belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power

the impassioned rapid-fire cousin of seasonal design conference programming was organized around innovation raised to the second power-- an idea that a base entity multiplied by itself can produce increasingly powerful results.

cat garcia menocal June 26, 2013 5 min

belgrade design week 2013 raises innovation to the second power image © designboom

this year’s belgrade design week 2013, the impassioned rapid-fire cousin of seasonal design conference programming, was organized around the term innovation2; that is, innovation raised to the second power– and this is exactly the greatness of the singularly serbian spirit of the event. both in program and in the slew of formal and informal exchanges that so characterize the conference, there is an air of exponentiation– that positives multiplied by positives can produce infinitely powerful results. in a region distinguished by an extraordinary capacity for resilience, belgrade design week consistently provokes conference goers to grow more, be more and do more. the week obliterates the very concept of boredom and terrifies mediocrity with a list of speakers both from serbia and around the world that address the overlap of design, business, technology, humanity, cities and the like in myriad ways. belgrade design week founder jovan jelovac and his wife vesna (themselves veritable forces of nature) know how to ask difficult and incisive questions that prove there is still a wealth of worlds to move in this complex, ever-changing industry called ‘design.’

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 1 clemens weisshaar occupies trafalgar square with calligraphic robots in ‘outrace’ image © belgrade design week

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 2 associate director of zaha hadid architects, christos passas, elaborated on the place-making capacity of the beko master planimage © belgrade design week

chistos passas explained the aim of zaha hadid‘s beko master plan from the perspective of a belgradian:

the largest idea is to be contemporary. in my presentation I talked about the idea of making space. space making is not just shaping a space, but creating a relationships within the space that maintain it, over a long period of time. and a as human species on the planet today, it is very important for us to learn to integrate nature – or at least remember how to work with nature in the artificial landscapes, and with that, create those synergies between commercial, political, or perhaps architectural, aesthetic sensibilities that allow for a kind of new intelligent city to be created.

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 3 see designboom’s original interview with christos passas hereimage © designboom

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 4 adrien rovero elaborated on an ever-growing project of abstracted animals comprised of leather scraps image © designboom

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 5 by reclaiming the leftover leather pieces from handbag production, rovero creates whole zoos of folded, button-bound animals image © designboom

designboom has been inextricably linked to belgrade design week since 2008, when founder, CEO and editor-in-chief birgit lohmann spoke about entrepreneurship, creative industries and communication. five years later, the speakers and venue did not disappoint. housed in the museum of contemporary art belgrade, itself closed for seven years after numerous construction interruptions and devastating water damage, the conference enlivened the ravaged space with inflated metal furniture by oskar zieta, responsive chairs by kram/weisshaar and a mix of designers, journalists and civilians. just as the architectural symbol of a non-functioning state was once again a nexus of creativity and reclaimed belgrade as the most hopeful frontier in design, belgrade design week seemed decidedly about coaxing an unseen response from objects, cities and people using design as tool.

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 6 speaker laura lee elaborates on how reversing the workflow of civic design and development can change cities, an idea she developed as a ‘thinker in residence‘ in adelaide, australiaimage © designboom

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 7 speaker laura lee’s diagram illustrated the layers and intermixed dialogue of design, planning and development– and the power of reversing the current relationship of the three ideas image © designboom

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 8 architect johannes norlander expanded on projects that seek to take ownership of tradition and strengths of swedish modernism image © designboom

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 9 subtlety and form remain the chief concerns of johannes norlander’s practice image © johannes norlander

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 10 oskar zieta explains volumetric expansion with a live demonstration of flat metal sheaths rendered structural with inflated air image © designboom

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 11 zieta’s inflatable metal furniture on display during belgrade design week see more on the series hereimage © designboom

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 12 belgrade design week 2013 innovation squared image © designboom

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 13 daan roosegaard confronts static notions of the highway image © designboom

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 14 image © studio daan roosegaard

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 15 sebastien noel of troika explains the london-based studio approach to design as a constant investigation image © designboom

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 16 sebastien noel of troika, see the designboom interview hereimage © designboom

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 17 sebastien noel of troika nabs the belgrade design week grand prix image © belgrade design week

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 18 the european design awards ceremony was also part of the conference week programming, enthusiastically supported by jovan jelovac image © designboom

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 19 (top): designboom editor cat garcia-menocal is given a lift by belgrade design week founder jovan jelovac(bottom): the informal programming of the conference took place on the floating nightclubs that occupy the banks of the danube image © belgrade design week

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 21 the vestiges of battered buildings are reclaimed with vivid light image © designboom

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 22 the exposed beams of the ravaged museum were used to display panels about kram/weisshaar’s AUDI R18 ultrachairimage © designboom

belgrade design week raises innovation to the second power - 24 the museum of modern art belgrade had been closed for seven years before design week reclaimed it as a creative hub image © designboom