Extremista 06

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extremis

“extremista” = extremis + revista. meaning: particular - extremely - exceptional - highly - ultra - eccentric - greatly - special - ...

IN THIS ISSUE:

trendwatch: no boundaries | marina brand new work vs play | kosmos special | fashion

ISSUE 06 WINTER 2014 FREE EXTREMIS.BE

extremis tools for togetherness, carefully made in belgium

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extremis

ISSUE 06 WINTER 2014 FREE EXTREMIS.BE

FOREWORD

Extremis has been taking things to the limit for 20 years. Our company name speaks for itself, doesn’t it? We are not interested in the average: it is more fun outside the norm. And that is what our designs have shown, time after time.

We also believe that borders between countries or boundaries between cultures and neighbours only exist inside people’s heads.

That does not mean that there are no differences between us: there certainly are, and that is a good thing. But a boundary is something different, something that blocks us off, stops us from doing what we want, even when that is good in itself. And at Extremis, we just don’t accept that.

The boundaries between inside and outside dissolved for Extremis a long time ago. Now the borders between work and leisure are starting to blur as well. I realised this first in our own home, where my choices of furniture arrangements clearly illustrate the point.

And we are noticing it more and more in the way people actually use our furniture - it is really a trend. Noticing a change like this intrigues and inspires!

This is why we are showing off ALL the possibilities of a gargantuan Marina range: we start outside with the Marina picnic table and benches, where we can relax and enjoy the birds singing. Then we move on to a long table with comfortable captain chairs for a cosy dinner or meeting (what is the difference?), ending with the superwide Marina double desk with office chairs, storage and computer screens. A pleasant, calm working environment.

Almost everything you can think of with the Marina concept is displayed in one gigantic piece. Almost everything, because there are even more possibilities: vertical ones. The Marina stand-up table is there to prove it. We would like to show you all the different things you can do with this programme: it is no exaggeration to say that the possibilities are gigantic. The only limit that could exist might be your own imagination. But none of us want to admit to that, right?

Dirk Wynants,

Extremis’ Big Boss

FOLLOW @EXTREMISDESIGN |3

COLOPHON Publisher: Extremis couthoflaan 20 b 8972 Poperinge www.extremis.be info@extremis.be Editorial Office: Dirk Wynants Design Works watouseweg 4 8970 Poperinge www.dwdw.be bram@dwdw.be Design: Bram Coudijzer bram@dwdw.be Photography: Alexander Popelier Arne Jennard Hilde Verbeke (demooistezwembaden.be) Joost Demuynck Piet Dekersgieter Studio DSP Studio Pointu Front page pic models: Mariette & Jean Yves Pruts & Bijou Front page pic photography: Studio DSP & Alain Gillet

extremista “extremista” = extremis + revista. meaning: particular - extremely - exceptional - highly - ultra - eccentric - greatly - special - ...

ISSUE 05 SPRING 2013 FREE EXTREMIS.BE

IN THIS ISSUE:

shared spaces | designers bruno fattorini & partners extremis nautical flags | marina style guide | weathered wood

page 8

TRENDWATCH TRE TRENDW

no boundaries + at google’s offices

page112 page220

BRAND DN NEW STUFF

marina unlimited

COOKING OKI CLASS

gelinaz, world’s best chefs together

page222 page224

BRAND ND NEW N STUFF

captain’s chair

All images, ideas, designs and design content are the intellectual property of Extremis and may not be copied, imitated or used, in whole or in part, without the prior written permission of Extremis. © extremis 2014

4 | IN THIS ISSUE

WORK V WOR VS PLAY

the work and leisure dichotomy

in this issue

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extremis

ISSUE 06 WINTER 2014 FREE EXTREMIS.BE

266page PRODUCT UCT SPECIAL

kosmos,one piece to meet all your needs

322page FASHION ON

black balloon

333page BEHIND D THE SCENE SCENES

extremis est. 1994

344page FOOD&DRINKS D&DRINKS D&D

hommelbier with freshly picked hops

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extremis presents a warm welcome to “contradictions” outdoor home privacy relax black young small east individual economy local male work

indoor office conversation activity white old big west collective ecology global female play

at extremis, we accept

no limits

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no boundaries TRENDWATCH

by Dirk Wynants & Bram Coudijzer

W

e came up with the name Extremis 20 years ago, based on a free translation of “out of the ordinary” into Latin. “Out”, because all Extremis products are (primarily) designed for use outdoors and “ordinary” because our tools for togetherness have to serve their user rather than stealing the show themselves.

In 1994, the outdoor design market was still in its infancy. Design furniture was only used indoors. The introduction

of this new idea of putting sustainable designs outdoors as well was a first sign on the wall: the boundary between inside and outside was blurring.

