Being experimental, thoughtful and creative is key to challenging the restraints that mass manufacturing holds and stops young up and coming designers from achieving their goal, but not for David Steiner who for his graduation project from the RCA used adapted humble house hold appliances to help him create his own factory to mould, form and create a series of objects. Driven by a desire for self sufficiency and as a comment on desktop digital manufacture he has created crockery using an embroidery hoop and a noticeboard frame t that was put in his washing machine instead of a rotation mould device.

He also used his blender as a pottery wheel to create a cup made from sugar paste as well as using his microwave to steam form some wood.

http://vimeo.com/68536748

Materiologist James Shaw explores varying processes and materials upcycling through his projects Making Guns. 'Making Guns; Plastic Extruding Gun' takes a cumbersome manufacturing process and turns it into a hand held process. Using recycled HDPE (a type of polymer) he has created a series of alchemic forms that celebrate the properties of the material.

Also part of the same series, Shaw has created a gun that sprays recycled paper fiber and a binder that mix in the air. Mixing colour as well to his formula he has re defined the notions of papier mâché creating ombre effects when sprayed onto wire frame structures that create solid forms.

Part of their Hyde Park collection, “Living material” is a project from Benwu Studio made up of designers Hongchao Wang and Peng You. Based between London and New york they explore materiality. Their latest project explores ways to reuse found natural materials with the aim to enhance natures beauty by mixing materials to create unexpected and beautiful outcomes. Juxtaposing materials such as branches and twigs with more industrial materials their outcomes suggests new applications for natural materials as well as pushing the boundaries of materiology.  

Exploring the home production of cosmetics with her ‘The Alchemist’s Dressing Table’ project, Lauren Davies has designed a beautiful collection of contemporary, analogue tools for the home production of cosmetics. Celebrating ancient rituals and a smattering of alchemy her project explores ways for extracting natural ingredients for wellbeing.

Based on the premise of users wanting to take more control of their wellbeing and a stronger connection to their daily rituals it also encourages a more symbiotic and natural relationship with nature and its intricate mysteries.

http://vimeo.com/68512532

Textile student Ejing Zhang explores materiality through craft, colour and process. Graduating from the Royal College of Art from the school of materials with a masters in Mixed media textiles, her material explorations made from bamboo, cast resin, peach wood and wrapped thread have a beautiful and delicate quality to them. Collated into a collection titled 'Moonrise' she has explored Chinese craftsmanship and modern day manufacturing techniques that resulted in a series of beautiful objects such as a lunch box as well as bracelets and handbags.

She also collaborated with another student to create a 3D printed tote bag.

3 graduates from the Royal College of Art Design Products are proposing a recyclable, disposable and safe recycled paper bike helmet that would be available alongside the infamous Boris Bikes using recycled Metro Newspapers which currently cause waste issues with the transport network. Utilising the techniques already used for paper moulding for the protection of high end electronics they aim to create a small scale factory within London close to both supply and the end user.

Exploring colour and our relationship with objects, RCA graduate Lina Patsiou has developed a colouring system that matches the letters of the alphabet with a colour allowing for colour coded messages to be sprayed onto objects. In addition she has also developed an algorithm that converts the alphabet into lines that are then imported into 3D imaging software and can be printed out as 3D shapes or dimensional messages.

http://vimeo.com/68352788#at=0

Lapka is a collection of smart sensors which plug into your iphone and give you a visual representation of your envrionment. Initially released during CES the consumer electronics show in las Vegas earlier this year, it is now being showcased with its delicious minimalist and emotive packaging that fits entirely with the wood detailing on the product itself.

This beautiful range of packaging for athletes has caught our collective eye at Future-Filter. The successful blend of pastel colours, minimalist geometric illustration and sans serif type almost makes us want to take up running!

Soon to be graduating from Central St Martins, Textile Futures Course, Amy Radcliffe has designed an analogue device that  captures scents that can later be retrieved to exist as an olfactory memory of a time and a place. Questioning 'How can we archive personal memories through captured scent?' Amy is drawing parallels to the way that we consumed our memories through photography in a pre digital era drawing comparisons with lomography and 35mm film. Photographs were precious and faded with time.

Utilising the Headspace Technology to capture 'scents' Amy's project explores the poetic narrative of the time it takes to capture the scent and considers how in the future we will 're-experience the moment' through the emotions that a scent captures.

