What used to be the reception at the former doctor's surgery is now an area for Dezeen Watch Store customers to come and look at, try and buy timepieces from the curated selection available at our online store.

Watches are caged behind black metal-mesh doors in back-lit plywood storage units, and peg board has been added to hang tools for packing and distributing products including our Dezeen Book of Ideas.

Post-Office founder Philippe Malouin and his team divided the waiting room with a patchwork of reclaimed windows, creating separate meeting and work spaces.

"It made immediate sense to create a wall of glass as a barrier," Malouin told us. "We sourced most of the Victorian windows from eBay, but had to do a lot of research to find windows the right size that could be cut and pasted into the space."

Plants now hang below the skylight in the meeting room and cacti are mounted on the wall.

"The main features in the space that caught our interest were the windows in the roof," said Malouin. "They reminded us of a greenhouse, so we filled the space with live plants."

A red sofa obtained at a local market sits below the cacti and a mix of old and new Stool 60s by Alvar Aalto for Artek stand among more foliage around a traditional Berber rug.

"We wanted to use vintage items to make the space less formal and more homely," he said.

Molded plastic Eames chairs from Vitra and bespoke plywood tables furnish the workspace, along with a display of our heads that were scanned and 3D printed for our print-on-demand publication Print Shift.

Mounted on the walls in both spaces are Malouin's LED lamps that emanate light through shutter-like slats, which he designed as one of last year's W Hotels Designers of the Future award winners.

Outside, the facade has been given a fresh lick of white paint and a relief of our logo has been added above the letterbox.

When Post-Office originally designed the Dezeen office in 2011 they added a gold curtain, which has been replaced by light grey fabric, and kitted-out the space with Malouin's Market Table and Hanger Chairs. An exhibition of new work by Malouin is currently on show at an exhibition in Milan.

Photography above is by Luke Hayes.

Dezeen is based at 100a Stoke Newington Church Street, London N16 0AP - stop by and take a look at our watches.

See more designs by Philippe Malouin »
See more office interior design »

The post Dezeen offices
by Post-Office appeared first on Dezeen.

Simple, a show of Malouin's recent work, includes the Slat table, made of two-by-four timber lengths laid horizontally to create a top and arranged radially on end to create two cylindrical legs.

The table is accompanied by shorter benches in the same style, which can be stacked up into a bookshelf.

Horizontal bands circle the lamp, bookends and containers in the series of Functional Shapes, formed from lathed and polished layers of black MDF.

Each Type Cast Chair is sand cast in aluminium or iron to create a single piece covered in marks left by the process.

Three slender legs support a thin seat that's curved at the back and an equally svelte back support that follows the same shape.

The Pendulum installation comprises a candle lit at both ends, which is suspended on wires stretching between two walls.

As melting wax from one end drips to the floor, the weight distribution changes and the candle spins upside down, then the process repeats.

Also on display are wall hangings covered in geometric patterns produced by slicing through layers of MDF.

ProjectB gallery is located at Via Maroncelli 7 in Milan and the exhibition continues until 10 May.

See more designs by Philippe Malouin »
See all our coverage of Milan 2013 »
See our Milan 2013 map »

Read on for more information from the gallery:

ProjectB is proud to present the first solo exhibition in Italy by Canadian designer Philippe Malouin in the occasion of Milan’s furniture fair in April 2013. Malouin has emerged as one of the strongest voices of today’s design with his simple and yet sophisticated products that always develop from an endless research on materials, forms and techniques.

The power of Malouin’s objects and furniture relays on their permanence and durability: from a rug made of metal, to an all-in-one meeting room with hanging chairs; from a racking system in metal that includes the lighting, to a series of lamps inspired by classical shutters. The designer often begins his design process from an existing reality to develop new unprecedented projects.

For his solo show at ProjectB SIMPLE, Malouin is presenting two new series of objects - commissioned by Emanuele Bonomi’s gallery, Slat and Type Cast Chairs - and an installation titled Pendulum that coherently represents his wide spirit of action. Pendulum is a reflection on gravity and by contrast a speculation on ephemera.

