Eoin Lyons on coming trends
Last year's International Furniture Fair in Milan gave an insight into emerging design trends. Influential high-end manufacturers showed their new products, which will filter down to mid-price stores in 2006. Some of this year's trends include very low furniture, including sofas with no legs, curved-wood chair backs; black glossy anything, including floor-to-ceiling sheets of black glass as room dividers; chenille carpeting with a high sheen; colour combinations of black, white and green, and a concept called reductionism - the idea of reducing furniture to its most essential form.
The Milan show is supposed to be about new ideas, but there was much that wasn't particularly new last year, so 2006 furniture trends will mostly be a roll-on from the past two years. In the absence of a driving design movement, individual statements matter more than an aesthetic consensus.
"I'm looking for anti-design," Tom Dixon, creative director of Habitat, said at the time. "The D-word has been misattributed to things that are just styling. You can go around in circles looking at colour, pattern and flavour, but unless you can find the real point of difference, it's confusing."
The pursuit of attention-grabbing design will make for some over-the-top furniture this year, none more so than Philippe Starck's gold-plated gun-shaped lamps for Flos. Predictably, there was outrage along with chuckles at these. The lamps will be available here through Bellissima in Cork (www.bellissima.ie, 023-54740).
Such stunts tended to obscure quieter design proposals, such as Tisettanta's beautiful Asian influence stand, with walls covered in cork or rattan, slouchy low couches in grey tweed, open fireplaces flush to the ground and lamps hung low to the floor from long flexes (all from www.minima.ie). This look will be one of the strongest for 2006.
The designer to follow is Patricia Urquiola, a Spanish designer who lives in Milan and designs for Moroso and B&B Italia. Her T-Table for Kartell has a one-inch slab of polycarbonate, either crystal clear or shiny black, and is ornately carved, casting a fantastical pattern on the floor, inspired by fossils. www.kartell.com.
MARIA Mac VEIGH, INTERIOR DESIGNER
When Maria Mac Veigh stepped into the old a|wear offices on Grafton Street, in Dublin, she realised three things were needed: "openness, light and communication". Her approach involved "bringing back the open feel of the original building". The depth of the desks, appropriately reminiscent of tailors' tables, separates one person from another. Olive ash wood is used, with white as a backdrop, and grey finishes. The project won her the commercial-category award at the 2005 Institute of Designers in Ireland Awards. Returning to Ireland about 18 months ago after a 10-year spell in Barcelona, where she worked with Francesc Rifé, one of Spain's most progressive designers, Mac Veigh had a portfolio that included designing a Bulgari jewellery shop and a Michelin-starred restaurant. In Ireland, her projects so far include the offices of Lyons Solicitors, on Fitzwilliam Square; a Victorian house in Dublin 6; and a large apartment on Percy Place. Mac Veigh is an interior architect as much as a designer. Her ideas are in tune with those of Europe's best designers, and are perfectly executed. Minimalism can be boring, but Mac Veigh's version sings. mariamacveigh@ireland.com.
CARMEL Mc ELROY, PRODUCT AND TEXTILE DESIGNER
Carmel Mc Elroy, from Enniskillen, in Co Fermanagh, graduated in 2004 from the Royal College of Art in London, and is about to see one of her furniture designs - a stool with a woven seat - reach the mass market when it goes on sale in Ikea stores this spring. "The stool was a collaborative project with Graeme Findlay, a Scottish designer I met at the RCA. It's just been launched on the web and in some stores in Europe, and will be available in every Ikea store from February or March." Collaborations such as this are how she prefers to work. After graduating, Mc Elroy worked for a time with the milliner Philip Treacy before setting up a studio with Donna Wilson, another RCA graduate, under the name Twine. Combining their skills of textile, product and 3D design, they're known for their use of new materials and extraordinary construction, working with manufacturers of everything from carpets to wallpaper. With Ikea, however, Mc Elroy leaps from being a designer of beautiful, expensive, rare objects to designing things that are affordable for all. She has more Ikea products coming out later this year. www.twinestudio.com.
GREGOR TIMLIN, FURNITURE DESIGNER
By his own modest account, Ireland "won't be bowled over by the Gregor Timlin phenomenon in 2006." He says: "I think really good design involves putting the product first and chaining the designer to a desk for long hours. I expect this to be a year of hard work."
Timlin graduated from Dublin Institute of Technology last year, having won the Furniture Design Student of the Year award and a DIT Gold Medal for Academic Achievement. Architect and DIT examiner Barry Sheehan believes he's among the most promising graduates in many years.
The space constraints of small urban apartments inspired Timlin's compact designs, such as the Nugget chair, which transforms into a coffee table or side table. Timlin's first client is the Food Game restaurant, set to open in Dublin later this year. For this commission, his concept will blur furniture, interior design and graphics. His approach is practical. "There are too many chairs in the world, and I don't want to add to the waste. If my designs can't better the living environments in which they are used, then what's the point?" For now, his plan is simple: get out into the world of design. www.gregortimlin.com.