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Showing posts with label droog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label droog. Show all posts

Droog's New Hotel In Amsterdam Opens September 16th. See All That It Has To Offer.




At the historical centre of Amsterdam, on September 16th, 2012, Droog will open a hospitality experience like no other. Hôtel Droog is a place where you can come for a drink, a bite to eat, exclusive shopping, exhibitions, beauty advice, a stroll in the garden, a lecture series, or even a bed for the night. Featuring the Droog Store, Gallery, Dining Room, Fairy Tale Garden, Beauty at Cosmania, Fashion at Kabinet, Products at Weltevree, and the one and only Bedroom, Hôtel Droog is conspicuously housed in 700 square metres in a 17th century building, promising to be a new cultural home in the heart of Amsterdam.




“The concept of a hotel has been reversed. Whereas a hotel is usually mostly about sleeping, here we have enlarged and emphasized all the aspects that many hotels also offer and made them central to the hotel experience—and it even has a room to sleep in,” says Renny Ramakers, co-founder and director of Droog. “Hotel Droog brings all of our activities under one roof—from curation to product design, exhibitions and lectures—and invites people to plug in as they choose.”

The new hotel, a 10-room member-only hotel, concept restaurant and exhibition space was designed by Tokyo-based Atelier Bow-Wow.


above: a model of the building shows the inner courtyard

Leaving the canal-facing front façade intact, Atelier Bow-Wow created an intricate inner courtyard façade inspired by Amsterdam’s historic architecture.



above: an early rendering of one of the hotel's rooms

The hotel restaurant will host new concept dinners by invited designers and chefs, improvising with local market left-overs and practicing the act of eating slowly yet attentively.


above: An initial rendering of the restaurant included a smoking space

The street level will house an on-going program of Droog exhibitions and events.

EXHIBITIONS at GALLERY

The Gallery is an exhibition space curated by Droog or by specially invited curators. This prominent and beautiful 160 square metre space features the latest in design, art, and fashion and previews upcoming developments in the creative industry. The Gallery aims to create a dialogue between design and society by hosting workshops and discussions.

ESCAPE at FAIRY TALE GARDEN

Enter a magical fairy tale garden. Designed by French Designers Claude Pasquer and Corinne Détroyat, the courtyard has been transformed into a shelter for biodiversity, where natural and artificial elements intermingle.

All elements are functional, attracting, feeding, watering, and providing respite for birds, butterflies, insects, flowers, edible plants and humans alike. Mixing seamlessly with abundant plantation, synthetic turf covers the winding pathways to create a sense of stillness. The garden is a real mixture of serenity and joy.

FOOD, DRINKS & DISCUSSIONS at THE DINING ROOM
The Dining Room is a simple, elegant and airy room that overlooks the flourishing garden. Enjoy some of the neighbourhood’s finest homemade recipes or freshly made smorrebrod sandwiches.

The menu is bound by one philosophy: simple, healthy, delicious dishes created with well-sourced and seasonal ingredients.

The Dining Room is open for lunch and special events, lectures and performances. In honour of the building’s history as home of the textile guild, Droog commissioned Dutch artist Berend Strik for a reinterpretation of Rembrandt’s famous De Staalmeesters, a painting that once hung here.

SLEEP at THE ONE AND ONLY BEDROOM
The top floor of Hotel Droog is for guests who might like to stay the night or more. Central but quiet, the brightly-lit space, with bedroom, living area and kitchen, provides a superb view over Amsterdam rooftops.

DESIGN at DROOG STORE

The Droog Store is an open atmosphere where you can interact with the Droog experience. Featuring small and affordable products along with limited edition pieces, each piece has been designed to enhance daily life and has its own story to tell. The store also sells the ‘Friends of Droog’ curated collection, products from other labels that match the Droog aesthetic and concept.

BEAUTY at COSMANIA

At COSMANIA you will find beautiful, affordable and very special international cosmetics brands that can’t be found anywhere else in The Netherlands. All beauty brands presented have their own unique story to tell. The unique principles of COSMANIA’s brand philosophy are exclusivity to the Netherlands and an open attitude that invites interaction with visitors. Openness comes in the form of honest product reviews, valuing visitor’s opinions and experiences with the products, and inviting visitors to help determine the collections.

COSMANIA is always open to advice on international brands you may have seen on your travels or in magazines that you’d like to see and share with other cosmaniacs.

FASHION at KABINET


KABINET is an intimate place where you can find exclusive fashion labels represented within this fashion salon. KABINET features some of the best eclectic designers of recent years including Isabel Marant, Maison Martin Margiela, and Hussein Chalayan. These sit beside other hand-picked luxury brands and a carefully curated selection of avant-garde designer pieces. KABINET has introduced a collection of unique fragrances to complement the cutting edge mix of womenswear, menswear, jewellery, accessories and design brands.

PRODUCTS at WELTEVREE
Weltevree is a Dutch product label that develops and produces authentic products with a focus on outdoor living.

