Dwell on Design ’09 (Part 1)
By kristin
As the 4th annual Dwell on Design event closed its doors to the L.A. Convention Center this past weekend, it became clear – as Philippe Starck’s Ghost chair – that Dwell is the new voice of modern design. Although the magazine has been championing prefab since its inception, with the revival of the green movement it was no surprise that every aisle of the show was filled with innovative products that were modular, prefabricated and sustainable.
Spending the weekend indoors when the sun-filled beaches of LA were a short drive away could have been torturous were it not for Dwell‘s attention to detail. Situated in nearly every corner of the exhibition space, IdeaPaint’s dry-erase surfaces gave kids and creatives the chance to share their vision with the crowd.
Dwell and DESIGNBOOM decided to take futuristic kitchen design off the back burner and host the innovative exhibit Kitchen Ecology: Recipes for Good Design. Eco-friendly and energy-efficient kitchen products created by design visionaries from all over the globe were appropriately displayed on sustainable tiles supplied by Ceramic Tiles of Italy. These were some of my favorites:

"California Landscape" cutting boards by Eileen Kennedy

- “CLOUDS” – a new tile concept conceived by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec in collaboration with Kvadrat

Environment Furniture's "Pacifica Sofa" made from recycled canvas, designed by Memphis founding member Aldo Cibic

Atik, winner of the Los Angeles Times' "Reclaimed Design Contest"

Mixed media collage portraiture by Michelle Caplan