This isn’t the first time FSB has demonstrated that a workshop can give rise to marketable products. The eastern Westphalian makers of door and window hardware is now incorporating into its product range 5 outstanding designs submitted to the DuoHandles/HandleDuos workshop that have already been extraordinarily well-received by the public at exhibitions and trade fairs.
The DuoHandles/HandleDuos Workshop stands in a fine tradition dating back to the now legendary “Door Handle Workshop in Brakel”, held towards the end of the 1980s, at which the cream of international architects and designers convened in search of the ideal door handle. In 2006, FSB issued an invitation to approach the artefact-cum-extension of the hand in question in a somewhat less conventional manner - just as a door has two sides, after all, so it also requires two handles, and these do not of necessity have to be identical. It seemed appropriate in the circumstances to mandate designer duos as opposed to individuals with meeting the challenge. Sixteen celebrated designer and architect duos proceeded to draft a surprising breadth of “duo handles”: pairings defined by their differences and others on common ground, “masculine” and “feminine” handles, “soft” organic forms and “hard” hi-tech models, sculptural works of art and straightforward means of leverage.
The five handle duos now entering the FSB product range are of distinctive design as well as having excellent functional credentials. The titles of the various designs are self-explanatory and cogently reflect the design concepts involved. For each handle duo set there is a matching window handle.
The 5 handle duo designs being taken up:
Handles for a flying city
(Mascha Veech-Kosmatschof and Stuart A. Veech, www.veech-vma.com )
Architect duo Stuart Veech and Mascha Veech-Kosmatschof are known for the organic curves and mobile structures they have recourse to when designing spaces, environments and installations. Their workshop submission, which they developed with the aid of software more commonly used to simulate the flow dynamics of fluids and gases or, indeed, of a shoal of fish, seems to exude a similar fluidity. The handles are akin to two objects worn smooth by the sea: flowing, flexible, dynamic - and rich in organic curvature.
Elemental Forms
(Gesine Weinmiller and Ivan Reimann, www.weinmiller.de | www.mueller-reimann.de )
This is a handle duo designed for heavy-duty “Project” applications that champions reduction and eschews the will to over-design. Two angular bodies of metal in either aluminium or stainless steel that draw on elemental geometrical forms give rise to three-dimensional entities whose severe elegance derives from the visual interplay of trapeze and rectangle and of line and plane. The shank of one handle protrudes from the door as an upright rectangle, that of the other as a flat rectangle. There is the same perceptual interchange when the grip sections are viewed front-on. Backplates cut from solid material reinforce the emblematic effect of these elemental forms.
Art History, Greek-Orthodox
(Petra and Paul Kahlfeldt, www.kahlfeldt-architekten.de )
The submission makes reference to Ionic and Doric columns. “Petra” - as the two authors have aptly dubbed their “female” handle - echoes in subtly abstracted form the slender entasis, the capital and the characteristic torus of the Ionic column, whilst “Paul” embodies the conical form of the Doric column with its fluting and echinus. Made of solid polished brass and adorned with elegantly styled backplates, both handles are emblematic of a conceptual approach intent on re-establishing bonds between modern design and construction on the one hand and the treasure of experience from art history and the traditions of classical architecture on the other.
Dot - line - plane
(Maximià Torruella and Patricio Martinez, www.arquitecturagb8.com )
A quick twist through 90 degrees transforms one handle design - a flat steel band bent to form a lever - into two different handles, depending on whether the band is fitted horizontally or vertically relative to the shank. Whereas the shank is visible as a steely cylinder with a circular top in the horizontal variant, thus very much focusing attention on the handle’s point of rotation, in its vertical counterpart the cylinder is concealed by the steel band and doubles up as a means of support.
Guided operation
(Stefanie and Martin Naumann, www.fischer-naumann.de )
Forming the point of departure for this submission are the varying sequences of movements involved in operating doors. Stefanie and Martin Naumann drew the following formal consequences from these push/pull constraints: both handles sport the same basic form but are distinguished by design details indicative of the different ways in which handles are taken hold of. The handle with which a door is pushed open features a clearly visible “thumb rest”, whilst the handle used to pull a door open has been given a “forefinger furrow”. The handle duo is supplied with a grip in either plastic or timber (oak and macassar).
The design by Stefanie and Martin Naumann is awarded with the iF product design award 2008.
All 16 submissions can be found on the web, along with further information on the Workshop, at www.fsb.de/novelties.
Downloads: