‘Design for Life’ a television series broadcast by the BBC in the autumn of 2009 , featured world renowned designer Philippe Starck as he attempts to find the next iconic British designer . The show opens with Starck posing the question ‘Somebody home UK? Is anybody awake?’ Which seems to suggest the real premise of the show is to depict the supposed decline of design in Britain. Starck believes that Britain hasn’t seen a true British design aesthetic since Terrance Conran with Habitat in the 1960’s, but is this the case? To answer this question it’s necessary to first discover what design in Britain once was.
Starck believes the last English style was Terrance Conran, who is a truly iconic designer that revolutionised the British high street. Conran was heavily influenced by Europe, especially France, So what made him quintessentially British? In the book ‘Love Your Home’, Author, Tamsin Blanchard attempts to depict the ethos of Conran at Habitat. The book is published by Conran’s publishing company in association with Habitat and the forward is even written by Tom Dixon, Conran’s replacement at Habitat, which gives the book a biased view, agreeing whole heartedly with the philosophy of Habitat;
‘…the fresh breeze of modernity had not quite arrived in the average living room. But Habitat was to change all that.’
This is, to an extent true, Habitat definitely changed the way people shopped and created a new consumerist attitude to the home interior but they were merely a part of a greater change in society where possessions became symbols of status, it seems arrogant to state ‘Habitat was to change all that’. Of course this deep connection with Habitat also provides the book with benefits.
The book gives great insight into...
... middle of paper ...
...our Home, p. 17
Tamsin Blanchard, Love Your Home, p. 14
Paul Rennie, Design – Festival of Britain 1951, p.9
Paul Rennie, Design – Festival of Britain 1951, p.53
Paul Rennie, Design – Festival of Britain 1951, p.55
Paul Rennie, Design – Festival of Britain 1951, p.49
Paul Rennie, Design – Festival of Britain 1951, p.69
Paul Rennie, Design – Festival of Britain 1951, p.60
Design Museum, Design in Britain, p.7
David Berman, Do Good Design, p.16
Design Museum, Design in Britain, p.42
Design Museum, Design in Britain, p.8
Design Museum, Design in Britain, p.15
Design Museum, Design in Britain, p.15
Design Museum, Design in Britain, p.22
Design Museum, Design in Britain, p.22
David Berman, Do Good Design, p.59
Justin McGuirk, There's no such thing as British design
Justin McGuirk, There's no such thing as British design
“Various animals build shelters but only humans built homes. (Pg. 1)” The word home evokes so many emotions and mental image of past and future. At the end of the day there is no greater comfort then going home. Yet in our daily hustle and bustle and hectic schedule we seldom take time to appreciate the most age old technology that keep us safe and provide comfort. From the basic shelter and cave dwelling of the earliest humans to the modern concrete jungle of the present, humans have move past the simple shelter. Technology has allowed us to build modern homes in various shapes and sizes but this technology follows thousands of years of footstep. The author did not just catalog different structures and domicile of human history but told a story of what these structure means to us. Moore starts off on a dig site searching for archaic structures. Moore explains how humans just don’t build shelter like most animals, human homes signifies social status, comfort, shelter and creativity. Moore uses the famous multimillion dollar house of Aaron Spelling in Hollywood as an example of how extravagant our humble dwelling can be. Human homes are different shapes and sizes and often build with different material and standard based on geographical location. I believe A Prehistory of Homes is a book about the history of technology because it is written about one of the most essential invention of human evolution. Human went from caves to build our own shelter. It allowed us to be mobile and become a foraging creature. The author addresses the most commonly shared interest and provides knowledge, history and relation to past and future of our homes.
In his journal, Thoreau muses upon twenty years of changes in New England’s land and beasts. He lists the differences in plants and animals, comparing them to past accounts and descriptions. He questions if the growing human presence has resulted in “a maimed and imperfect nature.” Cronon believes that this is an important question to consider. He points out that although changes do happen in nature, it is not so easy to determine how they changed. He is also not sure if Thoreau’s description of “a maimed and imperfect nature” is the correct way to refer to ecology, since it is by its essence, a fluid system of changes and reactions. Cronon does not deny the impact of
Lawson, Bryan. How Designers Think: The Design Process Demystified. 4th ed. Oxford: Architectural Press, 2006.
The Conservation movement was a driving force at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was a time during which Americans were coming to terms with their wasteful ways, and learning to conserve what they quickly realized to be limited resources. In the article from the Ladies’ Home Journal, the author points out that in times past, Americans took advantage of what they thought of as inexhaustible resources. For example, "if they wanted lumber for their houses, rails for their fences, fuel for their stoves, they would cut down half a forest at a time; and whatever they could not use or sell they would leave to rot on the ground. They never bothered their heads to inquire where more wood was coming from when this was gone" (33). The twentieth century opened with a vision towards the future, towards preserving the land that had previously been taken for granted. The Conservation movement came along around the same time as one of the first major waves of the feminist movement. With the two struggles going on: one for the freedom of nature and the other for the freedom of women, it stands to follow that they coincided. As homemakers, activists, and citizens of the United States of America, women have had an important role in Conservation.
