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DMY International Design Festival Berlin 2012

The retired Airport Berlin Tempelhof was the setting of this year’s International Design Festival in Berlin. From 6 to 10 June over 500 designers, firms and design institutions were brought together to celebrate the festival’s 10th anniversary with intriguing projects, pioneering products, prototypes and material innovations.

Showcasing unconventional materials, sustainable products and changing developments of current product design, the massive exhibition shed a special light upon the processes and concepts that lead to the final designs. The festival featured since day 1 the New Talents division, also known as the DMY Youngsters, allowing young designers, students or graduates to exhibit their visionary projects and share their design approaches with the public.

The exhibition not only greeted the guests with a wide range of products, it also hosted various symposia, designer talks and workshops, with focus on contemporary design and future trends.

Moreover, the most innovative projects were awarded, gaining worldwide acknowledgement. For the first time in the festival’s history, this edition hosted the official Designpreis der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Germany’s most prestigious design award.

Supplementing the central exhibitions, about 40 contemporary design settings (galleries, museums and design institutions all over Berlin) invited the festival visitors to satellite showcases. Another first this year was the Nightshift – June 7 was the date when, for the first time, design studios and ateliers opened their doors all night long and greeted festival visitors with product launches, concerts and studio tours.

With its increased diversity in designers and products, this year’s DMY festival proved to be a valuable industry event with a thorough programme and a widely significant international exchange of ideas. Here are some of the projects we like the most:

ATELIER YEA-YEA: FROM THIS TO THESE – PROGRESSIVE COPYING (Eindhoven, The Netherlands)

Inspiration can come in many forms.

For Niko, it came with a picture of an ancient Buddhist drum from Japan that she encountered in a book. This sparked a quest to take the drum’s core characteristics such as its shape, decorative patterns and its context, and use them to explore endless new possibilities. The resultant project ›From This to These: Progressive Copying‹ reinterprets the same artifact in countless different ways – that all eventually lead to a fictional picnic set. Despite the many imaginative transformations, all the designs still evoke the same age-old, ritualistic aura of the original drum.

DXD: RECANVAS (Tainan, Taiwan)

DxD noticed that in Taiwan numerous outdoor advertisements are printed on tarpaulins. However, once out-of-date, the tarpaulins simply become non-recyclable trash, generating waste and environmental problems. Therefore, the team recycled the tarpaulins and explored various means of expanding their utilitarian function and possibilities. The resulting experiments engendered research on the constitutive characteristics of tarpaulins and the production of new, experimental prototypes. Through understanding tarpaulins, the team explored the physical material with a novel perspective. The results of this work offer new, fresh and environmentally sound possibilities for negotiating the „afterlife“ of discarded tarpaulins.

AMIR RAVEH – NAGARYA: PATCHWORK FURNITURE (Tel Aviv, Israel)

Amir Raveh established Nagarya in 1997 as a design workshop for furniture and carpentry. In addition to the general output of the studio, Amir creates one-off pieces, integrating reuse of workshop leftovers and discarded furniture parts alongside new materials – resulting in a collage of old and new, shape, color, material and space.

WOODEN, BERLIN (Germany)

Under the name *wooden* Peter Rohnke presents items of furniture that combine classic materials with a contemporary edge. Innovative design and traditional craftsmanship are fusioned in custom made pieces or small series of furniture that enhance the room without dominating it. *Wooden* stands for modern furniture with a twist that is equally aesthetic and functional.

HANS SAPPERLOT: SMOK (Vienna, Austria)

Smocking is a traditional technique usually used for kitschy pillows or in fashion. The series ›smock‹ consists of a chair, carpets, and several lights. Based on a raster, different three-dimensional patterns are generated. The width of fabrics is limited by the capacity of production machines, but through smocking it becomes possible to create ›never ending surface‹. Sutures disappear underneath the voluminous structure. More than this, smock takes over cushioning. The effects extend to both, chairs and carpets, rendering them comfortable and visually dynamic.

GIJS VAN GEMERDEN: FUR AGAINST FLYING (Netherlands)

Dutch designer Gijs van Gemerden launches his debut design ›FUR against flying‹ – a luxurious chaiselongue made from old airplane seats and vintage fur coats – at the DMY International Design Festival. Gijs van Gemerden will also take part at the Open Talks on Friday.

ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS IN WARSAW: LESS (Warsaw, Poland)

»Less« is an exhibition of student and graduate works from two departments of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Industrial Design and Interior Architecture, organized by the Academic Center for Entrepreneurship. »Less« applies to reduced usage of materials, visual minimalism, the reduction of the design’s parts to a necessary minimum which results in an increase of functional, applied, aesthetic and formal possibilities. The exhibition indicates that the maxim ›less is more‹ is still up-to-date.

2PEA OY / TARMO LUISK / SEASICKSEAHORSE: GAMES WITH FIRE (Tallinn, Estonia)

The project Games with Fire is a collection of design pieces that depict people’s various fears such as fear of death, loneliness, midlife crisis, burnout, unfulfilled dreams and expectations. However, all of these are depicted using good-nature humor and strong self-irony. The ultimately positive and optimistic message of this project is to call attention to the main values in life and how to appreciate them to the fullest extent.