News: London design duo El Ultimo Grito have won the London Design Medal "for their exceptional contribution to design", according to Wallpaper.com.

El Ultimo Grito's Rosario Hurtado and Robert Feo collected the medal at a ceremony held at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London on Monday night as part of the London Design Festival. Hurtado and Feo won a medal designed by London jeweller Hannah Martin with Pentagram.

The London Design Medal is awarded each year to the figure deemed to made "an outstanding contribution to London and design". Last year it went to Ron Arad, while Thomas Heatherwick won in 2010. Previous to that the winners were Sir Paul Smith and Marc Newson, with Zaha Hadid winning the inaugural medal in 2007.

At the ceremony, Sir Terence Conran was given a Lifetime Achievement Award while Jane ní Dhulchaointigh, inventor of Sugru, won the inaugural Design Entrepreneur award. Artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg won the Emerging Talent award, which was also awarded for the first time this year.

See all our stories about the London Design Festival 2012

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See more stories by Justin McGuirk here and all of our coverage on the London Design Festival here.

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London Design Festival 2011: British company Another Country presents its second range of furniture together with a new chair and collection of accessories at designjunction this week.

Series Two features a dining table, benches, coffee table and sideboard made from ash and walnut with metal detailing.

All the pieces can be dismantled to make transportation more straightforward.

Two young British designers have created new ranges of accessories including Simon Donald's desktop tools in lime wood.

Donald has also designed a desk clock that complements the forms of the Series One furniture - see our previous story

Ian McIntyre has created a range of ceramics including a jug, pinch pot, plate bowl and cup.

The pieces explore the properties of different clays including industrial terracotta, stoneware and porcelain.

See all our stories about designjunction here and all the stories about the London Design Festival here.

Here is some more information from Another Country:

Another Country launches a second furniture collection, a chair by Mathias Hahn and a range of accessories at designjunction during London Design Festival 2011.

British firm, Another Country, experts in beautifully hand-crafted, contemporary wooden furniture, will launch their Series Two collection this September, alongside two new ranges of interior accessories.

designjunction, an exhibition of the best of contemporary design, will be held in an exclusive central London location. Here Another Country will display an extensive range of products, including new launches and pieces from their acclaimed first collection.

Building on the success of their Series One collection, Another Country celebrates its first anniversary with the launch of Series Two; this collection of furniture is a purposeful departure from the aesthetic of Series One. It is constructed from pale ash and rich walnut, with metal detailing, and makes use of clean, angular shapes. Although different in form, Series Two upholds the values of the brand and is therefore a further celebration of quality craftsmanship; the series, just like Series One, is hand-made in Another Country’s Norfolk and Dorset workshops. Series Two is also cleverly designed for easy transport: all leg systems fold inward, trestle-style, whilst the sideboard can be dismantled and flat packed. The new range of furniture includes a dining table, benches, a coffee table and sideboard.

After a long period of careful development, Another Country is very pleased to introduce its first chair. The chair has been designed to complement the Series One collection of furniture and has been designed by young German design talent Mathias Hahn. Hahn is renowned for his functional yet playful approach to product design and has achieved a wonderful chair for Another Country that is robust, functional yet equally charming and individual. Mathias has previously collaborated with Another Country on the design of Desk One and Bar Stool One.

In a move intended to extend their offering to objects for the home, two new accessories ranges are being launched at designjunction, both of these are designed by young British designers and both are manufactured in the UK.

Simon Donald has designed a handsome and hard-working desktop accessories range that consists of a pen holder, a tape dispenser, an eraser pot and a pencil sharpener. The range is made of lime wood in a Welsh workshop. Simon has also designed a Series One-inspired desk clock that will be presented alongside the desktop accessories.

The second accessories range consists of a beautiful pottery collection designed by Ian McIntrye. Designed, crafted by hand and fired in Ian’s kilns in Hackney, East London, the range is a carefully considered reworking of traditional, functional, table top ceramics. The collection is made up ofindividual pieces that each explore the qualities of different clays. It includes a jug, pinch pot, plate, bowl and cup. The clays used include industrial terracotta, stoneware and porcelain. The collection is a fine interpretation of Another Country’s concern with contemporary craft; each piece is entirely hand-made, multi-functional and designed to endure, both stylistically and practically.

Visit Another Country at designjunction from 22 to 25 September 2011. Victoria House Basement, 37-63 Southampton Row, London, WC1B 4DA

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German designers ett la benn presented a new modular storage system at the Create Berlin show in London last month.

Designers Danilo Dürler and Oliver Bischoff have worked together as ett la benn since July 2006.

Create Berlin was part of the Tent London exhibition. The following is from ett la ben:

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SWOC

Description: SWOC is a modular storage system that offers a variety of combinations and a flexible fabric feel of the individual elements.

The fabric skin of SWOC is what sets it apart from other storage systems. Photo: Yves Sucksdorff

SWOC combines variability with sensuality and a flair for material.

Oliver Bischoff & Danilo Dürler
ett la benn

"ett la benn" is a young agency specialized in industrial design.