The advent of industrialization and mankind's insatiable quest to devour nature has resulted in a potentially catastrophic chaos. Our race against time to sate the ever-increasing numbers of hungry stomachs has taken toll on the environment. Man has tried to strip every resource Earth has to offer and has ruthlessly tried to eliminate any obstruction he perceived. Nature is an independent entity which has sustained and maintained the balance existing within it. Traditionally, spring season hosts the complete magnificence of nature in full bloom. It is evident in the very first chapter when Rachel Carson talks about a hypothetical village which was the epitome of natural rural beauty and was a delightful scenery for the beholder. The village
Ray Bradbury uses juxtaposition by contrasting this imaginary world that is set in the twenty-first century to very ordinary actions. Although the house is automated and again, empty, the kitchen is making the ideal breakfast for a family of four, and singing basic nursery rhymes such as “Rain, rain, go away...”. These humanlike events do not compare to the unoccupied house. The description of the house becomes more animalistic and almost oxymoronic when the, “rooms were acrawl with the small cleaning animals, all rubber and metal.” The almost constant cleaning of the tiny robot mice suggest that the previous household was very orderly and precise. Through Bradbury’s description of the outside of the house and its surroundings he indirectly tells the reader about the events that may have occurred. A burnt “silhouette” of the family imprinted on the west wall of the house is the only thing left of them. In the image each person is doing something picking flowers, moving the lawn, playing with a ball. This was a family having a good time, but little did they know the catastrophe they were about to experience would end their
Henry David Thoreau was man of simplicity, and if he were to experience life in Cary, he would not only be surprised, but disappointed in humanity itself. Thoreau believed in the necessities of life, nothing more, and the people of Cary live lives exactly the opposite. Cary residents live lives of material possessions, business, and over-complexity. These traits of society are precisely opposite of Thoreau’s ideals and beliefs. Not only would Thoreau be disappointed, but his eyes would be filled with disgust, every which way he looked in the Town of Cary and it’s people.
In Alain de Botton’s collection of philosophical essays, The Art of Travel and Tim Winton’s short story ‘Neighbours’ the representation of people and landscapes leads us to a greater awareness of the complexity of human attitudes and behaviours. This is explored through the idea that changes in one’s receptivity to the landscape can determine their perspective of it and thus influence their behaviour and attitude towards those people in the landscape.
Lawson, Bryan. How Designers Think: The Design Process Demystified. NY: Architectural Press, 1980, 2007. Massachusetts: NECSI Knowledge Press, 2004.
Frank Lloyd Wright has been called “one of the greatest American architect as well as an Art dealer that produced a numerous buildings, including houses, resorts, gardens, office buildings, churches, banks and museums. Wright was the first architect that pursues a philosophy of truly organic architecture that responds to the symphonies and harmonies in human habitats to their natural world. He was the apprentice of “father of Modernism” Louis Sullivan, and he was also one of the most influential architects on 20th century in America, Wright is idealist with the use of elemental theme and nature materials (stone, wood, and water), the use of sky and prairie, as well as the use of geometrical lines in his buildings planning. He also defined a building as ‘being appropriate to place’ if it is in harmony with its natural environment, with the landscape (Larkin and Brooks, 1993).
Hegeman, J. (2008). The Thinking Behind Design. Master Thesis submitted to the school of design, Carngie Mellon University. Retrieved from: http://jamin.org/portfolio/thesis-paper/thinking-behind-design.pdf.
Abstract: Contemporary architects have a wide variety of sources to gain inspiration from, but this has not always been the case. How did modernism effect sources of inspiration? What did post-modernism do to liberate the choice of influences? Now that Contemporary architects have the freedom of choice, how are they using “traditional” styles and materials to inspire them? Even after modernism why are traditional styles still around?
London: Herbert Press, 2009. Print. The. Rennold Milbank, Caroline. Couture, The Great Designers.
Design has major impact with concerns to environmental qualities. This field is a direct study of the relationship between behaviouristic actions of its inhabitants. Designers constantly interact with people and communicate to solve the needs of their clients regardless of large or small scale projects. Analysis is key in combining creativity with managerial design solutions. These outside-of-the-box designers have the ability to create beautiful, safe and functional and aesthetically pleasing spaces using common factors, designing for communities as well as,
The debate about British Identity has been prominently featured in recent years as a public concern. The foundation of British Identity was based on the act of union in 1801 between England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland that created Great Britain. Heath and Roberts describe this identity as “a relatively recent construct and was gradually superimposed on earlier national identities of English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish” (2008:4). The four nations were unified mainly because of the political and economic project of the British Empire that developed a shared agenda and The Second World War which melted the distinctive differences between the constituent nations (Ward, 2004). According to Colley, the interests that unified the nations do not exist and even if they do” they are less distinctive” (1992). Although there is identification with Britishness, it is noticeable that Britons hold a stronger allegiance to their primary nation. The British Identity is decreasing as many writers suggested, and this is due to many different trends and influences such as globalization, immigration and communication (Heath and Roberts, 2008). This essay highlights some of the reasons of the decline in the British national identity and the rise of the consentient nation’s sentiment. This is approached by firstly considering the internal factors of the devolution of power to Scotland and Wales, and secondly the external factor of immigration and will analyze the relationship between age and identification with a nation.