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www.thedesignermagazine.com Cover Feature
Right: the clean
You
could say that industrial constrained by essential eco issues. Thus Facility and Sam Hecht won the Homes
lines of industrial
design has rather been they must remain more focused than ever & Gardens Classic Design Award for facility’s products
pushed into the shadows of late. before. Innovation. Here, their winning product
are shown here
(clockwise from top
Although these days, it is increasingly was Little Disc, for LaCie. This backs up
left): circumference
difficult to say what design is, when it elegant economy information from your computer on its watch; toilet brush for
has become so fragmented. At London’s Design Museum, new(ish) hard drive, in an appealing little glossy
muji; beam light for
established & sons;
Hogging the media limelight is director Deyan Sudjic is pulling design box the size of a cigarette packet. other
coffee maker for muji
grossly priced ‘design art’, which in the sharply back on track. on an airy top devices that do roughly the same job
main is neither. Then there are the weird floor, bathed in light reflected from the are bulky and ugly, and need attached
installations of dripping water, molten river, is a show of the work of Industrial transformers and cable. This product
wax and spun glue, of questionable value. Facility (the name’s the game), a design required a radical rethink of information
There are the exquisite and often hand- practice of partners British Sam Hecht technology and engineering, taking two
made artefacts of the designer-maker, but and American Kim Colin, with senior years to develop.
available (by definition) only to a few. designer Ippei Matsumoto from Japan.
There is interior design, textile design, Their essentially problem-solving products on show
kitchen design, office design, graphic have a “careful unemphatic quality and Little Disc is in Industrial Facility’s clutch
design, software and systems design, and an elegant economy of means,” says of 22 products in the Design Museum
more (all valid disciplines if underpinned Sudjic. show, all done within the last two years.
by rigorous training and good practice), But for this design practice in general Deliberately, none clamours for attention.
but further clouding the issue. There is – and Sam Hecht in particular – an Indeed many are obscured at first sight,
celebrity design where relevance and even exhibition, with its connotion of showy being set low in a long glass case, to be
beauty play second fiddle to a name – display, is almost a contradiction in terms. viewed only from above.
say ‘hello’ to the manifestly not ok! For they rigorously (and as a matter of Products in this exhibition also
And I haven’t even mentioned principal) simplify the appearance of a include Taylor’s Eye Witness kitchen
fashion. product virtually to vanishing point, and knives, a Muji coffee maker, watch and
assiduously integrate it with its function. notebook, oven dishes, clocks and lights
essential focus Equally intriguing is that Industrial for Established & Sons, and a table for
But wasn’t it good (old-fashioned?) Facility is a very young design practice, Herman Miller.
industrial/product design, which founded only in 2002. Sam Hecht himself The exhibition atmosphere is quiet
ironically gave us the D-word in the is not yet 40, yet their and his track and contemplative. Hecht’s studio in
first place during the earlier years of the record is impressive. Farringdon at first has a similar serene
last century? Those old mantras of the and almost monastic feel. “Yes, we like
modern movement are still manifestly exhibitions and awards it like that,” says Hecht firmly. “We think
masterly. Form that follows function, For nearly ten years, they have been of ourselves as a company rather than a
a fitness for purpose, and intelligent retained designers for ‘no-brand name’ studio.”
problem-solving are needed more today Muji – truly a marriage made in heaven, A long table is flanked by an equally
than at any time, as society becomes so similar is their ethos. Designs by Sam extensive bookcase, high enough to be
increasingly complex and more markedly Hecht have been exhibited at the British a room divider. Then from behind this
divided – between, for example, the rich Council and the V&A, in addition to partition come the sharp and constant
and the poor, the fit and the elderly, the earlier occasions at the Design Museum. yelps of a grinding tool, the long drawn-
sick and the well, and, on a global scale, In 2007, Industrial Facility won the out birthing of a prototype.
the ‘developed’ and the deprived. prestigious German international iF Gold “I think we give the appearance of
Now, designers have access to Award, for the third consecutive time for being a much larger company,” adds
ever-expanding resources of technology their work with Epson – their printer is Hecht. “We have created a kind of mirage
and materials yet ironically are newly in the show. Earlier this year, Industrial – but not strategically. People think we ➔
Barbara Chandler explores the work and
words of Sam Hecht, and the exhibition
of his practice, Industrial Facility,
currently showing at the Design Museum
Sam Hecht p.indd 24 22/7/08 10:36:50
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