DESIGN NEWS 257

('02.3.10)

Feature:
Here the brave Japanese Independent 11

Fold-up Family and Designers' NGO-New Works by Peter Opsvik

Bring back real human feelings - Design of the “Music Cell System”

Legend of Hans Gugelot in Memento

What sort of people are designers, and what are the qualities specifically required from them?
Some time ago Design News did a feature on design creation in the networking era (Design News No. 248, 1999). The impression we received when we were working on this feature was that individual abilities would increasingly be subject to reassessment as the networking era progressed. Put differently, the networking era requires individuals who are able to perform as links between a variety of networks.
Design is an activity that involves consideration of a wide range of environment, involving society and economy. It's the task of designers to provide all kinds of solutions employing their own individual methods to solve the problems facing the age. This is why it's so important for designers to exert their capacity while standing at the points of interconnection between various situations.
The eleven designers we focus on in this feature are all freelancers with the capacity to perform this interconnecting role. We focus on outstanding independent designers and creators now in their thirties and, in the form of interviews, look at their activities as manifest in their most recent work and at their ideas as evident in their expression, mind, approach and business strategy.

Noriko Kawakami, design journalist, and Design News

People move a lot nowadays. They often have little space, and many people live alone. In some places they might be refused the right to keep pets. So how about a fold-up family, dogs and all, that can serve as tables and stools and can hang on the wall when not in use?
Peter Opsvik is a Norwegian designer well known especially for his designs such as the “Tripp Trapp” chair and “Balance Variable. His “Nomadi” series is fold-up furniture made of plywood and birch featuring Mum, Dad, kids, the dog, and even fish. “Nomadi is a result of a design process I started on in the early 90s,” says Opsvik. “I wanted to make furniture suitable for people who move often. It had to be lightweight, it had to be fold-up and flat for space-saving storage, and it had to be easy to assemble quickly.”
In this article we take a look at the “Nomadi” series and the “Swing” series of new furniture designed by Peter Opsvik. We also look at Opsvik's activities-quite different from his activities in the field of furniture design-in Guatemala City in connection with the design NGO “Design Without Borders”.

Line Valen, freelance design writer

“What does it mean to say that objects are able to enrich human beings? Can people be enriched if objects are square-shaped, easy to look after, multi-functional and if they are capable of virtually anything? Does affluence make people lazy? Expression enriches people. If this is true, it is an important point for design. This is because, although there may be differences as regards relationships with objects and people, it is an absolute fact that communication exists between them. There are bound to be reasons for why someone is laughing or why they are feeling sad. Just as these reasons enrich human feelings, there is a need for expression in the forms and functions of objects that makes the user aware of these reasons. This expression should stimulate the user's mind and enrich his emotions.”
The industrial designer Yukichi Anno began to entertain doubts about how products were being made in companies and to think about what being a designer should mean and what it means to make things and make them available to the outside world. These are of course questions that do not allow generalized answers. But in order to follow up on this line of thought, Anno decided to leave Japan for a while and to pursue a master's degree in industrial design at Central Saint Martins in London.
In this report, Yukichi Anno looks back on the three years he spent Central Saint Martins and describes the design of the “Music Cell System” that he submitted as his work for graduation.

Yukichi Anno, Industrial Designer, Anno Associates Inc.

Hans Gugelot did not leave an enormous quantity of works, but those he did leave to posterity were milestones that had a decisive influence on product design during the 20th century. He remains overshadowed by his colleagues and contemporaries such as Max Bill, Otl Aicher and Dieter Rams. Gugelot was born in Indonesia in 1920 and raised in the Netherlands and Switzerland. He studied architecture at the ETH in Zuerich. From 1948 until 1950 he worked under Max Bill in Zuerich. In 1954 he was invited by Bill to teach at a newly founded design institution, the College of Design at Ulm in Germany. As a teacher at this college, Hans Gugelot later acquired enormous influence and importance in the world of design.
Takeshi Nishizawa, president of the GK group, was one of the few Japanese designers who were actually taught directly by Gugelot at the Ulm College of Design. In this article, we interview Takeshi Nishizawa, who offers heart-warming comments on Hans Gugelot's personality, his attitude and approach to design, and on one of his most well-known works, the Braun “SK-4” radio.

Takeshi Nishizawa, President, GK Design Group Inc.