ALISON TERENCE BROOKS CONRAN FELIX SEBASTIAN DE PASS COX JOHN PAWSON STUDIO ARETI ZAHA HADID GARETH NEAL The Wish List is like a dream come true. Ten of the biggest names in design acted as ‘commissioners’, each asking an up-and-coming designer to design and make for them the object that they had always wanted. The only stipulation was that it should be in American hardwood. The process culminated in a week of making at furniture company Benchmark, where the PAUL 10 LEADERS IN DESIGN COMMISSION 10 young designers not only acquired new skills but SMITH EMERGING DESIGNERS TO CREATE THE also learnt a lot about sustainability through OBJECT THEY HAVE ALWAYS WANTED. taking detailed measurements for a life-cycle NATHALIE environmental assessment (LCA). DE LEVAL The results, exhibited at the London Design ALLEN NORMAN Festival 2014 and shown in this publication, are JONES FOSTER surprising, intriguing and universally delightful. L O L A NORIE LELY MATSUMOTO RICHARD & AB ALEX AMANDA ROGERS DE RIJKE LEVETE XENIA BARNBY WIN MOSELEY &DAY ASSAKUL 001_WL_COVER_v6.indd All Pages 04/09/2014 13:08 002-019_INTRO_v9.indd 2 03/09/2014 22:33 3 FOREWORD I am delighted to have played a part in bringing this project to life, both by approaching the experienced designers to act as ‘commissioners’ or mentors and by offering the workshops of Benchmark for a week of making. I believe that The Wish List is not only exciting, but also of great importance to skilled manufacturing in wood. Design is integral to the success of industry and the up-and- coming designers get both inspiration from the professional they are working with, and actual experience in the workshop of how to make things. The teams have worked excellently and I am certain great friendships have been formed. I have always believed that you can’t design something unless you know how it is made. It Image: Julian Broad is the inspiration of making that I think is And as well as an extraordinary design project, important to designers as well as the quality of The Wish List was an exploration of a really the materials that they use. They learn so much important and beautiful sustainable material – more here than at their design schools. American hardwood. It has been a fascinating I have always thought that with the direction opportunity to learn specifically about the modern manufacturing has taken with robotics American hardwood resource and the great mix and CNC production, people involved in the of species. process will be required less and less. In contrast The project itself is now at an end, but I hope to this trend, I have seen an opportunity for that it can represent a new beginning for skilled businesses like ours to produce things in smallish manufacturing in this country. quantities and quite often bespoke projects, to help deal with the labour problems. I think that this process could be far-reaching in its potential – it is something that governments around the world should be focusing on. Sir Terence Conran THE WISH LIST / FOREWORD 002-019_INTRO_v9.indd 3 03/09/2014 22:33 THE WISH LIST / INTRODUCTION / FOREWORD 002-019_INTRO_v9.indd 4 03/09/2014 22:33 5 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 4 The idea 6 The teams 10 Measured sustainability 12 American hardwoods 16 THE PROJECTS 19 Terence Conran and Sebastian Cox 20 Alison Brooks and Felix de Pass 28 Norman Foster and Norie Matsumoto 36 Zaha Hadid and Gareth Neal 44 Allen Jones and Lola Lely 52 Amanda Levete and Win Assakul 60 John Pawson and Studio Areti 68 Alex de Rijke and Barnby & Day 76 Richard & Ab Rogers and Xenia Moseley 84 Paul Smith and Nathalie de Leval 92 TECHNICAL 100 Life-cycle environmental assessment 101 THE WISH LIST / INTRODUCTION / CONTENTS 002-019_INTRO_v9.indd 5 04/09/2014 00:00 MAKING DREAMS COME TRUE Emerging designers were teamed with more experienced ‘commissioners’ to design and make the objects that they had always wanted 002-019_INTRO_v9.indd 6 03/09/2014 22:33 7 he Wish List is a unique Ten leading designers in their fields, project, a very special many but not all architects, were collaboration between some of asked to come up with their wish, the world's best-known design the object that they had always Tnames and up-and-coming designers wanted but never found or had time with the potential to perhaps become to design themselves. They paired up equally well known. It marries the with younger designers, some that they excitement of design with the skill and had chosen themselves and others in challenge of making, broadening the a more or less arranged marriage. designers' knowledge of working with Together they worked on realising wood and, in particular, of the range the design, in a back and forth and properties of American hardwoods. discussion that was fruitful for both It has