Designed for the Science
Museum Group director
Ian Blatchford, this working
beehive will eventually be
displayed in the museum’s
new agriculture-themed
gallery. The daughter of a
beekeeper, Huissoud was
keen to produce a piece that
would ‘open up a dialogue
around biodiversity and
sustainability’. She worked
with the Benchmark team to
develop scorching and
charring techniques for her
minimalist design. ‘You expect
to see lots of machinery in
a science museum, but not
something so profoundly
organic,’ says Blatchford.Project:
‘BEEHAVE’Designer:
MARLÈNE HUISSOUDInstitution:
SCIENCE MUSEUMhundred-year horizon, and fashion has a six-month
one.’ With new tariffs dampening demand in AHEC’s
traditional market of China, Venables is disarmingly
frank. ‘One response to this is to look to Europe, where
oak is widely used and appreciated,’ he says. ‘Europeans
have heard of oak, but not red oak, so we created the
Legacy project to help us inform, educate and inspire.’
After an intense week of stress-testing, the teams are
learning on their feet. And the experimentation doesn’t
end here. ‘It’s a different way of working,’ says Alkalay.
‘Usually when a client approaches us, they know what
we do and they’ll say, “Let’s just see what you come up
with.” But Iwona was very clear about what she wanted.’
‘It felt like she’d been waiting for this moment
when someone would make this lectern she had in her
mind,’ adds Mer. Among the specific demands were
a folding mechanism that can support the weight of a
heavy book, hence the hinge discussion. ‘We don’t see
ourselves as industrial designers,’ laughs Alkalay. ‘We
see ourselves as creating more problems than solving
them. But we like experimenting – and in this case,
the method was the unknown part for us. It’s exciting.
You have to get out of your box, try new stuff.’ ∂
‘Legacy’ will show as part of London Design Festival at the
Victoria & Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7,
from 14-22 September, londondesignfestival.com;
benchmarkfurniture.com; americanhardwood.orgProject:
‘WRITER’S
COLLECTION’Designer:
SEBASTIAN COXInstitution:
BRITISH FILM
INSTITUTECreated for Amanda Nevill,
chief executive of the British
Film Institute (BFI), this desk,
chair and embedded pencil
case is centred around
the theme of writing. Nevill
still writes letters by hand
using an ink pen, and her
conversations with Cox
developed into a site-specific
piece that will sit in the BFI‘s
mezzanine, where ‘it will
become a writing station
for emerging film-makers
and writers, who will be
encouraged to leave a
record of what they were
working on’, says Nevill.138 ∑
Design