The Dock Kitchen is here to stay! Housed at Portobello Dock – the studio and showroom base for designer Tom Dixon – the restaurant was initially set up as a temporary intervention to make use of the old kitchen space. Its success since launching in September 2009 has now secured its permanent home.

DOCK KITCHEN

Wharf Building, Portobello Dock, 344 Ladbroke Grove (entrance on Kensal Road), London W10 5BU (020 8962 1610)

Portobello Dock was originally a Victorian canal dock rubbish interchange, and most recently Richard Branson’s headquarters and recording studios – home to the likes of the Spice Girls, David Bowie, and the Sex Pistols. Tom Dixon inherited the staff canteen, which was where the stars were entertained following the signing of their multi-million pound deals.

Dixon wanted to hold onto this heritage so called in the skills of chef Stevie Parle to create an experimental restaurant that would form a base for Stevie to write his first cookbook, and provide a work canteen for Tom Dixon staff.

Stevie is ex-Spotted Pig, ex-River Cafe, and ex-Petersham Nursery. He has lived and cooked in Sri Lanka, New York, Vietnam, and Japan, bringing global influences to the Dock Kitchen.

The bright and unpretentious space with its open kitchen, is decked out with Tom Dixon furniture and lighting. The designer’s complete product showroom is located next to the restaurant – see the review on page 32 of LDG.

The restaurant is open for lunch, and their popular themed Supper Club events take place on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 8pm.

Design duo Hannah Dipper and Robin Farquhar of People Will Always Need Plates have created three new teatowel designs to raise money for Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres and boost awareness of the charity’s Love Maggie’s Day on 26th March 2010.

Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres run exceptional support services across the UK, which are available to anyone living with, through and beyond cancer. Their care centres are places where you can access help with information, benefits advice, psychological support, courses, and stress-reducing strategies.

The charity has always embraced the importance of well-designed spaces. The founder, Maggie Keswick Jencks understood first-hand “the importance of an imaginative, inspiring place for people to be able to turn to at such a critical moment in their lives, somewhere which feels joyous, a beacon of hope.”

There are several Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres across the UK and more in development. The teatowel designs above are graphic representations of three centres which were designed by leading architects Richard Rogers (Maggie’s London – top image), Zaha Hadid (Maggie’s Fife – middle image), and Frank Gehry (Maggie’s Dundee – bottom image).

Pledge your support for this charity by buying a teatowel for only £8.50, with 50% going to the charity. Otherwise, consider making a donation to the charity – click here.

For information on design activities taking place across London in March, check out our newsletter for the month. Don’t miss our exclusive competition to win copies of Canteen’s new cookbook – Great British Food.

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The next newsletter will be sent out on 1st April 2010.

We’ve got 10 signed copies of Canteen’s new cookbook to win! Canteen is a distinctly British restaurant concept, serving top-quality British dishes across 4 London locations. Competition details below – entry deadline: 17th March 2010.

Founders Cass Titcombe, Patrick Clayton-Malone and Dominic Lake (pictured above) opened the first Canteen in 2005 in Spitalfields, championing proper ‘unapologetically nostalgic’ British food such as devilled kidneys on toast, potted duck, pork pies, and treacle tart. Since then, further locations have opened in Royal Festival Hall, Baker Street, and Canary Wharf.

This new cookbook, published by Ebury Press, comprises a collection of 120 British recipes, paying homage to Canteen’s signature dishes and resurrecting the country’s tradition for affordable honest food. The book opens with All Day Breakfast, including recipes ranging from rhubarb compote with yoghurt and granola to eggs florentine and hot buttered Arbroath smokies.

Canteen have a number of tasty starters, small dishes and soups. A sizable portion of the book is given over to meat and fish main courses, as well as recipes for their favourite dish – the pie – including steak and kidney as well as more adventurous creations such as duck, chestnut and prune, or squash, chard and sage.

Not forgetting puddings and desserts, recipes include apple brandy syllabub, Eton Mess, chocolate beetroot cake, and the mighty cheesecake with hazelnut brittle.