also introduced the designers parties. This culminated in the chosen to the important concept of life- designers spending a week at the cycle environmental assessment (LCA), start of July at Benchmark. Camping generating data that has added to the in bell tents in what was effectively growing body of knowledge. the end of Terence Conran’s garden, The project grew from a conversation they worked with the skilled craftsmen between the American Hardwood at Benchmark to realise their ideas Export Council (AHEC), furniture (sometimes using techniques quite company Benchmark and Terence different to those they had imagined). Conran. It follows on from a previous Other specialists came for the week collaboration two years ago called as well, such as a highly skilled turner. Out of the Woods, when a group of And several of the ‘commissioners’ students from the Royal College of (the experienced designers) went Art designed and made chairs (in to Benchmark for at least a day, to the broadest sense) at Benchmark, participate in the making process and the company Conran co-founded in to make those last-minute key decisions 1984 with Sean Sutcliffe at Kintbury that can only happen in the process in Berkshire. That project led to an of making. exhibition at the Victoria & Albert The results were extraordinary. Museum as part of the London Design Mostly in one week (although some Festival. Two years on, The Wish List projects started earlier, and a few did the same, but on a grander scale. needed finishing off) the designers The concept is simple but daring. realised ambitious, original designs, THE WISH LIST / INTRODUCTION / THE IDEA 002-019_INTRO_v9.indd 7 03/09/2014 22:33 learning a great deal along the way about generation of talent – it really does make a making in general and wood in particular, big difference.’ and delighting their commissioners. The It is hard to imagine a better place benefits to all those involved are obvious, than Benchmark for realising The Wish as is the appeal to everybody seeing the List project. Indeed, it is hard to think work. But there are two questions that will of anywhere else that it could have occur to the interested observer. The first is happened at all. A leading company of ‘How?’ How was it possible to bring such a craftspeople and designers who produce stellar list of commissioners together, and for well-designed furniture and bespoke them to find time in their busy lives for this commercial projects, Benchmark has a project? And the second is ‘Why?’ The effort business acumen that is to be envied. While put in by everybody was immense, and there most of Britain’s independent furniture has to be a good reason for that. makers have disappeared, Benchmark has The answer to the ‘how’ is simply Terence prospered. And it has done this not by Conran. A towering figure in the design cutting margins and shaving quality, but by running an organisation that, while hard- Clockwise from top left: Felix nosed and hard-working, is near idyllic in its de Pass working on the stool It is hard to surroundings and its ethos. for Alison Brooks; Richard Set in workshops in a number of former Rogers, Ab Rogers and Xenia Moseley with The Ladder that imagine a farm buildings near the Berkshire village of Likes the Wall; Win Assakul better place Kintbury, it uses traditional techniques where with Amanda Levete; Sean appropriate, and the latest technology where Sutcliffe explains the camping than Benchmark that is right. At the heart of Benchmark's arrangements; Terence Conran talks to Lewis Day (left) and work is timber, but it also has a specialist for realising The Rob Barnby; Nathalie de Leval metal workshop and an upholstery studio. The with Paul Smith; Sebastian Wish List highly skilled workforce, many of whom have Cox with the desk he designed come through the firm as apprentices, are for Terence Conran; Terence Conran and Sean Sutcliffe not merely performing tasks but are solving during the making week world, with extraordinary connections, he problems and, when called upon, innovating. asked and they said yes. Even people such The exciting and accomplished products as Norman Foster, Paul Smith and Zaha that have been produced have not only Hadid would find it hard to say no to enthused all those involved and taught them Terence Conran. a great deal in a short length of time. He put it more modestly. ‘I’m not sure They are also inspirational and showcase how instrumental I was,’ he said. ‘With the the timbers in new and imaginative ways. calibre and experience we were looking for, And, for everybody involved — the designers, the names practically picked themselves, the commissioners, the team at Benchmark though I suppose it must help that I know and all the helpers who were drafted in, it them all personally.