In search of innovative resolution concepts, "et la benn" develops individual products and manufactures them in cooperation with its partners. The main focus lies on the production of exclusive fine furniture. Since july 2006, Oliver Bischoff and Danilo Dürler are both equally responsible for the agency’s development and management.

Danilo Dürler was raised in Stuttgart, graduated from the "Kunsthochschule Weißensee" (University of Arts), specializing on product design. in addition to this, he studied at the "naba" in Milan, Italy and at the "Ingvar Kamprad design center" in Lund, Sweden and worked as a designer for men's watch manufacturer "Nomos Glashütte".

Oliver Bischoff founded "ett la benn" in 2005 while he was still studying industrial design at the "Universität der Künste" (University of Arts) in berlin. After growing up in hamburg, he was educated in carpentry and worked in this field for several years before moving to Berlin. photo: Yves Sucksdorff

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From Now to Eternity is an exhibition of plastic objects by designers including FAT, Tomoko Azumi, Stuart Haygarth and Committee, which opens in London this week.

The pieces on show have been commissioned by Arts Co. Top image: Musical Chair by Committee, 2008. Above: Fleece Chair by Tom Price, 2008.

“Plastic is a celebrative material as it has provided a vision of an exciting future since its discovery and we would not have same affluent life without it," says designer Hiroko Shiratori. Above and below: Plastic Nostalgia by Raw Edges, 2008.

"However, it has certainly created cultural and environmental issues. While respecting the material and the culture developed around it, I would like to create awareness of what the material is and what we might end up with playing around the idea of 'future fossil.'” Below: Future Fossil by Hiroko Shiratori, 2008.

The exhibition will be open 19 September - 19 October. Below: Classical-bust stool by FAT, 2008.

All images courtesy Arts Co and the artist.

The following information is from Arts Co:

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From Now To Eternity
Plastic in design

From Now To Eternity is a celebration of and debate around design, with a focus on one material: plastic. Below: Inflated Chair by Rolf Sachs, 2008.

Plastic is with us virtually from now to eternity: impervious to bacteria, acid, salt, rust, breakage and, in some cases, able to withstand heat, plastic is something of a miracle substance. One hundred years ago, when it was first invented, no one could have anticipated that plastic would present one of our biggest recycling challenges. Below: Millennium chandelier by, Stuart Haygarth, 2004.

Pioneering arts consultancy Arts Co is commissioning ten leading contemporary designers and design collectives to celebrate plastic through their work and look at ways to re-think our growing mountains of discarded plastic. Their ingenious creations will be on display at From Now To Eternity, an exhibition launching during the 2008 London Design Festival and continuing through Frieze Art Fair, at the Biscuit Building in London’s East End. Below: Fandangos by Committee, 2008.

The designers will show how plastic’s versatility - transparent or opaque, hard or pliant, able to take on a myriad of colours and forms – can serve their creativity. Below: Periscope by Committee, 2008.

Committee, Stuart Haygarth, Raw Edges and FAT take a witty, playful and imaginative approach: Committee will build on their improbable towers of household objects to create extraordinary designs, while Haygarth’s ebullient plastic chandelier is made from 1,000 exploded party poppers. Below: writing block by Committee, 2008.

Tomoko Azumi’s minimal, yet highly sensual work, Tom Price’s sculptural aesthetic and award-winning collective Troika, renowned for their pioneering use of technology, reveal the subtler possibilities of the medium. Below: Shaker Furniture by Tomoko Azumi, 2008.

Rolf Sachs’ original and provocative take on the possibilities for plastic establishes a new dialogue with a sometime reviled material. Shanghai-based WOKmedia are particularly keen to respond to this brief since China has become the recycling centre of the world, while Japanese designer Hiroko Shiratori will explore the indestructibility of plastic objects to create what she has called the ‘fossils of the future’, thus giving them a new value.

Hiroko Shiratori – “Plastic is a celebrative material as it has provided a vision of an exciting future since its discovery and we would not have same affluent life without it. However, it has certainly created cultural and environmental issues. While respecting the material and the culture developed around it, I would like to create awareness of what the material is and what we might end up with playing around the idea of 'future fossil.”

Committee – “In the 20th century, plastics have offered the consumer a most colourful dance indeed. Their adaptability has brought practical and aesthetic progress in every sphere of life but they have, through their affordability, occasioned a huge quantity of useless things and waste and their ensuing effects on the environment could be described, to say the least, as a foolish act. We are therefore aiming to produce a work that is both an homage to this extraordinary material and a critique of the way it has been employed.”

Talks Programme
The ‘From Now To Eternity’ talks programme will include:

• The Development of Design - ‘More than a substance, plastic is the very idea of its infinite transformation’ (Roland Barthes). Includes a look at the ten biggest steps forward in design
• The Environmental Question – in the footsteps of scientific researchers, designers, manufacturers, architects and big business are examining sustainability & recycling
• The Role of Creativity in Driving Discourse
• Mine for Eternity - five opinion formers choose the object they’d like to have ‘for eternity’.

19th September – 19th October 2008

Biscuit Building
10 Redchurch Street
London E2

Opening Hours: Wednesday to Friday 2-6, Saturday to Sunday 12-6 or by appointment

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