Of course, the design of the restaurants plays a significant role, the strength of which deemed Canteen a perfect candidate for our restaurant suggestions within LONDON DESIGN GUIDE. Subsequently, LDG editor Max Fraser was invited to write about the Canteen design approach in the introductory pages of the cookbook (pictured below).

COMPETITION: To win one of 10 signed copies of Canteen’s Great British Food, simply email your name and delivery address to info@londondesignguide.com with ‘Canteen’ in the subject line.

Competition closes at midnight on 17th March 2010. Ten winners will be chosen at random and notified by email on 18th March. The competition is open to readers from any country and books will be dispatched to the delivery address you supply.

Stay informed of future competitions by signing up to our monthly newsletter.

Nina Hertig, co-founder of Sigmar and an LDG contributor, is hosting the first pop-up Modern Danish Warehouse in an impressive disused Art Deco Garage in Brompton, selling an edited selection of vintage pieces.

THE MODERN DANISH WAREHOUSE, 6th – 27th March 2010

The Garage, North Terrace, London SW3 2BA (07957 207 073)

For three weeks, the Garage (in the heart of the Brompton Design District) will house up to 120 vintage chairs, tables, sideboards, and sofas ranging from £100 to £1500. All purchases can be taken home immediately.

To show the continuation of the tradition of cabinet making in the vintage pieces, young Danish cabinetmaker Anders Folke Andersen is bringing over his ‘workshop’ to make his newly designed tables.

Nina Tolstrup, the designer behind Studiomama, is showcasing the Pallet Project and making furniture and animal from the pallets being used to display the furniture.

Three legends of mid-century Danish modernism are being exhibited at the Rocket Gallery – Herbert Krenchel, Hans J Wegner, and Ib Geertsen – in an exhibition titled Trio.

TRIO, 5th March – 24th April 2010

ROCKET GALLERY

Tea Building, 56 Shoreditch High Street, London E1 6JJ (020 7729 7594)

Herbert Krenchel (Danish, born 1922), an engineer by training, designed the classic Krenit bowls (pictured above). The first of these coloured enameled bowls were designed in 1953. Eight different sizes in eight standard colours were developed over the next two years. The best-selling bowls were in continuous production until 1965.

Hans J Wegner (1914-2007) was the most active furniture designer in Denmark during the latter-half of the 20th Century and his work is internationally renowned. In this exhibition, the gallery features some of his minimal and utilitarian pieces from the late 1950s and 1960s, including the Getama daybed (pictured above).

Ib Geertsen (1919-2009) became the father figure of Danish geometrical abstraction. From 1943 his paintings and sculptures were exhibited in every major museum in Denmark and in 2003 he had a retrospective at the Kunsthallen Nicolaj, Copenhagen which led to renewed critical attention. In 2009, Rocket exhibited his first solo show in London, in the same year that he sadly passed away. (Theme with Variations II (1966) pictured above)

David Gill Galleries is exhibiting nine new works by ceramics artist Barnaby Barford, which have been made in correlation with his ambitious animated film, Damaged Goods.

DAMAGED GOODS, 19th February – 20th March 2010

DAVID GILL GALLERIES

3 Loughborough Street, London SE11 5RB (020 7793 1100)

Barford works with both mass-market and antique found porcelain figurines, cutting up and exchanging elements or adding to them and repainting them, to create sculptures that are often sinister and sardonic but invariably humorous. In Barford’s world, a kitsch figure of a 19th century peasant boy becomes a 20th century teenage thug in a hoodie; rustic maidens dance on a bed of roses brandishing guns; a charming scene of a Victorian family sharing a meal is undermined by copious buckets of KFC fried chicken which they’re laying into.

Damaged Goods was commissioned by Animate Projects, funded by the Arts Council England and Channel 4 where it was first broadcast last year. The film marks Barford’s first venture into animated film, creating a new world for his porcelain characters.

For the exhibition, Barford has created nine unique pieces featuring the actual figurines used to make the film. Watch the film here.

EXCLUSIVE LDG COMPETITION – PART 2: win a pair of tickets to the second ‘Design by Decade‘ talk at the Barbican, taking place in conjunction with the current Ron Arad exhibition. Answer a simple question to win!

