The Poetry Of Design.

For a couple of days I’ve been reading about “poetry of design”.
And today I went through my photography archive and found these photos I shot in March 2007 in Coimbra, Portugal. They illustrate quite well what for me is design with poetry: it’s not only what the object tells you on its own, or what the “design-artist” wants you to see and believe, but where it is in space, which material is part of it and who actually engages with such spaces/objects in its environment.




How many stories can a space like this tell all of us?

How much poetic can this bench be?

A wish for 2010: lets all revive small industries like the tiles industry.

Tiles (Revival) Inspiration @ Pedrita – Grão

Colour Scheme.

Terrace house plans on a project I’ve posted before.
To see more detail on the plan, please click for larger image.

Ground Floor

Living room

Dining room

Wallpaper detail in the living room

Kitchen detail

First Floor

Main bedroom

Guest bedroom

Hall

To see more photos on these plans, please click on the following links:
The Colour Of Dreams
The Orchid Bedroom
The Green Kitchen
From Portugal With Love

Wander About.

Marcel Wanders is probably one of my favorite designers. His spatial interventions, products and sketches make me really wonder. Everything is quite clean and poetic yet bold.

I truly admire the reality of arts and crafts hand in hand in his design: he gives that personal touch everyone looks for in contemporary design, whether in space or objects.

The Crochet Chair photographed at Design Art Fair, London - 2007

Interesting links:
“Marcel Wanders: Daydreams,” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Marcel Wanders: Behind The Ceiling - The book
“I hate camping… But I love lounging in style” Wanders & Puma

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Concept: A Big Christmas Box.

There’s one thing I love to design and admire: spatial installations and shop windows. I don’t do it for a while, but lately I’ve been driven to design an imaginary shop window (which I’m going to include on my portfolio). Hope you get inspiration from it. I would love to hear from you.


A space styled with layers and layers of tulle and knitted snowflakes.

To keep the knitted snowflakes they’ve to be attached on cardboard.

The idea is to have a light bulb in the centre of each snowflake.

An imaginary christmas box full of tulle and knitted snowflakes in white and red.

Materials: White and red tulle. Wool. Cardboard. Light bulb. Lead strings.









Click for larger image

A story behind this 2D christmas styling: when I was in primary school I (we) had a class about christmas tree decoration. We had to choose one of the two (and of course to say why): a super well decorated one and another one with no deco but a star on the very top. Somehow, I feel the styling for this window started when I remembered this class I had many many years ago.

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Louis Vuitton: Art, Fashion and Architecture

Quite often I get inspiration from fashion design and when I saw this book in the V&A Bookshop I thought “another fashion book, lets flick it through…”. But actually it’s not another one. It’s a fantastic compilation of projects Louis Vuitton did in collaboration with architects like Shiguro Ban, artists like James Turrell and product designers like Ron Arad.


“A symbol of elegance and the french art de vivre, Louis Vuitton has cultivated a close relationship with the world of art since its founding in 1854.
LV’s interest in the arts grew sure strength in the 1980’s when it began working with painters like César, Sol LeWitt and Olivier Debré.
Collaborations between LV and other artist have taken a variety of forms: shop window design, site-specific art installations for stores, exhibitions at the Espace Culturel on the top floor of the Champs-Élysées flagship store, and the acquisitions of new works for the house’s own collection.
Louis Vuitton: Art, Fashion and Architecture offers a critical selection of the creative exchanges between LV and an ever-growing list of artists, architects, photographers and designers.” – Edited Preface (published by Rizzoli New York).

Shop window design at Selfridges, November 2009 London (day time).

Shop window design at Sloane Street, November 2009 London (night time).





My favourite object/space from LV - The Travel Trunks (since 1854) and the Wardrobe created in 1875.

Zaha Hadid interpreting the bucket. (Exhibition in the Design Museum, London)




Interesting Links:
LVMH Group
LV Journeys Awards

I would love to see a collaboration between LV and Richard Serra, probably my #1 spatial artist.

A White Knitted Christmas.

Few ideas for this year's Christmas decorations: knitted white flowers everywhere.


Organza, feathers, embroidery, brocades and crystals – Inspiration I got from the new Ralph Lauren winter collection.


Materials to go with the flowers: crystals, glass, velvet, madre-of-pearl and lots of tulle.






















Knitted flowers by Eliana.

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The Victoria and Albert Museum Refreshment Rooms – London.

The Morris, Gamble and Poynter Refreshment Rooms.

"These three rooms formed the first museum restaurant in the world. They were intended as a showpiece of modern design, craftsmanship and manufacturing. Although they were functional spaces, the Refresment Rooms belonged to the museum’s public face, so they were also given some extremely lavish decorations." – V&A

Centre Refreshment Room (now Gamble Room).

Clad in ceramic tiles on the walls.

Windows designed by James Gamble.



Enamelled iron on the ceiling.

These chandeliers are the perfect marriage between 19th and 21st Century, as if it's the diamond on top of the cake.





If you’re planning to come to London or already here, take a couple of hours and enjoy a nice cup of tea in this beautiful and inspiring space. On Saturdays there’s always someone playing the piano. Enjoy.

Next time I’ll post photos on the Morris and Poynter Refreshment Rooms.