In Clerkenwell Design Week’s (CDW) 6 years the festival has gone from what seemed like a modest presentation of local showrooms to a sprawling celebration of the capital’s leading design district. EC1’s architects, designers, manufacturers and dealerships are all now firmly on board, making CDW one of the most enjoyable festivals in the UK. The activities, demonstrations, talks, debates, presentations, revelations and revelling stand CDW apart from seemingly every other show in the UK, drawing a crowd from up and down the country and beyond.

There’s now so much to see & do at CDW, so we’ll take a look at our clients in a series of posts.

First up: USM, the Swiss furniture brand famous for their eponymous USM Haller modular furniture system, moved into a beautiful, bright showroom on Central Street earlier this year. This was their first experience with CDW and they took to it with gusto.

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Ian Weddell, CEO of USM in the UK, took the opportunity to bring a snippet of the acclaimed Rethink the Modular exhibition which had been shown in Milan.

The exhibition was created as part of USM’s celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Haller system. It summarises the works of several design colleges, developed under the guidance of lecturers such as Alan Wexler, Tomas Lomee and Wolf Mangelsdorf.

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USM – Rethink The Modular @ CDW. The USM showroom on Central Street.

Mangelsdorf teaches at AA school in London, so his team comprised a mix of AA students and colleagues from the engineering firm BuroHappold, where he is a Director. Their group had developed a new model for the planning, manufacturing and building of structures which had been inspired by the need for housing in the UK. Wolf visited the USM showroom twice to present their works and explain the role modularity took in steering the project.

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USM – Rethink The Modular @ CDW.

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USM – Rethink The Modular @ CDW. The USM showroom on Central Street.

To find out more about Rethink the Modular visit www.usm.com or watch this vid:

Featured image: Wolf Mangelsdorf ready to present Rethink the Modular at CDW