My Urban Garden Deco Guide

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photo: Vondom

We love design but we need help!

I have tracked outdoor designs for 3 years now. I would love to say the opposite but I recently realized how little I know about how they react in real life! New designs are just so different now. They simply have not been around long enough to provide us with first hand experience about the way they play out over time.

I am sure many readers will agree: shops, brands and marketers please be more articulate and precise about what you have to offer !  

'Suitable for outdoors' is an encouraging description but...

What exactly does 'suitable for outdoors' mean?  For some it means the design can stay out all year round in Alaska. For others, it means they are promising  that if you forget the chair outdoors and there is a little shower it is not a huge  problem. For too many it is a catch-all phrase enabling them to grab a share of the huge new outdoor market without making much of an effort to develop quality products. 

Surely there is a better way to go about helping us decode and spot quality.

We are outdoor lovers not chemical engineers!

Marketers are not helping because we are not all chemical engineers and they seem to forget that. We do not know the properties and performances of materials found in new designs: polypropylene, polycarbonate or epoxy ! Most of us certainly do not know that low density polypropylene is far more resistant to extreme weather conditions than its regular form. We do not know if polyethylene is stronger and more shock resistant than polycarbonate.

Though for indoor decor this knowledge is not that important, for outdoors it is.

I will applaud Vondom, the outdoor brand who took the Milan Furniture Fair by storm with a wide range of ground breaking designs. Their marketing team has caught on to consumer's need to know. One can read in their catalogs etc.. more specifically what is on offer. For instance, their new VLEK  planters (see  image) has an auto watering system that works for up to 120 days or their pots are clearly marketed as able to resist temperatures from x to y celsius depending on the model. No loose ends there. You know where you stand.

We should congratulate Extremis for explaining on their web site that a great parasol design must not only look good or be easy to open and close but must also be resistant to winds. They go further and provide the indicator designed to evaluate a design in this respect. It is the Beaufort test.

Finally, thank you Gloster for having a great 'demo device' in stores helping us really understand what new 'water through' fabrics are all about, how they work, and how long it takes to have a dry pillow after a shower.

I would love my list to go on but sadly not that many brands have actually fully taken on board our need to know how things will work out with rain, sun, mud, kids, and ...birds !

In the coming weeks I will post about a few of the newest materials and try to provide pointers.

In the meantime, happy shopping and questioning !

Anne

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photo: Extremis PR

Because outdoor spaces are attracting designers from more eclectic backgrounds (architects, hotel designers, artists...), the options available in the outdoor furniture sector are becoming more varied.

Here are just a few of the many amazing innovations out there.

Many new ideas are spurred by a form of eco-consciousness in its broadest sense and encourage us to imagine new solutions rather than just 'shop until we drop'!.

Licences to build your favorite designs 

At the Milan Furniture Fair this April, the Belgian brand Extremis showed up with a very unexpected product. It was not a new design. It was a kit. Or more exactly a box in which one found the right to re-create a single version of ones favorite Extremis product. Each official license in the box contains the necessary drawings and specifications to have the design made. Though the concept was not presented as an eco-friendly idea, it most certainly is: it saves transporting designs, encourages the use of locally sourced materials and provides work to valued local craftsmen.

Dirk Wynants, the creative head of Extremis and innovative mind behind this very controversial idea, explains that the value of an Extremis product encompasses not only a production process but also the intellectual property.
As a reflection of the importance of this 'intangible' part of the final product, the pack costs 20 percent of the price for an actual product.
 

Zero carbon designs 

Obviously very in demand at the moment are designs using locally sourced materials. Design lovers will be happy to see this can also lead to very creative designs!. The bench seen here is from an art shop in Holland [vividvormgeving]  and is actually sold at quite a hefty price, but the idea of simply adding backrests to a fallen tree trunk is superb and I am sure can lead to other variations, both virtually carbon neutral and high in design value.

Co-creations between designers and nature

Finally, in the design world we are seeing more and more of what I call co-creations between designers and nature. Rather than just placing a man made design in an outdoor space, designers are inventing designs that need to be completed by nature to reach their final form. I love the ' table cloth' series by French designers '5.5'. They use grass or tree trunks and add tiles to create tables or stools in parks or gardens.

I hope these few examples inspire you for your future projects!

Anne

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photo: Kettal PR

I am  sorry to say the list of things to consider when shopping for outdoor designs just got longer ! The explosion of options available for outdoors had already made buying pieces quite tricky. As anyone who goes for a first buy suddenly realises,  looks are not the only thing to consider. A huge amount of questions need answering. How will the design age? What precisely does the term 'suitable for outdoors' actually cover? What about if it snows? How do the cushions stay out? Can they stay out ...out as in whatever the weather ? etc, etc, etc ... And now, we need to add a new consideration: interchangeability. New designs are so stylish people are buying outdoor furniture for indoors!. But again looks are not the whole story and as many questions need to be considered.  I would love to offer a magical tip providing a silver bullet solution. Fact is homework and research are necessary. Here are a few pointers to help you draw up a wish list when looking for pieces with 'interchangeability' potential.

