5 spaces at Paris Design Week where sustainability becomes voluptuous

Research should appear more often at design weeks: it is the vehicle of an intensity that acts as an antidote to the superficiality of wide-scale events, and allows us to discover hidden projects, perhaps because they have been meditated on or developed for a long time. Among the Agorà du Design projects, scholarships awarded by Fondation Agora to designers, curators and researchers, we find Laure Garreau's study of a forgotten exhibition on Jean Prouvé, as well as domestic hacks to optimise the impact of climate warming on pavilion architecture (Le Pavillon des rêves, Pablo Bras), or the ethnographic research on the offering of flowers by Christopher Dessus. A special mention goes to the work of Breton designer Samuel Tomatis, who has developed scalable solutions for the application of sea weed - extremely widespread, becoming even an infestation, in his home region - with which to create architectural solutions, but also leather, fabric and paper products. 

Samuel Tomatis

Samuel Tomatis

Samuel Tomatis

Pablo Bras

Christopher Dessus

Christopher Dessus

In one of the historic nerve centres of the design week, the new proposals show their potential. One of the most original projects is the proposal for a "signature" chicken coop that combines aesthetics and animal welfare, happily embracing the multi-speciesist aesthetic. Another example is the chair by Dunia Designs, made by converting plastic waste into low-impact flat pack furniture: a virtuous model for low-tech furnishings that contribute to cleaning up the environment by giving life to objects with a simple shape, inspired by typological models that are both local and universal.

Inspired by the small desert village in Texas where Donal Judd lived and where his foundation is still based today, Marfa by Sandra Benhamou is a collection of solid wood furniture that interprets the minimalist lesson of the American master through a skilful combination of clean lines and natural materials. Never severe, the minimalist trait is ennobled by the combination of wood species, cork and jute, and by the fine carpentry that distinguishes the workmanship of the pieces, all made in France in small series. Finally, honourable mention goes to the bedside table bar, an innocent looking cube which, like a secret treasure chest, opens up, offering truly functional storage space with its drawers.

Among the new proposals dedicated to (once again) low-tech, low environmental impact research, there is also the new space dedicated to circular design that the historic French collective 5.5 has opened next to its studio in rue Popincourt. Among the first in France to experiment, in 2003, with expressive upcycling that does not hide its hacking but rather enhances it as a shocking yet creative graft, 5.5 brings together other designers who work with waste materials to produce new bio-materials or experiment with techniques that allow efficient and, hopefully, economically sustainable revalorisation processes. In the coming months, the gallery will continue its activities around the theme of circular design, serving both as a showcase and as an atelier for hands-on experimentation.

The success of the events of a design week often has to do with the atmosphere generated thoroughly by an emblematic location. In the case of the collective exhibition Bienvenue Design, the difference lies in the history of Hotel La Louisiane, a legendary address for existentialist artists and philosophers who made these rooms their headquarters and home. The spaces, modest and sprawling with corridors sometimes sixty centimetres wide, open onto small rooms that each gallery or designer has decorated according to a theme, or used as a setting for their work. An opportunity to feel the thrill of a now completely lost rive gauche, and to rediscover the work of Koen Van Guijze, Marc Barud, It's Great Design, Spazio Effimero and Atelier Jespers.

A lamp by Koen Van Guijze