OK, Ok, enough bad musical puns. It was a while ago now that we first broke the news of Formway's latest office product offering – Be – with this story on the rather innovative design of the new chair.  Be, designed at Formway's Lower Hutt studio, is finally available in New Zealand, although it's been on the market in the States for about a year, where it's licensed to Knoll and marketed as 'Generation'.

In the US Be/Generation has sold around 60,000 units.  The expectation is, as the audience in attendance at Formway's Parnell base was last night told, that Be should overtake the sales of Formway's Life chair, which has shifted somewhere in the vicinity of 500,000 units.

Be picked up a Stringer Award at the Best Design Awards in 2009. Alt Group did the identity work on the Be project and picked up a gold at the Best Awards this year. Check out some of its work here.

– Michael Barrett

Share/Save

Share/Save

Though you may not be able to place Nick Bogle’s name or the face, the New Zealander’s career credits read like those of a Hollywood A-lister.

He’s worked on the Star Wars prequel trilogy – The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith – Men in Black, Pirates of the Caribbean, War of the Worlds, Hulk, The Nightmare Before Christmas… and more. He has just finished Mars Needs Moms, a kids science fiction film from Disney due out early next year; now he’s working on another Disney film, Yellow Submarine, a 3-D remake of the 1968 animated feature woven around Beatles music.

White phosphorous over Falluja, by Nick Bogle.

To be more specific, Bogle is working on the interior of a model submarine for that movie, which explains everything. An industrial designer by training, his expertise lies behind the scenes rather than up on the big screen.
Bogle, who was born in Howick and grew up in and around Auckland, has parlayed a design diploma from Wellington Polytechnic into an international career as a model-maker. He started in London, where he ran his own company for a while, making models for advertising agencies. Since moving to America almost 20 years ago he’s worked mostly in the film industry, creating small-scale models of people, places and other objects when it’s too expensive, difficult or dangerous to use the real thing.

Nick Bogle with comet.

But show business can also be a fickle business. Though projects may run from a few months to a year or longer, this is typically contract work with no guarantees about tomorrow. “It’s unstable, intermittent, on/off,” Bogle says.

Adding to the uncertainty has been the emergence of computer-generated imagery (CGI), software graphics programs, usually in 3-D, enabling film-makers to create on-screen special effects that previously depended on filming models. The recession is also hurting the industry. In mid-March Disney, blaming “economic realities”, announced the closure of ImageMovers Digital. The California studio, located just north of San Francisco, will be wound down by next January with the loss of 450 jobs.

This is the studio behind Yellow Submarine and though efforts are being made to cobble together a deal that would safeguard the movie’s development, Bogle has his doubts. “It doesn’t sound like we’ll finish it,” he said. The bottom line for many people working in the movie industry is that they need something else to fall back on… in this case it’s Nick Bogle Designs, a company producing high-end furniture, lighting fixtures and fiber-optic art works.

Teak table, back right, by Nick Bogle.

Bogle, 57 this year, may well have inherited that multi-talented and resourceful nature from his father who founded the University of Auckland’s electrical engineering department, originally based at Ardmore.

“Dad was very practical,” recalls Bogle. “He did everything on our car. We never had a mechanic. It was the same story for the lawnmower and everything else. He even used to sew mum’s ball gowns.”

Apart from his own penchant for making things, Bogle had few career ideas when he left Auckland Grammar School at 16. But after four or five years of trying various things, including a year of graphic design at Wellington Polytechnic, he homed in on industrial design. After graduating, he headed to England where he survived by cleaning houses until landing a job with a design company in the heart of London. He went in to show his portfolio and ask about work, was hired on the spot and started the same day.

About a year later he made a career-changing move, joining Metro Models as a model maker for some of the city’s major advertising agencies. He was trained in the use of different materials and techniques, developed new skills, such as spray painting, and enjoyed several years of model making in the “heyday before computer graphics”. By then Bogle had met his American wife Gail, who was also working in London, and once they bought a house he set up a home-based workshop and launched his own business, Don’t Panic Models.

