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About
News, updates and jet-lagged commentary on my work as creative director, writer and consultant specialising in design, urbanism, open source methodologies, and other topics that seemed like a good idea at the time.
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Ikea Hacker
In my continuing work with open design initiatives, I’m thrilled to be collaborating with Amsterdam’s Platform 21 on the Hacking Ikea exhibition which rolled out in Amsterdam in September 2008, will soon be in Korea, before then travelling to Montreal in 2009.
Around the world, professional and nonprofessional designers are making individual alterations to off-the-shelf products. In the process, they pay little or no attention to a product’s original function- in the contemporary climate, design is an open medium. Some do it for fun, others out of necessity, and still others out of a critical attitude toward mass production. IKEA hacks – the appropriation, adaptation and transformation of standard IKEA products – are among the most noticeable expressions of this movement, turning prescribed products into source material for new designs.
Ikea Hacking has gained serious momentum recently on blogs and in Make and Instructables circles, but even the most brilliant of open projects deserves an event as catalyst and physical meeting point for the exploration of the concept, so I’m pleased that Platform 21 is representing in full form in Amsterdam.
A production of Platform 21, Holland’s lifestyle magazine bright.nl and the fabulous recycling-meets-design website superuse.org, from 7 September to 28 September 2008, Platform21 = Hacking IKEA will exhibit the work of professionals and amateurs and will commission new work by makers to whom the practice of hacking is central.
Platform21 = Hacking IKEA is part of the The Netherlands Freedesigndom festival.
For the Dutch design junkies among us, here’s a partial list of the designers taking part: Bas van Beek, Joe Scanlan, Tejo Remy, Bjarne Andreassen, Eric Morel, Madje Vollaers, Helmut Smits, Frank Bruggeman, Daan van den Berg, Stefaan Dheedene, Maarten van den Eynde, Kieren Jones, Eric Von Robertson, Rutger Emmelkamp, Sander van Bussel, Mark Hoekstra, Alan D. Joseph
