
'Awkward' tables by Marte Frøystad, as part of the Furuhaelvetica project
Pine. When it comes to furniture design, it’s not really the kind of wood to set the heart racing. Think of pine and a raft of rather negative images comes all too readily to mind: bargain furniture outlet stores, student accommodation, cheaply made 1980s kitchens. You get the picture. But it’s all in the application, as a group of young Norwegian designers, collaborating as part of an ongoing workshop called Furuhaelvetica, proved at this year’s Designersblock show during the London Design Festival.
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El Ultimo Grito, Rosario Hurtado and Roberto Feo
The Aram Gallery in London dedicated their current exhibition to the Berlin and London based design team of El Ultimo Grito. Three collections of work from 2009 and 2010 will be showcased, among them a group of large blown glass installation pieces exploring architectural archetypes created with master glassblowers in Italy.

'Theatre' by El Ultimo Grito
Roberto Feo and Rosario Hurtado are the Post Disciplinary studio EL ULTIMO GRITO. Their work “reflects upon their interest in how contemporary culture incorporates, re-uses and re-interprets the systems and structures that it has inherited. Within this context the challenge is to create new objects, which can be typologically disentangled from our conventional (learned) understanding of the world, and thus offer alternative ways to live, work and communicate.”

'Parking' by El Ultimo Grito

'Spa' by El Ultimo Grito

Glass architecture by El Ultimo Grito
to the Aram Gallery website
more El Ultimo Grito products @ Architonic

'Liga' chair by Elise Gabriel & TheGreenFactory
Elise Gabriel, working in collaboration with TheGreenFactory, has created ‘The Zelfo Embrace’, a collection of furniture that explores the material possibilities of Zelfo, a 100% biodegradable cellulose paste.

'Liga' chair by Elise Gabriel & TheGreenFactory
Funded by VIA, the Paris-based organisation set up to support and promote emerging French designers, Gabriel has designed a chair, trestles and lamps, which illustrate the patented material’s capacities to lend shape to, and to maintain, complex three-dimensional structures that are strong and light.

'Ossos' trestle by Elise Gabriel & TheGreenFactory
The patents for Zelfo are owned by Omodo GmbH, Germany, and TheGreenFactory has initiated a Europe-wide R&D programme to industrialise applications of the material, which is made from recycled materials (papers, agricultural wastes) and fast-growing plants (hemp and miscanthus).

'Vélines' lamps by Elise Gabriel & TheGreenFactory
read more about the work of VIA at Architonic
'Calibration' by John Briscella
The Philadelphia based designer John Briscella created this experimental series of flexible furniture.
“For people with a lack of patience, the Calibration Stool allows you to move around and click into new positions like a 3d dimensional rocking chair.”

'Calibration' by John Briscella
seen at Design Milk
to the John Briscella website