He chose the quirky name for good reason. “You’re working in a panic industry,” he says. “Everything is always needed tomorrow. It’s high stress work.” Even on his latest project Bogle reports occasional 80-hour weeks and having to crash on mattresses at work.

The business thrived but when the UK economy tanked in the late ’80s, knocking down advertising agencies and photo studios, Bogle and his wife decided to bail out. By then they also had daughter Ava, born in 1986, who is now an actress and playwright living near Los Angeles.

They arrived in the U. S. in 1991 and settled in Mill Valley, just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, an area that Bogle recalls “looked a lot like New Zealand.” Impressive model-making credentials landed Bogle his first job in the movies working on The Nightmare Before Christmas, a film made using stop-frame animation, also called stop-motion.

In this painstaking process, models are repeatedly moved infinitesimal amounts by hand and photographed frame by frame in each new position. Running all those frames in a continuous sequence then creates the illusion of the models moving on their own.

Bogle, who worked on Nightmare for about six months, was part of a team making more than 200 foam rubber and latex figures, each about 30cm tall, reinforced with wire and even ball-and-socket joints so they could be better manipulated and hold a variety of poses.

One of Bogle’s projects was a snake, about a metre long, that had to slither out of Santa’s sack and around a Christmas tree. To help make the movement realistic, Bogle fitted magnets inside the snake and had it “move” across a metal floor. Today it still clings tenaciously to his fridge.

Next he joined Industrial Light & Magic, the award-winning special effects company founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas, then located in San Rafael, only about 15 minutes from Bogle’s house.

In 14 years contracting with ILM, Bogle has created everything from the inside of an alien’s head, boats and landscapes, to buildings that were blown up and others that were flooded. Lorne Peterson worked with him for much of that time and was impressed by the New Zealander’s range of abilities and attention to detail.

Peterson was among the first model makers at ILM, joining in 1975 to work on Star Wars. He recently retired after 33 years in the business, the highlight of which was a special effects Oscar for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. He reckons Bogle possesses a rare combination of mechanical, engineering and aesthetic skills. “Aesthetically he’s really strong,” says Peterson. “He’s definitely the person to deliver that final kiss of quality.”

About 10 years ago Bogle and his wife, an author who also works as a grant writer for a children’s museum in San Francisco, moved to the small, rather alternative, coastal community of Bolinas which has a history of attracting creative people. That’s where Bogle now designs and makes furniture, using classic woods like walnut and cherry to create armoires, tables, desks, bookcases, bar stools and other custom-made pieces that fetch between US$5,000 and US$10,000 each.

He also creates different styles of light fixtures and has begun exhibiting and selling framed artworks that combine graphics and fibre-optics: he has been using an LED to light the fine fibre strands and is now experimenting with solar energy.

Moa room chandeliers, by Nick Bogle.

Looking back over the years, Bogle has seen CGI gradually supplanting model making. “Computers are taking over a lot of the things we used to do. There’s definitely less work around now,” he says. “In the past there may have been 50 people in a model shop. We’ll never see that again.”

Still he remains optimistic and is buoyed by the successful Lord of the Rings movies in which Weta Digital used hybrid production techniques, combining computers and models. “That’s had a huge impact on our world,” Bogle says.

– Frank Nelson

Share/Save

Words: Emma Fox-Derwin. Images: Well-Groomed-Fox; Koelnmesse/Lutz Sternstein.

XY+Z Suit Rack, by Well-Groomed-Fox.

After 44 hours of travel, two-and-a-half months of planning and copious amounts of excited anticipation, we stepped off the ICE train at 6:45am at the central station in the city of Cologne, Germany. In the half light of a snowy mid-January Sunday morning we were greeted by the Dom, the famed Cologne Cathedral, in all its Gothic majesty. This scene was a stark contrast to the Wellington summer we had left, only days earlier.

