A few weeks ago in our post on the opening of the Droog Lab exhibition The New Original in Guangzhou, China we noted, “….knowing Droog we’re fairly certain that “The New Original” will be presented in Europe before too long. ”

Droog didn’t disappoint and the objects were displayed in Milan as part of the show “Droog 20+, Up to a beautiful future”, 20 years of Droog celebrated by looking forwards rather than the more conventional backwards.

Milan Design Week 2013: Droog 20+ Up to a beautiful future

The background idea to The New Original is relatively simple: copying, according to Droog Lab, isn’t always direct replication, more often than not copying involves a level of alteration, for example to meet local needs or reflect social and /or cultural differences. Since the popular conception is that the Chinese are world champions in copying, Droog Lab visited China and copied everyday Chinese objects, albeit with an adaptation for the European, western market.

The result is a truly engaging collection of objects.

While “Teapot with Handle” by Richard Hutten was chosen as the Poster Girl of the exhibition we were much more taken with Glass Lantern and LED Bulbs, both also from Richard Hutten and both objects which not only represent an excellent interpretation of the brief, but are truly delightful creations. Delightful creations that never would have been realised without The New Original.

Similarly the Family Vases and Five Function Cabinet by Studio Droog are lovely pieces of work and ones that could only have arisen within the context of such a basic research project.

We don’t know what the long term plans are, we however expect you will soon find one or the other in you local Droog shop.

Five Function Cabinet, Family Vases and Glass Lantern from the Droog Lab project "The New Original"

A further highlight of the far too compact “Droog 20+, Up to a beautiful future” was the results of the Rijksstudio project, Studio Droog’s cooperation with Amsterdam based design studio deJongeKalff.

Rijksstudio is a digitalised databank of 125,000 works from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam’s collection and publicly available as a free online resource. Having digitalised the works Droog and deJongeKalff then went a stage further and borrowed images and moments from the databank and transformed them into real objects.

Copying, with an adaptation. If you like.

The highlights of the collection for us is Napkin Collar, a napkin ring inspired by a 17th century ruff, however notable mentions must also go to Tasting Glasses and Rubber Tablecloth.

One of the things we like about Droog is the fact they are essentially a design research agency, a conceptual troupe who sell products to finance the rest of their work.

Older readers will remember the 2011 Why Design ? symposium at the HFBK Hamburg when Andreas Brandolini said more or less the same about the early days of the Neues deutsches Design movement in Berlin: they sold products to raise capital. The products themselves having little or no meaning for their creators.

For ultimately much like there is no show without business, so to can design never completely free itself from industry.

The question is what is produced, how, in what quantities and with what motivation.

You don’t have to like everything Droog do. And we certainly don’t. But you do have to respect and admire the way they do it.

And hope that they continue doing it for the next twenty years.

Rijksstudio with an homage to Johannes Vermeer at Droog 20+ Up to a beautiful future, Milan

Napkin Collar, Tasting Glasses and Rubber Tablecloth at Droog 20+ Up to a beautiful future, Milan

LED Bulb by Richard Hutten at Droog 20+ Up to a beautiful future, Milan

Teapot with Handle by Richard Hutten at Droog 20+ Up to a beautiful future

In a recent idle moment, we got to thinking…. if the Chinese – at least according to popular perception – just keep copying design ideas from others.

Why don’t we copy their designs?

That’ll teach them! We reasoned.

A reasoning which of course brought home just how pointless the idea was.

It would’t teach no one nowt.

The cheeky dogs at Droog Lab however have copied Chinese designs.

But not out of revenge, rather as an exploration of the possibilities presented by copying.

“The possibilities presented by copying?”, you cry, “Have you out of your tiny minds, copying is theft!!!”

The direct copying of a design and then marketing it as being original, is, when not always legally theft, always unfair and undesirable – for all when the copy is substandard and dangerous.

That’s not on.

Copying however is rarely a direct 1:1 process; rather, normally involves some form of adaption for the new, local market.

So argue Droog.

And not just Droog, we regularly meet design professionals who are also the opinion that the process of copying can bring positive results. And indeed a central feature of Open Design is that while one can use a design as presented, the majority of people make modifications to suit their requirements.

In a way taking decisions on form and function away from designers and giving them to the users; the designers job being to develop a universal, white board, solution.

As an attempt to explore in how far European designers can learn from the plagiaristic instincts of the Chinese, and, in effect, where collective intelligence could eventually lead design, Droog Lab travelled to Shenzhen, China. And had a bit of a look around. For things to copy.

