The sunshine yellow buckets synonymous with the Icon Design Trail guides have begun to pop up from every urban orifice around Shoreditch. Design Festival fever has officially hit London.
East London plays host to Tent London, Superbrands and The Tramshed which host a mixture of emerging and established designers works alongside bluechip brands.
Two auctions have caught my attention to date: This Way Up celebrates 15 years of the British Council’s Architecture Design Fashion team on Pitfield Street - mixing Shoreditch edge design store/bookshop with Bethnal Green bonkers jumble sale, its silent auction is selling past works and materials to raise funds for a new design fellowship. Meanwhile at Designers Block The Auction Room takes a swerve from the classic auction format: potential buyers are asked to barter with objects rather than offer money, it will be intriguing to see what the designers decide is fair exchange for their works.
In West London, design insitution the V&A features a large scale installation by the Bouroullec Brothers for Kvadrat Textile Field which I think more than previous years will provide a very physical change of experience to the building - in the Raphael Court.
The Power of Making celebrates the act of creating and sets outs its delectable specimens for visitors to observe. Another intriguing event is Chi Tek - a group of female makers have modified, hacked and enhanced tea pots - I love the fact that technology, still such a male feeling domain can be given a more feminine sensibility. Just around the corner is the Brompton Design District: Methods of Imitations sets out objects as visual discussions - what role does referencing, appropriation and borrowing plays in the design process and how are new narratives shaped by the past and familiar? What changes to make something new? And finally, Enlightened Waste, Marion Friedmann Gallery showcases chandeliers and light sculptures made from waste packaging - plastic bottles and expanded polystrene by French-Mexican designer Thierry Jennot and Austrian artist Gisela Stiegler respectively.
