mind the plant

Posted on February 23, 2012 by cpotter

Some of our favourite examples of creative reuse and upcycling are made from very locally available raw materials, training local people with new skills to increase the productivity of the local economy.

Mind The Plant are one such example.

Made using reinforced plastic from local construction sites in Malmo, Sweden, the group transform the material with local social co-op Yallatrappan into brilliant, woven planters, perfect for a utility styled courtyard garden or balcony.

And they are brilliantly priced – check out their webshop.

(image via Mind the Plant)

solar powered snowy slopes

Posted on February 22, 2012 by cpotter

We are huge fans of winter sports here in the studio, but all resorts have tremendous carbon footprints with massive power requirements for lifts, cable cars, slope maintenance etc etc…

But with all that free (and very intense) sunlight bouncing around the mountains it was only a matter of time until solar powered lifts popped up.

And it was the little Swiss town of Tenna who put themselves on the map recently with the world’s first solar wing powered lift.

The suspension style installation holds 82 wings which can rotate to both follow the sun and to remove excess snow from their surfaces – a brilliant innovation given the lift station building was to small to accommodate the array.

This great installation powers a whopping 800 skiers and boarders up the mountain each hour and at peak times can produce almost double the amount of power it needs – a great year round investment, especially when it is only required to be powered in the snowy times.

Solar powered snowboarding? Oh yes please.

(image via inhabitat)

the perfect pancake

Posted on February 21, 2012 by cpotter

Well, happy pancake day one and all.

We think it is a real shame that pancakes are only really celebrated once a year as they are incredibly quick to make, are nice and interactive to make and can be customised in all manner of ways to suit the seasonal flavours around and about.

So, what makes the perfect pancake? For us, it has to be lovely and thin, with little crispy bits on the side and nice brown blotches. And it must be tossed. Very important.

Our favourite recipe in the studio is the one from River Cottage, which uses either plain flour (which we use for sweet concoctions) or very fine wholemeal flour (which we use for savoury fillings)

Basically:

Sift 250g of flour (plain white or fine wholemeal) into a large bowl with a pinch of sea salt. Make a well in the centre and add in 2 lightly beaten organic eggs and 50ml whole milk. Begin to bring the dry ingredients into the centre of the well, mixing to combine them. Using a jug with 550ml milk in, gradually add more milk bit by bit into the well, combining the wet and dry ingredients until all are together at a consistency of single cream. If it is still thicker, add a little more milk.

Let the bowl of batter rest for at least 30mins while you collect all your fillings together. Top of our list are:

golden caster sugar and lemon juice
warmed blackberry jam from the larder
butter and cinnamon
stewed apple and ginger
mature cheddar and smoked paprika
fried egg and hawthorn ketchup
a sprinkle of rose petal syrup
a sprinkle of wine mulling syrup

Now comes the all important making. Make sure your chosen pancake pan is heated over a medium heat for a little bit, then add a desert spoon of oil – swirl it around then transfer the excess into a heat proof dish.

Using a small ladle, tip a small amount of batter into the centre of the pan and swirl it around so it is nice and thin. Cook for a minute or two, then, turning up the edges, loosen the pancake from the pan, then after a bit of shaking, flip the pancake over. Cook briefly on the second side.

The first pancake will be absolutely rubbish. This always happens and is duly fed to the chef whilst the second one is cooking.

Get a few together (keep them warm) then all sit down and get creative with your fillings!

Enjoy! Have a flipping good time.

(image via C4)

midwinter fire

Posted on February 20, 2012 by cpotter

Ok – we have gone a little past the midwinter mark, but it also just happens to be our very very favourite, bright and beautiful shrub – Cornus Midwinter Fire.

It is very easy to specify plants for garden which look good in the summer months, but as a few of our recent posts have detailed, scent, scent and colour and garden structure are probably the most important elements of a winter garden – your choice of plants and form are vital.

And this shrub is truly a stunner.

