Simon Keane-Cowell News

Why do manufactured products look the way they do? Often it’s practical necessity. Sometimes it’s aesthetic tradition. In the case of sanitaryware, it’s due historically to the materials limits of Vitreous China and Fine Fire Clay. Enter

More statements from some of our Architonic's most valued members, partners and friends during this, our tenth anniversary year. It's all about you, guys._

Nominated for this year's Design Prize Switzerland, Zurich-based designer Beat Karrer's material innovation FluidSolids, with its strong ecological credentials and impressive programmability, is poised to give traditional materials like metal and

The annual London Design Festival, now with over 300 city-wide events, reflects the British capital's status as an international creative hub. But it also provides a platform for scores of indigenous designer-makers – both individuals and brands

For a colourless, odourless gas, CO2 packs a punch. It now accounts for 76% of all greenhouse-gas emissions. So how do you communicate to a fair-going public the relative merits of different materials when it comes to carbon emissions? Materials

Feeling a little bit lost? It's no surprise, really. As populations grow, cities expand, international travel increases and we all work (and live) harder and faster, it seems that there are ever more new and complex terrains to navigate. Enter a

Major demographic shifts, including an ageing population and the increase in a younger workforce, present serious challenges for the office landscape. What do the different generations who come together to work want and need from their office

There's a long tradition of architectural photography presenting viewers with depopulated spaces – interior and exterior landscapes, devoid of the very users for which they have been designed. Celebrated Dutch photographer IWAN BAAN's unparalleled

With an increase in international travel predicted for 2013, on the heels of a rebound for hoteliers last year, the hotel industry is looking more than ever for ways to make the visitor experience a memorable and profitable one. Enter striking

Architonic isn't just a virtual showcase of products and materials. It's an international community, made up of real people. This year sees ten years of Architonic, so we asked some of our valued members, partners and friends to say a few words about

Materials Council has been busy. Founded in partnership with Architonic in 2012, the leading London-based consultancy has proved in a mere nine months its expertise and relevance to architects, manufacturers and business, providing indispensable

As the world's busiest revolving door, New York is no stranger to new cultural sights and influences. This year's New York Design Week saw a raft of Latin American designers and design collectives exhibit their highly polished and conceptually

With economic contraction giving way in the US to a period of sustained growth, it’s little surprise that this year’s ICFF in New York – under new management – was the most confident edition in some time. Architonic, which is strategically

When was the last time a building won an award for the way it sounds? Architecture, and by extension society, has long privileged the visual over the aural. Yet a number of architects are starting to think and design in a more complete sensory way,

In eight short years, Belgrade Design Week has put the Serbian capital on the creative map, playing annual host to an unmissable pow-wow of the finest creative minds around.

With an expanded North American sales team, a bigger presence at this year's ICFF in New York, and two brand-new apps – 'Best American Design Brands' and 'Best Canadian Design Brands' – Architonic has gone all transatlantic.

Need more light in your life? The second part of Architonic's survey of high-end lighting design from this year's Euroluce fair in Milan should provide the illumination you're looking for.

We may live in somewhat gloomy times, but this year’s confident edition of Euroluce – the biennial international lighting showcase at the Milan Salone del Mobile – shone brighter than an old-fashioned 100-Watt light bulb.

No one provides you with as an exhaustive and detailed photographic coverage of the annual Milan Furniture Fair as Architonic. On this we pride ourselves. If you weren't able to make it to the 2013 edition of the mother of all design trade fairs,

Looking, now more than ever, for ways of adding value to its products, there’s a renaissance of craft-based thinking within design manufacturing taking place. Where better to see this trend presented and discussed than in Milan’s leading design

Many hands make light work, goes the old saying. Many new LED producers also make the creative possibilities of working with such a fast-changing technology exciting, thanks to the proliferation of products they bring to the market. But, for lighting

Three score old and in rude health: the iF design gold awards, handed out to a painstakingly selected, international cohort of companies at the recent Munich Creative Business Week for their outstanding products, is looking to the future.

