Thursday 27 December 2012

Frida Kahlo Dolls



I spent some time at the recent Christmas Cracker in Smithfield hawking TILEWATCH to whoever I could. When not selling my ware (singular) it was great to take a look around the many stalls and see what fantastic food, clothing, accessories, furniture, books and Christmassy stuff people had to offer. One of the coolest things I spotted was the range of Frida Kahlo dolls made by textile designer Guadalupe Cabrera. Cabrera had a whole range of pieces handmade in Dublin, such as quilted and appliqué cushions, baby bonnets, Christmas angels, wall-mounted pieces and more, but it was the Kahlo dolls that shone above all others. Made to include the bright colour, floral headdresses and monobrow associated with the Mexican artist, the dolls are such unique objects, and ideal for any art-lovers out there :)

Monday 17 December 2012

TILEWATCH Pre-Christmas Postage



A quick note for those of you looking to get your hands on a copy of TILEWATCH before Christmas: you'll need to get your orders in quick!

Delivery within Ireland: Final postage is 19 December, so orders need to be in by 12 midnight on 18 December (that's tomorrow!)
Delivery to the rest of Europe (that includes you, Portugal and the UK): Final postage is on 18 December, so orders need to be in by 2pm on 18 December (again, that's tomorrow).

You'll find more info on the project here, and you can place your orders over here. And finally, Happy Christmas / Feliz Natal!

So Close by Yellowhammer


Image via Yellowhammer

Yellowhammer, or Alan Nagle as I imagine he's known to his family, is a designer and illustrator based in the midlands. Along with client work Nagle's produced a whole range of beautiful giclée prints, many based on Irish wildlife. Perhaps my favourite so far is called 'So Close', and shows a crafty fox looking to get his paws on an unwitting chicken behind a fence. Like a lot of his work, it's a bright and bold look at the animals we share Ireland with, and this print has particular humour to it, with the fox pacing around while its victim is totally unaware. Though I'm not a country-dweller, my older sister and her family are, and foxes grabbing their chickens are the bane of their country life.When I spotted the print on the wall of the Bow Street branch of the Irish Design Shop, I couldn't help but think of my nephew Charlie getting angry about the bold foxes :)

Friday 14 December 2012

Per Dozen Design



Per Dozen Design - by Kilkenny-based Catherine Keher - comprise a range of brightly illustrated ceramics depicting intricately drawn animals amid colourful triangle-filled patterns. Keher's illustrative work tends to find its way onto plates - usually whole sets of them - with sections of the picture spilling out from one plate onto others. There's a wonderful balance struck between the very masterfully-drawn animals and the playful and naive patterns that seem to flow from the animals like speech bubbles. They're quirky and totally charming: click through to see a selection, and you'll find more at Per Dozen's Etsy store or in the flesh at this weekend's Christmas Flea Market in Smithfield.

Wednesday 12 December 2012

Stacked Bowls by Adam Frew



I first came across Adam Frew's ceramics at the recent design pop-up shop presented by the Irish Design Shop at the Irish Architectural Archive. Based in Portstewart, Frew works primarily with thrown pottery, creating functional and decorative vessels glazed in a calm colour palette and sometimes featuring great drawn elements scratched into the surfaces. My favourite pieces of his are his four tier stacked bowls, pictured here. Four shallow bowls stack one on top of another with a flat lid on top: align them all correctly and you'll see the clouds on the lid spill rain down the side of the bowls. Simple elements, all beautifully proportioned and perfectly curved, come together to create something with charm and character.

Saturday 8 December 2012

Here's the Heads Up #14

 
Poster by Chris Judge for Damn Fine Dublin

Lots to see and do design-wise in Dublin at the moment. No time cos you still have your Christmas shopping to do? Well amid the selection below you'll find some Christmas markets and pop-ups, where there are plenty of stocking fillers to be found.

Monday 3 December 2012

A Place to Gather at LDF


A Place to Gather, photographed by Linda Brownlee

This article was first published in Architecture Ireland #265

This year’s London Design Festival saw the Crafts Council of Ireland present an exhibition of Irish craft and design in a venue in Shoreditch. A Place to Gather was curated by Jonathan Legge and brought together a wide range of Irish furniture and objects in a warm, welcoming and homely setting. Over the course of the exhibition’s short run over one thousand people visited the space on Chance Street to see Irish craft and design across various scales and utilising a broad range of techniques and materials gathered together.

Friday 30 November 2012

No. 29 Wolfe Tone Street



The home and office of Donoghue Corbett Architects - No. 29 Wolfe Tone Street in Limerick - was most definitely one of the highlights of the first edition of Open House Limerick back in October. Donoghue Corbett took an 1840s terraced house and transformed it into a bright and warm home and work space through a reconfiguration of existing space and a small extension to the ground and first floors. Attention to detail through material use and a variety of textures make for an interesting and inviting space.

Tuesday 27 November 2012

TILEWATCH Print Edition



Buy the TILEWATCH print edition here!

Some of you may have noticed that the more time I spent in Lisbon this year, the more obsessed I became with the city's patterned tiles. First that obsession manifested itself in an online project called TILEWATCH where I collected 250 photographs and drawings of ceramic tiles over my six months in Portugal. Well my tile-inspired endeavours didn't stop there, a printed project is just off the press! The print edition of TILEWATCH takes the form of a tile-spotting trail that brings you on a tour of two of Lisbon's central neighbourhoods - Alfama and Mouraria - highlighting a number of tiles along the way.

Monday 19 November 2012

Curvas Chair by Gonçalo Campos



Designed by Portuguese native Gonçalo Campos, the pinewood Curvas chair caught my eye over on Cool Hunting firstly for its elegant shape and slim arms and legs. Simple and minimal in aesthetic, it's also a really interesting combination of high and low tech. While the elements are cut using computer-controlled machinery, they're assembled by hand by the skilled craftsmen in Portuguese joinery company Wewood. More images below, and be sure to visit Campos' website to see more of his clever combinations of materials and processes.

Friday 16 November 2012

Archizines

Image via IAF

Last night saw the launch of Archizines, an exhibition presenting new architectural magazines, journals and independent publications from all over the world. Curated by Elias Redstone and presented in Ireland by the Irish Architecture Foundation and the National College of Art and Design, the exhibition is on opens to the public today in NCAD Gallery, Dublin 8 and runs until 11 January.

Thursday 15 November 2012

Dont try to be Original, Just try to be Good


Exhibition shot including portraits of Rand by Steven Heller

Easily one of the highlights of this year's Design Week (which ran from 5 - 11 November) has been Don't try to be Original, Just try to be Good, an exhibition exploring work by iconic American graphic designer Paul Rand. Curated by the guys from Curate and Design (who you may remember from a small exhibition of work by Dieter Rams in 2011) and funded through Fund It, the show opened in Ebow Gallery in Dublin 2 on 2 November and runs until Friday 16 November. The exhibition features a small number of specially-licensed reproductions along with a pretty decent number of original books and magazine advertisements designed by Rand, giving someone like me - with only a basic knowledge of graphic design history - a really nice introduction to and overview of Paul Rand's work.

Friday 9 November 2012

Seven/Eleven by Keep Sketch


11/11: print by Dave Comiskey based on Spinal Tap, who always believed in turning it up to 11

Seven/Eleven is the latest project from stationery/design/funtimes initiative Keep Sketch and its collaborators. Keep Sketch celebrated this year’s edition of Design Week by assigning each of seven designers and illustrators a date of the festival (5 – 11 November) to base a three-colour archival giclée print on, with Alex Synge, Fuschia MacAree, Kathi Burke, Stephen Maurice Graham, Dave Comiskey, Mark Crawford and Ross Henderson producing an amazing series. The inspirations - and final prints - are varied, from celebrating the lives and deaths of different prominent figures (or illustrator Kathi Burke celebrating her own birthday on 6 November), portraying the events of interesting dates in history, or simply turning it up to eleven (see above, by Dave Comiskey). All seven awesome prints – produced in editions of 30 – are on display in the Irish Design Shop in the RHA until the end of Design Week (Sunday) and are available to buy for €20 each, which you should because they really are awesome :)

Tuesday 6 November 2012

Patterns by Ursula Celano



With a background in tourism, Irish-born Ursula Celano has long since had an interest in products that aim to express Ireland and Irishness. This and an interest in drawing and pattern-making led her to start her own range of products - beginning with notebooks - almost two years ago. Since then her range has grown to include pencilcases, tea towels, cards and aprons. Above all, my favourites are her bags and purses which employ bright, bold patterns containing elements of Ireland's landscape and lifestyle.

