The show that gives 100%

Barbara Chandler5 April 2012
The Weekender

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This year's 100% Design show opens Wednesday 26th September at Earls Court Two. The exhibition has become essential viewing for anyone with a love for design. It's packed with the latest ingenious home ideas (the way in which materials are used and combined is groundbreaking stuff) and attracts architects, interior designers and retailers by the thousand.

Sunday is public day, enabling us all to share in the exciting new designs, spread over 450 stalls.

Materials matter

Materials are the main means a designer uses to get his or her ideas off the drawing board or, more likely these days, out of the computer. Materials are crucial to how a product will look, work and last. This year, the materials and the ways they are handled are more varied and imaginative than ever, ranging from familiars, such as wool, wood and ceramics, to advanced plastics, resin, rubber and fibreglass.

High-sci techniques blast old faithfuls such as wood and glass into new dimensions.

Glass Design, of south London, has perfected magical ways of bonding glass both to itself and to other materials such as plastic, stone, metal and wood. The join is invisible, achieved by a clear resin adhesive activated by UV light. The company commissioned a clutch of topnotch designers to exploit the technique and the results on show include glass dining tables and modern chandeliers.

Find more glass in the Bombay Sapphire Blue Room, with a dramatic industry overview.

Don't miss the Crafts Council stand, where 10 young designers awarded a 100% Design bursary show off their latest brainwaves.

Barley Massey uses rubber, plastics, metal sheet and reflective yarns for rugs, throws, cushions, stair runners and even bed sheets.

There's a re-think for PVC, one of the oldest plastics, on the stand of the European Council of Vinyl Manufacturers. Using advanced "dip-moulding" methods designers have come up with ideas such as the ingenious concertina vase that adjusts to the length of a flower stem.

Nylon has shed its nasty image, encouraged by Du Pont, whose new carpet patterns are inspired by sand, stone, paper, metal, glass and peat, and produced using highquality Antron.

In contrast, the finest natural fibres - pashmina, Tibetan wool and silk - are Veedon Fleece's choice for its sensational abstract rugs.

Fibreglass is a favourite for adventurous ideas. You can form it into zany shapes and the colour goes all the way through. Rock-like outdoor seating/sculptures by Field Day come in natural chunky shapes but the colours are surreal. Inside, architect Raj Bhatia has used a sleek pillar of coloured fibreglass to support his innovative cooking/dining console (a freestanding hob).

Sleek and satisfyingly shiny is a family of big bold lights from Drove, a new company set up by designer Sebastian Wrong. They are made from steel and aluminium, finished off with a glossy polyurethane paint finish in a choice of six colours.

Bendywood on the Mallinson stand is bound to be a sensation. Timber is steamed and compressed along its length, which shortens the planks. When cold it can be bent and twisted in virtually any direction; a designer's delight.

Talking textiles, Lily Latifi has come from Paris with her fab felt cut-outs, shaped into floor/table mats, coasters and cushions.

Elaine Philpot makes layered, glowing pendant and table lights. And pushing materials and techniques to the limit is RCA graduate Inghua Ting. Her cushions are made from stainless steel, velvet and lace with pleating and embroidery: more fabric sculpture than a sofa accessory.

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