The spring of architectural creativity is in full flow, with a number of offices internationally adding value to the age-old practice of therapeutic bathing. Here's our selection of the best of the latest spa and wellness architecture. Go ahead. The

The biggest, the fastest, the smartest. When it comes to marketing-speak, there's nothing like a superlative to liven things up. Best of Best – the annual exhibition held at imm cologne of the category winners from the Interior Innovation Award

Head north and you'll find a thriving design culture where the level of consideration given to the way things look, feel and work isn't determined by their scale. Be they housing projects, chairs or taps, the Scandinavian approach to design continues

System furniture did what it's wont to do at this year's imm cologne: expand. A number of new and innovative furniture programmes, modular in nature, were shown alongside augmented and reworked old favourites. It's all about joined-up thinking.

If you think textile design is, well, a little two-dimensional, think again. Contemporary producers of high-quality woven materials for interiors are busy exploring all sorts of innovative directions in terms of materials, processes and applications.

More than 500 young and emerging designers have taken to the [D3] Design Talents stage at the Cologne Furniture Fair over the past ten years, presenting their ideas in prototype form to both an industry and a general audience. Architonic takes a look

Everything changes, so they say. But should it? What about decades-old, often iconic designs? Should they be preserved, as it were, their contemporary production remaining ‘true’ in every respect to the ‘original’? Or ought manufacturers be

In spite of the rise of e-commerce, the physical point of sale is still with us. That said, the traditional store is having to up its game in terms of the experience and brand relevance it offers consumers – not only to compete with online shopping

In the grand, teleological narrative of design, things are developed to make our lives increasingly better. New forms, materials and technological innovations are introduced, self-justifying, attended by a clarity of function and value. But what

More often than not, office architecture can be, well, a little inward-looking. Shut out the outside world and focus staffers' attention on their building's interior spaces and you'll keep them focused on their work. Right? Wrong. The OperAlp/SALEWA

If the Slow Design movement were looking for a poster boy, Ask Emil Skovgaard would undoubtedly be on the shortlist. Treading a fine and virtuosic line between design, craft and art, the Copenhagen-based creative’s work is, among other things, an

We'd like to talk to you about a delicate matter. The toilet. The WC. The lavatory. However you choose to refer to it, we all require regular access to this most prosaic of environments. Which is why it's refreshing to see a number of recent public

Lighting always has to work harder when it's deployed in underground spaces. But when the space in question is a museum one, where the considered illumination of its exhibits is key – not to mention their protection against the potentially damaging

When it came to launching their latest family of products, high-end Swiss bathroom manufacturer decided to buck the trend for the ultra-rational and focus on building on the softer, timeless design language of its earlier Palomba collection. The

Architonic's commitment to making the research and planning process as painless and effective as possible takes a major step forward through its new partnership with number-one visualisation-software developers Eastern Graphics. We're delighted to

White. But not as you know it. Newly launched creative materials consultancy Materials Council's inaugural show at this year's Super Brands London neatly demonstrated that there's more than meets the eye when it comes to that most pure of colours.

While the London Design Festival's big-top design destinations, such as Super Brands London, Tent, designjunction and 100% Design pulled large crowds, a number of design brands used their city showrooms as spaces for serving up fascinating slices of

Architonic is proud to announce the launch of Materials Council – a new partner company in which it has a significant participation – at the London Design Festival, September 2012.

It's forty years since the love-it-or-hate-it, style-driven phenomenon that was postmodernism first emerged in architectural practice, soon manifesting itself in design, art, fashion and music. The V&A's major new show, 'Postmodernism: Style and

Having received the brief to plan and design a new state capital for the Punjab, Le Corbusier, true to form, delivered a striking urban entity that's a veritable 'Gesamtkunstwerk'. A forthcoming exhibition at the Galerie Anton Meier in Geneva of the

A number of recently completed kindergarten projects have proved that designing user-centred environments for the more diminutive among us shouldn't be at odds with creating highly expressive structures. Architonic takes a look at a selection of

If music be the food of love, then where better to dine out than a world-class concert hall or opera house? Here, Architonic examines a number of recently completed architectural projects that perform as hard as the artists who take to their stages.

