The marketplace for emerging designers at ‘BE OPEN Space at The Dock’ in West London, hosted a packed programme during London Design Festival. Young designers showed, sold, produced and explored the five senses in a dynamic and interactive meeting place for design enthusiasts.
Pan Studio and Jail-Make created a site-specific installation on the Dock terrace that referenced the medieval trade markets and Florence’s Ponte Vecchio, populating the terrace with 8 self-contained wooden huts that mirrored the architecture of the converted wharf building that houses Dock Kitchen Restaurant. The installation incorporated the water with a plethora of luminous ribbons cascading from the rooftops to the waters beneath. Each hut showcased exclusive works by an exciting mix of emerging designers.
At one hut, Faye Toogood and her Studio Toogood design team rolled out an industrial overlocker and donned aprons to create cheap, cheerful ski chalet-friendly high-top slippers from recycled cloth.
Next door, Trace channelled the nearby Portobello Market with a junk-shop environment that, on closer inspection, revealed a chaotic display of multisensory and entertainingly eccentric one-off items: teapots made from recycled tea tins; a hand-carved wood SLR camera; floppy rubber carpentry tools; even a room fragrance that smelled of Notting Hill.
Old-school bleeps emanating from the build-your-own-synth were set up by London solderers Technology Will Save Us, but were ultimately lured away by the textile-inspired works of Bricolage designers Yemi Awosile and Naomi Paul. People loved the earth-toned geometric print on Awosile’s cork wallhanging and Paul’s hand-crocheted, mercerised-cotton Hanna lampshades. Visitors were also introduced to the Finland-meets-India woven crafts by Helsinki-based Tikau.
