Summer Wish List

London-based website Blog and Buy Sale aims to shine a light on independent designers and makers creating great products and selling them online. They do this in a number of ways, including interviews and daily blog posts and have just launched this year's Summer Wish List, showcasing a host of products they think you should know about. I'm chuffed that they've selected TILEWATCH to be included this time round, along with I Like Local favourite Fun Makes Good with a range of placemats and coasters. Other highlights for me are some of the more triangle-oriented products on show: a tote bag designed by Kirsty Thomas for tote touters Totes Amazed (pictured above) and the Spear Luin brooch by London-based architectural students Triptych Designs (below). There's plenty to browse through in BBS' Summer Wish List, all linking to each designer's online shop. Happy hunting!

here's the heads up #10

(of de Blacam and Meagher, image by Enda Doran)

There are a couple different design and architecture exhibitions on around Dublin at the moment, so if you can tear yourself away from the sunshine for a few hours I recommend you check some of them out.

Open now until 22 March:
The Look of the Irish, Designist, 58 South Great George's Street, Dublin 2
Designist is one of the newest additions to Dublin's retail spaces, committed to simple and affordable design. At the moment they're putting the emphasis on Irish work ('tis the season, I suppose) until Tuesday, so get in while you can!

Open now until 26 March:
The Secret Laboratory: Notebooks and Narratives, UCD Richview, Dublin 14
This show exploring architects' notebooks has travelled from its origin in PLACE, Belfast and is now on show in UCD School of Architecture, Richview. If you're like me and think that sometimes notebooks are far more interesting than the finished work, make sure you go to see this show, featuring the inner workings of the minds of Tom de Paor, O'Donnell + Tuomey and others.

Open now until 3 April:
of de blacam and meagher, The Hugh Lane, Parnell Square, Dublin 1
of de blacam and meagher was Ireland's participation in last summer's Venice Biennale. It takes the form of an unbound book, made up of five volumes stacked on custom-built pallets and chronicling the 33 years that deBlacam and Meagher Architects have been working in Ireland through essays, photographs and the architects' own drawings. Visit, leaf through the folios, take them away and watch the archive gradually be consumed as the show continues.

Open now until 16 April:
CHAIRS: The Sketch and the Chair, NCAD Gallery, 100 Thomas Street, Dublin 8
The third in today's selection to take a look at process as much as finished work, this exhibition by Danish designer Hans Thyge Raunkjaër takes a look at the thought process behind furniture design. The exhibition takes various parts of the designers output (i.e. chairs) and displays them alongside the various sketches and research materials from which that output stemmed.

Running until mid-July:
RHA pop-up design shops, RHA, Ely Place, Dublin 2
The RHA pop-up shops continue, with Jenny Walsh and James Carroll taking the reigns for the next week. A little further down the line, call in for some calming encouragement from Osmond Nosse, the man behind "Keep Going Sure It's Grand".

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