A little tease

A little tease - we're announcing the winner of our furniture Design Awards at a function in Auckland on Thursday night (the full results will be published in our June/July issue, on shelves Monday June 6). The image below by Toaki Okano shows a few (but not all) of our finalists: the 'Odin' chair by Jamie McLellan (last year's Design Awards winner with his 'Flyover' table), the 'Fiord' table by Sam Haughton/IMO, a 'Weld' vase by Phil Cuttance (on the table), David Trubridge's 'Sola' light, and 'A2' stools by Sam Haughton/IMO.



Not pictured: the 'Isla' chair and ottoman by Alex Webster for Coast, the 'Adjutant' table by Nathan Goldsworthy, 'Band' shelves by David Moreland, and the 'Ruin' side table by Mark Seeney. You can check in here on our blog on Thursday night to see who the winner turns out to be.

Thanks again to our Design Awards partner, Daniel Le Brun, who made the awards possible and will be giving the finalists some of their fine product on Thursday night.

Design Awards 2009 finalists

We happily present the finalists in our Design Awards 2009 - our picks of the best New Zealand furniture and homeware of the past year.

The 'Spiral Islands' light at the top of the image is by David Trubridge.

The 'Twig' coat stand is by Jamie McLellan for Fletcher Systems.

The black 'Knight' light is by David Moreland.

Both the orange and black steel tables are by Nathan Goldsworthy of Conscious Design.

The wooden lamp base by Ben Pearce with shade by Martin Poppelwell were produced by Sandi Reefman for her company Esther Diamond.

The red 'Hawk' chair is by Simon James.

And because you can't really see the fabric design by Ngahuia Damerell (inspired, she says, by the architectural idiom of Te Papa), here's another image of it:

If you don't mind us saying so, we think it's quite an excellent line-up. Our next issue of the magazine contains all the info on the designs and the winners, and will be published on April 6. We're also planning a series of exhibitions of the finalists' designs at the following locations:

Wellington: At the showroom of our Design Awards sponsor, Staple Furniture + Design (cnr Bond and Lombard Streets) from April 2-9

Auckland: At Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, 13 Reeves Road, Pakuranga, from April 17-May 3

Gisborne: At Staple Furniture + Design, 38 Childers Street, from May 7-21.

We hope you can make it to see the objects while they're on display. We'll also be hosting a talk featuring the designers at Te Tuhi in conjunction with the exhibition there - we'll post details when we've finalised them.