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Contexture Design exhibits sustainable 'Home Phone' at eme3's International Architecture Festival in Barcelona, Spain

Media Release | June 24, 2011
Contexture Design
Vancouver, Canada

Vancouver-based industrial designers and co-founders of Contexture Design, Trevor Coghill and Nathan Lee, will have their phone booth 'Home Phone' featured at the eme3 2011 International Architecture Festival from June 30 to July 3 in Barcelona, Spain.

Contexture's 'Home Phone' was created as an exploration of shelter and the concept of home, particularly as it relates to homelessness. The project reshapes a phone booth by creating a stylish, small home - a home phone. This piece will be featured in the eme3 festival, which addresses how architecture can provide solutions and concrete responses to global problems.

As the recipients of 'Ones to Watch' in the Western Living Designer of the Year Award in 2010 in part for their 'Home Phone', Contexture was originally challenged with the task of transforming a phone booth into a new product for IDSwest's 'Off the Hook Feature Exhibit' in 2009 and was subsequently exhibited at the Museum of Vancouver.

Lee and Coghill are not suggesting that the 'Home Phone' is a feasible solution for homelessness; it is a project that provides an opportunity for discussion about the issue. Nonetheless, the 'Home Phone's' numerous amenities, remarkable use of space and modern interior design provide it with many of the basic "comforts of home", in which a person can sleep, wash, read and write, stow belongings or make a phone call.

"We were very conscious in the design of this project not to stigmatize the homeless population" says Coghill. "Instead, we wanted to create a dignified and useful living space that would appeal to everyone."

Given that all of Contexture's designs maintain a connection to their original source and are inspired by reclaimed materials with historical, cultural or environmental significance, the 'Home Phone' perfectly complements their existing product line.

To see 'Home Phone' online, visit www.contexture.ca/homephone. To download print quality images, visit www.contexture.ca/press.

Eme3 was created in 1999 by the cultural association ADN, as a market for avant-garde architecture. Its format, which has evolved through the different editions, led eme3 to be a unique festival concept, for its exhibitions and participatory system. The eme3 guideline is characterized as a festival that questions and confronts different points of views on architecture and its relationship to society. www.eme3.org

Contact

Tanya Tweten
Publicist and Sales Agent for Contexture Design
604-872-2352

Nathan Lee
Contexture Design
604-729-2444

Backgrounder: Contexture Design

Contexture is an award winning Vancouver-based multidisciplinary design firm with departments in product design, fabrication, and graphic art and design. The firm's two designers, Nathan Lee and Trevor Coghill, are graduates of UBC's Landscape Architecture program and have been working together since 2005. Their work emphasizes simple, elegant and sustainable design, and is often inspired by reclaimed materials with historical, cultural or environmental significance. Respect for materials and dedication to sustainable design has earned Contexture a reputation for intelligent, well-made products with the smallest possible footprint.

Contexture products include a line of wooden accessories featuring the 'Coffee Cuff', made from reclaimed architectural veneers, the 'Fly-Like-a-Hot-Dang' wood and paper glider, a 'Mapbook' and a line of wildlife-themed hanging mobiles including 'As the Crow Files', 'Redfish', and 'Pollen Nation', all made from found maps. Contexture has also introduced a line of 'Cutout Cards' that are made out of the laser-cut leftovers from their collection of hanging mobiles.

Contexture Design has been featured in The New York Times Style Magazine, Spin, Plenty, Fashion Magazine, and the Globe and Mail, to name a few, and has appeared on CBC Radio and TV. Contexture has won numerous awards including 'Eco Designer of the Year' in the 2011 Western Living Design Awards , 'Ones to Watch' in the Western Living Designer of the Year Award in 2010, and the Design Exchange Award for Industrial Design in 2008 for their mobile, 'As the Crow Flies'. Additionally, Contexture has participated in design-related events such as IDSwest and the West Xprssd exhibit of emerging Western Canadian designers, and their work has been shown at the Museum of Vancouver and at the Royal Ontario Museum as part of the Toronto International Design Festival.

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