Dunja Weber

This year at the Salone Satellite I have presented together with my friend and knitwear designer Cécile Feilchenfeldt a collection of lamps. All detailed information can be found on the dedicated website luxluxlux.com. And an interview with both of us has been published on domusweb.

Here a few beautiful photographs done by Ezio Manciucca.

Goodlux and Sweetlux are made of tubular knit which is dressed around a single metal ring. The sophisticated use of the different qualities of the yarns used (nylon and lycra) creates volume and light diffusion where needed. Both lamps become extremely flat for transport.

Softlux is a table lamp. The fabric takes already its final shape during the knitting process integrating from the start the double layer (nylon and lycra) and the channels through which the metal structure passes. Again no cutting or sewing.

Superlux and MInilux are made of 3 metal rings which are connected only through the knitted fabric. In fact because of the folds and the rigidity of the yarn used the fabric itself becomes structural. This means that the lamps can take the form of a ball when hung but become flat during shipping.

Superlux / Minilux glow as shown on the image above keep on glowing when switched off due to the special glow yarn knitted into the fabric.

Of course the project of the stacking glasses Hulahoops designed for Gate-08 couldn’t be missing from my Salone Satellite show. For complete story click link

The fifth element in my Salone Satellite was Shoo. I have designed this product a few years back but since it is looking for a manufacturer again I thought it was worth showing.
for the full story click link

As part of an exhibition called Do-it-yourself organised by atcasa I exhibited the vases Senzafondo, designed together with Monica Ferrigno, at the Space of Rossana Orlandi.

Senzafondo means bottomless – infact these vases are made of a tube of felt which simply covers a PET bottle when used as a vase and disappear flat in a drawer when not in use.

atcasa
yatzer

The idea of Galleria Temporanea was born out of the desire to do something together with friends, to collaborate together with the wonderful craftsmen that are based in the area of Milan, and to communicate the fact that we are around in a playful way. If you’d like to know more about Galleria Temporanea please visit www.gate-08.com

I have chosen glass as a material to work with and learned a lot on the way. My set of stacking tumblers are made from borosilicate glass tubes which are heated and hand-blown.

During the eight years of working with James Irvine I have helped to develop a large number of products but there are a few projects whose development I have particularly enjoyed. Funnily all three of them have movement in them.

Pens seem to be the perfect object for designers onto which to apply their style to. But what is there to be invented? For the “S3″ pen collection for Spalding James invented a clip which is activated by a button rather than working as a spring. This way shirt or jacket pockets don’t risk ripping.

There are many 3-legged folding tables with a removable table top, there are far less 4-legged ones. The reason being that if you use a central hinge point the corners of the table top do not line up with the feet but are automatically slightly twisted. To avoid this James had the idea of curving the legs so as to bring the feet back to where they should be, straight under the corners of the top. The “X4″ table is produced by the Swedish company Swedese and the first one was bought by the king of Sweden to do his watercolours outdoors.

Some tools are generic, a knife for example. It can be used to peel an apple, to cut some cheese, to spread butter… and some tools are very specific for a specific action, a butterknife for example. The Germans seem to want to take this idea to the extreme. One day they asked James design a Spaghetti Tester! Being a Foil-Cutter “Captain Cut” seems to be one of those objects but actually turns out to be rather useful in the end. It is placed on top of a wine-bottle. By pressing the button while slightly twisting it it’s 4 little cutting-wheels cut the foil in a clean and easy way. It has turned out to be a very welcome gift!

When Olivetti decided to launch itself into the world of consumer products, James Irvine, teamed up with Alberto Meda, was comissioned to design the first product for this line. I think this was the most important project I have followed with James.

I realize thst it was a very rare occasion to being able to take part, right from the start, and to every aspect of the product development of the new area of Olivetti. Everything had to be defined. In a very Italian way Olivetti involved us into everything from the design strategy, the discussion about the product functions to the definition of the interface and icons (which were studied together with IDEO, London) down to the product logo and the product communication. We worked together with the marketing department as well as the engineering department. Since the project was very important for Olivetti even the highest levels of managment took part in many meetings. The amazing fact is that Olivetti is the only European brand that produces consumer inkjet printers! The competitors are Epson, Canon, Hp and Lexmark!

James was involved so much into this new project of Olivetti that he also ended up designing their product manuals and their fairstands at IFA Berlin, Smau Milano and Cebit Hannover. Since I was his Olivetti assistant I followed all of these projects with him.

Shoo – Spin-off – Cologne 2003

Everyday I get confronted with the problem of not knowing where to put things, mainly because of the lack of space. And I have a little hunch that I’m not alone in this situation but together with millions of other people living in big cities and small flats. Think of all the Londoners, Parisians, Tokyotes and Milanese. The fact that we tend to buy a lot of things despite of living in small spaces possibly adds to the problem.

So I thought of designing some extra space for things. My first product is a “shoe tower” …