During summer, well, it sort of melts into the background and is a great foil for other, more blousy blooms such as Dahlia ‘Chat Noir’ or a whole troop of bearded iris. But in winter, it sheds its pale leaves to reveal the most beautiful of coloured stems, which as its name suggests, look like flames – graduated from yellow at the bases to a red orange at the tips.

But, as those of you who grow these very hardy shrubs know, the intense colour is only bourne on the relatively young stems, so a severe chop back to around 10cm from the ground every other spring is required. This also helps to keep the shrub compact, so it is a brilliant specimen for even smaller town gardens (think how its colour and structure could be used in a very modern setting – maybe in front of an intensely coloured wall…)

Cornus ‘Midwinter Fire’ is a lovely, lovely shrub, and one that you should seek out if you are looking for a bit more of a buzz in your winter garden.

(images via Crocus)

chalkboards for interiors

Posted on February 17, 2012 by cpotter

There is something very nostalgic about the chalkboard – memories of scribbling on them as a child, school days (yes, they were still there when I was at school) and that terrible squeak the chalk used to make when applied at a certain angle.

But placing a chalkboard into an interior can be a really good move – the blackness offsets bright colours fantastically, works wonderfully in an industrial or utility styled interior and can provide endless fun for families.

Chalkboards can be used purely for temporary messages and drawings, shopping lists and the like, or more permanent drawings could be begun and added to when friends visit, or on drawing evenings with the kids. If you are feeling really creative, you could write poems on your chalkboard – a new verse each night for a week?

Homework could be done via the communal chalkboard – rather than everyone scampering off to their own room and their own laptop. There is something about a chalkboard which screams of community, fun, interaction and collaboration.

Obviously chalkboards are equally as home in the retail or commercial interior as they are in the modern home – signage can be given a brilliant vintage feel by using a traditional chalkboard – think old cafes, butchers, bakers, grocers. Daily catches in a fishmongers.

Signs that can be quickly changed and that represent all that is handmade and personally cared for – this is why so many chalkboards are found in farmer’s markets – tradition, the real hand of a producer and traditional values.

And if you really practice, chalkboards can be turned into real works of art – as this wonderful example from New York based artist Dana Tanamachi shows.

We would just never want to rub it off!

(images via Brighton FARM, Design Leaks and MagneticChalkboardPaint)

tea towels To Dry For

Posted on February 16, 2012 by cpotter

I am afraid I cannot take credit for the wonderful pun in today’s post, as To Dry For is their name and they do make the most wonderful tea towels, supporting some great British illustrators from their base in Oxford.

Just like these lovelies.

A couple of great, patterned tea towels are the simplest way to update your kitchen with a splash of colour, for little money, whilst also being an essential piece of culinary kit. Even with a dishwasher you need a tea towel occasionally.

Working with a range of illustrators, To Dry For create a massive selection of printed tea towels, from vintage styled to modern graphic, typographic to etching styled.

You will almost certainly find something to match your tastes and your interiors.

One of our favourites is this biscuit one, as we just love old fashioned biscuits (especially malted milks)

Find this one and a whole load of others here at To Dry For. Get a cup of tea and get shopping.

(image via To Dry For)

cinema poster wallpaper

Posted on February 15, 2012 by cpotter

We spotted this lovely, bright wallpaper recently over at Weitzner - a riot of colour with a beautiful woven texture – a great piece for a feature wall.

And not only is it stunning, it is made from 70% post consumer waste. Bollywood cinema posters to be exact.

The used posters are collected, stripped and woven to create the textural lengths, which reveal little details about their previous lives when you get up close.

Like the idea but more into your neutrals?

How about the older brother to the Bollywood cinema posters – Newsworthy – which is made from 70% recycled newspapers. This is made in exactly the same way but has a calmer nature in off whites and black text with just a tinch of colour.

Two great ways to update a wall.

(images via Weitzner)

stuff we love – now at Pinterest

Posted on February 14, 2012 by cpotter

As a design studio we tend to amass a whole load of inspirational images of great products, wonderful interiors, colour combinations, stuff we would like to use in projects, interesting textures and other lovely things – web and paper based.

