VIEW Newsletter - August 08

Following the recent opening of the Olympics the second big countdown of the year has begun, with only six weeks to September 21 and the opening of the 31st Decorex International. More international than ever and with hundreds of new products and services from home technology solutions to bespoke furniture and unique furnishings, Decorex is set to break more records this Autumn. Preview now the stunning entrance by John Stefanidis and just some of the new lighting designs to be launched......

Ian Thompson
Editor

Smart Home
Illuminating Decorex
Made To Order

Smart Home

New technology has added another dimension to the designer’s brief wherever in the world they happen to be working. The visual impact of TV screens and sound systems need to be considered. Central control units that manage everything in the house from opening and closing of blinds to turning on the oven are becoming requested more and more. Some clients will want the latest thing in technology – smart floor tiles that can sense when someone is standing on them and can email a digital photograph of an intruder to the authorities while triggering an alarm – and they will expect their designer to be as up to speed on these developments as they are. British interior designer Fiona Barratt, who has recently transformed a lodge in Verbier for Richard Branson, understands the importance of technology integration: “It is difficult to avoid cluttering up the ceiling with various items required for audio/visual kits - I try to use square or rectangular ceiling speakers that you can paint to match your ceiling colour. With freestanding speakers we try to build them into existing units or new units that are gong to be installed. I use a lot of dark wood which cleverly camouflages the speaker cloth. And for sky boxes, I always conceal these in specially designed units – the system is then worked remotely.” But there is no doubt that the 'wall and ceiling acne' created by a multitude of flat speakers isn’t the ideal answer. Thankfully, Kensington Home Technology is setting an aesthetic trend with their stunning KHT collection combining high quality sound systems within a beautiful decorative accessory. With many of the cutting edge designs created in Italy, this is about style with a capital ‘S’. Gibson Music Limited are thinking along the same lines creating complete ‘all home automation’ systems with lighting, cinema and music masterminded from one high-tech portal. Speakers are heard and not seen using a combination of forward thinking and architecturally aesthetic materials able to transmit sound. They are determined to make visible speakers a thing of the past, and if their predictions are anything to go by, our homes will become a nerve centre of communication in the future. There will be no reason to leave home other than to visit Decorex International.

Illuminating Decorex

Washi Lamps, Biden Designs

The requirement for several different types of illumination within each room means that the choice in lighting design just gets bigger and bigger. It’s fast attracting wow-factor status with every room in the home benefiting from an iconic piece, or pair for that matter, be they for ambient or task purposes.

Best & Lloyd are a good barometer on what’s happening in lighting. Managing Director Sam Woodward picks up the subject. “We are launching forty new designs at Decorex. We are proud to be making the complete collection here in the UK, and the company will be majoring on exciting materials such as rock crystal, bronze and cast metal for a very different, more organic look”.

Heathfield & Co are working in a similar vein to Best & Lloyd as Donna Gridley, Sales and Design Director explains. “We are working with metallics and satins on quite organic forms”.
Artisan maker Eriko Horiko, working in collaboration with Biden Designs, is going all out organic, and working in the ancient art of Japanese papermaking for his lighting collection. The washi (handmade Japanese paper), made to some 20 metres across, is cut and shaped into unique lighting ‘sculptures’. Combined with glass and resin, these natural materials take on a truly natural form. An inventive, design-led way to get closer to nature.

Made To Order

If you hear the word ‘bespoke’ and all it brings to mind is a Savile Row suit then step into the 21st Century. The interior design world has been pulling at those finely woven threads of impeccably tailored suits for decades and weaving them into custom made blankets, rugs, cushions and curtains – each of which are perfectly in line with customers specifications. It’s not only fabrics however which are being tailored to fit, but entire rooms full of furniture which meet the demands of a client in terms of size, materials and finish. Many of the companies presenting their collections at Decorex see the bespoke side of their business becoming increasingly important.

John Stefanidis, who is designing the Sloane Square entrance lobby at Decorex International 2008, takes the lead by collaborating with some of the show’s most exciting bespoke companies for the lobby’s concept. About to get the OK on the design from Stefanidis, Blenheim Carpets will be creating 80 square metres of one hundred per cent Axminster carpet in ’pools of colour’.

With Stefanidis taking the ‘Celebration of London’ as his theme, he has turned to regular exhibitor, Ben Whistler, to interpret a favourite sofa, no less than 3 metres wide and covered in red leather with blue saddlestitching.

Working along the same design lines as the bespoke furniture manufacturer, Godrich DesignCollective are pulling out all the stops with two of their designers presenting their own particular brand of bespoke for the feature area. Drew Whitemore will be creating a large and impressive lightbox for a wall installation depicting the London skyline, and Amanda Brisbane will be topping resplendent posts flanking the entrance doors with her very individual, bespoke flames of glass.

And when there’s talk of crystal and bespoke, Spina is never very far away. Robbie Spina and Joe Zito will be installing floor to ceiling ‘pillars of light’. Constructed on 1-metre diameter frames, each 1.8m long strand of the finest 30 per cent lead crystals will be hand-curled (a traditional fixing technique that is painstakingly slow) before the final installation masterminded by Robbie and Joe takes place the day before the show.