Such an open brief guarantees an extraordinary spread of design and the challenge was to produce each project in a single material: American hardwood.
The Wish List has also given opportunity to a talented group of emerging designers, who worked closely with their commissioners to develop the designs and constructed them with the help of Benchmark’s master craftsmen.
Terence Conran himself commissioned a workspace in red oak and cherry from Sebastian Cox, who crafted a complex and ingenious cocooned desk with shelving units; Norie Matsumoto created the perfect set of tulipwood pencil sharpeners for Norman Foster; Win Assakul designed and made an extendable 3m long walnut serving dish for Amanda Levete.
Gwendolyn and Guillane Kerschbaumer, the sisters who form Studio Areti, designed a suite of interior architectural elements for John Pawson: a set of walnut shelves, a tapered white oak door, a set of walnut hooks and pegs and a walnut light switch, all for his new house.
Felix de Pass designed simple but strikingly elegant cherry kitchen stools for architect Alison Brooks; Gareth Neal made two extraordinary sculptural vessels out of white oak for Zaha Hadid; Nathalie de Leval, who is also a cabinetmaker, designed and built a personalised garden shed for Paul Smith out of thermally modified ash; Rob Barnby and Lewis Day of Barnby & Day created a dramatic circular dining table for Alex de Rijke using engineered cross laminated tulipwood.
Richard Rogers, together with his son Ab Rogers, requested a red oak ladder that they could sit and work on from Xenia Moseley; and Lola Lely interpreted a very unusual design concept for a reclining seat from artist Allen Jones constructed out of maple and walnut veneer.
until October 24, 2014
The Wish List
Victoria and Albert Museum
Cromwell Road, London