Monday, January 28, 2013

A love affair with a two drawers chest

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.
Ray Bradbury





















Love affair {1} The chest
I will start with a disclosure. Avishay Sasson is not the common sustainable designer I use to meet, and I had my own doubts writing this post. But, then again, I have a love affair with his two drawer chest, which he simply and cleverly upcycled from two lovely wine boxes. Whether it's their new context of design - the idea of upcycle itself, their extra accessories, or the royal typography, either way it spelled me.
***
גילוי נאות: אבישי ששון הוא לא מהזן של המעצבים המקיימים שאני נוהגת לפגוש. והאמת שאפילו קצת התלבטתי מה לעשות עם הפוסט הזה. אבל מה שהכריע הוא שידת שתי המגירות שלו, שאני מנהלת איתה רומן כבר זמן מה. אבישי לקח שתי קופסאות יין ישנות והשכיל בפשטות ובחכמה לחבר אותן לכדי שידה מתוקה ומקסימה. אני לא יודעת אם זה בגלל שינוי הקונטקסט שלהן - עניין המיחדוש עצמו, או אולי האיבזור המשלים שלהן, או אולי הטיפוגרפיה המלכותית, כך או כך השידה כישפה אותי ואני שלה לנצח (ומקווה שיום אחד היא תהיה שלי לנצח)

A love affair with a chest - upcycle wine boxes





















A sucker for typography - did I say?



















Love affair {2} The lamp
For Sasson the wine connection is going a long way back from his days as a barman. He was eight years on the bar. Than one day he was asked by a good friend, to help him build a light fixture as a present for his grandmother. This love affair with this occasional lamp, send him to a carpentry course - to explore arts and crafts more thoroughly. The experience was good, but still wasn't enough for him, so he continued to industrial design studies at the H.I.T, in the Culture and Creation Department.
***
לאבישי הקשר עם היין מתחיל עוד מימיו כברמן בבראסרי. 8 שנים הוא היה על הבר, ויום אחד חבר טוב ביקש את עזרת ידיו המוכשרות בבנית גוף תאורה כמתנה לסבתו. הרומן עם המנורה הזו (שיצאה מאוד מוצלחת) הביא אותו לקורס נגרות של משרד העבודה. מיד לאחר מכן הוא הרגיש שזה לא מספיק והמשיך ללימודי עיצוב תעשייתי במרכז הטכנולוגי בחולון במסלול המתבקש בשבילו, תרבות ויצירה.



Love affair {3} The waste
Sasson can't be indifference to street waste. He collects and upcycle almost everything he finds. It can be wine boxes, shipping boxes, old tables and even an old stop light! This love affair with waste doesn't necessarily comes with a sustainable agenda but more like a start point of inspiration for his designs. It's the form leads function story. But it can be also that the idea in his mind leads to the material. That's the reason he found himself in addition to upcylce projects, designing new projects from new wood material (Oh dear!) for example: "Kloe" chest. In both cases he wishes to design a "one of a kind" object.
***
אבישי לא ממש יכול להתעלם מפסולת כשהוא עובר לידה ברחוב. הוא אוסף וממחדש כמעט כל דבר שהוא מוצא: קופסאות יין, ארגזי משלוח, שולחנות ישנים ואפילו רמזור! הרומן שלו עם פסולת לא בהכרח מגיע מאג'נדה סביבתית אלא יותר כנקודת מוצא של השראה לעיצוב שלו. הסיפור המוכר של: צורה מכתיבה את השימוש. למרות שגם קורה לו שהרעיון שיש לו בראש מכתיב את החומר. זו הסיבה שהוא מוצא את עצמו במקביל לפרוייקטים של מיחדוש עובד גם על פרוייקטים עיצוביים בהם הוא נדרש להשתמש בסוגי עץ חדש!! (אוי וויי!) למשל כמו שידת ה"קלואי". בשני המקרים הוא מבקש לעצב אובייקט שהוא יחיד מסוגו.

Rendez-vous with the street waste
A flirt with an old piece of a shipping box
Cassette's stand founded in the street - A real treasure




Working in the studio - shipping boxes upcycle to a 3 drawers chest

 Upcycle shipping boxes to a closet
Sometimes the line between upcycle and new
materials, between original and vintage look
is very vague









































I hope Sasson will turn this love affair with waste to a long term relationship, and build his wings on the way...
***
אני מקווה שאבישי יהפוך את הרומן שלו עם פסולת לקשר ארוך טווח ויצמיח לעצמו כנפיים תוך כדי המעוף ...

