London Design Festival

Some random highlights from last week’s creative goings-on in town:

Nice virtual bird-cage from the USA…put a virtual hamster in it and it makes sense!

Apparently there are plans to develop an interactive version of this. Great, if they can get the price to a more reasonable level – this version costs $2200….ouch. But I like the idea here – it’s like a Tamagochi for grown-ups.

Horizon installation @ TENT

Tom Dixon’s empire in West London…with tasteful car-boot sale:

Some slightly limp furniture, with an excellent carpet-battle that caught my eye…

Slimline minimalism from Tokyobikes.com@ Tom Dixon. A selection of Tokyo bikes were on display, particularly liked the matt metallic brown version, and a sweet flat-grey example. These bikes are a bargain – £360 in Tokyo, worth importing…watch this space.

Customised Peugeot with cheeky guard-dog….

Nissan East meets West @ their small but perfectly-formed studio in Paddington:

Apologies for the slack updates – lots of work traveling right now, and an imminent apartment move = tight timing. Normal-ish service hopefully resumed within a couple of weeks! Thanks for continuing to read and comment, any feedback is always appreciated.

Hyundai – My Baby

Saw this internal Hyundai design exercise from the IAA at Frankfurt. A fantastic project, free from those pesky package constraints, this was a chance for Hyundai’s designers to, as the press-release states; “..delve into their imaginations and dream up their personal vision for the future of transportation.”

I’ll skip the blurbs that go with each image, but there’s some good stuff here. One thing I’m noticing is the different continent approaches to the concept of future transportation. The Japanese studio majors on personal transport, using the enhanced-body-suit approach. The USA designs lean towards escapism and personal excitement, while the Euros spread across both. Some cool stuff, though I can’t quite see the connection with the Hyundais on sale today…

Clicky for full high-res.

Bonsai?

Fiat C Tree-Planters

The Fiat 500 C has taken over Montenapoleone, the famed fashion street of Milan. The street has 20 fiberglass replicas of the 500 C, all built on a 1:1 scale. It’s part of an installation called “Per fare un albero” (Create a tree) which is a joint effort by the city of Milan, Fiat, and designer Fabio Novembre. The objective is to bring together trees and cars, both of which are more or less diametrically opposite in the spectrum of urban spaces. No word on the duration of the installation;  I wonder if the cars remain pristine white? Nice canvas for some creative urban art…

Source: CoolHunter

Flotsam

Some random holiday shots – Just outside Kalamata in the Southern Peleponnese area of Greece is a strange bodyshop/garage. Interesting because instead of the usual Seats and Nissans that populate the local roads, there are some unusual pieces of motoring ephemera-

Fake Porsche, in front of subtly-camouflaged armoured car…

Ready for beach duty?..

BMW 2002 flanking a 2CV – what happened to all the 2CV’s? It’s time for a new one Citroen…the market’s ready….

Mean-looking Alfa 75 dwarfed by a comedy Jeep Wrangler..

Nice collection of Alfas, Volvos, and BMWs on the roof…customer drop-off area?

Back in the UK a rare Renault5 Gordini. This still looks fresh, though tiny compared to most of todays B-segment bloaters…

And the quintessential Aston in SE London -  the number-plate on this beast must be worth a packet…

Autobahn Alpine A310

Mid-week trip to Koln on b’iness. Highlight of an otherwise unremarkable 2 days was last-night’s autobahn thrash in the boss’s 1981 Renault Alpine A310.

Hidden in the depths of a labyrinthine underground car-park….

I haven’t seen one of these for a while, it’s still an amazingly aggressive little beastie and its form manages to look almost contemporary; only the scrappy detailing and generous cutlines let the side down….though that’s a bit unfair – the driver’s door was open in this shot

Though weedy by today’s standards (150hp from the PRV V6), it weighs a bantam-weight 980kg, so feels pretty quick up to 100mph or so.

This shot shows either; a- How miniscule this car is, or b- how fat a Mondeo is…..or possibly both, but I couldn’t comment on that.

French Glam in underground Germany…