Thursday 1 November 2012

Oven Dishes by Ardmore Pottery



I first spotted these oven dishes, made by Mary Lincoln of Ardmore Pottery, over on I am of Ireland, an online Irish craft retailer. Amid its broad range of stock in a variety of materials, it was these dishes that really stood out. Beautifully simple, the dishes boast a perfectly circular shape, interrupted only by two small tabs for handling, glazed in a great shade of soft sea green. The dishes are designed and made along with a range of pottery by Lincoln at Ardmore Pottery and Gallery in Co. Waterford, where Lincoln runs her pottery studio along with a craft shop. You can buy them there as well as online through I am of Ireland. Also, you can see these and more items in the flesh at I am of Ireland's pop-up shop in Clashmore, Co. Waterford on 10 and 11 November.

Friday 26 October 2012

Ballynanty School by Andy Devane



Last weekend I headed south for the first edition of Open House Limerick, and it was great! Organised by a team assembled from Limerick City and County Councils, Limerick Regeneration and some local architects and historians, OHLimerick saw 60 events, including 37 building tours, occur over three days. As with any decent OH festival, the OHLimerick programme contained a great mix of buildings to visit, including buildings of historic significance, contemporary spaces, public and cultural buildings and beautiful private residences. While the programme was varied, there was a spotlight placed on the work of Limerick-born architect Andy Devane, with five of his buildings in the city on show.

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Here's the Heads Up #13


Fuschia MacAree at the Bernard Shaw

26 October - 19 November:
Fuschia MacAree at the Bernard Shaw, Dublin 2
Blessings and Curses is the first solo exhibition of uber-talented illustrator Fuschia MacAree. It runs for three weeks in the Bernard Shaw in Portobello, do go if you can.

31 October:
Eva Franch at IMMA @ the NCH, Dublin 2
As part of the Irish Architecture Foundation's series of talks entitled Agents of Architecture, director of New York's Storefront for Art and Architecture Eva Franch comes to Dublin to speak on the evening of 31 October. The event is free but booking is essential here.

Friday 19 October 2012

Lisbon: Top 5 Top 5s


View from Elevador de Santa Justa

Here's a post I've been planning to do for a while, but I kept getting distracted by goings on in Dublin and putting more layers of clothes on... There are so many great things and places and sights in Lisbon that I want to tell people about so I thought I would compile a few Top 5s to give you a sense of what the city's like to spend time in. And then I'll calm down with the effusing about the place, I promise. Without further ado...

Monday 15 October 2012

Farewell TILEWATCH...



As you may have noticed, I spent six sunny months living in Lisbon, the awesome capital city of the awesome country Portugal. As well as soaking up vitamin D, learning a little Portuguese, sampling pastries and familiarising myself with the vast and tasty local wine selection, I developed a mild tile obsession (the doctor says it's nothing to worry about). Over on TILEWATCH I collected exactly 250 photos and drawings of tiles mainly spotted in Lisbon but also in Setúbal, Porto and Guimarães. They're all there for your perusal, and keep an eye for an upcoming tile-related project I hope to have finished and made public soon enough... The last photo (above) was posted recently, and the tiles (found at the Nossa Senhora do Monte viewing point in Graça) spell out 'Boa viagem; Lisboa espera por ti', meaning 'Safe journey; Lisbon awaits you'. Oh, how I hope it does...