When young British designer Samuel Wilkinson set out to redesign the standard low-energy light bulb, with the aim of making it work just as hard aesthetically as it does environmentally, he was in for a long trek. Journeying beyond the safe and

A retrospective of the work of industrial-design master Kenneth Grange at London's Design Museum celebrates the prolific designer's contribution to shaping British material culture, while encouraging us to think about the purpose and responsibilities

Punching above its weight, the respected Belgian design biennale Interieur, held in the small town of Kortrijk since 1968, has always thought big. What it lacks in scale, it makes up for in discernment and ambition. 'We saw how international and

Behind every great design there's a great designer. But, more often than not, there are a number players involved. Meet Claus Mølgaard, the go-to Danish design engineer whose work on products for the likes of Ron Arad and the Bouroullec Brothers

She may elect to spell her name all lower case, but matali crasset's work is big on concept and ambition. Yet, the Paris-based designer, who's collaborated with the likes of Established & Sons and Pallucco, insists she's not that interested in

In the third of our series of interviews from this year's Milan Furniture Fair with some of the creative industries' leading figures, we meet Lorenza Luti, marketing and retail director of established Italian brand Kartell, which, after 50 years in

In the second of our series of four interviews with four leading design figures from this year's Milan Furniture Fair, Architonic meets Alessandro Mendini – designer, architect, writer, theorist and all-round provocateur. Mendini, who turns 80 this

Excuse me. Have you got a light? No? Well, maybe you should have visited this year's edition of Euroluce, the international lighting fair that rides pillion with the Milan Salone Internazionale del Mobile. But not to worry. Architonic has made a

In the first of four interviews from the 2011 Milan Salone Internazionale del Mobile with four very different figures from the creative world – an internationally celebrated architect, a grand master of Italian design, a strongly concept-led

'Awards come and go,' says Benjamin Hubert. 'They're not a mark of good design, that's for sure.' You'd be forgiven for thinking that there's more than a touch of false modesty or disingenuity at work here, given the celebratory press coverage the

It's somewhat fitting, given the almost lyric quality of his name, that Canadian-born designer Yorgo Lykouria should be interested in reintroducing the poetic into everyday life. His latest product for premium bathroom brand Alape is a wash basin

Put a group of designers, curators and design writers in a room and what do you get? The Dornbracht Conversations. The third annual platform for intelligent dialogue on the state of design, past, present and future, hosted by German design

Shuffling off this mortal coil is something we all, sadly, have to do. There's no opting out. But while mortality might be a great leveller, a number of architects have shown recently how designing environments that process death – be it in

With ISH Frankfurt 2011 – the leading international trade fair for all things bathroom – about to open its doors, Architonic takes a look at just some of the new products that will be on show. We've kept it clean.

Few design brands evoke as much warmth on the part of consumers as the heritage-steeped Finnish company Artek, currently celebrating 75 years in business. Co-founded in 1935 by the hero of Scandinavian modernism Alvar Aalto, Artek has certainly

With thermal under-apparel in place, Architonic ventured forth from the exhibition halls of the Koelnmesse during this January's imm cologne to visit Passagen – the ever-growing programme of off-fair exhibitions and events in showrooms, galleries,

'Regrets, I've had a few,' sang Sinatra in his classic ballad 'My Way', while Piaf famously insisted that she regretted absolutely nothing. Somewhere between these two lies Ronan Bouroullec, one half of the distinguished French go-to design duo, the

Punching well above their weight this year at imm cologne were the young guns exhibiting in the sixth edition of the [D3] Design Contest, the platform for emerging international design talent. Here, we talk to one of the two joint-winners, Harry

'Maybe I don't like objects.' It's not every day you hear such a statement from a designer, particularly one as celebrated as Tokujin Yoshioka, who was recognised as A&W Designer of the Year 2011 during this year's imm cologne, But, then again,

Ireland is in a reflective mood these days. With the island nation on the edge of Europe facing up to the reality of a severely damaged economy and a decimated construction industry, nostalgia is doing what it's wont to do.