By now we can say that this imaginary boundary has almost disappeared. As is clear from our current product range and the stand at IMM Cologne, we can see that the interior is becoming an extension of the garden. Or the other way round, if you prefer.

The Marina fits the no boundaries trend perfectly, indoor becomes outdoor and outdoor becomes indoor

8 | TRENDWATCH

HISTORY

WE NEED TO GO OUTSIDE

But things have not been this way for long. In the past every effort was made to protect daily life from outdoor conditions.

Consider this description from “The Exterior as Interieur”: Benjamin’s Optical Detective (1): “This ambiguous spatial interpenetration responds to an essential division on which the experience of the bourgeois society is founded, the creation of the interior as a radical separation from the exterior, as a home in which the bourgeois can dwell and dream undisturbed by the noise, activity, and threats of the street, the space of the masses and of production, a private individual divorced from the community.

A cocoon of consumption, the intérieur becomes “not just the universe of the private individual; it is also his etui”.

These days we no longer build fortified castles. People want contact with the world outdoors, with nature. And this is supported by science. A new study has shown that when you spend more time out in nature, you feel more alive.

Published in this month’s issue of the Journal of Environmental Psychology, the study shows that getting out and communing with nature is better for feeling rejuvenated than reaching for the ever-so-urban cup of coffee. “Nature is fuel for the soul,” says Richard Ryan, lead author and a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester. Both physically and mentally, we’re zippier when we step into the wild. Science Daily writes, “The findings, adds Ryan, are important for both mental and physical health. ‘Research has shown that people with a greater sense of vitality don’t just have more energy for things they want to do, they are also more resilient to physical illnesses. One of the pathways to health may be to spend more time in natural settings,’ says Ryan.”

Encased within an upholstered environment, the inhabitant of the intérieur is cushioned, like the railway passenger for whose comfort Wolfgang Schivelbusch claims the modern shockabsorbing techniques of upholstered furniture were first designed. But what collision is being warded off by such protection? This new interior betrays signs of the previous violence of demarcation by which the intérieur and its privileges were claimed—as Benjamin observes, pieces of furniture retain the characteristics of fortifications.

(1) boundary 2, Volume 30, Number 1, Spring 2003, pp. 105-130 by Tom Gunning

WORK VS PLAY Another boundary that Extremis has constantly broken through in its 20-year history is the one between work and private life. Our tools for togetherness have been very popular with both companies and individual people. Give your office space a homely feel, we have learned at Extremis, and now a handful of big names like Google and Apple are using our tools for togetherness to make this happen. And Google has converted the idea into concrete guidelines for their workplaces. Even more than that, it is a science in itself.

Nu boundaries in time and space: work and leisure blend into each other, thanks to the innovating visions of creative companies

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indoor vs outdoor work vs play 10 | TRENDWATCH

AT GOOGLE’S OFFICES Human resources, or People Operations, is a science at Google.

They’re always testing to find ways to optimize their people, both in terms of happiness and performance. In fact, almost everything Google does is based off data. So it should come as no surprise that Google uses all sorts of data to gauge employees and improve their productivity. Prasad Setty and his People Analytics team at Google instructions for the lunch tables for example: If you want employees to meet each other, make the tables long. This will expose them to more people who they can get to know.

Diner Booths vs. Conference Rooms: Laszlo and his team have found that diner booths work better than conference rooms for facilitating creativity. David Radcliffe, the man in charge of creating the perfect work environment, says that: “Casual collisions are what we try and create in the work environment.

You can’t schedule innovation, you can’t schedule idea generation and so when we think our facilities around the world we’re really looking for little opportunities for engineers or for creative people to come together.”

excerpt from “Inside Google’s Culture of Success and Employee Happiness”

by Zach Bulygo for KISSmetrics

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David clearly has the longest one. On this one piece Marina table of 30m long, David can easily invite over 100 friends!

his fashion brand ‘la pomme de lovely’ his home

marina unlimited designed by Fattorini+Rizzini+Partners

BRAND NEW STUFF

david

his dog is this about dogs?

another dog

the longest one | 13

High table with High Captain’s chairs

marina unlimited

Desk with Captain’s rolling & swivel chairs

designed by Fattorini+Rizzini+Partners

- one endless profile shows endless possibilities -

14 | BRAND NEW STUFF

Desk (2 x 6 profiles) with Captain’s rolling chairs

Bistro table

Table with Captain’s sliding chairs

Marina Combi

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16 | BRAND NEW STUFF

extreme togetherness Flemish Food Fest, Ghent The Flemish Foodies – Kobe Desramaults, Jason Blanckaert and Olly Ceulenare, are known in Belgium for their innovation in gastronomy. On this Summer day, they presented their creations to over 2000 people!