Stuff we just love.

And now, we have a way of sharing all those things we love with all of you via the very wonderful Pinterest.

This site is fantastic – working very much on the share and discover aspect that Twitter is based on, Pinterest is the visual version of the wordy tweet. Once you have received your invite you can set up your virtual pinboards – each with a different theme, then ‘pin’ images from the web onto your board.

The nice thing is that the source of each of the images you ‘pin’ is retained, so people can see where it came from. And if you see something on someone else’s boards, you can like it (just like facebook) or repin it to one of your boards.

People can comment on your images and boards – again, just like Facebook, and follow you and your updates, just like Twitter.

This is what makes Pinterest so great – it works like those social media sites we all know and love, but just with an emphasis on the visual.

For designers, this is our dream – expect to see a lot of what we love on our boards from now on.

snow shows your garden structure

Posted on February 13, 2012 by cpotter

We have all been shivering a bit in the cold over the past week, with the ravages of ice and snow blasting their way across the UK.

For some things in the garden, this is a really bad thing, with the early risers being caught out by the cold. Other things such as garlic will be really pleased about the drop in temperature. Most other things will not be that bothered. Life is of course a matter of balance.

But there is a very important function that snow (or a hard frost) can bring to the garden in winter.

Structure.

If your garden does not have structure then it is really evident in the winter, when landscapes are blanketed in one singular colour. If there are not great bones in your garden you will be able to see the flatness easier now than ever before.

Do you have a good balance of evergreen shrubs, skeletal trees and shrubs with good form, arches, urns, statues, buildings or hard landscaping?

Take a step back. Take some photos. Pick out the ‘flat’ areas with a view to moving stuff in early spring, or positioning a new feature.

Now, some flatness can be great. Think of a beautiful, crisp section of lawn or a meadow. But the flat has to be balanced with the bones.

Get your structural bones right and your garden will literally stand up to all weathers and look beautiful come rain or shine, or even frost or snow.

(images by claire potter)

Utility. Make your interior honest and hardwearing.

Posted on February 10, 2012 by cpotter

The terms utility and utilitarian design are often mixed in with industrial interior – terms which have come to describe honest, no frills, simple yet textural spaces which have an air of a working space – sometimes even factory like.

We love these types of spaces and the general ethics are how we work with all our projects – we specify pieces which are completely fit for purpose, work extremely well together, do not need any special care and that will age gracefully. Some things are already old when we specify them, such as reclaimed timber or vintage furniture and they can only get better.

And we are luck enough to have a little shop in Brighton where you can completely kit out your interior with the fullest range of utility style items.

Utility.

We often hear how people were like ‘kids in a sweet shop’ when they visit spaces (and this is what we strive to achieve for your clients), and we can honestly say, this is how we feel when we go into the wonderful Utility store in North Road, Brighton.

The building itself is beautiful, with a very apt industrial appearance painted in a lovely matt dark grey. Letterpress signage points the way to the entrance – once inside you are completely surrounded by enamel cups and plates, brown betty teapots, simple white crockery, squat glass vinegar shakers, old cutlery, canvas aprons and a myriad of other things that, well, just work beautifully without shouting about it.

We recently bought a range of rubber spout caps to better direct water from the reclaimed taps we had – bright red and only 50p. My Nan used to have some and they work great.

Some vintage pieces sit beside the new pieces and it is interesting to see how the general appearance does not really alter between the new and the old – as the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

And as they say on their home page – ’…you’ll find things from pretty much every decade at Utility, just as long as they are good looking, and they work well. It’s OK to be a bit nostalgic, but you’re kidding yourself if you think a washboard is better than a washing machine’

But what if you’re not in Brighton? Well you are in luck, as they have now launched a pretty comprehensive online store where you can order things direct.

Honest, hardworking interiors. Make your homes and belongings work as well and as hard as you do. Go utility.

(product images via Utility)

the ecospot

the green orientated ramblings of the claire potter design studio…