It's fair to say that certain countries have, over the years, been more successful than others in terms of marketing a distinctive and compelling national design identity abroad. The very human kind of modernism expressed in the furniture of postwar

Robin Day, one of Britain's greatest designers, whose illustrious career spanned seven decades, dies at the age of 95

His very first furniture design – for established American brand Bernhardt Design – is an exercise in form follows comfort. Once you're sitting on Jephson Robb's new 'Amri' chair, it's seriously hard to get up again. This invitation to stay put

'Emerging', 'the ones to watch' and 'the stars of tomorrow' are just some of the labels that have been applied of late to young London-based architectural practice Carmody Groarke. Founded just four years ago, the studio has more than proved its

Another year over. But don't get all misty-eyed. Apply that retrospection to some engaging design instead. Two exhibitions currently running, one at Les Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the other at the offices of MariniPandolfi/Comet in Florence, look

Imagine, as a manufacturer, that your potential market is two billion consumers worldwide. This almost inconceivable figure is the ultimate scale of d.light's ambition, a consumer-products company set up by a pair of social entrepreneurs in 2007 to

Ancient city. Contemporary design practice. Jerusalem's inaugural week-long design festival foregrounds once more Israel's conceptually confident and steadily growing design scene.

In his analysis of how pleasure works, Freud argued that repetition – the act of doing or experiencing something over and over again – can, in its compulsiveness, be highly enjoyable. The grandaddy of psychoanalysis might, in that case, have

In the (unfortunate) hierarchy of design disciplines – just ask any architect and they'll confirm this – textile design has traditionally occupied a less-than-superior position. Spanish-born Londoner Cristian Zuzunaga has been troubling the

Respected British designer Jasper Morrison has learnt many things in the course of his career. For example, how to design products that create 'atmosphere', as he describes it, yet have longevity, and how to ignore the marketing machine that would

Alain Berteau is often told by journalists that he is representative of Belgian design. He's not so sure. Architonic caught up with architect-designer Berteau at the Interieur 2010 design biennale to discuss his latest work, the trouble with defining

He's big in Belgium. And increasingly elsewhere, thanks to him being named Designer of the Year by prestigious design biennale Interieur 2010. Bram Boo's furniture designs delight and challenge in equal measure with their chaotic, often ironic,

British furniture designer Matthew Hilton's work manages to walk that very fine line between restraint and expressiveness. It's probably why his designs, offering as they do a kind of reassurance, are so respected by so many. But the path hasn't

Already a contemporary classic, French designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance's 'Corvo' chair for US manufacturer Bernhardt Design is certainly no flash-in-the-pan object to be consumed briefly and then forgotten. Highly considered in terms of its design

This year's London Design Festival, now in its eighth year, was not only bigger than ever, it was also more international in complexion, with a significant number of non-British brands exhibiting in their permanent showrooms, in pop-up spaces and at

If any fair is going to give Milan a run for its money in terms of a passion for high-end design and downright coolness, it's Belgian Design Biennale INTERIEUR. Since its first edition in 1968, the Kortrijk-based show has consistently upped the ante

October sees the 2010 installment of Orgatec in Cologne, the leading international design fair for office and work environments. In spite of the death knell being sounded some time ago for the traditional, fixed-location office, it's still with us.

