icon day schedule

icon day on Wednesday 7 May includes an exciting schedule of talks and performances in the icon day theatre.

Click here to download the programme.

11am- 12pm

Industrial design is defunct - Jurgen Bey & Tony Dunne versus Sebastian Bergne & Luke Pearson

This is a win or lose debate between four highly accomplished and respected designers from opposite ends of the spectrum. Two practitioners of so-called “critical” design – which explore the medium’s potential as a kind of comment on society – will take on two advocates of the traditional values of functional industrial design.

2- 3pm

Julia Lohmann - Kelp Construct

Designer Julia Lohmann will be demonstrating her Kelp Project, which is on show at the icon experiment. Based on research conducted on a residency in Sapporo, Japan, Lohmann has set up a kelp workshop in which she will build lights from this marine plant.

3- 4pm

The Architecture Debate - Alejandro Zaera Polo (Foreign Office Architects) versus (Patrick Lynch) Lynch Architects

The motion in this debate is “Glass buildings are dead”, a hot topic in contemporary architecture. New policies driven by the quest for sustainable buildings are making glass boxes and towers increasingly irrelevant, the argument goes, and sounding the death knell of modernism’s favourite material.

4- 5pm

Atelier Ted Noten - Chew Your Brooch

The audience will be invited to create their own design by chewing on a piece of Wrigley’s. With a little help from the chewing gum Noten hands out, everybody can become a jewellery designer simply by chewing the gooey substance into a shape. A jury including Noten will be judging the contestants. At the end of the day the prize winners will be announced: first prize will get their creation in 14K solid gold, second prize in silver and third prize in bronze.

Outside the icon day theatre

Three Royal College of Art students will be performing outside the theatre as part of icon day. Dash Macdonald will be on remote-controlled roller skates, putting the control in the hands of visitors to see just how far they will push him. Clemence Seilles will be making furniture live on demand; you choose whether you want something made in one minute, two, three... up to eight minutes. Demitrios Kargotis will be operating his Dr Whippy ice cream dispenser, which detects from your voice how happy you are. If you’re very happy, it gives you a small amount of ice cream. If you’re miserable it gives you lots.

Jurgen Bey

Jurgen Bey is a designer based in Rotterdam. His unique and influential approach focuses on the fundamental principles of need and value in contemporary design, and often results in playful hybrids. He was appointed Senior Design Tutor at the RCA in 2006.

Tony Dunne

Tony Dunne is head of the Design Interactions department at the RCA. One half of “critical design” practice Dunne and Raby, his projects are held in the collections of MoMA and the V&A. Often working with scientists, he uses design to critique the moral and social implications of emerging technology.

Patrick Lynch

Patrick Lynch won Young Architect of the Year in 2005-6, having founded London-based Lynch Architects in 1997. A specialist in projects in historical settings, the Irish architect’s work includes a villa in Norfolk and a terrace house in Hackney. He teaches at University College Dublin.

Luke Pearson

Luke Pearson co-founded London-based design practice PearsonLloyd with Tom Lloyd in 1997. Since then, the practice has won numerous awards in diverse disciplines from furniture to transport design, most famously for the Virgin Atlantic business class seat.

Sebastian Bergne

Sebastian Bergne’s work is characterised by his approach to design, “everything can be made beautiful, useful, meaningful, desirable or simply a joy to use.” He subtly reinvents everyday objects, such as his Bop eating utensils for Driade, a set of porcelain plates and bowls that slot neatly into place on the ridges of a plastic tray.

Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in London, Bergne has set up studios in London and Bologna.

Alejandro Zaera Polo

Alejandro Zaera Polo is one half of Foreign Office Architects, whose buildings include the Yokohama Port Terminal and Barcelona Auditorium. After working with OMA in the 1990s he left to establish FOA, and has held numerous academic positions including dean of the Berlage Institute.

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