Urbis Designday was held on Saturday 20th March and what an amazing and inspiring day it was – helped along by some generous refreshments of course.  The whole event celebrates design and creativity with 2010 being the first time the creative pairings were extended to outside the fashion realms so not only were there great fashion designers involved by also architects designers, multimedia artists, landscapers and more.

Our day started with the Press Breakfast and what better way to start the day that with a 9am glass of champagne at the amazing Ironbank building on Karangahape Rd. We then hopped into the media vans and began to made our way around the showrooms enjoying the hospitality and quirky creativity each venue had to offer. 

Some showrooms went for a simplistic approach but it was the showrooms and creatives that went ‘all out’ that got the most praise – interactivity, theatre and a huge amount of effort made guests feel like we were walking into the most amazing spaces transformed to a particular idea or theme. The temporary nature of each project added to the amazement.

And there were definitely a few showrooms that shone above the rest. One of my favourites would have to be the installation at Poggenpohl by Oh.No.Sumo – a  bunch of young architects  -  who painstakingly created a geometric paper cloud that covered the whole ceiling of the showroom and was illuminated with different colours. The installation was extremely intricate with 20,000 handcrafted paper modules, 26,000 cable ties, and over 4.2km of double sided tape. I bet there were a few late nights putting that together. 

Another favourite was the installation at Cite. Multimedia artist Mike Hudgson, also one half of Pitch Black, together with Chris MacMillian from Mulk created an enthralling installation that was a ‘futuristic office space.’ White furniture was set up with projected animations on every surface; robots on a bookshelves, a speaker with a sound wave, television with fish swimming in it… no surface was free from the projection and there were many little animations going at once. I don’ know how they did it but it looked amazing.

At the same showroom, Cite, they also had the famous Pantone chair reworked by World and Misery and they were both very cool, would definitely like to have something like that in the living room.

Other highlights included the AUT post grad’s work at the Simon James showroom where the 3D and rotating typography really stopped guests in their tracks; and also Zambesi’s dramatic installation at Kohler using live models was very memorable and chic.

But before I knew it we were at showroom number 13, my goody bag was getting heavy so it was time to head home.

All in all Urbis Designday proved yet again just how much creative talent we have in this country, congratulations to the designers for creating the most interesting and varied installations yet and the team at urbis for putting it all together.

Looking forward to 2011 already.