22nd Int'l Contemporary Furniture Fair, Design Week and Conference

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Parent Category: Expos and Conventions

Category: Previews

Published on Thursday, 13 May 2010 15:20

Written by Brad Balfour

Design is part of our cultural consciousness where it's both process and product, verb and noun--and a way of solving problems great and small for both the larger environment and one's own comfort space. From May 15 to 19,  Design Week 2010 takes place, centered around the ICFF.

To discover how design goes beyond the call of style, ICFF -- the International Contemporary Furniture Fair -- offers a confluence of various streams of the design-savvy community to debate and display examples of good design at its very best.

The ICFF offers the latest in contemporary furniture design -- and a visual feast for anyone seeking new ideas for television shows, film sets or theater productions.

Part of the four day-long celebration is also a series of off-site open-houses that happens throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn at various design stores and companies; the list of events can be found at the Javits and here.

During the four days at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, from Saturday, May 15 to Tuesday, May 18, the Fair's 145,000 net square feet (14,500 net square meters) will teem with more than 23,000 people including:

interior designers
architects
retailers
facility managers
wholesalers
store design professionals
hotel and restaurant designers
manufacturers
students
and members of the general public.

More than 500 exhibitors will be on hand displaying:

contemporary furniture
seating
lighting
carpet and flooring
wall coverings
textiles
accessories
kitchen and bath
outdoor furniture
and materials for residential and commercial interiors.

The combination of domestic and international exhibitors provides easy access to the best and hippest home and contract products. 

The ICFF creates a global nexus of design so the Fair welcomes representatives from the following diverse range of countries:

Argentina
Australia
Brazil
Canada
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
India
Israel
Italy
Japan
Lebanon
Mexico
Monaco
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Peru
Poland
Portugal
Singapore
Spain
Sweden
Thailand
United Kingdom

Contingents from five nations will also make the annual quest to this celebrated design hub:

BEDG (British European Design Group)
Brazilian Trade Bureau (Brazil)
Federlegno-Arredo (Italy)
ICEX (Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade)
and Royal Danish Consulate General (Denmark).

Though a largest part of the show is for the trade, there is a day devoted to the public--Tuesday, May 18, from 10:00 am-4:00 pm--where for $50, one can experience where the professionals are at and where they are going.

And on Monday, May 17, there will be full-day event, The Metropolis Conference @ ICFF-- titled "Design Entrepreneurs: What’s Next" -- beginning at 10 a.m. in the Javits Center's ICFF Theater.

If you’re a designer, architect, business owner, manufacture or educator, or just looking for inventive ways to navigate the new economy, this day will provide useful insights into what other creative people are doing. Whether you are  reinventing yourself or your practice be part of this timely conversation...

This program is registered for continuing-education credits. For more info go to: www.metropolismag.com/story/20100401/icff-conference

10–10:15 a.m.
Welcome
Susan S. Szenasy, Metropolis’s editor in chief and the conference facilitator

10:15–11:15 a.m.
The Third Annual ASID New York Education Legacy Fund’s Horace Havemeyer III Keynote Address: Universal Design Now and Next
Valerie Fletcher, executive director of the Institute for Human Centered Design, asks: With the Baby Boom retiring and the millennials pushing the marketplace to new levels of creative problem-solving, what will the designs of our homes, workplaces, and public places need to become? What do we need to know? What’s in the works?

11:15 a.m.–12:15 p.m.
Art and the Manufacturer
Andreas Dornbracht, the charismatic leader of the world-wide bathroom products company that bears his name, traces his firm’s unique arts program, how it’s evolving to reflect the new social consciousness about sustainability, and what it communicates about the firm’s vision and product offerings in a global market.

12:15–1:15 p.m.
Making the Financial Argument for Green
John Williams, teacher at Columbia University’s Center for Environmental Research and Conservation and HDR Engineering’s senior vice president of sustainable development, offers useful pointers on how to convince your clients that green design is profitable design. What’s your next step in communicating green value and values?

1:15–1:45 p.m.
Lunch Break

1:45–2:45 p.m.
Green Design for the Desert
b, associate partner at Foster + Partners, discusses Abu Dhabi’s famous and infamous MASDAR City, publicized as a zero-carbon development. We travel with Häpp and Russ Wheeler, president of Hansgrohe North America, from the master plan and the architecture to the bathroom fixtures. What’s next for large-scale developments and water-related products?

2:45–3:45 p.m.
Design Policy and World Trade
What can the U.S. learn from countries with strong design policies? Robert Kloos from the Consulate General of the Netherlands; Andrej Kupetz of the German Design Council; and Leif Verdu-Isachsen, head of operations at the Foundation for Design and Architecture in Norway, report on programs that support design-oriented manufacturing as the backbone of successful global businesses.

3:45–4:45 p.m.
Design Innovations: Rapid-Fire Presentations

     Jennifer Leonard
     The IDEO designer reveals the plan behind the firm’s collaboration with Design
     21 on Livingclimatechange.com.

     Dan Wood
     WORK Architecture Company’s Edible Schoolyard is about to be built in
     Brooklyn. Lessons learned?

     Grace La and Mike Tennity
     La, associate professor in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at the
     University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Mike Tennity, vice president of design
     and development, KI, will discuss the value of collaboration between academia
     and manufacturing, and the increasing importance in educating the next
     generation of architects and designers. La and Tennity will draw from their
     collaboration through a graduate student Studio led by Professors La and
     Dallman at UWM-SARUP.
    
     Yves Béhar
     Founder of fuseproject, Béhar shows objects designed by students using solar-cell
     technology developed by Swiss chemist Michael Grätzel. (The Sunny Memories
     collection, powered by the sun’s energy, is now on display at New York’s Center
     for Architecture.)

4:45–5 p.m.
The Next Generation of Design
Meet Metropolis’s 2010 Next Generation Design Competition honorees and learn about their brilliantly simple but far-reaching fixes that will make our environment better.
Space is limited. Metropolis is a registered provider with the American Institute of Architects Continuing Education Systems. Credit earned on completion of this event will be reported to CES Records for AIA members by the provider. Certificates of completion for non-AIA members are available upon request.

Design Entrepreneurs: What’s Next is sponsored by the American Society of Interior Designers, Dornbracht, and Interiors from Spain.

For ICFF info go to: http://www.icff.com/page/home.asp

the International Contemporary Furniture Fair
Saturday, May 15th to Tuesday, the 18th,
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
(between 34th St. and 37th St. at 11th Ave.)

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