Design Parade 9

The 9th Design Parade, organized by the villa Noailles, awarded with the Gran Prix a project that genuinely makes three crystals sing by harnessing their piezoelectric properties.

The 9th issue of the international festival of design, Design Parade, organized by the villa Noailles has finished on Sunday July 6, whilst the exhibitions are open until September 28, 2014.

The Design Parade 9 jury – composed by Stefan Scholten and Carole Baijings (designers, presidents of the jury, Amsterdam), Stéphane Arriubergé (editor, Moustache, Paris), Lidewij Edelkoort (trend forecaster, Paris), Mette Hay (co-director and editor, HAY, Copenhagen), Alexandra Midal (curator, Paris – Geneva), Mathieu Peyroulet-Ghilini (winner of the Grand Prix Design Parade 8, Paris), Marion Ravel (Poterie Ravel’s co-manager, Aubagne) – has met the competing designers and has given the awards.

The Grand Prix of the Jury went to Laura Couto Rosado (France, graduated from HEAD, Geneva) with the project Le Chant des Quartz, that genuinely makes three crystals sing by harnessing their piezoelectric properties. From rock crystal it coaxes forth a sonorous vibrancy, a form of life.

The designer enchants the domestic landscape through a process which is relatively simple in the end: she connects a frequency generator to an amplifier and a transformer, using a physical property which has been acknowledged since the nineteenth century, but which has lain hitherto abandoned or hidden within our high-tech equipment.

She plays with the paradox between the demystification of a misappropriated technology and the magic of a singing crystal: “ The project is magical, not because it is technically advanced, but because it reveals the poetry inherent in existing technology.”

It is also a question of a change of outlook: electronics may now be considered a material for both design and expression (on an equal level with wood or ceramics) and no longer simply as applied physics.

Design Parade, — Laura Couto Rosado, Le Chant des Quartz

Le Chant des Quartz is in a developmental phase for the production of a unique electro-acoustic instrument including further piezoelectric crystals, like tourmaline. Laura Couto Rosado is working in partnership with the Geneva University of Music in order to broaden the acoustic palette of crystals and thus soon be able to offer a mineral orchestra.

Camper invites each years a designer to participate in the Futuro Imperfecto workshop in Son Fortesa in Majorca and has choosen Adrien Goubet (France, graduated from ENSCI, Paris).

The public and city of Hyères prize went to Thibaut Penven (France, graduated from ECAL, Lausanne)