In addition to works by individual designers and artists Grassimesse 2012 also presented the results of the research project “Ü60 Design: Design for Tomorrow”

No-one denies that our society is getting older and that in the coming decades an ever greater percentage of the population will be Ü60, so 60+

What is often forgotten is that the future 60+ generations will be different from the current 60+ generations and so the needs in the future are not the same as those at the present. Similar. But not identical.

The project “Ü60 Design: Design for Tomorrow” involving students from Burg Giebichenstein Halle, the FH Schneeberg and the Freie Universität Bozen therefore looked less at creating objects for today’s over 60s, but much more examined the question of what those lucky enough to currently still be in their 20s will want and need when they reach a pensionable age.

Letting the future generation create their own old-age aids, as it were.

In addition to a delightful and thoroughly enjoyable exhibition in the Grassi Museum Pfeilerhalle the project also produced a couple of excellently conceived and executed projects.

Anyone who has been at a European design festival in the past 12 months will have seen Mobile Gastfreundschaft by chmara.rosinke. Mobile Pflanzstation by Schneeberg student Caroline Schulze is similar, if for us a tick more practical. Looking like the sort of object Moormann will get round to producing once Nils starts thinking about slowing down a little, Mobile Pflanzstation is in effect nothing more than a high-wheelbarrow that allows the user to pot and care for plants at a sensible working height. A simplicity that makes it all the more elegant. It’s also a project that we can well imagine seeing today.

Another project that we could well imagine seeing today is TransBoard by Tino Kalettka and Hannes Trommer from Burg Giebichenstein. Essentially an over-sized scooter, the space between the front wheels has been extended and reconfigured to allow it to be used to transport objects. For example a crate of beer or other daily essentials. Or indeed your dog. If it is also advancing in years.

But the real highlight of “Ü60 Design: Design for Tomorrow” was Walk the Line by Burg Giebichenstein’s Kirstin Overbeck.

Similar in form to Mark Braun’s “Floor 95″ hallway furniture system Walk the Line, in effect – and we’ve no evidence Kirsten Overbeck has even seen Floor 95 – extends the concept through additional features, but more importantly an additional functionality.

Taking a banister – so a supporting handrail for the infirm – as the basis for a modular furniture system, “Walk the Line” is not just a brilliant response to the question posed but a truly genial system and one of the best and most inspiring projects we’ve seen this year. The handrail around the table was a particularly nice touch. We hope Kirstin is able to take the project further because we can see a real use for such as a modular system in, for example, sheltered housing complexes.

Grassimesse 2012: Ü60 Design. Walk the Line by Kirstin Overbeck

Grassimesse 2012: Ü60 Design. TransBoard by Tino Kalettka and Hannes Trommer

Grassimesse 2012: Ü60 Design. Mobile Pflanzstation by Caroline Schulze

Drawers!

And we don’t mean that as an insult.

If there is one thing we really, really miss it’s desks with drawers.

Back in the day, all desks had drawers.

Then, probably due to flexible office design where no one has a fixed desk, drawers started to vanish from desks.

Regrettably.

And so it was with a small scream of delight that we saw Ragna Gutschow’s desk at Grassimesse 2010.

Sadly we didn’t get to speak to Ragna and so we don’t know any more than we liked it.

And not just on account of the drawer – the general form and construction of the article appealing just as much as the touches such as the  “hidden” storage compartments or the in-built card/note holder slots.

And the fact that no felt appears to be involved.

In general Ragna Gutschow‘s work seems to involve a lot of drawers, and in addition to the desk her “Würfelschrank” and “Sammelschrank” are also wonderful examples of why the world needs more drawers.

Drawers!

A desk with a drawer. Ragna Gutschow at Grassimesse 2010

Würfelschrank by Ragna Gutschow. Drawers!

... desk details.

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Abito by Giovanna Zanghellini. Bedside table and lamp

The third stage on the (smow) design marathon 2010 was the Grassimesse at the Grassi Museum here in Leipzig.

First hosted in 1920 the Grassimesse has established itself as one of Europe’s most important sales fairs for contemporary arts and crafts.

And felt.

It also spawned Designers’ Open and always invites a wide range of art and design schools to present a selection of their students work; consequently, and although as a matter of principle we can’t get excited about jewelry, pottery or felt, Grassimesse is always a pleasant distraction from the daily grind.

And we even saw a couple of objects we could get excited about.

And a lot of felt.

And some nice knitting by Bozen University graduate Giovanna Zanghellini.

Personalising, or at least de-anonymizing, objects through the use of knitted objects is not a new concept; socks for table and chair legs, for example, crop up with regular frequency and urban knitting is an established form of street art.

For her final year project Giovanna Zanghellini took the concept further than we’ve seen before and created knitted garments for chairs, tables, beds, mirrors, lamps, etc, etc, etc …

A response to our ever more mobile world and the fact that increasing numbers of us regularly spend short periods in various locations, Abito is a wonderful attempt to help us reclaim foreign rooms as our own.

One simply takes the knitted garments from the items in your last accommodation, slips them over the furniture in your new accommodation and you have your old familiar surroundings.

As a concept wonderful, as a product impractical and unlikely – but that’s not the point.

Abito is a final year project and as such is all about how the student approaches and solves the problem.

And for us Giovanna Zanghellini has done that with bravo

And without the use of felt.

Giovanna Zanghellini is now working as freelance designer in Südtirol, and if she approaches all her projects with the same competence as Abito we’re sure we’ll be hearing more from her in the future.

Abito by Giovanna Zanghellini @ Grassimesse 2010

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Mannno!

If we’re honest we didn’t expect Orgatec 2010 to be such fun, or to be so sorry to leave.

For us Orgatec is one of those “must dos”

Not must do as in the sense of, “If you don’t go you’ll regret it for the rest of your life” but more “your going, stop your bleating and accept it!”

But at the end of the day we could have happily spent another couple of days in Cologne.

Aside from a range of interesting new products at Vitra and Thonet, we discovered a host of new office design solutions that really appealed to us and also caught up with numerous (smow)blog favourites.

Plus it was genuinely lovely to see USM Haller at an exhibition again.

We may now have left Cologne but we have do so with a rucksack full of reports, pictures and videos from Orgatec 2010: All of which will be online shortly.

But for now our attention turns to Leipzig and Grassimesse and Designers’ Open.

The (smow)blog team head towards the train station - but Cologne we'll be back!

(and once again apologies to all PSV Eindhoven fans, we’ll try to find a new photo soon…. and shame the smoke bomb didn’t really work. Would have been good :) )

There are some design blogs who simply retype press releases, resize press photos and abracadabra – a blog post.

Our standards are a little higher.

Which is why we visit design fairs, design weeks, design competitions and design exhibitions.

Because only by talking to designers, talking to producers and by actually testing the products can you decide if the PR hype is justified.

The minus is of course that design fairs being the new film festivals – our schedule is an absolute nightmare.

Next week’s schedule, however, pushes even us to our limits.

The (smow) design marathon begins on Saturday at the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, before moving on to Orgatec in Cologne and then rolling further to end at Grassimesse and Designerss’ Open in Leipzig.

One week, two countries, three cities, four events.

If you want to follow the (smow) design marathon, or just see if we survive, we will be publishing an, almost, real-time travel diary at smow.tumblr.com/

And of course all the highlights and best interviews from Eindhoven, Cologne and Leipzig can be found @ (smow)blog.

It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are travelling but for quality design – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.

(with apologies to the Arbroath 51, and indeed all who campaign for equality, freedom and justice)

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