Malouin’s research is based on the power of materials: for Functional Shapes, black MDF sheeting is cut and laminated and the resulting material is then turned into shape on a lathe. MDF is extensively hand-polished, transforming this extremely rudimentary material into something new, light and highly tactile. The simple geometric shapes are dictated by their function revealing a lamp, bookends and nestling boxes, presented for the first time in a pitch black finishing.

The same color is to be found in the Type Cast Chairs, a series of sand casted sitting tools in iron or aluminum as a single component. The chair is extremely thin with no mechanical fixings and surprisingly resistant. The sand leaves its mark on each chair, transmitting something of its own history and making each one of them slightly different than the other.

In Philippe Malouin’s Slats pieces, standard timber slats are translated and repeated, forming a linear pattern, revealing a tabletop, rotated around an axis, forming a base and reflected for support. The resulting table gives the impression of a building, columns and ceiling. The same simple process is applied to benches that can stacked to become a bookshelf.

Malouin’s objects and installations are new simple classics. As he expresses in his own words: “Simple timber slats, positioned in the right rhythm and proportions create benches, a table, a library. A Simple chair, exhibiting modest geometry and simple boxes, bookends and a lamp composed of a readily available and humble material such as MDF, just cut and polished. A simple natural phenomenon, powering an installation. SIMPLE is an exercise in restraint. The statement is the absence of complication, nothing is hidden, nothing is faked, everything is displayed. A complicated needs to lead to a visually and tactually simple outcome. A traditional process leads to a well-balanced object. An unexpected discovery creates a deceptively simple installation. A traditional process is used to facilitate simplicity of shape and thickness” (Philippe Malouin, 2012).

The post Simple by
Philippe Malouin appeared first on Dezeen.

"You can see through the installation and through the neighbourhood all the way to the momument itself without obscuring or taking up too much visual space in the street," says Malouin.

The 60 lines of transparent PVC bunting that were strung across the road caught the sunlight and rippled in the wind.

Dezeen commissioned seven young designers to create seven installations to hang above the streets of Covent Garden during last year's London Design Festival, and Malouin's bunting installation was located on Earlham Street.

We've already published three movies in this series with Faye Toogood, Dominic Wilcox and Gitta Gschwendtner speaking about their installations - see them all here.

The music featured in the movie is a song called Blue Sapphire by Remote Scenes. You can listen to the full track on Dezeen Music Project.

Photography is by Mark Cocksedge.

See all our stories about design by Philippe Malouin »
See all more about Seven Designers for Seven Dials »
See all our coverage of London Design Festival 2012 »

The post "We didn't want to take over the
neighbourhood" - Philippe Malouin appeared first on Dezeen.

Above: Malouin's Hackney-based studio

Malouin talks about the gentrification of the east London borough, where his studio is based and that Dezeen featured prominently in our Designed in Hackney coverage. "We measure how fast Hackney is changing by the amount of 'blackboard cafes' selling flat white coffees that pop-up," he says. "There's a new one opening every week."

"It's also creating a giant demand which escalates prices," he continues."Inhabitants of Hackney can't necessary live there any more."

Above: American designers Charles and Ray Eames

The second of five images he shows is of multidisciplinary American designers Charles and Ray Eames, who he cites as his inspiration. "In terms of a studio, what they represent and what I aspire to, they are the best possible example."

He then shows photos of rolling up fabric to create stools without metal frames. "Form and style are extremely important but they usually come after a long, stretched out process-led design and then we think about the shape," he says.

Above: the making of Hardie Stools commissioned by Kvadrat 

"We're also interested in the way products inhabit spaces," he explains about the space his studio created for furniture company Artek at designjunction this year.

He finishes by showing his spinning "light paintings" made of Swarovski crystals, currently on display at the Digital Crystal exhibition at London's Design Museum.