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gargantua

inumbra

abachus

marina

kosmos

sticks

inumbrina

icecube

qrater

- product overview -

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extempore

hopper

picnik

arthur

romeo & juliet

woodstock

serpentine

behive

hopper shade

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COOKING CLASS

gelinaz, world’s best chefs together

Gelinaz! is a culinary collective of top international chefs and also the name of their first event, which kicked off its world tour in Ghent last year. This was a culinary festival with 20 chefs, each of whom interpretted an old recipe by Cauderlier and presented the results to 72 guests on 3 occasions. These leading chefs include not only René Redzepi from the Danish Noma restaurant, but also our three Flemish Foodies, all of whom are backing this organisation.

E

xtremis has an affinity with the Flemish Foodies – Kobe Desramaults, Jason Blanckaert and Olly Ceulenare –, but not only geographically: in recent years we have already regularly collaborated on various events and among other things on the book Belgian Chefs, which brought together Dirk Wynants, founder and head designer at Extremis, and Kobe Desramaults. The similarity of their views is striking: whether it’s thinking up new

20 | COOKING CLASS

dishes or designing products, it’s a matter of creating, innovating and pushing limits, and above all using this to bring people together to enjoy each other’s company and share the experience. In this way both offer the consumer ‘Tools for Togetherness’ – as in the Extremis baseline.

What is also striking is that these leading chefs take a highly ecological approach, among other things by using seasonal and local products.

Captain’s chair, design by Fattorini+Rizzini+Partners as the official Gelinaz chair

Extremis’ Tools for Togetherness were spotted all over the event, but most of the attention went to the 72 numbered seats that were auctioned for Gelinaz. It was possible to bid for an exclusive place at the table and thus be served by twenty of the world’s best chefs. And that included the free gift of Extremis’ brand-new Captain’s Chair with its number on the back.

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Captain’s sliding chair with cushion

Captain’s rolling chair with storage net & cushion (dogs not included)

Captain’s rolling chair - black shell with storage net

Captain’s rolling chair - black shell & frame with storage net

Captain’s swivel chair

Captain’s swivel chair - upholstered (soon available)

22 | BRAND NEW STUFF

Captain’s paw chair with cushion

captain’s chair designed by Fattorini+Rizzini+Partners

BRAND NEW STUFF

- extreme comfort and functionality combined | 23

“one of the aspects of happiness is when you can make as little distinction as possible between your work and your play”

the work and leisure dichotomy

WORK VS PLAY

T

he work-leisure dichotomy was invented in the mid-1800s. Paul Krassner remarked that anthropologists, use a definition of happiness that is to have as little separation as possible “between your work and your play”. The expression “work–life balance” was first used in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s to describe the balance between an individual’s work and personal life. In the United States, this phrase was first used in 1986.

Most recently, there has been a shift in the workplace as a result of advances in technology. As Bowswell and Olson-Buchanan stated, “increasingly sophisticated and affordable technologies have made it more feasible for employees to keep contact with work”. Employees have many methods, such as emails, computers, and cell phones, which enable them to accomplish their work beyond the physical boundaries of their office.

Employees may respond to an email or a voice mail after-hours or during the weekend, typically while not officially “on the job”. Researchers have found that employees who consider their work roles to be an important component of their identities will be more likely to apply these communication technologies to

24 | WORK VS PLAY

work while in their non-work domain.[6] Some theorists suggest that this blurred boundary of work and life is a result of technological control. Technological control “emerges from the physical technology of an organization”. In other words, companies use email and distribute smartphones to enable and encourage their employees to stay connected to the business even when they are not in the office. This type of control, as Barker argues, replaces the more direct, authoritarian control, or simple control, such as managers and bosses. As a result, communication technologies in the temporal and structural aspects of work have changed, defining a “new workplace” in which employees are more connected to the jobs beyond the boundaries of the traditional workday and workplace. The more this boundary is blurred, the higher work-to-life conflict is self-reported by employees.

Many authors believe that parents being affected by work-life conflict will either reduce the number of hours one works where other authors suggest that a parent may run away from family life or work more hours at a workplace.[9] This implies that each individual views worklife conflict differently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-life_ balance

Hopper benches

Kosmos High version

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- 100% efficiency in time -

AM

9 00

12 00

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break-

lunch

AM

3 00

siesta

AM

6 00

AM

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work/read diner with friends

AM

snooze

PRODUCT SPECIAL

kosmos,

one piece to meet all your needs design by dirk wynants

Is it a dining table? Is it a poolside chair?

