London Design Festival: Noma Bar, Covent Garden and other wanders

In Design Week’s Monday morning adventure, we visit Covent Garden design district, and touch on Soho and Fitzrovia Now .

In Covent Garden, the Lego greenhouse we were pretty excited about is rather underwhelming, being dwarfed by an enormous pair of white hands that have sprung up next to it. We have absolutely no idea what these are, but it leaves us feeling pretty sorry for Sebastian Bergne’s greenhouse, with its beautiful sunflowers gazing out of their Lego brick confines in vain.

Though many of Covent Garden’s shops are beautiful little nooks and crannies of gorgeous interior design such as La Gelatiera, created alongside furniture studio Hendzel & Hunt , the LDF presence in the area feels sparse, with a distinct lack of its little red signposts.

Moving on to Soho, the Noma Bar image-making machine, however, is far more impressive. A huge Transformers-like hound greets us at Soho’s Outline Editions, looking even more formidable in the flesh. The next live drawing and create-your-own-cut-out-art workshop with Noma Bar himself will take place on 24 September, and we’d heartily advise you go along.

Over in Fitzrovia, Gallery Libby Sellers is showing some fascinating design work form Italian designers Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi – a duo known as Formafantasma.

The pair has created a seies of blankets – entitled Colony – to accompany their existing ceramic series, Moulding Tradition. The exhibition presents beautiful, intricate design works based on big themes – immigration, assimilation and the cross-cultural influences of North Africa and Italy on one another’s craft and design, with many of the pieces featuring snapshots of collated data about immigration and colonisation.

Source: Courtesy Gallery Libby Sellers. Photography: Luisa Zanzani

Colony, Formafantasma

With perhaps a lighter theme, nearby Ligne Rose interiors shop’s highlights include ladder hatstands, a bold purple memory foam sofa by Bouroullec brothers and desks with felt pods, allowing you to work your little socks off in a private, sound-proofed cocoon. Sofa, so good.