designersunite

INFINITE WISDOM

Expedition, the engineering firm run by Summer School directors Chris Wise and Ed McCann, have recently completed the award-winning Infinity Bridge at Stockton on Tees, and the bridge is the subject of a new exhibition at The Building Centre:

"Designed by 23 companies led by Expedition Engineering, the 180m long footbridge forms part of the major Tees Valley Regeneration project. It was born out of Maggie Thatcher's 1987 confrontation with unemployed Eric Fletcher, a Walk in the Wilderness; on the very same site. 

The exceptionally slender double bow form of the bridge is a unique response to the local culture, the site and the natural forces there. It was largely built by local people. Free of fancy thrills the bridge is carefully and rationally detailed and was opened in a blaze of fireworks and beer in the presence of 10,000 Stocktonites last month."

Chris will be discussing the project at the opening of the exhibition on Monday 29 June, at 6.30pm. It's free to attend, book tickets here. 

The exhibition is designed by Thomas.Matthews, run by Sophie Thomas (RDISS 2006).

POST FUTURIST MANIFESTO

Brit Leissler (RDISS 2008) recently got busy out at Milan Design Week, seeking to create a Post Futurist Manifesto by engaging in "dialogues with some of the leading thinkers in the world of design ... centered around the new values that designers (and the design industry) should address, and the new approaches they ought to take in order to confront the paradigm-shifts that we are currently facing".

The interviews have been posted together on the Core77 industrial design blog. Go check them out.

NICK TALKS TO MIKE

As part of the RDInsights podcast series, Mike Dempsey recently chatted to RDI Nick Butler, looking back at his career as an industrial designer. 

Nick was founding partner of BIB Design Consultants in 1967, uniting industrial design, engineering and technology with broader social concerns. Some examples of his wide ranging work include: medical devices, JCB Sitemaster Diggers, Minolta cameras, Durabeam torches, Dunhill watches and Mont Blanc pens, as well as Connect 4, one of the best ever children’s games.

Take a listen, and find out how one of Hitchcock's leading ladies inspired his choice of career.

CHOOLIPS AND ITS ETHICAL RELATIVES

Annegret Affolderbach (RDISS 2003) is launching an ethical think tank next Thursday (25 February), in the form of Choolips and Its Ethical Relatives.

The launch sees Annegret hosting a series of conversations with people working in the arena of ethical fashion in India; and the event is launched in tandem with the Centre for Sustainable Fashion's Shared Talent India Competition.

EIDOLA

 

Nick Turvey (RDISS 2006) has just completed a new large scale site-specific installation, Eidola, in which "a cloud of giant lenses creates an optical force field, solid-state avant-garde cinema; the outside world multiplied and magified or inverted; an intricate disruption of space".

The private viewing of the artwork is on Wednesday 25 February from 6pm to 8pm - if you'd like to go along, drop Nick an email.