Friday 12 October 2012

House and Garden in the Liberties



I don't know about you guys, but I spent last weekend gorging on architecture thanks to the Irish Architecture Foundation's Open House Dublin festival. The first tour I went on was of Donaghy and Dimond's House and Garden in the Liberties, and it was definitely one of the highlights of my busy weekend. This is the second Donaghy and Dimond designed space I've been in, and they're certainly architects with a flair for interesting material use and clever configurations of space. In particular I think they balance materials very well - I really love the use of concrete in this house (the cast concrete bath is a particular highlight), but paired with lots of warm wood and cast in plenty of light, it never becomes cold or stark. See below for more images, and if you spot any of Donaghy and Dimond's work in future editions of OHD, make sure to get yourself to a tour :)

Thursday 4 October 2012

Engage


(Installation by Respublica on College Green, image by Philip White)

Newly-formed TANK Collective are off to a flying start with a multidisciplinary project taking place in six telephone boxes across Dublin city centre called Engage. TANK Collective - who are abgc architecture and design, artist Nicky Hooper, fashion designer Renate Henschke and Ciaran Walsh of le cool Dublin - have commissioned six artists, designers and filmmakers to decorate eircom telephone boxes: spaces that were once part of everyday life but lately have been sitting silent. With support from eircom Respublica, Designgoat, Leo Scarff, Mick Minogue, Paul Mohan and Mint Design have transformed telephone boxes around St. Stephen's Green, College Green, Dame Street, Nassau Street and George's Street and the installations will remain in place until 8 October.

Monday 1 October 2012

African Lookbook



Launched this summer, African Lookbook is a website and online store that explores and celebrates creativity across the vast continent of Africa. Founded by two Americans who have lived and worked there, African Lookbook compiles oral histories (interviews, to you and I) with African creatives and stocks a growing range of great products and projects in its store. Highlights so far include men's knitwear by Laduma Ngxokolo, pictured above and below, brightly patterned parasols by Gareth Crowdon (further below) and a wall-mounted piece by Michael Van Heerdan entitled 'The Building Blocks of Africa' (pictured at the bottom). There's a brightness and vibrancy about much of the stock on the website, and its great to see an initiative looking to share with the rest of the world the fantastic creative output of the African continent. Expect to be hitting the 'Add to Cart' button often :)

Monday 24 September 2012

Lisboa Open House


(Image by Pedro Sadio)

As mentioned last week, Open House season is on its way! The booking frenzy has already been and gone for Open House Dublin, and the programme has been launched for the latest international addition to the Open House Worldwide family: Lisbon! On 6 and 7 October (the same weekend as Dublin) over fifty buildings in that beautiful city I briefly called home open their doors for free architectural tours and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't bothered about missing it... Lisboa Open House is presented by the very busy people behind Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa/Lisbon Architecture Triennale (they've just launched the programme for the 2013 edition of the Triennale which is curated by a team headed up by Beatrice Galilee and will take place in various locations across Lisbon next autumn). The Lisboa OH programme encompasses old and new buildings and public, cultural and residential spaces in various neighbourhoods of the city. A number of places have already been featured on I Like Local and TILEWATCH (such as Cinema São Jorge, The Electricity Museum, Baixa-Chiado Metro Station and Largo do Intendente), while here are some other highlights:

Saturday 22 September 2012

Open House Dublin 2012


(Image of Pearse St. shopfront via Built Dublin)

Well, Open (House) Season is upon us again! The programme for Open House Dublin, Ireland's biggest architecture festival presented annually by the Irish Architecture Foundation has been launched as part of a worldwide family of events that is now bigger than ever. Here in Ireland Dublin is being joined once again by Open House Galway and for the first time Open House Limerick while the most recent international addition to the OHWorldwide family is none other than Lisbon! Open House Dublin returns for its seventh edition from 5 to 7 October. This year sees almost 130 events occur over three days all over Dublin city and county, giving you the chance to explore architecture in all its dimensions. OHD is always a massively popular event, with a recorded 23,000 attendances in 2011. While there are a whole host of new buildings and tours included in this year's programme, some fantastic highlights return from previous years, such as Number 31, the Criminal Courts of Justice and heaps more. Take a look below at some of my highlights for 2012.

