MINI Living Forests at the London Design Festival 2016
“Third places” – those that lie between work and home – provide important contact points in our modern urban society. They expand the room we have to live in and help us to relax, meet up with one another and increase our productivity. Freelancers, for example, often use cafés as offices and restaurants as meeting rooms. At the London Design Festival 2016, MINI exhibited the MINI LIVING “Forests” installation by Asif Khan, which showcased three interpretations of the “spaces between spaces”. The MINI LIVING “Forests” created new spaces which could be accessed by the public, used as desired by each visitor and tailored to the needs of our urban society. With this installation, the MINI brand continued the conversation on future city living which it started with the MINI LIVING installation at this year’s Salone del Mobile in Milan. The concept underpinning the MINI LIVING “Forests” installation was inspired by the Japanese idea of ‘shinrin yoku’, which literally means ‘forest bathing’. It means every sense switches to absorb the forest atmosphere – what you hear, what you smell, even the feeling underfoot. At another scale, plants are used as a tool to assert personal space at its boundary with public space, whether on one’s desk at the office or at the perimeter of one’s home. The project brought these two ideas together for visitors to experience new sensations within the city. The three ‘themed’ rooms (Connect, Create, and Relax) were located in the busy urban surroundings of Shoreditch in London. The Connect Space was a place for meeting up and catching up – spontaneously or pre-planned. A large table formed the centrepiece of the room. The best possible ambience in which to focus on work, meanwhile, was provided by the Create Space. It represented an island of creativity and productivity, and allowed users to arrange its furnishings as they wished. The Relax Space welcomed visitors with an abundance of plants and invited them to take a step back from everyday life and relax.
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