&made Launch Either Oar Dining Table Life Raft on River Thames

To mark the opening of Design Mart at the Design Museum and the beginning of the London Design Festival, the design partnership &made launched their dining table life raft on the River Thames on Friday 15 September before installation in the museum.

The dining table entitled "Either Oar", which will be exhibited in the Design Mart exhibition at the Design Museum opening on 20 September, is part of a series of Climatised Objects created by the young designers David Cameron and Toby Hadden. It doubles as a life raft, with removable legs that convert into oars, and has a built-in buoyancy tank that enables it to carry up to four people. By crafting this sturdy but buoyant dining table, &made offer an ad hoc raft for use in the event of a flash flood.














As a response to climate change and natural disasters of recent times, &made's Climatised Objects series address the fact that in a crisis people generally improvise with whatever is to hand. &made have embedded dual-functionality into this new range, which also includes a vase that switches to an emergency torch on impact if knocked from its ledge, and a series of picture frames that convert to flashing navigational aids, offering practical and covetable domestic products that moonlight as life-saving devices. Designers today face enormous challenges not only to respond to world events with practical design solutions, but also to heighten awareness of these issues through design. Since graduating from Goldsmiths' BA design degree in 2005, David Cameron (1981-) and Toby Hadden (1982-) of &made have initiated such social, cultural and environmental dialogues through their products. Design Mart is an annual survey of some of the UK's most gifted emerging designers. An important part of the Design Museum's mission of nurturing new talent, the exhibition acts as both a platform for the designers involved, and as a barometer of the changing world of design.

http://www.designmuseum.org/design/and-made

Design Mart 2006, celebrating new design talent, 20 September 2006 to 7 January 2007, Design Museum, Shad Thames, London SE1 2YD, 10.00-17.45 daily, T: 0870 833 9955, http://www.designmuseum.org.

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