Top marks: ECAL’s next generation prove their worth

Milan – Design school ECAL, the Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne, continues to exceed expectations with its latest show in Milan, which showcases new works from students in the Industrial Design Department.

While Design Academy Eindhoven may delight and appeal to those those inspired by unfettered creativity and whimsy, ECAL is for those that get turned on by function, utility and the investigation of new materials and technologies.

Previous students whose work has caught our eye include Camille Scherrer – see Dreamtelligence – and Rahaël von Allmen – see New Seriousness.

This week our interest in Julien Renault, who features in our report on IMM Cologne, is confirmed. ‘En Aluminium’, as first seen in Cologne, marks him as a rising star. His fellow students Linn Kandel and Dimitri Bähler are also ones to watch.

Renault’s collection of inside/outside aluminium furniture combines the utility and tradition of vernacular café tables with weightier touches that include hand beaten edges and the mark of metal forging.

Linn Kandel’s collection, ‘Pylône’, delivers a punchy maturity – black-frame side tables with smoked glass tops and sinuous forms.

Dimitri Bähler combines simple technologies to create lightweight seating solutions. His sewn synthetics are filled with hardening polyurethane foam.

All of the designers showing play with material, and exhibit a cohesive sensitivity and genuine understanding of need and delivery – very refreshing when much of what the LS:N Global team has seen from more experienced designers has been risk-averse and lacklustre.

More detailed coverage of ECAL’s new collections will follow in our full report on Milan Design Week, which will be published next Wednesday.