Adam Nathaniel Furman selects 10 projects that showcase the colourful New London Fabulous style

Designer Adam Nathaniel Furman has picked out 10 projects that represent the New London Fabulous movement of "designers who resolutely seek out beauty, complexity and joy".

They include works by designers Yinka Ilori, Camille Walala and Morag Myerscough, architect Space Popular and artist Rana Begum, as well as Furman himself.

Other projects are by Lakwena Maciver, Edward Crooks, 2LG Studio and Katrina Russell-Adams.

Furman defined the movement in a live interview with Dezeen last week. He described the style as "design and architecture as a visual and cultural pursuit, which is highly aesthetic, sensual and celebratory of mixed cultures".

The movement is a backlash against the minimalist style that has dominated architectural discourse in the media and schools, Furman said in the interview.

Selecting 10 projects for Dezeen, Furman expanded on his definition of the movement, which has not been coordinated but has arisen out of the context of contemporary London.

"In an age of closing borders, simplistic narratives, and shrinking horizons, there is a new generation of designers who resolutely seek out beauty, complexity and joy in the face of an adverse political and economic climate, who embody the cultural melting pot of London," he said.

"At a time when liberalism, internationalism and multiculturalism – values embodied by the city are under sustained attack and vilification –they are defined by their total delight in the liberating power of a kind of no-holds-barred aesthetic expression that collectively looks like a huge and extremely colourful 'fuck you' to all those calling time on diversity and the celebration of difference."

Perry Rise by 2LG Studio, 2018

London interior-design duo 2LG Studio converted this south-London house into their own home and studio. The four-bedroom home in Forest Hill features a series of bright, pastel-hued rooms as well as areas with bolder colours, such as the sea-green sitting room.

2LG Studio was founded by Russell Whitehead and Jordan Cluroe. The duo describe their work as "simplicity, elegance, functionality and [a] signature use of colour."

How I Started Hanging out with Home by Space Popular, 2018

London duo Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg of Space Popular liberally reference historical forms in their riotously colourful projects, which often exist only in virtual reality.

This is done to ensure virtual environments are full of stylistic references that human users can relate to in cyberspace, which has no inherent form and would otherwise be alienating.

"In that world, style is almost everything," Hellberg told Dezeen in a live interview conducted as part of Virtual Design Festival last month. "Because if you don't have style in a virtual environment, if you don't allow yourself to speak any language that you might need to communicate something, then you'll be extremely limited."

How I Started Hanging Out with Home was an exhibition held at MAGAZIN in Vienna in 2018. In it, the London studio imagined a future where buildings the increasing agency of domestic appliances leads to buildings taking on human features.

Still I Rise by Lakwena Maciver, 2017

London artist Lakwena Maciver paints large-scale murals combining colour, pattern and type, often communicating messages of hope and faith.

Still I Rise is a 2017 mural at the Juvenile Detention Center in Fort Smith, Arkansas, USA, commissioned as part of citywide project that saw artists paired with local landmarks. Maciver's contribution is inspired by writer and civil rights activist Maya Angelou's poem of the same name.

Rosebank Arcade by Edward Crooks, 2019

Whitechapel-based Edward Crooks created a large-scale wall and floor installation to transform Waltham Forest's busiest pedestrian thoroughfare into a colourful artwork.

The piece is designed to appear like a fragment of a grand civic arcade, with arches pained on the walls and a 20-metre-long pattern on the floor.

Happy Street by Yinka Ilori, 2019

Yinka Ilori is a designer who combines colour and pattern based on his heritage. Located at Thessaly Road in Battersea, this was his first installation in the public realm. For the project, the British-Nigerian designer enveloped a railway bridge in his signature motifs.

Designed as part of the 2019 London Festival of Architecture, the permanent installation called Happy Street consists of 56 patterned-enamel panels that line both sides of the road under the bridge.

Temple of Agape by Morag Myerscough and Luke Morgan, 2014

Designers Morag Myerscough and Luke Morgan created the colourful Temple of Agape for the Festival of Love, which took place at London's Southbank Centre.

The structure is adorned with neon signs displaying words relating to love, along with a quote by Martin Luther King Jr that reads, "I have decided to stick with love."

Furman described Myerscough, who heads Studio Myerscough, as "my hero" and said: "She shares her knowledge with younger designers and has really opened up the way for the type of work that we're doing now."

Salt of Palmar hotel by Camille Walala, 2018

French artist Camille Walala has been based in London since she completed her studio at Brighton University in 2009 and is known for large-scale public installations.

For this project, completed at the boutique Salt of Palmar hotel in Mauritius, Walala combined the bold monochromatic stripes seen in much of her work with sea blues and sunny yellow to complement the island's landscape.

Gateways by Adam Nathaniel Furman, 2017

Furman designed a series of ceramic-clad gateways for this 2017 installation at London Design Festival to showcased the history of Turkish tiles.

The four four-metre-high structures were each clad in a different type of tile employing decorative hand-painted tiles, contemporary flooring tiles, colourful square tiles and bevelled metro tiles.

The tiles were decorated using a "500-year-old technique of hand painting," Furman told Dezeen in a live interview for Virtual Design Festival last month. tiles. "I think, at the time, this was the most photographed installation at the London Design Festival."

Haus by Katrina Russell-Adams, 2020

Southeast London printmaker and visual artist Katrina Russell-Adams abstracted symbols and shapes found on architectural plans to create a pattern pained across the facade of architecture firm BAT Studio.

The artist worked with the founders of BAT Studio to produce several black and yellow relief elements that are included in the installation.

No. 700 Reflectors by Rana Begum, 2016

Artist Rana Begum creates artworks that incorporate geometric patterns, often inspired by Islamic art and architecture.

As part of the redevelopment of King's Cross she combined 30,000 white, red and orange reflectors to create the 50-metre-long No. 700 Reflectors artwork that stretched the length of Lewis Cubitt Square.

The post Adam Nathaniel Furman selects 10 projects that showcase the colourful New London Fabulous style appeared first on Dezeen.