Surface Design Show starts today with the unveiling of '21st Century Fragments’, this year’s Future Thinking feature curated by world leading engineers, Arup.
The interactive 21st Century Fragments exhibit features life size fragments of some of the most innovative building facades designed by Arup in collaboration with architects such as Zaha Hadid, dRMM, Renzo Piano, Eric Parry and more.
The exhibition focuses on innovative materials technology and façade engineering. It references many of Arup’s most cutting edge projects including Chanel’s mobile art pavilion, Nasher sculpture garden, One Eagle Place and the Endless Staircase, to reveal the thinking and materials technology that drives their design.
Surface Design Show's director, Christopher Newton, said: "This specially created and completely unique exhibition will create a new dynamic alongside the innovative products shown by the Show’s many exhibitors. Future Thinking has become an integral part of the three-day event which will challenge and inspire the design community and visitors alike."
Visitors will be able to see fragments and details from:
- Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion – Zaha Hadid - Designed to be dismantled and reassembled while touring major cities around the globe, this sleek pavilion was designed by Zaha Hadid to provide “an experience of contemporary art with the combination of architecture, sound, creation and fashion”.
- Nasher sculpture garden, Dallas – Renzo Piano - Made from cast aluminium sunscreen the Nasher Sculpture Centre in Dallas features a unique solar shading system for a gallery roof ensuring maximum penetration of indirect natural light whilst protecting against solar heat gain and damaging ultra-violet light.
- Thermal Baths – Arup Materials - This conceptual project was produced by Arup materials as a research project to test ideas with architectural ceramics. The project uses clay from the London basin and looks at ideas of local manufacture and pushing the properties of clay to the limit.
- One Eagle Place - One Eagle Place on Piccadilly, London pushes the boundaries of traditional faience - a façade material that has been used since Victorian times. The white and red faience façade is topped by an enormous angular cornice by Turner Prize winning artist Richard Deacon, decorated in multi coloured glazes reminiscent of Piccadilly Circus’s famous illuminated billboards.
- Surface Design Show takes place 4-6 February 2014 at the Business Design Centre and is the only UK event to focus exclusively on innovative and exciting interior and exterior surface solutions.
- To discover more about hundreds of the very latest materials on display and the extensive and thought provoking programme of talks and debates, register now on the website to secure your free place.