There's faded grandeur. And then there's Detroit. Once the fourth-largest city in the US, its spectacular economic and social decline is writ large in the disintegration of its architectural fabric. With its former manufacturing industries decimated

When Joni Mitchell sang that 'they paved paradise and put up a parking lot', she neatly expressed our none-too-positive relationship with that most modern of building types, the car park. Architonic invites you to pull up to the bumper and take a

Left brain. Right brain. If we're to believe all that pop-neurology, you're either a creative type or someone who just loves solving maths problems. Design manufacturer and retailer Thorsten van Elten, curator of One Year On, the show for

Architonic reviews '1:1 – Architects Build Small Spaces', the latest exhibition at London's Victoria & Albert Museum

Screws? Glue? Who needs them? With a number of designers developing intriguing new ways of constructing furniture, Architonic takes a look at some examples of recent innovative joinery methods.

The completion of Ron Arad's small-scale masterpiece that is Israel's new Design Museum Holon signals a kind of design coming-of-age for the country. With its current design scene set to grow even further, Architonic talks to a number of established

Described by its organisers as 'the pre-eminent global forum for collecting, exhibiting, discussing and creating design', Design Miami Basel, the annual European get-together for those who like their design a touch on the exclusive side, put on a

With leading Finnish design brand Artek reissuing two of its fellow countryman Tapio Wirkkala's striking designs from the late 1960s and early 70s, as well as first-time-round, 'vintage' pieces of his being shown at international design fairs such as

They say good things come in threes. Here, Architonic brings you five of the best concrete lamps on the market. It's all about contradiction.

Architonic talks to Basel-based design label INCH Furniture about their distinctive collection for the Swiss Pavilion at Shanghai's Expo 2010

It's almost a cliché now to say that the annual Milan Salone del Mobile has become a behemoth of a design fair, eclipsing every other major show in the design calendar. (Personally, we at Architonic feel that a number of the other large design

In this final installment of the Milan Conversations we catch up with renowned product designer, architect and artistic director of Italian manufacturer Kartell Ferruccio Laviani at the Barovier&Toso showroom in Milan and talk to him about lamps,

The Milan Conversations – a series of discussions held at this year's Salone del Mobile with some of the most celebrated designers working internationally – continues with thought-provoking exchange with Ilse Crawford and Omer Arbel.

In this second installment of the Milan Conversations – a series of discussions held at this year's Salone del Mobile with some of the most celebrated designers working internationally – Architonic talks to British designer and long-time Milanese

As the metaphoric dust settles following another Milan Salone del Mobile (not to be confused with the ash from that pesky Icelandic volcano, which did its best to keep the great and the good of the international design press stranded in Italy),

When photographer Greg Girard decided to visit the notorious, citadel-like 'Walled City' slum in Hong Kong's Kowloon, where the daily lives of 35,000 people played out, he was told he may not come back alive. Luckily for him, he did. And, luckily for

The Vitra Design Museum's latest exhibition examines the idea of simplicity in design, be it in terms of form, material or method. Rather than being a recent development in response to global economic and environmental concerns, 'The Essence of

Bamboo's rapid growth in popularity as a viable material for product design seems to mirror the speed at which this iconic plant, lauded for its contribution to sustainability, grows. Architonic takes a look at some recent examples of bamboo-based

Architonic dissects Luca Nichetto's striking new 'Robo' chair for Swedish manufacturer Offecct, examining the process beyond the product.

Architonic reviews design writer Jennifer Hudson's study of the creative and manufacturing processes behind 50 contemporary design objects from around the world.

Graphic designers are giving architects a run for their money as the creatives who cross disciplinary boundaries. Here, Architonic takes a look at some examples of two-dimensional specialists who've channelled their creative talent into product

It's all round to Vitra's place in Weil am Rhein as the leading design manufacturer opens its striking new VitraHaus, designed by Herzog & de Meuron.

We bid a fond farewell to one of the greats of British post-war design history.

Architonic presents a selection of some of the novelties presented at this year's design fair in Paris

Architonic spends some time with VIA, the Paris-based organisation committed to identifying and supporting young French design talent.

The last few years have seen a number of furniture designers explore ways of defining privacy through form. What's going on? Are we really going all shy and retiring?

There's no better time than the start of a new decade to revisit the clock as a long-standing product type. Here Architonic examines innovative clock design, past and present.