London: Clerkenwell Design Week 2010

Another little story from my recent travelling adventure...

At the tail end of our holiday, while back in London, I literally stumbled upon Clerkenwell Design Week (it was three days, actually, on 25-27 May), which in the words of its creators is a "three-day annual festival celebrating design’s creative richness, its social impact and its power for change."

I remembered Clerkenwell as an interesting area that I'd briefly visited years ago, and one that seemed worthy of further investigation. And I felt kind of lucky that I'd randomly chosen the first day of the festival as the day I'd have a look around the area, as I had not heard about the festival before landing amongst it.

The first thing I saw was a small designy-crafty market (below), perfect start! Opposite it, some large and colourfully decorated lamps which looked great against London's blue spring skies.


Not far down the road was what seemed to be the festival hub, the Farmiloe Building, an old Victorian warehouse filled with displays of design objects/furniture/furnishings and more. One of my favourites was an accordian-style chair called the Flexible Love Recycled Paper Chair (below) - it stretches out to an impressive length and supports the weight of 16 people, apparently, even though it's made of just cardboard and wood waste.



And the highlight of the festival for me was a discussion called 'Design Thinking - Thinking Design' featuring four design professionals including Kevin McCloud (from Grand Designs, which I love.) Seeing the man in the flesh, observing his articulate manner and hearing his insightful ideas and his wholistic and ecologically responsible approach to design was refreshing and insightful.

And back to the here and now... The State of Design festival starts on Wednesday and runs through until 25 July. I'm looking forward to it, a taste of design that's Melbourne style.