New kid on the block

It seems more people than ever are gripped by Formula One. It’s been a season of thrills, high jinks, conspiracy and enigmatic new drivers whatever next! F1 is starting to captivate a wider audience, and why not, it has the excitement, the speed, the smell of burning rubber, and the glitz and glamour that puts it in a unique space within the sporting world.

This year Britain and F1 have found a new hero. Lewis Hamilton’s story appeals to both the working and middle classes - he has brought motor sport to the masses and like Tiger Woods did for golf, has nudged F1 from its elitist perch.

Yet F1 could do so much more; bring the brand up to date and inline with what’s going on in the wider world. Motor sport has a lot going for it, but needs to engage and capture a new audience while it still has a window of relevance.

What is the wider impact of the sport beyond the obvious? What message could it send out to the new generation, to the environment, to a street driver? Look at how FIFA have tackled kicking racism out of football and everyday life; what could F1’s message be to the world?

I can’t wait for the new season to start. Now imagine if the bosses at F1 started to dream in Technicolor? That would be interesting.

13 November 2007, posted by David Bruce

Post Frieze

After the hyperhype and hyperactivity of the Frieze Fair, two shows which offer a complete contrast in content and atmosphere, both at Tate Modern in London. One, a major retrospective by Louise Bourgeois- covering 75 yrs of her work, the other a major intervention in the Turbine Hall by Doris Salcedo. Both shows oblige consideration and contemplation as opposed to consumption. Go see and feel.

17 October 2007, posted by Brian Boylan

The other 90%

This summer, the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum in New York had a small, brilliant show in need of a much bigger stage.

‘Design for the other 90%’ is thankfully a misleading title. This is not design of the West rescuing the third world but is instead a show of genius innovation ideas emerging from communities all over the developing world, some as independent ventures, some in collaboration with nonprofits. The common themes are the most basic and hard fought needs of all – food, energy, health, housing and education – and the results are breakthrough. A drum of water you can roll rather than carry, furniture for churches built from the debris of Hurricane Katrina, little sheds which work as safe houses in disaster zones, energy to fuel a stove produced by a parabolic mirror dish on the outside of a small house, a treadle pump to irrigate fields – there are endless examples of sheer inventiveness which are cheap to make, easy to use and ease the grind of daily life.

For every startlingly obvious problem to solve, there’s one which we in the developed world might struggle to see, like the simple need to mark out a space where before there was none. This produced Public Architecture’s Day Labour Station – a mobile unit built as needed by US day labourers to create a place to wait, meet and study. It is a quick and simple way to make a temporary community.

There’s a big lesson here about how innovation happens, about designing for real needs rather than inventing new ones, even design which is first about function rather than aesthetics, but most of all the show’s message is one of massive commercial opportunity. Since 2.8 billion people live on less that $2 a day, making life-transforming products which can sell for less than the price of a chicken, and then distributing them on a massive scale, is a lucrative opportunity for everyone. It is a vital shift towards embracing developing countries as consumers, producers and industry leaders rather than the recipients of charity.

More at www.cooperhewitt.org/EXHIBITIONS/other/

6 October 2007, posted by Suzanne Livingston