FOCUS INTERIORS
CREATIVE
COMEBACK
Clerkenwell Design Week returned properly for the fi rst time since 2019
and the event truly delivered in terms of trends
Over 140 world-class design
showrooms partnered with CDW
from 24-26 May, where visitors to the
festival in London’s EC1 area could view
the latest designs, innovations and
creative ideas, as well as experiencing
hundreds of design-led fringe events,
pop-ups, workshops, talks and showroom
presentations.
Bene, the Austrian manufacturer unveiled
CASUAL, a furniture collection consisting of
a bench, lounge chair and table all by Bene
Designer Christian Horner and displayed
in a beautiful vermilion shade. Intended to
be places of togetherness and interaction,
the benches and tables are available in
three heights, so users can converse eye
to eye with someone standing while agile
working is encouraged at the Medium height
with the Low seat height being that of a
32 JUNE 2022
classic bench. The design is a response to
hybrid working and the fact that informal
conversations that couldn’t happen during
the WFH era are increasingly important as
people return to the o ice. High-seating was
a definite trend elsewhere as o ice workers
increasingly want to touch down and either
engage in concentrated work or come into
the workplace to collaborate. Sustainability
was also part of the design brief with close
attention paid to the reduced use of materials
in the product development stage of CASUAL.
Fritz Hansen, which celebrated its 150th
anniversary at CDW 2022, marked the
occasion with a special installation as well
as previewing new products. Deadgood
also presented new launches at the event,
including ReWork. This design, by David
Irwin, is a simple yet comprehensive modular
seating collection. It is intended to meet the
demand for dynamic, hybrid workspaces.
Thanks to its flexible design, ReWork can be
easily reconfigured and is suitable for focused
work, collaboration or a mixture of both
and can add structure to open plan spaces,
creating a focal point within an interior and
define areas as required. The collection is a
response to the new working patterns and
cultures that are becoming entrenched in the
modern workplace.
SUSTAINABILITY
Elsewhere sustainability ran through
design presented in furniture brands. Arper
presented new collections Mixu, Kata and
Kinesit Met as well as a new edition of its
Aston series. Mixu is a sustainable and
versatile collection of chairs and stools
designed in collaboration with international
architectural and design practice Gensler.
Kata by Altherr Désile Park is Arper’s first solid
wood lounge chair designed with circular
sustainability at its core.
Sustainability was a strong theme
at Humanscale too with visitors to the
showroom having the opportunity to
immerse themselves in the manufacturers
e orts to save the planet. Humanscale’s
Smart Ocean and Liberty Ocean chairs which
utilise material from discarded fishing nets,
pulled directly from the ocean were both
on display. Product launches, meanwhile,
included NeatCharge, Humanscale’s
innovative cable free charger for mobile
devices. Humanscale also teamed up with
Square Mile Farms, an innovative start up,
which put urban farms into the heart of cities
where people live and work. Two ‘farms’
were on display for Humanscale visitors,
providing fresh, healthy zero travel miles
produce.
TALKS PROGRAMME
A dynamic talks programme throughout
the three days underpinned the products
on display. Jane Abernethy, Humanscale’s
Chief Sustainability O icer, was live streamed
from the US, talking about Designing for
People and Planet. The following day, a panel
of experts: Martin Gettings – Head of ESG
Europe from Brookfield Asset Management,
Tariq Abbas – Associate Director at HDR,
Lydia Randall - Head of ESG at BDG
architecture + design, Sarah Ratcli e,
Chief Executive O icer at Better Building
Partnership, as well as Humanscale’s
Sustainability Ambassador - Hani Hatami
discussed ‘Building Inside Out’: sustainability
of buildings from the ground up and in.
This talk referenced whether sustainability
can contribute to the return to the built
environment, how a plethora of sustainability
awards has sprung up and how to tell the
di erence between them; the role of retrofit
of buildings and Humanscale’s contribution