Her device is beautifully crafted using ceramics, leather and blown glass - all skills that she has acquired during the project to enable her to develop a sensitively designed analogue system that would allow us to capture scents - one that could in turn profoundly change the way we experience scents in our daily life engaging with our memories in an entirely new way.

Titled 'Madeleine' Amy makes reference to Proust and his works 'In search of lost time' where explores he the experience of 'Involuntary Memory' - one that Amy believes her device will elicit.

The other material of choice during Milan was glass. It was in abundance and especially exploring colour and texture. One designer who particularly stuck out was Ammy Olofsson who explores the notion of the intangible with the tangible through her designs. Looking to the idea of mirages and rainbows - from a scientific perspective we know they are real, but at the same time they are not real in a tangible sense.

Ammy tries to explore this same feeling with form, colour and luminosity with her blown glass pieces.

Acting as an alchemist she plays with space, mirror, light and form and the resulting glass pieces are beautiful yet intangible at the same time.

The jury is still out as to whether Milan was a great, or not so great year - I feel a bit disappointed overall but amongst some really bad design - Zona Tortona being particularly poor - there were some fantastic finds. One of the key materials that stuck out during the show was the abundance of marble and stone.

What was particularly beautiful about it was the blend between the rawness and beauty of nature that the material offers, combined with modern day tooling allowing for beautifully refined objects.

The marble bath that was on show as part of the Hybrids Architecture show at the University was particularly incredible as was the installation from Mathieu Lehanneur for the Bathing in Light marble installation at Superstudio

In contrast the combination of the organic exuberance of the glass captured within the refined marble structures at Osmosi by Emmanuel Babled in Lambrate were breathtaking in both scale, colour and proportion whilst the incredible curved marble sculptures at Wallpaper Handmade Milan by Michael Anastassiades and Henraux exemplified the beauty of when man and machine come together in design.

Craft and artisanal design explorations have been gaining favour for many seasons now and the hand of the maker does not seem to be abating, it is infact even more interestingly evolving with the hand of the machine too and creating entirely new aesthetics. Recognising this and seeing the importance in the 'art of the maker' is the current exhibition Hand Made: long live crafts at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Holland.

Interestingly the exhibition carefully puts at the centre the notion of the hand crafted myth of imperfection and one offs to try to contextualise craft in the modern day.

Showcasing pieces from the middle ages to the modern day they have curated the objects in seven sections: Crafsmanship, Honesty, Art, Tradition, Unicity, Virtuosity and Handicrafts.

Amongst the pieces on show are the modern day Dutch craftspeople such as Iris van Herpen with her digitally crafted garments and Studio Job.

There are also a series of videos accompanying the exhibition that can be viewed here.

Hand Made Long Live Crafts runs until May 20th

Shown during the Negative Space Exhibition, Stockholm Design Week 2013 Nomad Mirrors by Iina Vuorivirta explores our relationship with our image of ourselvesand the curiosity it raises in us. Playing with angles that reflect things that are not directly in front of them the mirrors offer up ambiguous reflections. The use of polished brass changes the mood of the image so that the mirrors capture in a more poetic way and play with the imagination.

Taking traditional basket weaving as inspiration for a project about imitation and reinterpretation of craft,  Dineke Dekker's Basket project explores textile and artisinal techniques in a beautiful and poetic way. Using imitation bamboo structures as well as silk screening patterns onto textiles to resemble basketry and through the us of custom made paint stamps she has created a visual feast that plays tricks on the eye and comments on traditional craftsmanship in our modern world.

Transnatural are showcasing their latest exhibition titled 'Still Unidentified Objects' which as the name suggests explores unidentified forms of collaboration between man, machine and nature. Showcasing her Emotional Dialogue video, Svenja Jeune questions real and artificial, textile and nature with her communicating textile forms that transform and morph as they detect the emotional mood of the viewer. The well documented Energy Collection from Marjan van Aubel is also shown and fits nicely with the messages from Transnatural to do with harvesting energy from natural sources be it in her case food, or in the case of Trap light, via sun light.

The brilliant Thomas Vailly is also showing his work that explores our mortality and the reality of the waste that we leave behind such as hair whilst the slightly disconcerting living organism dress 'Like living organisms' is a skin dress that expresses excitement and emotion between two people when they first meet.

Open until 1st July at Workspace, Lijnbaansgracht 148a Amsterdam.

http://vimeo.com/43997522#at=0