Photo by Ed Kulakowski
When you mention creative hubs in London, most people look to the East. East London has had the monopoly on all things cutting-edge and quirky for the past decade or so – Dalston is the new Hoxton is the new Shoreditch or so they say. Talents from all fields are drawn like patriots to the flag; for fashionistas, designers, artists, writers and media-types in general, this is the land of the free.
But this past weekend saw another little corner of London get a look in; often prefaced with the consolatory moniker of ‘up and coming’ South East London is what I imagine Shoreditch was like ten years ago, awash with an alchemical mixture of talent, cheap accommodation, youth and a willingness to make things happen. To be fair, I live there, so I’m biased, but I do provide some evidence to back up my not-so-controversial claims!
Witness the Hendzel + Hunt 24 Hour Design Challenge put on by two friends of mine – the talented Jan Hendzel and Oscar Hunt. Based in Peckham, in South East London, these two use reclaimed woods and found materials around the area to produce their wonderful Made In Peckham range of furniture. Pieces of range from bespoke commissions such as the Pica watch cabinet produced last year and displayed at Milan Design Festival 2010, to beautiful hand made stools and chairs that are elegant and simple in a way that elevates them far above the humble origins of their materials; greater than the sum of their parts indeed.
Kirkwood chair. Photo by Ed Kulakowski.
The 24 Hour Design challenge was a side project that came about through Hendzel + Hunt wanting to explore the boundaries of experimentation, collaboration and innovation through setting a design challenge with strict constraints. In the works since last year, last weekend saw the 24 Hour Design Challenge finally come to fruition.
Waiting for the brief
I arrived at the guys’ studio to find a rag tag bunch of around 30 people, some of them (ahem) pure spectators. However, the room was mostly filled with young product designers and engineers that had been asked to take part, and these guys looked, if not nervous, a little apprehensive as they waited for the great unveil (the only hint as to the nature of the challenge being the mandate to produce A Thing in 24 hours).
The Brief
So, to The Challenge. Drumroll please…..
Inspired by the history and aesthetics of Peckham’s industrial past, namely the Edison Bells gramophone factory and record label, the challenge is:
• To design and produce a machine capable of playing a record within the set 24 hour period.
• The machine must be truly mechanical and must not include electronics of any kind.
• Materials must be sourced from the streets of the local area of purchased from local scrap/reclamation yards/markets/etc.
• Craftsmanship and aesthetics should be considered as important as a finished working record player.
• The machines will be tested by playing “Two Cigarettes in the Dark”, by Joe Green and his Novelty Orchestra of Edison Bell records.
Looks of surprise and quizzical glances bounced around the room. No one was expecting this level of impossibility.
The teams quickly set to. With five teams of three or four competing it was a big ask – a) the project started at 8pm on a Friday so any shopping would have to wait until the next morning and b) it’s a formidable job under normal circumstances let alone a 24 hour deadline and c) everyone was knackered after long days at work.
Hard at work
But everyone I spoke to, despite recognising the inherent difficulty of the task, seemed totally undaunted by it. Any question marks I’d had over the difficulty of the task were eased by their confidence… I suppose they had to reason to be – participants included lotsof Central St Martin alumni, such as Stanzin Losal, part of the Hendzel + Hunt team, Jade Folawiyo, currently Designer in Residence at the Design Museum and Roger Arquer, course tutor in product design at St Martins, plus a couple of Cambridge-educated engineers and lots of other young designers.
***
24 hours pass… All nighters are pulled, early starts made, machines whirr, studio manager Nicola makes a hundred teas and coffees, teams huddle, prototypes are tested, torn apart, retested, and finally 8pm on Saturday rolls round.
***
A good crowd was gathered for the final unveiling. As the final products were brought into the studio, eliciting looks of marvel, you could see the teams looking weary but proud of their record-playing machines. The lovely thing about the challenge was seeing the way each team had taken the same brief and yet ended up with five products bearing minimal resemblance to one another – completely different in aesthetics and mechanism. The question was, would it play the record?
First up – the Miro
This reminded me of a Miro mobile
The team behind this contraption managed to find the base of an original Singer sewing machine upon and a door frame which doubled as a table top for their turntable. The Miro-esque hanging red and white cones weren’t originally part of the design but the noisy Singer pedal necessitated these ‘earphones’. Somewhat impractical but I love the additional whimsical flair they add. Unfortunately, it was a case of form over function in this instance, as the noises coming from the record were definitely not musical.
Next up, Team Oscar:
A falling bucket of water attached to a pulley system spins the record
I loved this! The most playful of the bunch, with its coloured panels, vertical setting and pulley system, it was always going to be an engineering challenge this and unfortunately didn’t work (although it wasn’t too far off!). Still, a pleasure to look at…
Third, the Dizzee Rascal:
Manned by the power of a spinning human this was named the Dizzee Rascal
Slightly similar to the Miro gramophone, this differed in mechanism as it required a rudimentary pulley system (powered by a person spinning around inside the loop hmmm) to turn the disc and produce a sound. The square amplifier sitting on top was designed to slide across the record as it played. Aesthetically pleasing as it was, this may have been their downfall as I’ve been told that trying to make things slide in engineering is one of the primary Don’ts. Better to keep things stationary apparently. Still, I’d happily have that in my front room.
Fourth up, Team Jan:
Dust-bin til dawn
This one was a world away from the others both in terms of aesthetics and function. The base was constructed out of a dustbin (free from the studio) with slits cut into its sides to aid amplification, and worked by keeping the record still and moving the needle instead by spinning the dustbin upon an inner base, greased by ball bearings (they’d been salvaged from a mini skateboard bought at Deptford market for £1 that morning). Most gramophones keep the needle still and move the record, but there’s nothing wrong with keeping convention on its toes as these guys showed when the first musical notes of the record sounded out. Slightly wavering notes but still, music at last! I love how this is nothing like you’d expect a gramophone to look; it’s rather industrial, brutal, in comparison to the more classical aesthetics of the other players but I imagine it could look very refined if reproduced with a spit and polish.
Last up, it was down to the fifth and final team to see if they could top the dustbin:
The Duchess of Peckham
This one drew more oohs and aaahs than any other. To think, it was produced in 24 hours. I mean, look at it. This team had worked in the studio adjacent to Jan and Oscar’s, and its former inhabitant, a hat-maker, had left some helpful materials behind, including the stand and the felt which the record sat on. Despite their good luck, it was the ingenuity of these guys that blew me away – the wooden amplifier was made from scratch as was the L shaped wooden joint connecting it to the needle and turntable. The needle was set upon a flattened can of Stella Artois. The player ran on a wind up clockwork mechanism, bought for £3 at a local market which luckily ran at a similar frequency to the 78rpm record. As for the sound? Well, it sounded as good as it looked, which is to say, absolutely beautiful.
All of the gramophones, plus a new addition to the Made In Peckham range will be going on display at Clerkenwell Design Week which runs from 24 – 26th May at The House of Detention, Sans Walk, Clerkenwell, London, EC1R 0AS. Open daily 10:00 – 21:00
For more on Hendzel + Hunt check out their website: www.hendzelandhunt.com. Items from the Made In Peckham range are available from The Shop at Bluebird, 350 King’s Road.
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