Our (countless) Finish readers may be familiar with the Avotakka, the premier Finnish interior design magazine. Avotakka launched in December 1967, and in their inaugural issue ran a interview with a British trailblazer by the name of Terence Conran.
Filed under Design history, TERENCE CONRAN
Last year Conran & Partners helped transform ‘Save the Children’ shops up and down the country as part of the BBC TV series ‘Mary Queen of Charity Shops’ presented by Mary Portas.
Interior Design Director Jane Lawrence headed up the project – bringing bold, bright colour into the stores.
We’ve just found this great clip recently posted online which shows Jane presenting the concepts to the shops staff – it’s definitely worth a watch!
Filed under Conran & Partners
What better place to enjoy a cool glass of wine on one of the warmest, sunniest evenings of the year than the rooftop terrace of Terence Conran’s apartment.
And while you’re there why not have a nose around our building and find out a bit more about Conran?
That’s exactly what tempted 40 of the UK’s most eminent design bloggers to join us last night for the first of our blogger’s meet-up events, run in conjunction with our friends over at mydeco.com, the one-stop shop for all your design needs.
We thought it would also be a great opportunity for people to chat to our team and get the lowdown on each part of Conran, whilst having a little look around our studios.
While the team from The Conran Shop chatted to people about some of their hot new products for Spring Summer 2011, down in Studio Conran Bryony Akehurst and Katy Clarke talked the guests through the branding project they did for the healthy cake people Petit Pois and Product Designer Jared Mankelow demonstrated the design process behind our mobile phone which launched in Japan last year, sparking a very interesting discussion on the dying art of hand sketching as a useful exploratory phase at the beginning of the design process.
Interior Designer Jacqui Senior and Architect Nico Santarelli showed bloggers around our Architecture & Interiors floor, Conran & Partners talking about the breadth of interior design we have done all over the world and the massive new redevelopment project Conran & Partners have just completed in Tokyo (more next week…).
All very interesting stuff and lots of questions asked!
In Conran & Company project manager Holly-Anne Rolfe and textile designer Lâle Güralp gave the bloggers a quick tour around their office, showcasing some of the Conran branded product they help develop including brand new bedlinen designs from Bed by Conran and Conran Fine Bedlinen which are just about to hit the shops – books, colour and inspiration galore.
Plus much interest in the beautiful collection of prints of paintbrush collections which Terence bought as a book and framed years ago which have adorned the walls of the office since it was Terence’s a few years ago (he’s now just across the hallway).
There’s already been a few reports posted up there in the big, bold, blogosphere…
there’s one here at youmightlikethis.com – (thanks!)
Watch this space – we hope to have many more meet-ups in the future….enjoy the sun!
Jane Lawrence, Interior Design Director from Conran & Partners, travelled to Venice to moderate a debate on the future of hotels – and unearthed some interesting conclusions.
If you were looking for architectural debate and inspiration Venice was definitely the place to be a couple of weeks ago, with the Venice Biennale of Architecture in full swing and, across the water, the International Hotel Conference at the Hilton Molino Stucky opening its doors to delegates from all over the world.
The conference was well attended – and managed to achieve a really informal atmosphere with lots going on, including two cocktail parties where much interaction and debate took place.
I also attended a dinner party hosted by one of the hoteliers, at a waterside restaurant on the Zattere.
The event does tend to be quite European/US -centric – it would be good to see more representation from the Asian sector; however the delegates that did attend represented a good cross section of disciplines involved with the hotel industry.
The title of the debate was Hotel 2025: Next generation design and technology – A look at the cutting edge design, technology and architecture that may find its way into your next hotel construction or renovation.
I was moderating a group of 5 hotel experts including; hoteliers, entrepreneurs, architects and technology specialists – a good indication of who attended the conference.
Several key themes emerged during the debate that kept the conversation very lively.
Communication and Personalisation presented itself as being very important in the minds of today’s hotel customers with a number of people seeing a future where everything in your room is controlled by an iPhone and the space is tailored to your own requirements.
On the flip side many delegates considered the importance of a more personalised, face to face approach requiring better concierge services and higher levels of customer service.
All very interesting but it was up to me to make sure Design as a topic remained on the agenda – not just the functional aspects of hotels of the future.
The changing role of the lobby in a world of growing ‘Global Nomads’ was one that particularly interested me – with all-day cafes and the proliferation of WiFi people are now using lobbies as multifunctional, long-term venues and an alternative to their bedroom, especially for those among us who simply can’t wait to get out of a room that isn’t our own!
Lobby of the Conran & Partners designed Park Hotel in Hyderabad
Filed under Conran & Partners
Two new positions are currently available within our excellent Architecture & Interiors practice, Conran & Partners.
If you’re a junior 3d modeller and visualiser or an organised and efficient team secretary or assistant looking for your next challenge as part of a friendly and creative team this could be for you.
Filed under Conran & Partners
It’s not often anyone gets to be on tele, let alone twice in less than a year, but Jane Lawrence of Conran & Partners can now officially adopt this claim to fame.
Last year BBC1 aired Mary Queen of Charity Shops, where Conran & Partners created the interiors for Save the Children’s retail shop in Orpington, helping Mary Portas take on a seemingly impossible challenge: dragging this humble, forgotten, unloved charity shop into the 21st century. After five long months a remarkable, lasting transformation was achieved.
Earlier this week the BBC revisited the shop, and there she was again, presenting our concepts to the shop staff.
Why not take a look – it’s on BBC iPlayer till 10pm on 3 May – if you can’t watch the whole thing you can see her from 24.50-26.45 and you can see the final solution from 31.55-33.00:
Our Architects and Interiors team are looking for someone to help them out with marketing – this is a great opportunity to join a thriving and friendly team.
Filed under Conran & Partners
On a previous post we mentioned Hix, the new Conran & Partners designed restaurant and champagne bar in Selfridges which opened last month.
The new 90 seat restaurant offers a fresh variation on Mark Hix’s well-known theme of British food, serving a selection of British and European classics all using the best seasonal produce available. There’s also a 40 seat champagne bar for those in a celebratory mood.
Our interiors team went for a glamourous mid century feel using Saarinen and Knoll furniture and the Andreu world Carola chair.
Benchmark furniture also supplied many key pieces throughout the restaurant.
The restaurant features artwork from British artists including Tracy Emin who did the neon sign at the entrance.
Next week more on Hix as interior designer Jane Lawrence talks about working on the project.
Conran Contracts did their bit by supplying all the furniture and lighting.
Filed under Conran & Partners, INTERIOR DESIGN, Restaurant Design
Some of our architectural team from Conran & Partners are lucky enough to be based in our Brighton office and not have to squash into a crowd of black clad commuters in the bowels of London Bridge station every morning like the rest of us. Now there’s a place we would like to redesign.
Paul Zara is one lucky such soul and a Director at that. He’s our correspondent from Conran & Partners and he’ll be keeping us up to date with all the happenings at ‘C&P’.
Our Architects and Interior designers have had a busy 12 months what with Boundary opening and new restaurants Lutyens and Hix wowing the Fleet Street crowd and the Selfridges shoppers respectively. But behind the scenes there are a whole host of other projects that are keeping us busy…
Here’s what Paul has to say in his first postcard from the South Coast…
Meanwhile over in Japan Richard Doone is still overseeing the massive Futako Tamagawa project in Tokyo. It’s one of the world’s largest construction projects so we should be really proud.
More on that next week.
Not just any architecture, this is Conran architecture
Filed under Conran & Partners
