Photos by Jessica Miller
For many of the practicing designers who live and work in the five boroughs, the months before the ICFF are often a caffeine-fueled blur, crunchtime in anticipation of the single most important weekend of the year. The 15 third-year Product Design students in the Design for Wastelessness studio at Parsons the New School for Design had the chance to experience the same flurry of activity as Poltrona Frau offered them the chance to exhibit their projects during NY Design Week. The brief: to transform leather off-cuts into retail-worthy goods for the home and office.
Led by instructor Andrea Ruggiero, this marks the third year in a row that the storied Italian manufacturer has sponsored coursework at Parsons, in which the students had seven weeks to design and prototype their products. About a month ago, they presented their projects to the panel of judges from both Poltrona Frau and the school, including guest judge Massimo Vignelli, who subsequently announced three winners at the company's Design Week reception. Congrats to Jenny Hsu, Yuna Kim and Benjamin Billick, who won a trip to the Poltrona Frau factory in Tolentino, Italy, where they will have the opportunity to refine their prototypes with master craftsmen.
Jenny Hsu - "Piqnique"
Piqnique is an extension of the domestic dining experience for on-the-go situations, enriching your eating rituals while away from home. Whether at the park, a horse-race, or on the yacht, Piqnique functions as a carrier for a set of silverware and a napkin. When unrolled, Piqnique also doubles as an elegant placemat: it's Frau to Go.
Yuna Kim - "Miovino"
Miovino is a set of wine markers designed for social gatherings that elevates the act of enjoying wine through a luxurious tactile experience. By choosing a coloured leather wine marker—or sleeve—wine drinkers can identify and personalize their stemware, and as a result, Miovino also becomes the interface between the drinker and the glass, suggesting that the glass should be held by the stem. Miovino exemplifies the concept of wastelessness, as the markers are made with small and economically-shaped production scraps coupled with small embedded magnets.(more...)
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