The result is a collection of 26 objects by Richard Hutten, Stanley Wong, Urbanus, Ed Annink and Studio Droog, all of which have taken a “normal” Chinese item, and coped it into a new context.

Until April 9th 2013 all 26 objects can be viewed in the exhibition “The New Original” which is on show in Guangzhou, China.

Knowing the demographics our readers, we’re assuming not many of you will get the chance to view it.

We certainly wont.

However, knowing Droog we’re fairly certain that “The New Original” will be presented in Europe before too long.

And if not, we’ll just copy the idea and stage or own exhibition…..

Full details on “The New Original” can be found at www.drooglab.com.

Droog Lab. The New Original. Here a Chinese teapot adapted with a handle by Richard Hutten

Back in April 2010 we reported that Dutch design anarchos Droog were planning a hotel in Amsterdam.

On September 16th 2012 Hôtel Droog will finally open for business.

And because it’s from Droog, Hôtel Droog has only one bedroom. Which is really an apartment.

The majority of the complex is taken up with all those things that in a “normal” hotel would be of secondary importance to the accomodation: eating, drinking, shopping, being pampered or relaxing in a garden.

Situated in a 17th century building on Staalstraat in the historic centre of the Dutch capital – and so conveniently next door to the Droog HQ – Hôtel Droog has been slowly opening over the past month or so and looks to us as if it has been principally conceived as an exhibition space; the 160 square metre Gallery taking up a quarter of the available space and offering more than enough room for Droog’s international roster of collaborators to present their take on contemporary art and design. While the adjoining “Fairy Tale Garden” and “Dinning Room” offer the, seemingly, perfect space to relax and digest what you have just viewed.

But we’ll all no doubt be much wiser once the project is fully up and running.

Full details can be found at www.hoteldroog.com

And as soon as the Droog press team get round to uploading the promised press photos into the imagebank… we’ll publish a few.

As if it wasn’t hard enough to keep up with the various project strands that twine together to form Droog.

They’ve launched an imaginary brand.

We did consider marking the moment by penning an imaginary post.

But that would be to completely miss the point. Again.

Created from the Moscow leg of the Droog Lab “Here, there, everywhere” project, Fantastical Investments is both a response to consumer habits in Russia and a vision of how the world of the future could look.

The Droog Lab team lead by Daniel van der Velden from Amsterdam based agency Metahaven essentially set out to investigate the apparent paradox between the Russian consumers love of classic literature and of modern luxury items.

And discovered there wasn’t really a paradox there at all.

They observed that many Russians consumption habits can be linked to a mistrust of official institutions and a response that leads many to invest in high value consumer goods rather than, for example, gold.

Presumably because gold reserves and prices are controlled by “institutions”.

And with our familiar global economic structures looking ever more precarious and temporal, ask Droog, could the Russians not have the key to a more stable and reliable future in a world without civil institutions?

Durable goods as a survival strategy?

Literature, concluded the team, complements this process by providing the intellectual stimulation to help support our capacity to thrive in times of uncertainty.

The result is Fantastical Investments with its mix of diamond studded tyres, “Investment is invisibility” screws, “Celebration is memory” fireworks and other products for our future reality.

Which sounds scary. But as we often say. That’s what designers do. They can’t read the future but they can try to make sure that when it comes we’re prepared. Droog Lab see Fantastical Investments as a vehicle to help stimulate a discussion on our future needs.

Of course it could also all just be a cheap marketing stunt to help push sales of Jurgen Bey’s Tree Trunk Bench…..

A product that we imagine would fit in quite well in your average Oligarch’s garden!

For all in Holland, Droog Amsterdam are holding a discussion on Thursday September 22nd with Renny Ramakers, Daniel van der Velden, Olga Kuzina, Sjeng Scheijen and Agata Jaworska.

And on the same evening Droog Amsterdam will open an exhibition to the project which runs until October 2nd

More details on Fantastical Investments by Droog and Metahaven, the panel discussion and exhibition can be found at droog.com

Fantastical Investments by Droog and Metahaven: "Storage is Armour" tyre by Totan Kuzaembaev

Fantastical Investments by Droog and Metahaven: Investment is Invisibility Screw (Poster design by Daniel van der Velden)

Time was when social networking for businesses meant cocktail parties, tennis clubs and the Freemasons.

Time Was.

However Time Is and in the modern commercial world social networking means Facebook, Twitter, X-ing et al

Not only as a marketing tool but also as an increasingly important instrument for communicating with customers, gathering feedback and handling criticism.

Fritz Hansen have recognised the advantages of social networking

In addition a recent survey by Edison Research among twitter users in the USA indicated that for many consumers Twitter is an important source of information on products; not just in terms of getting basic information, but also exchanging views and opinions.