The ‘Design by Decade’ talks take place across four evenings – each dedicated to one of the decades Ron Arad has lived and worked in London. A panel discussion will celebrate the evolution of the architecture, art and design communities in London from the 1970s to the present day.

SECOND TALK IN THE ‘DESIGN BY DECADES’ SERIES:

1980s: From Readymades to Industrial Production

THURSDAY 4TH MARCH 2010, 7pm

Ron Arad, Katherine Hamnett and Peter Saville discuss how they made their names in the fast-changing London design scene of the 1980sand are joined by Rolf Fehlbaum visionary talent spotter and chairman of furniture manufacturer Vitra. Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum, asks the probing questions and discovers how the shift from do-it-yourself to mass-produced actually happened.

WIN A PAIR OF TICKETS TO THIS EVENT (worth £15 each). Answer this simple question:

Which area of London did Ron Arad open his ‘One Off Ltd’ studio in 1981?

A. Camden

B. Covent Garden

C. Camberwell

To enter this competition, email your answer (A, B, or C) to: info@londondesignguide.com with ‘Design by Decade part 2’ in the subject line. (Your details will not be passed on to any third parties)

Competition closes at midnight on Thursday 25th February. The winner will be chosen at random and will be notified by email on Friday 26th February. The winner will receive 2 tickets to the talk, which also grant access to the exhibition.

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED. The winner is Emma Franklin.

Stay informed of future competitions by signing up to our mailing list.

The internationally acclaimed London-based designer/architect/artist, Ron Arad, has his very own exhibition of his work at the Barbican Art Gallery. Keep an eye out on this website for the competitions we are running in partnership with Barbican.

RON ARAD: RESTLESS, 18th February – 16th May 2010

BARBICAN ART GALLERY

Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS (0845 120 7550)

Bringing together over 120 works spanning three decades, the show traces the development of Arad’s designs from his early post-punk approach, assembling works from readymade parts to his technologically-advanced sculptural objects made of highly polished metals.

Featuring a dramatic installation design by Ron Arad Associates using the latest LED display technology, the exhibition also includes architectural designs and instantly recognisable mass-produced objects.

Throughout the duration of the exhibition, Barbican is running a vibrant programme of talks, workshops, and lively late-night events examining the rising profile of London’s contemporary design community and Arad’s role in it during the past four decades.

LDG COMPETITION! Keep an eye on this website to enter our competition to win tickets to the ‘Design by Decade’ talks, each dedicated to one of the decades Arad has lived and worked in London.

1. 1970s: Recollection and Rebellion, Thursday 18th February 2010, 7pm (ticket winner Mariela Gonzalez)
2. 1980s: From Readymades to Industrial Production, Thursday 4th March 2010, 7pm (ticket winner Sara Ramos Manjon)
3. 1990s: Design goes glossy, Design goes global, Thursday 8th April 2010, 7pm (competition launches 25th March)
4. 2000s: Design vs Art, Thursday 29th April 2010, 7pm (competition launches 15th April)

The third annual Brit Insurance Design Awards has produced another eclectic and progressive range of nominees, all of which are on show at the Design Museum.

BRIT INSURANCE DESIGN AWARDS 2010, 17th February – 6th June 2010

DESIGN MUSEUM

Shad Thames, London SE1 2YD (020 7940 8790)

Industry experts have nominated the world’s most compelling and progressive designs across seven categories: Architecture, Fashion, Furniture, Graphics, Interactive, Product, and Transport.

From the comprehensive list, the jury will select the seven category winners, to be announced on 4th March. The finalists will then find out who will win the overall Brit Insurance Design of the Year 2010 at the awards dinner on 16th March.

Alex Newson, curator of the exhibition, has this to say of this year’s nominees, “It’s interesting to see how themes of sustainability and social responsibility have emerged in this year’s nominations, revealing both the importance of economical and social change in design over the last twelve months.”

Images – from top: Mission One motorcyle by Yves Behar; Samsung 310 mini laptop by Naoto Fukasawa; Honda EV-N Concept by Kanna Sumiyoshi; Commode by PearsonLloyd; Porch Dog House prototype, Bilox, Mississippi by Marlon & Bilox model homes.