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Friendly Furniture or ‘no harm’ design

Maybe it’s us. Maybe it’s a trend: Friendly Furniture. At the Milan Design week 2018 we saw too many, too much:
Sofa’s disguised as Barbapapa. (from tacchini.it)
Rounded corners and edges; chairs, cupboards and even scissors seemed unharmful (as in babyproof).
Disproportional furniture and accessoiries making you feel small-sized. And, on top of it all; many of these designs are produced in pastel colors. (and in 70s like orange/brown colorschemes)

Milan Design Week 2018: Friendly Furniture

tachini/ Jonas Wagell

JCP/Matteo Cibic

Moroso

Mattiazzi/Inga Sempé

Magis/Marcel Wanders

Emeco/Jasper Morrison

Driade

Vitra

Bossa

Hay x Sonos

Kyukyodo [ incense ] × GamFratesi

Marcelis/Handmade industrials

Oh: we almost forgot to mention the peaceful incense in the shape of a dove!

By the time we saw a presentation smiling at us we had enough of it; and longed for the next trend in line: which we predict will be no-fun, black, shiny and hard: furniture with edges designed to look uncomfortable and nasty!

PS:
Of course there is ‘no-fun’ design to be found; but it’s not yet fully descended, style und trendwise. Also a more divers colorscheme than the ‘baby-pastels’ were presented: we just feel that this trend is the most found in ‘design-land’ for the longest time.

Odeum

The presentation by the brand JPC at Milan Design Week 2018 was named ‘Odeum’ (That means, in ancient Greece and Rome: “a theatre for musical performances”.) This presentation is worth mentioning because it was fun! JPC created a make-belief, “metaphysical theatre”. (I’m not going to dive deep into that, sorry: please surf to JPC Universe for the full story.)

Double Identity

From what I gather from the site, in a tiny nutshell: JCP gives new meaning to everyday-life objects. It actually really was an interesting walk up and down the steps in the darkness of this presentation. There was a lot to discover in each piece of furniture; for instance, the pink blob with golden embellishments has a surprise element: it’s a cupboard. That sounds simple but it’s not: it’s so well made that you’d never guess the thing has doors.

Justine, cupboard, designed by Matteo Cibic

justine haiku, written by Alistair Gentry

Sun Ra Lamp, designed by Nanda Vigo

Belmer, couch, designed by Matteo Cibic

belmer haiku, written by Alistair Gentry

Herma, Rapunza, Wandadesigned by Richard Yasmine

Wanda, designed by Richard Yasmine

Haiku written by Alistair Gentry

Venny, tables designed by Matteo Cibic

Obscene

Also; the products are named after girls and gods, except for the couch: Belmer. According to the Urban Dictionairy Belmer means “A man who loves shoving large items such as bowling pins up his ass.” (Used in a sentence: “He is such a belmer I caught him putting a baseball bat up his ass.”) I’m not quite sure if that’s the Belmer Matteo Cibic had in mind when he named his couch, but it could be. The ‘Justine’ cupboard, also designed by Cibic, is quite a sensual piece of work as well, so are the other designs in this presentation. Continue reading →