Monday 17 September 2012

Two Irish Events at LDF



Though this year's edition of London Design Festival (LDF) kicked off last week, two noteworthy Irish exhibitions open tomorrow evening (18 September) and run until the end of the festival. First up is the second event of its kind from online design and craft retailers Makers & Brothers. Following on from Making 01, their pop-up event at New York Design Week (where woodworker James Carroll made a small batch of stools over the course of a few days within a shop/exhibition space), Makers & Brothers heads to SCP East to exhibit some of their stock. Meanwhile, in keeping with the 'Making' theme, Kathleen McCormick will spend the duration of the exhibition making willow baskets. Making 02 takes place until 23 September at SCP Shoreditch, 135-139 Curtain Road.

Friday 31 August 2012

Introspectiva



This article was first published in Architecture Ireland #264

Having recently relocated to Lisbon in Portugal, I have been getting to know a whole new design scene. Previously, I knew very little about Portuguese design but gradually I’m getting a sense of a small but very active community of creatives both here and in Porto in the north. While architecture is explored at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale (next edition in 2013) as well as through the Triennale’s ‘Intervalo’ programme between editions, design has its outings too. Design is experienced and exhibited at MUDE – the Museum of Design and Fashion on Rua Augusta (one of Lisbon’s main shopping streets), while for two months every two years the city centre is home to EXD (ExperimentaDesign) – an international biennale dedicated to design, architecture and creativity, which returns in autumn 2013.

Monday 27 August 2012

Hello Jonas Wagell



Launching this month from Danish design powerhouse Normann Copenhagen is the Hello Floor Lamp, designed by Sweden's Jonas Wagell. In Jonas' words, "I strive to design objects that look simple and uncomplicated, and not technical. Objects that have a graphic appearance like symbols or icons. The Hello floor lamp is like that. Its simplistic shape questions why things have to be - or look - so complicated." In the case of the Hello lamp, it's a job well done. With an entirely simple shape and appearance made in birch, steel and an acrylic diffuser, Hello also manages to have some personality and character.

Thursday 23 August 2012

Maria Keil


(Intendente)

Born in 1914, Maria Keil was a Portuguese artist who created a massive amount of work, and in particular a great number of tile patterns and murals in the city of Lisbon. I've seen examples of Keil's designs in various places, but it's her work for the Lisbon Metro system that stands out most for me. I first came across her name when researching a post about Parque Metro Station. Parque was one of the first Metro stations opened in Lisbon and the striking tiles in its lobby were designed by Keil.

Monday 20 August 2012

Largo do Intendente



A part of my neighbourhood I find myself often gravitating towards is Largo do Intendente. It's probably due at least in part to the tiles - the place is covered in all types of them and they're in great condition... It's also a nicely (and newly) redeveloped space that seems to have a lot of art and music events going on. I looked a little further into it and discovered that, as part of one of Lisbon's more socially problematic areas, the city council has recently pushed for a wide redevelopment of the area, with the Largo being one of the first major projects undertaken to reach that goal. The city's president is so committed to the idea that in 2011 he moved his office into a building on the square (he's based in behind the tiled building above). The square is home to a couple of cafes - some old, some new - along with a great art centre encompassing studio, exhibition and accomodation space for artists, called Largo Residências. Residências also seems to engage with the local community, just one initiative aiming to enliven and (re)connect the community along with the recent Festa do Intendente and Lisboa na Rua (Lisbon in the street).

Thursday 16 August 2012

Pedestrian Bridge in Covilhã



In Covilhã, a town a little south east of Porto and directly east of Coimbra, a recent and striking addition has been made in the form of a pedestrian and cycling bridge designed by João Luís Carrilho da Graça and completed in 2009. Stretching about 220m over the Ribeira da Carpinteira, the bridge connects the two sides of the town and 'flattens' the experience of movement through the area (living in a hot and hilly city, I can really appreciate that...). Above all, the bridge is a graceful and elegant intervention in the landscape with a strong but not overpowering presence. Scroll down for more images, including one with SNOW! In Portugal!!

