London Design Festival 2015: an exhibition at London's Ace Hotel in Shoreditch includes stackable stools, cast concrete lights and copper cone-shaped ashtrays that were all designed for the venue (+ slideshow).
Curated by Modern Design Review magazine founder Laura Houseley, the Ready Made Go exhibition brings together six designers: Philippe Malouin, Studio Vit, Hilda Hellström, Tomás Alonso, Marcin Rusak and Parsha Gerayesh.
Each was commissioned to create a piece that responds to the needs of London's Ace Hotel, and the collection includes furniture and lighting alongside jewellery, eyewear, and a sculptural installation by Hellström. Graphics and promotional material were created by UK studio OK-RM.
London designer Malouin has created a stackable wooden stool with a cog-shaped seat, as well as a black steel door handle produced by architectural manufacturer Izé.
"Laura's idea was to base all of the commissions on things that the hotel needed immediately, as opposed to something overly conceptual," the designer told Dezeen.
"The hotel needed stackable, flat-packable stools that could be dotted around the hotel here, and other hotels around the world," he added. "It needed to be neutral and work with Ace's aesthetic."
Shown in a display cabinet in the hotel lobby, Malouin's stools have also been aded to the Ace's lounge and seating areas, and the first production piece of the handle has been installed in the hotel.
Swedish duo Studio Vit's reinforced concrete Cast pendant and table lamps are also on display around the hotel. Developed from the studio's previous products, the pendant features a globe-shaped lamp encased in a half shell of concrete, while the table lamp echoes the shapes with a spherical light resting on a concrete base.
"We wanted to use a material which we found here, and there is quite a lot of concrete and many of the materials are quite industrial. So it felt right to choose something in line with that," studio founders Helena Jonasson and Veronica Dagnert told Dezeen.
"The table light is quite solid, which is also has a practical side to it because in a reception area it can get quite busy. It's quite heavy, so it sits where it sits and isn't easily knocked over," they added.
Spanish designer Tomas Alonso – who recently collaborated with COS and Hay on a pair of folding tables – has contributed a spun copper ashtray with a purposefully unbalanced, conical base.
"I liked the idea of doing an ashtray because it's becoming a bit of a forgotten object," Alonso said to Dezeen. "The idea was to do something very simple, affordable and basic that could almost become a souvenir of the place as well."
"You can spin it around the table, and it looks like things will fall off of it but actually it's ok. It's something that I try to do in projects quite often – to find a precarious balance," he added.
Royal College of Art graduate Parsha Gerayesh has designed eyewear constructed using a continuous piece of stainless steel wire, with tightly coiled springs used for the glasses' arms.
Gerayesh originally created a prototype of the glasses in acetate, but after finding it wasn't strong enough decided to partner with a metal spring manufacturer. Because of their spiral construction, the glasses can be flexed without being broken.
"I think people initially look at them and see metal glasses, but they're super light and really forgiving," the Gerayesh said.
Multidisciplinary designer Marcin Rusak has mixed dried flowers with black resin to form chunky bangles and rings with a brass core.
"I create a rod of material as a mold, put lots of flowers in, cast resin with black pigment and then they're spun on a lathe," he told Dezeen. "When you take out the material you start revealing these unpredictable patterns."
Swedish artist Hilda Hellström was commissioned to create an "arresting sculpture" for the hotel's Hoi Polloi restaurant. Her volcano-shaped piece, which is made from polished Jesmonite, references the shapes of natural rock formations. Triangular-shaped pieces were carefully inlaid into the sculpture before it was cut out using a computer-numerically-controlled (CNC) machine.
"It's almost like sediments because I've cast them in layers," she told Dezeen. "I'm trying to push the possibilities of casting."
The exhibition is on display as part of London Design Festival 2015, which runs until 27 September – see Dezeen's guide to must-see installations and exhibitions taking place around the city.
The Modern Design Review, which launched last year, also curated an exhibition at the Ace Hotel for the 2014 edition of the festival. Installations by Bethan Laura Wood, Martino Gamper and more were scattered around the public areas of the building on Shoreditch High Street, designed by Barber and Osgerby's architecture branch Universal Design Studio.
Installation photography is by Peter Guenzel. Product photography is by Marius W Hansen.