A few months earlier, in October 2009, myself and partner Nigel Groom, of Well-Groomed-Fox, a fledgling Wellington-based furniture, product and interior practice, were plucked from global obscurity by the German Design Council to spend 10 days in the city of Cologne, exhibiting as finalists for the Interior Innovation Award in the [D]3 contest at the imm Cologne Furniture and Interior Trends fair, as the first representatives of New Zealand in the prestigious event, with our product the XY + Z Suit Rack.Occurring annually in January at the Koelnmesse Events centre, the imm Cologne Furniture Fair is known as the original furniture and interior trends trade show, the show and surrounding events culminate to be Germany’s biggest yearly furniture and interior design event. Over the past 8 years the [D3] Design Talents section of the fair has grown into a renowned forum for young designers to exhibit their work. The [D3] section of the fair is divided into three parts; schools, professionals (not more than 5 years in practice) and the contest.

D3 exhibitors at imm Cologne.

On Monday morning we made our way to the competition judging. The judging was not dissimilar to that of a design school critique. We went around the space and spoke in turn about our projects. During the judging the diversity between the 30 finalist projects became very apparent, there were projects that focused on process, materiality, emotive experience, found object and scale. Whatever the approach they were intelligent, archetypal forms that were explored, challenged and reinvented. This was particularly evidenced by Adam Farlie’s Mourning Light, a pendant lamp designed to address the uncanny, by keeping the user concealed beneath it in the shadow, as the shade illuminates their surroundings; and Elisa Strozyk’s Wooden Carpet, a wonderfully incongruous piece that is made from wooden veneer yet maintains an uncanny fluidity when you touch it. Robin Grasby’s Homework was a beautifully resolved and crafted customisable desk system which doesn’t have a single screw fixture; Pepe Heykoop’s Brick series is a chandelier and chair that illustrates the power of the multiplicity of the found object when composed with intent. Rocking on the beach, by Studio Joon & Jung, is a heart-warming  piece that gives off the sound of ocean waves as you rock due to sand filling the chair's pipe structures. At the conclusion of the judging,  portraits and group photos were taken, and the rest of the day was left to explore the city. We passed back into the city over the Rhine via the Hohenzollern Bridge, which is whimsically adorned with lovers’ padlocks, just as in the novel/movie Ho Voglia di Te.

Remi Bouhaniche's 'Etirement'.

Brick Series designed by Pepe Heykoop.

Homework table by Robin Grasby.

Adam Fairlie's Mourning Light.

Joon & Jung's Rocking on the Beach.

That evening was the award ceremony and welcome party, hosted by the German Design Council, Design Post and H.O.M.E. Germany magazine (who was celebrating its 10th Birthday). The winners of the award in our category were Jessica Hansson with Cabinet Filled with Shadows; Julien Renault with Hand-forged Aluminum Series; and Etirement by Remi Bouhaniche. It was a fabulous event, the food was amazing and all the [D3] Designers drank the local Kolsch and danced the night away. Tuesday morning saw the fair officially open to a flood of media and producers from all over the globe. By Thursday we had managed to see more of the fair outside of the [D3] Design Talents section, including new products from Ligne Roset and Knoll, and iconic work from Cassina and Cappellini.

First prize – Hand-forged Aluminium Series by Julien Renault. "My aim was to source inspiration from the archetypal processes and techniques of forging steel and apply them to aluminium."

Each year alongside the official fair, Passagen runs throughout the city of Cologne, with parties, exhibits and events in showrooms, furniture stores, galleries, and specialised locales. One such Passagen event during this year’s furniture week was held as the Veltins Design Lounge. This was a live DJ act performed by Karim Rashid. Another Passagen highlight was an amazing exhibition by Front Design of Sweden.