Monday 13 August 2012

G.pt by GPOD



GPOD - Gonçalo Prudêncio Office of Design - is a Lisbon-based design studio that applies a simple and considerate philosophy to the design and production of furniture. GPOD's G.pt range brings minimal designs to life through often locally-sourced materials such as Portuguese pine, cork and marble while design, production and sale are all done by the studio itself. All of the G.pt range is great, but my particular favourites are the Tubo chair and Munge stool. The Tubo chair plays on the shape and material use seen in the chairs outside almost every bar and cafe in Portugal but further simplifies the form and introduces beautifully bright white and yellow tubular steel and a comfy seat made from cork. Not only attractive, Tubo must be quite a bit lighter than its common counterparts - a clever adjustment when you consider how often outdoor cafe chairs need to be stacked, unstacked and moved around on a daily basis.

Thursday 9 August 2012

You Are Here


Vanessa and Andreas from New Zealand and Denmark

Since 27 July I've been watching and reading about the Olympics on a daily basis. Other than the spectacle of it all, I suppose there's something cool about this being a major event not only here in Portugal but at home in Ireland too (as well as everywhere else). For the same reason I took a much bigger interest in Euro 2012 than any previous tournament, and about the same amount of interest in the Eurovision as usual (a lot). So now onto the Olympics, which I have fairly well covered between Eurosport, live streams and twitter. This post would have been drafted a little sooner only I was hypnotised by the men's Horizontal Bar final: they just kept swinging round and round and round...

Tuesday 7 August 2012

How To Say The Most With The Least



Recently showing at London's Kemistry Gallery was 'How to say the most with the least', an exhibition of work produced in a collaborative 6-day workshop in São Paulo run by Brazilian studio Mesa & Cadeira and led by British designer Anthony Burrill. The result of the workshops was a series of bi-lingual posters employing some of Burrill's trademark simplicity and minimal use of language to create strong messages. As someone having to come to terms with Portuguese, I was particularly interested when I came across this project. The workshop participants have explored the language barrier between English and Portuguese and found bridges between the two languages, creating a series of work that plays with (twice as many) words to great effect. Scroll down for some lessons in Portuguese... and life, judging by some of the statements in the posters :) A set of 12 prints as well as individual prints are available to buy from Kemistry's online shop.

Thursday 2 August 2012

Best of 2012




So we've made it to the present! The beginning of 2012 was spent in Dublin, the middle in Lisbon and the end... location tbc. See below for the highlights of 2012 so far and see you next week for the beginning of the rest of the year :)

Wednesday 1 August 2012

Tuesday 31 July 2012

Best of 2010




In late 2009 I joined the ranks at the Irish Architecture Foundation and as a result I Like Local* started covering a lot more about the built environment. Most of the popular posts in 2010 were architecture-related (the most popular of all being about Open House Dublin, the biggest project I worked on with the IAF). Below are a couple of those archi-highlights. In 2010 I also spent most of my time in Dublin, but guest writer Colm Keller gave a little insight into design goings-on in Sweden in January of that year.

Monday 30 July 2012

Best of 2009




Hey guess what: I Like Local* is three years old! Hitting the big 3 has inspired me to look back at all that's been posted on the site so far and see what's been preoccupying me over the past few years in my past few locations. It's also been interesting to see what posts have made the biggest splash or been most read. So with all that in mind, I thought I'd post a couple of 'best ofs' - the most read and/or most interesting posts of 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 so far. Here's a little run-down of the Best of 2009 :)

Monday 23 July 2012

Copenhagen Kickstarter



Thanks to a post over on Fast Company I came across MUUSE, a fantastic new fashion site based in Copenhagen. MUUSE is fashion retail with a difference: work from carefully-selected emerging designers can be bought in one of three ways: pre-order, ready-to-wear or tailor-made. Ready-to-wear pieces are stocked and ready for shipping, while tailor-made pieces are produced to your measurements. Pre-order works a little like Kickstarter or Fund It: only when a certain number of people reserve their garment is the piece put into production.