Open House London

Another adventure soon befell us, though much smaller in scope.

Open House London is a festival of the built environment. It offers Londoners the opportunity to see 'behind-the-scenes' at some of the most significant buildings and places. Unfortunately, this year's festival did not include my favourite feature of the London skyline - but did offer other chances to see cool things.

A lovely, sunny Saturday began with brunch in Spitalfields Market before heading into the uber-cool arty ethos of EC1.

Lots of new media companies have their groovy headquarters and galleries here, and I have visited a few times to discuss work projects with designers etc. Even though it is much quieter at the weekend, I still think it feels about to burst into a new-New York sort of status as an art destination.

Our first stop definitely maintains that vibe. Village Underground is a modest project placing out-of-action Underground carriages on top of old railway viaducts to form new office space for designers.

I say modest because it doesn't look much from the street:


But it is pretty cool once you get up there:


The small space is well-maximised, and the view out of the carriages were quite good. I liked that one could sit in the drivers' cabin in the sunshine - cos buttons and switches are cool:


However, the workplaces themselves were quite dull, and I was actually underwhelmed by it all.

Luckily, the second part of the complex blew me away. The old brick viaduct underneath the offices had been turned into a massive gallery and this weekend was hosting the winning glass works in a competition to design a new martini glass for Bombay Sapphire.

The new media and marketing people were clearly let loose all over this campaign - it was awesome. The atmosphere in the gallery was ethereal - candles, blue hydrangeas and glass everywhere. Quotes about martinis were 'written' on the wall with white lights:


Plus, a bar at one end sold especially designed martinis. (Sadly, we couldn't quite bring ourselves to drink that early in the day!)

The designs that had made the finals were fantastic.

My favourite was a glass with blue cooling liquid in the bottom to ensure the martini remained at the correct temperature without being heated by the hand holding it. I liked it most for its shape:


My second favourite was this one because it is creepy yet elegant:


And the winner was this one, which did not blow me away at all:


Amorn Thongsaard from Thailand designed the glass. He called it 'Ramify', and was influenced by the way bubbles rise when a martini is poured. Strangely the judges gave him the award because they liked the way the bottom of the glass has facets that reflect the shape of the Bombay Sapphire bottle. Can they have it both ways?

Whatever the case, this glass offically 'expresses the elegance of the evening martini cocktail moment'. So there.

Once we emerged from the show it was far too sunny to stay indoors. So that was the end of Open House London for us.