Whether it’s the iconic Dutchtub (shown above) that allows you to enjoy the pleasure of bathing outside, or a stove that brings the crackling fire into your kitchen, Weltevree brings rawness, sensuality and a closeness to nature into your life. Featuring products that are distinctive, original and of excellent quality, Weltevree aims to deliver a quality experience that satisfies our primary desires.

press release information and images courtesy of Droog and Weltevree

Photography of hero image: Thijs Wolzak
Address: Staalstraat 7B, 1011 JJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Opening times: Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 7pm / Sunday 12 – 5pm (Mondays closed)
Website: www.hoteldroog.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/HotelDroog

Wendy Legro's graduation project, a modern Hot Water Bottle, gets produced by Droog.



A hit at 2010 design shows in Milan and the Netherlands, Wendy Legro’s graduation project for the Design Academy Eindhoven, Hot Water Bottle, is being mass produced by Droog.

The Best Of The 2009 Milan Furniture Fair




You may be confused at to just what exactly is the name of the week long event in Milan, which is the world's largest trade show for furniture manufacturers and designers, where many new collections are debuted for the first time. Just to make it clear for those of you who do not follow furniture design as if it is your life's blood, the week long event in Milan took place from April 22-27th and it's often referred to by various names such as the following:

Salone Internazionale del Mobile
The Milan Furniture Fair
The Milan Show
Salone del Mobile
Guida Fuori Salone
the Milan report
iSaloni

So many bloggers, journalists and photographers have done an excellent job covering the 2009 Salone del Mobile in Milan this year, that rather than duplicate many of their efforts by covering the week long event, I just wanted to share with you some photos (from designws) from them as to what I feel are the stand out pieces and displays.

After the photos, there are links to the best sites, databases and online magazines with coverage of the show.

Gaetano Pesce for Casamia:

Dosh Levien for Moroso:

Tord Boontje for Moroso:

Front Design for Moroso:

Matali Crassalt for Established and Sons:

Peter Marigold, Design Miami /Craft punk:

Javier Mariscal for Magis:

Jaime Hayon for Baccarat:

Fernando and Humberto Campana for Edra:

Marcus Tremento:

BCXSY:

Frank Gehry for Emeco:

Stephen Burk's M'Afrique collection for Moroso:

Martin Baas:

Zaha Hadid for Artemide:

Ross Lovegrove for Artemide:

Chris Kabel for Droog:

Nacho Carbonell for Droog:

Karim Rashid for Meritalia:

Studio Mendini for Meritalia:

Byblos Cas, Mendini Atelier:

Scholten & Baijings:

Pieke Bergman's Lights:

Tom Dixon:

Arik Levy for Swarovski:

Studio Job's tableware and stained glass:


Kiki van Eijk and Joost van Bleiswijk for Skitsch:

Michael Kruijne for Zuiver:


And below are links to what I feel are the best and most comprehensive round ups of the week long furniture fair by various bloggers, magazines and companies.

Links to the best online reports and photo collections from Milan (in no particular order):

twentytwentone has a superb flickr set here

designws has daily reports from each day and hundreds (really!) of great photos here

Wallpaper magazine's highlights, videos and coverage here

At Casa's special Salon coverage is wonderful here

designboom's daily coverage featured some of the best picks here

design magazine Dezeen's coverage can be found here.

Inhabit's daily coverage here

Interni has a wonderful guide that includes daily video interviews, photos maps and more here

The New York Times coverage in The Moment here

The Los Angeles Times photo gallery (32 images) of the event here

Fast Company's coverage can be found here

So, you can stop googling stuff and just go to the above links, it will save you much time and grief while simultaneously enlightening and delighting you. Enjoy!

An Homage To Aalto And A Nod To Global Warming Wins Droog's Climate Competition



Above left: The original classic Aalto Savoy Vase and right, Jan Ctvrtnik's entry into the competition

I'm a big fan of Alvar Aalto's work and have blogged about him before, as well as complied a list of available items by him and inspired by him here. So when I saw that the winner of Droog's Climate Competition was a variation of Aalto's famous 1936 Savoy Vase (now available in multiple sizes and colors produced by iittala), I was captivated and simply had to share.

Winner Jan Ctvrtnik altered the famous shape by showing how it would appear if it, too, were to suffer the effects of global warming. The result is both brilliant and beautiful and doesn't 'ruin' Aalto's fluid classic vase, but instead enhances it.

See for yourself.






With 32% of all votes, visitors of the Droog website have chosen 'Droog Aalto' by Jan Ctvrtnik as the winning proposal for the Climate Competition. Droog initiated the competition for which anyone could submit any idea in any possible form, as long as it concerned the 'climate' theme.



Winner Jan Ctvrtnik: 'I realised that climate changes are visualised mostly by numbers and scientific measurements. In order to show changes, it is good to have a reference point.' And so the Aalto vase became that reference point with its shape originating from the shape of a Finnish lake. The 'Droog' part of the title can be translated as 'Dry', obviously relating to global warming.
Originally Czechoslovakian, Jan Ctvrtnik currently lives and works in Pordenone, Italy. After studying design in Prague and at IKDC in Lund (Sweden), he is now working as an industrial designer for Electrolux.

See other items inspired by Alvar Aalto's vase here.


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