The closing party on the Saturday marked the end of our week at the fair, with Flausen talks and awards for the Schools, held in the [D3] Design Talents lounge. Overall, the sheer expanse of the fair was incredible, there were so many people, pieces, brands and types of furniture from all over the world, from big names with huge spaces, to the non-branded mass-producers whose stands were so crowded they were more reminiscent of a
Hong Kong street market. In the end there were over 100,000 pieces of furniture at Cologne; a testament to how alive and well furniture design is. In my mind, the most exciting and interesting part of the fair was the D3 Design Talents exhibition, although I may be more than a little biased. The experience of imm Cologne was unforgettable, in the end this was due to the wonderful people we met; the other contestants and the event organizers – next stop Salone Satellite at Salone del Mobile.

Share/Save

Two days ago, UFL in Auckland brought across three international guest speakers: Argentina-born designer Alexander Lotersztain, from Derlot, was one. He shared his thoughts on, amongst other things, sustainability, ‘mono-materiality and why designers have a responsibility to help poorer countries.

Stump, a recycled polyethylene stool designed with minimum parts for cost effective and efficient manufacture.

For starters, Lotersztain ticks the first box to which all serious designers should aspire – like Konstantin Grcic, but perhaps not quite to the same extent, he has a name to make an English-speaking monoglot tremble. From Argentina originally, Lotersztain moved incrementally up the alphabet to Australia, where he studied industrial design in Australia, before heading further afield for design jobs in Japan, Milan and Barcelona. From there it was back to Australia, where he has since started up Derlot.

Derlot, says the designer, produces a bespoke range of furniture. “We are a small boutique studio – there’s only about three of us in the studio, some times a few more, sometimes a few less depending on the projects that we tackle. For our furniture and lighting we have a very strong philosophy – we want to try and manufacture everything in Australia, keeping it local. Another aspect of the range is that we want to show the product for hat it is, and people to understand the product for what it is.”

Lotersztain is a proponent of what he calls “mono-materiality”, a design ethos that sees him look to introduce the most minimum of material palettes into his designs.

“When we consider design we try to use only the minimal number of materials, if possible only one material. Because that, I guess, from my point of view, is the easiest way to be sustainable – using common sense. If you have one material, that’s one manufacturer one energy output, there’s no shipping in between manufacturers of componentry, there’s no disassembly at the end of the lifespan of the product.”

Part of Lerod's versatility, says the designer, is the ability to re-powdercoat it and thus meet changing aesthetic requirements.

An example of this approach can be seen in his Plantation and Lerod furniture. The story behind the Lerod design, as Lotersztain recounts it, is a fascinating example of the manufacturing industry evolving laterally.

“In Australia, there’s a lot of difficulty in inspiring manufacturers. We don’t have the tradition of Scandinavian countries, or Italy, in terms of approaching manufacturers with our designs. This manufacturer was doing shopping trolleys – that was their main business, their bread and butter – and fridge shelving; that was about it. I approached them with the idea and initially they said, ‘no we can’t help you’. Two months later they lost their account with Coles, one of the major supermarkets in Australia, and they picked up the phone and said, ‘oh maybe we’ll look into those chairs for you’.

The range of chairs and stools is almost entirely comprised of powdercoated steel. The bars of the seat are orientated front-to-back for comfort, and to aid the ease of sliding on and off. It’s the powdercoating, however, says the designer, which is “the best thing about it”. Lerod chairs and stools can be re-powdercoated over-and-over again, which makes it immune, to a degree, to the capriciousness of faddism.

Plantation is another range the designer has produced with an eye towards waste elimination. Lotersztain says he has always been fascinated with working in timber. “It’s a beautiful material; we’ve been using timber since the beginning of time. It’s something we are very familiar with … it’s almost in our DNA. But I wanted to make it in a sustainable way, I didn’t want to use hardwoods, I wanted to create a range of furniture made out of plantation plywood. This whole range is about marine-grade plywood. And the whole design was about trying to find the most effective possible way of manufacturing the chairs.”