Textures, finishes and colors

I started really realizing the potential new designs have to look and 'feel' great indoors when I visited a new  Kettal store. I discovered the Manhattan range (picture) covered in a lovely amazingly soft fabric. The base of the seat is in a soft polyurethane material. This means that even the parts not covered by cushions such as the armrest are easy on your arms and pleasant to rest on. If you think you will perhaps bring pieces indoors at some point, then perhaps all teak designs or hard plastics are not for you. Choosing textures also directs choice of colors if the intention is to maximise interchangeability. Let me illustrate the point:

Polypropylene furniture : take the new design by Callegaris, the Area 51 available in white or color. Experience has shown me white polypropylene tends not to age well. It becomes rather grayish. So if you go for a polypropylene piece, opt for the colored version.

Table tops: some table top materials are perhaps too 'hard' and you would not want to use them indoors. The lovely new wafer thin ceramic tops for example fall in that camp. On the contrary a table like the new Serralunga Banquété seen at the Milan Furniture fair, made from composite wood, offers a very soft and gentle touch ensuring its 'interchangeability'.

Floor lamps: new designs totally replicate indoor designs. Looking at advertising images you may not see the difference of textures and imagine how they would look if you had them indoors. I love online shopping but if shopping with interchangeability in mind be sure you have seen the model or similar designs in real life. I was shopping around for an outdoor light when I realised this. I saw the Viteo's dual energy ZOE light   in opal acrylic glass which looks very crisp and glossy ( not too glossy !). The finish makes it look very suitable for a chic indoor set up. Right next to it was an outdoor lamp in regular plastic looking really sad in an indoor context because one could see the ' welded' junctions and those parts very slightly frayed. That often is the case with pieces in polypropylene or plastic and really looks strange indoors.

Equally important is the choice of finish. An large amount of the most modern designs in polypropylene for example, roto moulded or not, are now offered in lacquered versions. Far more expensive than the base product in ranges, they do tend to age really well. Depending on your style, they might work well indoors thus justifying the initial extra cost.

Shape and size

Again many outdoor furniture designs have come to resemble indoor designs shapes and proportions completely. As a rule of thumb choosing the right size and proportions means imagining if your newly acquired ottoman would happily live indoors alongside your current furniture or how a possible outdoor dining set could easily become the feature of your dining room.

Modules are obviously widely available now allowing sofa to be huge or tiny by adding or withdrawing  some parts. They are clearly the way to go as they can adapt to changing spaces.

Upholstering options

Fellow Garden Design blogger Gina Wicker wrote a great piece on outdoor fabrics and how they have come so incredibly close to those traditionally used indoors.Check it out here. Beyond choosing the fabric, you need to consider how they work. Separable or removable covers obviously make it easier to make a quick change and use textiles you want to more specifically fit your indoor decor. Also consider things like sofa covers. The Manhattan design shown in the picture for example uses a material and has a shape that allows you to have it bare. Some designs may benefit from a cover to really make them fit indoors.

These are just a few pointers, love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

Happy shopping!

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photo: Electrolux

Electrolux's latest design (pictured), a collaboration with landscape designer Jamie Durie, is a poster child for the amazing revolution outdoor cooking and entertaining is experiencing. It is a complete countertop, mimicking the ones we know indoors, with a space to cook and a space for guests.

It inspired me to have a closer look at major trends in the field and explore new design options. I wanted to share my findings. 

Today:

TREND 1: Designers aim for invisibility

Outdoor cooking amazing developments, because of  the technical challenges posed by leaving them outdoors, have veered on the sturdy / bulky looking side.... often not really integrating well with the architecture of newer homes themselves. This is no longer true. New sleek cooking units have an ultra chic 'barely there' quality. This is probably great news specially for those with small spaces who cannot visually afford to have huge BBQs dominating the space.

Just a few examples:

Invisibility through integration

The award winning design  Electrolux Integrated EQBH100AS Barbecue  is a perfect illustration of the new trend to actually integrate the cooking function into tables themselves... as discreetly as possible. The module can be integrated as you wish to match your set up. When not in use a cover makes it even less noticeable.

If you like cooking but  not  on  a grill, then go for designs like the Menes, a cooking table designed by Metalco Home. Made in brushed stainless steel with laminated exotic wood surface, it is for outdoor use and  comes with electric 1.7 kW non-stick aluminium heating plate.

Invisibility through concealing

Well yes, whatever decor magazine say about using outdoor spaces like new rooms, reality is you will not be cooking out all the time, all year round, so it is fantastic to see designers imagining solutions to artfully conceal a grill without hiding it under a protective cover ... which generally actually draw your attention to it !

In this direction one finds this clever wall mounted design by Focus Creation ( image here) . Open it looks great and works brilliantly as a space saver. Closed it draws no attention for the wrong reasons.  

Invisibility through architectural integration

I have a particular fondness for  the Electrolux Jeppe Utzon barbeque  created by Jeppe Utzon, the grandson of the legendary Jorn Utzon.  It was most certainly the first truly architectural grill to appear on the market. It is still one of the most remarkable ones around. Sadly, from what I know, it is still only available in Australia, so here is another architectural hich perfomance grill worth noting : the X series by Porsche and Grand Hall  (image here).

I hope these designs inspire you!

Back soon with 3 more trends.

Anne