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

The bandage



"When the object that is produced, the photographic image has the ability to make tears come to your eyes; to inspire you to the point where you have to catch your breath, then nothing else matters".
John Sexton 



Before Eli Chissick graduated his design studies in H.I.T he was working in a carpentry workshop. After his studies, he designed for "Tupperware" company (For the sake of my ecological sustainable fans I should say, although it's about plastic their quality is lifetime, as opposed to cheap kind of plastic boxes you have to throw away after 2-3 uses). But than he felt something was missing...
***
אלי צ'יזיק עבד בנגריה לפני שהתחיל את לימודי העיצוב שלו במכון הטכנולוגי בחולון. לאחר הלימודים הוא עבד כמעצב בחברת "טפרוור" (זו שעושה כלים מפלסטיק, ולטובת שוחרי איכות הסביבה אציין שאם כבר קופסאות פלסטיק, אז עדיף פלסטיק בר קיימא שזה אומר קופסאות רב-פעמיות ואיכותיות, שמחזיקות שנים, בניגוד לקופסאות פלסטיק אחרות שאחרי שניים שלושה שימושים נשברות ומוצאות דרכן אל הפח). אבל אחרי תקופה מסויימת בחברה הרגיש שמשהו חסר לו...



There is a special eco-craft-educational blood running in the Chissick family: His father is an Englishman who comes from a long paintbrush manufacturers dynasty, his mother is an educational persona who wrote a few books, and his brother is a food picker guru (Food for thought). No wonder Chissick comes with a lot of compassion for waste. Especially carpentry's wood waste.

***
צ'יזיק מגיע ממשפחה מזן מיוחד. מן שילוב כזה של אומנות-חינוך-סביבה: אבא שלו הוא אנגלי, נצר ליצרני מכחולים איכותיית לציירים (עוד באנגליה...), אמא שלו היא אשת חינוך עם רקורד של כמה ספרים מאחוריה, ואחיו - הוא מלקט אוכל וגורו רציני של תזונה. לכן החמלה שיש לו לפסולת, במיוחד לפסולת עץ מנגריות, נראית לי מאוד טבעית.

One day he was listening to a great inspiring lecture of a dutch sustainable designers group, and when he came out of that talk, there was ONE IMAGE stuck in his mind: a bandage! The stripes of a bandage!
***
יום אחד לאחר שהקשיב להרצאה של קבוצת מעצבים מהולנד, הוא שם לב שהוא מסתובב עם דימוי שלא יוצא לו מהראש. הדימוי הזה היה תחבושת. או למעשה הפסים האלכסוניים שיוצרת חבישה של גבס.



We didn't speak about this image. We didn't have to. It was one powerful image and I just figured it out by my self - like the last part of a puzzle. His craft talent, his passion for upcycle sustainable design, and this compassion for wood waste - they were all gathered under this bandage image.
***
לא דיברנו על זה. אבל גם לא היה צריך. זה היה דימוי חזק וברור. והוא השלים לי את התמונה כמו החתיכה האחרונה של הפאזל. אומנות הנגרות, הכישרון והתשוקה לעיצוב בר קיימא והחמלה שלו לפסולת עץ. כל אלה התחברו לי יחד תחת הדימוי של התחבושת



Here are some of Chissick's interpretation for this bandage image. Upcycle wood waste for high quality designed furniture. His works have been exhibited in USA, Europe and Israel, winning numerous international design awards.
He calls them "Wood Con Fusion".
I call them "Up-cyclutely wonderful furniture".
***
הנה כמה מהפרשנויות של צ'יזיק לדימוי של התחבושת. מיחדוש פסולת עץ לטובת ריהוט איכותי ובר קיימא. העבודות שלו הוצגו בארה"ב, אירופה וישראל וזכו במספר פרסי עיצוב בינלאומיים.


 

 



 












And nothing else matters!

