual form to Tobias Berg's Aspekt side table
Ny Normal is the second exhibition that Fold Oslo has staged.
The six designers originally came together as a collective for a show at Stockholm Design Week in 2020.
"Our collective grew from shared commonalities," said Lawman.
"We share a love of raw materials and explorative techniques, and an attraction to utterly clean and unusually curious forms."
Sovei Giæver's Pir is a pine bench with an accompanying blue box
At a time when few designers have been able to showcase their work to the public, due to the cancellation of many design fairs and exhibitions, the group taking part in Ny Normal have found strength in numbers.
"The pandemic has halted much of the traditional design industry outlets that previously have been primary platforms for our work," said Lawman.
The designs debuted in an exhibition at Gallery Sorgenfri in Oslo
"Now we have been looking for new ways to bring our ideas to form, new places to showcase in, and new ways of approaching design objects," she continued.
"Together we have supported one another in finding our way in design, to find our voices as designers, and to help those voices find form in shape, material, and function."
Ny Normal was on show at Gallery Sorgenfri from 10 to 12 September 2021. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
The collection was on show at 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen
It was informed by the colourful sprays used to mark sheep that roam the countryside, which create patterns that Saville calls "rural graffiti".
The way in which the bright colours stand out against the white wool was replicated in the Technicolour collection, which features upholstery, rugs and curtains.
The designer had worked with Kvadrat before and the company encouraged him to create his own textile collection. Saville then worked with Stine Find Osther, vice president of design at Kvadrat and Dienke Dekker, Kvadrat's design manager for rugs, on the designs.
Technicolour has its origins in Peter Saville's childhood
"It has its origins in my childhood – which is kind of weird for me, this collection is a bit like a biopic – but then came as an observation and as a concept during this period that I've known Kvadrat," Saville told Dezeen.
"It was about the way sheep are marked in the fields to distinguish ownership. I would look at this and it looked like graffiti in the countryside."
Rugs, upholstery and curtains all feature different interpretations of the design
Seeing the colour used on sheep, Saville described it as "quite loose and random-looking", and thought of how it could be adapted to work on fabrics.
"I started to think, what would happen if those colours weren't washed out?" he said. "What if they made their way through the entire industrial process as a kind of rogue, random agent in the machine?"
Sheer curtains were shown in Kvadrat's showroom
The resulting collection features this concept realised in a number of different ways – as sheer, almost neon-coloured curtains, shaggy white rugs with bright tufts of colour, and even a discrete upholstery fabric in grey with flecks of other colours.
The way in which the sheep are marked, with one colour that denotes who the owner is and other colours used to mark things such as lambing and vaccinations, is the whole premise of the project.
But Saville says that, without him noticing it himself, it also ties back to earlier work he has done.
"Someone said to me: 'well, it's colour coding, Peter, isn't it, again?'" he said. "And I thought, I've done colour coding before – I'm quite known for doing colour coding. And yet I hadn't quite seen it as that."
"You do what you do. And there are certain things that you do instinctively and automatically and that's who you are. And this is actually all about colour coding."
Bales of wool were created for the launch
This is the first collection from Kvadrat that is designed by a British designer and uses wool from the UK that has also been woven and dyed in the country.
While Find Osther says the collection has the potential to be commercial, she adds: "We had no rules – it's 100 per cent gut feeling, this collection."
To Saville, seeing the samples come back when the collection was being developed was "like Christmas time," he said.
"It was like a great surprise to see the sampling begin to come back and seeing the whole thing evolve."
Technicolour is Saville's first textile collection
"And some of it was totally unexpected – I mean, the rugs are almost what I imagined in my mind's eye, but these upholstery textiles are much more subliminal; I couldn't imagine this, because I don't understand the processes well enough," Saville said.
"And I did not expect these net curtains. They're kind of phenomenal."
Saville is known for his album cover designs for Manchester-based record label Factory Records, which he began working with in the late 1970s.
Technicolour was launched during 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen, Denmark. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
