This year marked the 13th year of the London Clerkenwell Design Week.
Like other shows during the global pandemic, this one had been cancelled in both 2020 and 2021, so the 2022 version was eagerly anticipated and must have come as a welcome introduction to normality for many.
I journeyed from my home to Farringdon in the heart of Clerkenwell, got off the train noticing that a number of people were photographing the station. Odd? Yes, but not only was Tuesday, the first day of the CDW, but it was also the opening of the first stage of the Elizabeth line, the new ‘tube’ line that will cut right across London, linking the town of Reading some 42 miles outside London to the west and Brentwood and Shenfield to the east. So, I had to take a diversion down the new escalators, to check out the superb new tunnels and platforms. I later learned that I had just missed the crowds, as 130,000 people rode the trains in the first hours of operation, starting at 6:30 AM. Some transport enthusiasts had turned up at the start of the line at 4:00 in the morning to be among the first riders.
Clerkenwell Design Week has gotten bigger every year, as more manufacturers have moved into premises in the area, or rented spaces for pop-up exhibits. Now there are over 100 showrooms in the area. There are also exhibitions and installations, covering everything from student design work to start-up businesses; right through to some of the biggest established names in the office furniture world.
One of the great pleasures of Clerkenwell is that old buildings are taken over for exhibitions or collaborative showings. This year they included a nightclub, Pop close to the old Smithfield meat market, the Old Sessions house, complete with displays in the Assizes section, or the cells next door, to ‘Light & rising stars’ which as usual was in the former Victorian prison known as the house of detention. The BAUX acoustic lounge in the Old Sessions house took over a wall of the sessions room. With their wood wool panels that were initially designed for acoustic ceilings, BAUX demonstrated how the acoustic treatment of a room can tune a space to be more effective for work and wellbeing.
Soundtect Ltd, another maker of acoustic wall solutions, introduced Solar; a sculptural ceiling raft to break up sound in high traffic areas such as reception desks, entranceways, and corridor junctions.
Further afield I found various installations, including a giant Adirondack chair brought from Lake Como by Orticolario, an Italian design, art, crafts and botanical show.
My favourite installation this year was a functional shelter, by architecture firm NVBL. The team created a ceiling over the Clerkenwell Close passageway by suspending an inflated biodegradable roof between buildings and trees. This was held down from below by tonnes of scrap masonry and recycled stone to stop it from blowing away in storms. It was presented as an urban structure that could be used as a social area or provide support for the homeless, whilst relatively easy to be put up and dismantled.
Many showrooms have moved. Vitra left the area after being in a prime spot for the last 20 years. New showrooms were opened by Senator/Allermuir to the west of Farringdon Road and by Teknion, now in the Clerkenwell Close area near Orangebox, a lot easier to reach than their old outpost way out at Old Street.
Teknion demonstrated future smart interior concepts in the showroom with the line-up of Routes products, which highlight many of the planning concepts that have emerged over the past 20 years or so — from nomadic working, meet-and-greet areas, living room-style relaxed work, segregated nook areas for heads-down work, a collaboration zone, and a flex space. It was a highly effective way of explaining these ideas to potential purchasers, whilst having as many pieces as possible displayed in a compact space.
Senator’s new space, which may have been an old warehouse or factory, had their version of the room-dividing, space-separating, storage-wall support units, named Framed. It included a dividing wall of planters – the introduction of plants into the office space being a must this year.
Harp, a new product from Connection is a room dividing element that can also incorporate planting. But this one is more of a freestanding wall divider than a space enclosure, featuring plasti-dipped ‘bungee cords’ that are stretched vertically through the frames, creating a louvre effect.
KI had a pop-up showroom in a beautifully renovated house, and designed most of their space for talks and demonstrations utilising the Colonnade system, with a bold flower arrangement.
At Orangebox the space division and plant theme was carried on in one of their two design studio-created floors; NoChintz demonstrated the new Campers and Dens office ‘pod’ units in various ways. The Dens create translucent overhead canopies that are either propped against the Campers – their more traditional glass-box pod spaces – or fixed together to make fairly open pergola type work areas. The units are able to be customised fairly extensively around their basic elements. The Campers for example showing highly seductive wooden sculpted fins or fabric end walls pushed into interesting forms by similar fins from inside.
Orangebox were also launching a new office chair, Allow me, which had no mechanism, relying on its curvaceous structure to form a spring to support the back and arms. A very simple and satisfying sit for me, as the structure responds to the sitter’s weight.
This apparently simple and responsive seating is also demonstrated by Path the new chair by Humanscale, designed by Todd Bracher. Path is due to be launched at Neocon and aimed at being a new standard in sustainability, using nearly 10lbs (or a Penguin’s weight!) in reclaimed plastic waste.
Wilkhahn launched the new Yonda chair, a classic looking bucket style moulded side chair with several base options. This again is highly sustainable, using recycled polypropylene filled with wood-waste powder.
A new venture that was also in the nightclub, was Venue Tables; a table manufacturer initiated by UK design company Broome Jenkins, providing a unique table system with the emphasis on simplicity, making a large potential range from a limited family of parts.
Soft seating and work-lounges continue to be the focus for many manufacturers and this year saw new launches from Bene, Ocee, Verco and Boss Design.
Fairly open simple tubular products appeared to be the general trend, with Boss presenting their Rosa seating as “Inspired by the functional elegance of mid-century classic tubular chair designs, exuding the easy-going versatility of outdoor furniture.”
Ocee introduced the Four All family of Seating, designed by Roger Webb Associates, which also used this open tubular language to create a range of low and high soft seating. This range uses the Scandinavian motif of the slightly oversized back in plywood to provide an enveloping backrest giving some privacy in a retro silhouette.
Bene also developed a high and low family of soft seating on a tubular frame, Casual.
Finally, two seating products that both demonstrated beautiful craftsmanship in very different ways, but with similar no fuss aesthetics – Boss has produced Amelia, a wing lounge chair and Benchmark woodworkers have created ‘Migo’ a twin-height stool, for sitting or perching, depending on which surface you choose.
The vibe of the show was very positive. Everyone seemed upbeat and enjoying getting back into things. All of the manufacturers that I spoke with mentioned that orders and sales were well up, and it looked like things were catching up after the recent slow years.
Now on to NeoCon!
Roger Carr is a co-founder and principal at Radar, an award-winning London-based industrial design consultancy specialising in furniture for education, healthcare and the workplace. He can be reached at roger@radargb.com.