Plantation, manufactured from plantation plywood. Four chairs can be cut from a single sheet of 25mm plywood

As a result of his investigations, the designer devised a system whereby he can make about four chairs from a single sheet of 25mm plywood. The waste material, about 7 per cent, is made into egg cups which were then given away – “ a present” – for the buyers of the chairs.

“The idea behind this was to inspire people to think outside the square. We’re saying ok, you’re buying our chair, that’s fine, you get two eggcups as a present – but it’s to create awareness that we are being responsible about the way we think about what we go about.”

The designer has a number of other products under his belt. There’s Twig, a concrete outdoor furniture system, which he says has proven very popular in Spain. He has also designed a plastic version of Twig, to exactly the same dimensions, which weighs 70kg, versus the concrete version’s 2000kg. “It’s only 70kg, but there’s a few extra options. It’s water fillable, so if you want to have it in areas where there’s a possibility that someone might walk out with it, which would be quite difficult, we can fill it up with water and bring it up to about 500 to 700 kg. There’s options of fire-retardancy, options of UV stability, options of LED lights, and an upholstered version as well.”

Twig, concrete form.

Twig, plastic form with interior lighting.

Another new system manufactured from the same recycled polyethylene material is Stump. “There are plenty of stools out there […] the difference that we wanted to try and create was not really on the shape … but it was also about exploring the manufacturing process. Here we have one partition line and two heights of stools, which allows us to produce up to three sizes of stools with only two tools. That was mainly an idea of trying to be as cost-effective in the manufacturing side to provide a product that is still coming down from Australia and being cost effective and competitive.”

Stump, a range of models with model.

Stump, with coffee table variant.

To further flexibility and efficiency, the higher stool was designed with coffee table dimensions in mind. As a final note, the designer has also completed some work with In Africa, visiting Sub Saharan Africa to assist with the development of commercial avenues for handcrafted furniture pieces.

In Africa – "fusing contemporary design with traditional craft skills and understanding of cultural diversity to ensure sustainability and uniqueness through global market appeal".

“This is where design should be heading,” he says. “I mean, we have beautiful furniture here, and I’m sure we are making a lot of people happy, but at the end of the day, 90 per cent of the world is probably in this situation [living below the poverty line].

“As designers we have a responsibility of trying to tackle these issues as well. So, I began working with a company called In Africa. It’s an organisation that works at grass roots level in Southern Africa directly with the communities rather than the governments.

“This project is about collaborating with these communities, understanding their skills, their craft – I felt very privileged to do so, as some of these communities have traditions that go back 3000 years. Being able to share this experience and bring in my point of view and doing something that would be more commercially reachable for them was a great result. It’s almost instant. You go there and you see new roofs on the houses, and the children healthier. Its also beautiful work.”

–Michael Barrett

Share/Save

Despite it's quite un-Nordic name, Fink is a chair that seems to live up the essence of Scandinavian modern design principles. It's surfeit of style is a direct response to the simplicity of the concept, the choice of materials and the quality of construction. It's a chair that looks well balanced and firm on its feet.  There's also a Fink stool too (running with the '50s American gangster lingo you think it might be called 'Stoolie').

Fink chair.

(More after the jump.)

The chair's designer, Fletcher Vaughn, says "the objective was to design a timber-framed chair with a modern aesthetic that would have crossover appeal for domestic and commercial environments. The material choices are kept to a minimum. The frame comes in a choice of American white ash timber or Birch ply, with a webbed reboned foam (that's recycled foam) and a fabric of your choice."

It's also quite wholesome. The birch plywood option is Futura Plywood – a hard-wearing material with a high pressure laminate surface. The material is taint– and odour-free and does not include any chlorine derivatives.

Two Finks.

Fink — width and backrest height.

Fink – the stool.

Share/Save