Die verschiedenen Einzelelemente der von Marc Haldemann designten Regale Dado basieren auf dem Prinzip der simplen Grundformen. Die in Farbgebung und Größe unterschiedlichen Holzkuben fungieren als variationsreiche Abstellflächen. Dado zeigt deutlich, dass der Schweizer Designer neben aller Funktionalität und Reduktion aufs Wesentliche keinesfalls vergisst, auch auf Charakter und Individualität zu achten. Charakteristisch besteht jeder einzelne Kubus aus einer anderen Holzart und der kontrastreiche Verlauf in den Farbtönen sorgt für Spannung in der Objektgestaltung.
Multidisciplinary Brooklyn-based BuiltIN studio just released their first two products — angular wood wall shelves called Check and Oblique. Each shelf is available in maple, walnut, black or white lacquer. Finished with low VOC stains and polyurethanes either with a satin or glossy finish.
Localism bill … 'Will we see a school of shark roofs in Oxfordshire? Might someone in Yorkshire add an extension in the guise of a giant batter pudding?' Photograph: Alamy In 1986, Bill Heine, a local radio presenter, stuck a giant fibreglass shark through the roof of his 19th-century terraced house in Headington, Oxfordshire. Designed by the artist John Buckley, the 25ft sculpture caused as much fuss locally as the great white shark in Jaws had done in cinemas around the world a decade earlier. The local authority wanted it removed – to a swimming pool. But residents – although there was a lively debate – came to like the audacity of the shark at No 2 New High Street, and became its champions. The issue was taken up at government level. Finally, in 1992, the Tory government decreed that "any system of local [planning] control must make some small space for the dynamic, the unexpected, the downright quirky." The shark had been reprieved. Local residents had won the day. Bill Heine still lives in the house and the shark, getting a bit long in its several rows of teeth, has since been restored. I wonder what might happen to such houses and streets up and down the country now that the government has announced that homeowners in England and Wales will be able to build extensions, extra storeys and conservatories without the need for traditional planning permission? Will we see a school of shark roofs in Oxfordshire? Might someone in Yorkshire want to add an extension in the guise of a giant batter pudding? Will there be attics shaped like bottles of Newcastle Brown in Washington New Town? Could entire suburbs end up looking like scenes from Dr Seuss drawings, or from images drawn from Noddy, Mon Oncle, Mad Max or In the Night Garden? Why not? It might be fun. Many of our new suburbs and cul-de-sac estates are so relentlessly dull that a bit of cheering up is surely in order. Why shouldn't your neighbour have a fibreglass shark crashing through his roof; why can't the people over the fence build an extension in the guise of a miniature Taj Mahal? If Frank Gehry can get away with the gloriously outrageous forms of the Bilbao Guggenheim, why shouldn't Mr and Mrs Jones at No 94 erect a pint-sized replica of Norman Foster's Gherkin as a granny annexe in their patch of garden? Inevitably, there are also drawbacks to allowing local people to decide on local planning issues. The question of heritage is an obvious one, although there is no reason to doubt that conservation areas will stay just that, and that in the future it will be just as difficult to add a new chimney pot to your Grade II*-listed house as to win permission to stick a stainless steel killer whale through the thatched roof of your venerable timber-framed cottage. No, the real problems might come when neighbours have axes to grind with one another. Or, when the local consensus is to ensure that absolutely no development whatsoever gets the green light. Call me an optimist, but I have a feeling that if people find ways of sitting around together and talking intelligently through local planning proposals, something good might come out of this latest government initiative. Planning matters do require mature discussion, so perhaps this is one sensible way of getting people together to work through local initiatives and, yes, to play a part in a wider society, to think of others' needs and desires as well as their own. My concern is less that local communities lack the will to compromise over building matters, but that we lack the expertise to do so. We need to learn a lot more, collectively, about architecture, design, planning and conservation before we can be sure that we are talking sensibly, generously and imaginatively. If only these subjects, or areas of interest, were taught at school. There is no question that our planning system needs to be overhauled. To make it work effectively, it would be good to have a new breed of small, purposeful local authority architect and planning offices replacing what we have at the moment. These offices could act as guides to local neighbourhoods ensuring local people were as well-informed as they might be before taking decisions that could have a major impact on their homes and where they live. There is a long way to go before our planning system begins to work as well as it should, and a shift to local control must be accompanied by a commitment to raise the standards of architectural and planning debate at both national and local level. A few more sharks, or other shocks, along the way, though, will be just fine, so long that is, as your neighbours are happy to swim in the same artistic waters as you.