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

The power of questions



~ "The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's one who asks the right questions".
Claude Lévi-Strauss, Le Cru et le cuit, 1964


~ Why I admire her so much?
Adital Ela doesn't go along on the usual path. As a second year-design-student at the H.I.T, she already had noticed that designers were asked to answer a brief. Designers were asked to prepare sketches for a toaster or for an iron in a time that earth was screaming HELP... She thinks that designers should know how to ask the right questions. As she asks today HER students: "What kind of an important valuable destiny we choose to give our creative quality? Who does it serve?"




~ What does she do?
For her final sustainable design project, she had spent 10 months in the rural areas of India. She observed their traditional inevitable sustainable life, and was hooked. One main ceremony was particularly capture her mind. The Chai. She mostly was fascinating by the chai craft cup. They make it from the soil and after drinking, they break it on the ground like it is the natural way to do. And it is.
That was the seed for starting her Terra project, and the beginning of her present exploration and research of production from soil. She believes in implementing old traditional methods in new technologies.

Adital: Can walking in the city feel charging as walking in the forest?

Adital asks in one of her talks

Can women think? A postcard in Adital's workshop

~ What is the Windy light project? (or How to upcycle wind?)
In a wider aspect Adital wants to use our local abundance (earth, wind, and water) to design our personal sustainable uses. like the windy light for example. It's a street light made of renewable wind energy. It is designed to utilize even a soft gust of wind and is created from a repetitive module which integrates wind collection and a LED light source into one element.

Windy Light is a collection of self-sufficient outdoor lights operated by wind energy







~ What is the Terra project? (or How to upcycle earth?)
Stools made of 100% natural material: renewable soil, upcycle and reuse of construction and agriculture waste, in a unique compression process, that was developed based on a long term study of materials and of ancient building methods. This work has been presented in the Ljubljana 23rd Biennial (and have been awarded there), in the Slow Design Exhibition in Budapest and in the Design Museum Holon.

Terra stools. Emotional capsule. Some of the land came from an archaeological site in Jerusalem.











The lovely Terra project's stop motion-making off-movie:



~Are you a design student? If you are, you can watch Adital's last talk on TEDxJerusalem and explore more of her inspiring questions in her You tube channel.

~If you ask me - I believe she is a pioneer, kind of scientist-designer, and her genuine search is representing a holistic approach which will eventually help finding the golden mean between sustainability and technology.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Brigitte's stuff


"These are hard times for dreamers"
Amélie (2001) Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (original title)
Thinking of Brigitte Cartier I have in mind this image of Audrey Tautou as Amélie.
Well, she is french, an artist (studied at the Beaux-Arts), full of charm, love, good will, tons of empathy, lots of ideas, lots of energy, creative energy that shouts its way in colors and materials to burst out. Some "Great balls of fire" this Brigitte...



In Israel she is well known establishment in the upcycle scene. She is responsible to the revolution of the visitor center of Hiria - the biggest landfill in Israel. As Karen Chernick wrote: (Brigitte) "...is the magician responsible for transforming the Hiria garbage dump into an upcycling design Mecca."




















When chatting with her on a cozy winter day, in her charming apartment, with a cup of tea in my hand, I asked her, how could she convert the life in Paris (the absolute capital of beauty) to a life in Tel Aviv? She said it's not always easy living here (especially these times...), but as an artist she also finds it, very interesting and inspiring: hard, ruff, fanatical, full of hate, but than again full of love, high involvement and open minded.

---
Lets go over Brigitte's stuff


She cut carpets founded in the street
Notes on the wall
Her own acrylic Rembrants
She just threw something on the lamp
Heart - brought by her dog from the street
Stuff founded in the street with her gold touch
A sketch for a pillow

Dolls collection
Collector - did I say?
Stuff on the door she upcycled from plastic bags
Left overs from Hiria - upcycled cans

---
Upcycled interior designs of Brigitte in the Hiria" visitor center

Upcycled stuff in the main hall of Hiria

Upcycled plastic bottles, cork and tires 


















---
Upcycled interior designs of Brigitte in the ecological store - "The Green Fairy"

Upcycled lamp - from plastic leak leftovers

Big red flower - upcycled plastic bags and green pipe


Toys Chandelier

---
Upcycled stuff from The Bat-Yam Biennial of Landscape Architecture
Cooperation of: Ben Cabelli, Amir Weiser & Brigitte Cartier - Garage Beige: studio for green design

Street light - upcycled stuff






















The movie from the biennial - Street art from recycled bicycle:




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