Research by smow.com has revealed that although the use and acceptance of Twitter amongst the leading designer furniture producers has grown in recent years; the utilisation of social networking in the designer furniture industry lags far behind that in other commercial sectors.

For (smow) report author Kelly Felten, a problem “Given the rapid rise in the number of “design blogs” in recent years it is increasingly important that producers are able to both follow and respond to discussions concerning their products. If that is happening on twitter, the producers need to be there!”

According to Felten more targeted twitter usage could also prove helpful in areas such building brand loyalty amongst consumers or organising more efficient publicity campaigns ahead of large trade fairs.

“Imagine if when designer X launched a new product for producer Y,  a Twitter chat with X was organised over Ys Twitter account” says Felten, “you’ve got an instant online buzz”

In addition better, consumer relevant content could help the designer furniture producers solve their principle problem: the relatively low numbers of followers.

Alone Herman Miller with some 62,000 followers can claim to match the leading commercial brands in terms of twitter numbers.

That designer furniture customers are interested in using Twitter, for example, can be seen in the case of Kartell. The Italian producer started tweeting in April 2010 shortly before the Milan furniture fair and now has over 600 followers.

@kartellpeople Started tweeting on April 8th 2010

According to Kelly Felten on its own Twitter won’t change the design furniture industry, but targeted and professional Twitter usage will play an increasingly important role for designer furniture producers.

“The old distribution structures are changing, and with them the communication paths between end customer and producer”, says Felten, “The designer furniture producers have recognised that, however, they’re still learning the ropes”

The (smow) Designer Furniture Twitter Top 11:

(As on 18.08.2010)

(for comparison http://twitter.com/smowblog has 220 followers and a Klout rating of 05)

On several occasions in the past month we have repeatedly seen a similar scene.

A scene that has made us cry.

Lovely houses, truly wonderful, carefully considered constructions in idyllic locations – and then in the garden, furniture that the owners have obviously bought, possibly as an after thought, from their local garden centre.

Just looking at some of the chairs made our upper thighs go numb from discomfort.

And as for that recliner yesterday in Berlin!!!!

People, gardens are there to be enjoyed.

Gardens are there to serve as dens of tranquility from the harsh realities of life.

Gardens should not cause injury, far less resemble a middle ages torture chamber.

Good quality designer garden furniture is available. And isn’t hard to find.

Here is our top five for summer 2010.

Tivoli Chair by Verner Panton

Tivoli chair by Verner Panton

Panton’s fist commercially successful product may owe much of its success to Verner Panton’s father installing it in his restaurant; but that is not to detract from the the quality of the Panton’s design nor that of Montana’s construction. Available in a wonderful range of colours Tivoli chair by Verner Panton is guaranteed to brighten up any garden or terrace.

S 43 teak by Thonet

S 43 teak from Thonet

Mart Stams classic steel tube chair in an outdoor version. Available with or without armrests the S43 teak from Thonet allows you to take your Bauhaus living and dining room out into the garden.

Vegetal from Vitra

Vegetal by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec

Four years of development with all the resources an established designer furniture company such as Vitra can provide has to produce something a little extra special. Despite appearances to the contrary Vegetal by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec is a delightfully comfortable seat: comfortable as in terms of seating comfort and comfortable as in terms of stability.

Shadylace by Chris Kabe

Shadylace by Chris Kabel

Although, curiously not available in oranje Shadylace by Chris Kabel for droog is one of the better ways to ensure that you always have a shady corner from which to spy on your neighbours and envy their garden architecture talents.

Cobb Grill

Cobb Grill

And once you’ve got the furniture you need to be able to cook: otherwise you’ll need to go back indoors. With it’s cool outer walls and large range of accessories the Cobb grill is not a classic barbecue grill but a complete enclosed cooking system. With which you can also grill. Or cook pizzas. or bake a cake.

With Royal Ascot in “full flight” and the All England Championships at Wimbledon beginning om Monday, the summer season is here and with it long evenings in the garden, on the terrace or on the balcony.

Lovely.

And so it was guaranteed no coincidence that we saw the wonderful Shadylace by Chris Kabel for Droog at DMY Berlin last week.

For having reached a comfortable, and somewhat overweight, middle age we now feel justified in owning such a treasure.

Not only does Shadylace stylishly protect one from the sun, but the lace between the solid elements creates the atmosphere and feeling of being amongst trees.

Wonderful.

Shadylace by Chris Kabel for Droog at DMY Berlin: Not for sleeping dogs!