Above: the Artek space at designjunction

Dezeen Live was a series of discussions between Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs and a number of designers and critics that took place as part of the talks programme at design exhibition 100% Design during this year’s London Design Festival.

Each of the four one-hour shows, recorded live in front of an audience, included three interviews plus music from Dezeen Music Project featuring a new act each day. Over the next few weeks we’ll be posting all the movies we filmed during the talks and you can watch all the movies we've featured so far here.

Above: Blur "light paintings"

The music featured in the movie is a track called Mosquito Maps by American designer and musician Glen Lib. Listen to more of his songs on Dezeen Music Project.

See all our stories about Philippe Malouin »
See all our stories about Dezeen Live »
See all our stories about London Design Festival 2012 »

The post "Hackney is changing" - Philippe Malouin
at Dezeen Live appeared first on Dezeen.

Structures by young designers Faye Toogood, Vic Lee, Paul Cocksedge, Philippe Malouin, Aberrant Architecture, Gitta Gschwendtner and Dominic Wilcox are installed above the streets of the Seven Dials area of Covent Garden, London.

There are little exhibits on each one at our pop-up shop Dezeen Super Store at 38 Monmouth Street, where you can still get 10% off any Dezeen Super Store purchase (excluding sale stock and Jambox) and enter our competition to win a designer watch worth £150 by downloading this flyer and presenting it at the shop.

Dezeen has also put together a free map to chart all the events at this year's London Design Festival. Explore the large map here.

The Seven Designers for Seven Dials installations will be in place until 5 October and Dezeen Super Store is open until 30 September.

See all our stories about the London Design Festival here.

Above: 7 x 7 by Faye Toogood - hanging high above the heads of passers-by on Monmouth Street, Faye Toogood’s installation is a series of 49 outsized workers’ overcoats, representing the different trades within Seven Dials that have shaped the area over the years.

Above: Aerial Escape by Gitta Gschwendtner - German-born designer Gitta Gschwendtner has also taken inspiration from the area’s slum history, when each of the seven apexes facing the Seven Dials monument housed pubs linked by underground escape tunnels. In Gschwendtner’s installation, seven interconnected ladders link two windows either side of Earlham Street to seemingly provide an escape route across the road and beyond.

Above: The Birds of Seven Dials by Dominic Wilcox - London designer Dominic Wilcox has created an arch across Neal Street made out of empty bird cages, symbolising Charles Dickens’s description of Seven Dials as a place full of bird shops. Each cage is left open to symbolise the memory of the bird shops and birds long departed from the street.

Above: Catchpenny Quackery by Aberrant Architecture - Aberrant Architecture’s installation consists of 18 large metallic coins hanging above the street. Each coin features a unique symbol that advertises one of the bogus products and services that used to be offered by quack doctors in the Seven Dials area in years gone by.

Above: Bunting by Philippe Malouin - Philippe Malouin has erected a giant installation of bunting made from transparent PVC to celebrate and highlight the Seven Dials area and its landmarks. Blown by the wind, the sixty bunting lines point the way to the Seven Dials monument.

Above: Illustrations by Vic Lee - London-based illustrator Vic Lee has created a series of flags that draw on the shady history of the Seven Dials area. The illustrations incorporate the old street names during the 17th and 18th centuries, a time when Seven Dials was a slum famous for its gin shops.

Above: Dial by Paul Cocksedge - Paul Cocksedge has suspended a mysterious interactive installation called Dial, consisting simply of a large floating telephone number suspended between two buildings. Only those curious members of the public tempted to call the number will discover its secret.

Photographs are by Mark Cocksedge.

Dezeen's London Design Festival map

.

The map above is taken from Dezeen's guide to the London Design Festival, which lists all the events going on across the city this week. We'll be updating it over the coming days with extra information on our highlights so keep checking back. Explore the larger version of this map here.

The post Seven Designers for Seven Dials
audio guide appeared first on Dezeen.