Or maybe a daybed? Kosmos is a universe of its own. This item of furniture offers all the functions you can imagine on a lovely day on holiday. Breakfast with the children, friends dropping by for lunch, sunbathing with a cocktail, a siesta in the shade and then hanging out until long into the night. Kosmos offers every comfort right around the clock.

26 | PRODUCT SPECIAL

This means Kosmos is a total solution.

All in one, and in just five square metres: a dining table, coffee table, bench, sofa, bed, parasol and dimmable lighting. It makes ingeniously optimal use of limited space thanks to a height-adjustable table that you can lie on when it is at its lowest setting. Do we need to add that this also makes Kosmos a cost-efficient choice?

Check out the entire day of this family.

0 00

AM

Fair 24째

8 56 Breakfast

AM

Fair 26째

11 34 Apero

PM

Fair 26째

12 23 Lunch

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PM

Fair 28째

3 03 Siesta

28 | PRODUCT SPECIAL

PM

Fair 27°

5 15 Still sunbathing

PM

Fair 26°

6 02 Work/Read

- 100% efficiency in space -

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PM

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8 28 Diner

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PM

Fair 20°

11 59 Snooze

- 100% efficiency in cost -

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black balloon FASHION

The theme of work v. play has inspired the Belgian design duo Black Balloon to design the new outfit for the Extremis team at the IMM stand. It has become a clash between formal and informal, work and relaxation. It features a kind of kaleidoscopic print - already attracting huge interest - which, by the way, incorporates the Extremis logo.

Black Balloon = Cléo Baele & Sarah Bos The men and woman-collections of this duo combine female and tough elements, simply yet edgy, with an eye for detail and refinement, “Nouveau Belgian Chic” as they like to call it. A total concept from top to toe!

32 | FASHION

extremis est. 1994 BEHIND THE SCENES

This is how it started almost 20 years ago. A garden house to build the round picknick table called Gargantua. This year we celebrate our 20th birthday, so we are working on a revised edition of Dirk Wynants’ very first design. Does anyone know why we will call it Pantagruel?

Stand a chance to win a set of Sticks: send your answers to bram@extremis.be

BEHIND THE SCENES

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FOOD&DRINKS

discover hommelbier with freshly picked hops by ‘brouwerij ‘t sas’, watou

You may consider brewing to be art, creating a beautiful palette of nature’s finest ingredients all combined by craftsmanship until you reach a perfect brew. If we continue in this poetic way, you may state that brewing with fresh picked hop cones is a masterpiece to honor the hops and the hop farmers from Poperinge. Our master brewer Luc comes from a legacy father to son from several generations in our brewery, and he mastered to create this magnificent ale as a tribute to our ‘Poperings Hommelbier’.

He was hereby assisted by brew master/ owner Hendrik Leroy and brew master Thomas Duyck.

The 4 hops used to brew this fresh cone brewed hommel are only from Poperinge: Saphir, Magnum, Challenger and Brewers - gold. After a resting period of 1 week, the fresh harvest ale is dry hopped for a period of 3 weeks with Saphir cones. The bottling happened in exclusively burned 75cl (brown) Champagne bottles. Then

34 | FOOD&DRINKS

we added some extra yeast and sugar so it could referment for another 3 weeks at 21° Celsius. The bottles for Extremis were ready just in time to be delivered at the Cologne Furniture Fair.

There is only a limited amount of bottles for the whole world, because fresh picked cones cannot be reproduced. A couple specifications for the ‘Poperings Hommelbier Harvest 2013’: * On Saturday September 14th the hops have been picked in the hopfields of Poperinge * On Sunday September 15th the fresh cones have been dried * On Monday September 16th they have been mulched (because full and complete cones don’t release all the flavors and will block the pump system) * On Tuesday September 17th we started brewing the ‘Hommelbier Fresh Harvest’

extremis (WHAT’S IN A NAME)

usser gwöhnlich extra ordinario buiten gewoon out of the ordinary außer gewöhnlich extra ordinaire 常識を超えた

extra ordinära leiwand

譄ࢽ蚱 ekstra ordinære ne obyčejný ϱέϥΩέϭ΍ ΍έΕαϙ΍ ylimääräinen stra ordinaria чрезвычайный

drag & drop our tools for togetherness in your garden

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extremis | couthoflaan 20b, 8972 poperinge, belgium | t + 32 57 346020 | www.extremis.be All images, ideas, designs and design content are the intellectual property of Extremis and may not be copied, imitated or used, in whole or in part, without the prior written permission of Extremis. Š extremis 2014