 Gazelle Side Chair Designed By Jonathan Crinion
For over thirty years Jonathan's work has followed a common theme of innovation and material reduction. His resolved forms reflect this frugality often combining many functions into one simple part. For Jonathan environmental consciousness is not new. He began in earnest when he designed a solar hot water heating system some thirty years ago.
While trained as an Industrial Designer Jonathan does not fit the mould. Although not formally trained as an engineer or architect, he began to show a proclivity for engineering and architecture at a young age. His father was an architect and Jonathan grew up surrounded by architectural debates, designs and projects on the go. It was only natural that he would not hesitate to combine his skills into designing and building structures; a skill that did him well while working with Lord Norman Foster in London, UK and eventually lead to projects in Italy such as Compas furniture system for Tecno of Milan.
At fifty-one years of age his designs are showing that they have a sense of quiet timelessness that comes from the complex but restrained forms that he generates. You won't find Jonathan participating in the rabid consumerism game that has grabbed so many designers to compete in the consumer goods commodities markets. In fact his philosophy lies in complete opposition to the many designers who want to change the world by designing yet even more needless products. Jonathan will tell you that 'the future of design lies in finding non material solutions.'
His latest work begins to resolve the disparity between the corporate fight for limited global resources and designers creating the problem.
In addition to the many patents already in his name, in 2001 Jonathan received a number of patents for both his innovative wind turbine concept, and his 6 meter Open Table, now sold globally by Knoll, a product that has revolutionized the office work environment. Virtually every major furniture manufacture is producing its own version of this massive workstation designed over 18 years ago. Like most of his work, he was 18 years ahead of his time and it took his unrelenting perseverance to get the product to market. The Open Table follows his philosophy by massively reducing the number and complexity of the parts required to produce 8 work stations while creating a new way of working akin to sitting around a conference table.
Jonathan has designed three wind turbines now, all specifically with an eye towards taking people off the 'out of site out of mind' nuclear powered grid system. His turbines are designed for single-family dwellings and cottages and a smaller version for yachts.
Recently and together with his partner, architect, urban planner and filmmaker, Stephanie Mills, they formed a new company called Mackerel Sky. They are currently designing a number of modern homes. In addition a factory-made kit cottage is in the works: A self sufficient building made from modular sections, it is an exploration into designing a completely autonomous building, the inspiration for which is drawn from Jonathan's love of ocean racing yachts. We are not talking about production yachts but rather one-off carbon fiber racing machines. 'What I love about these yachts is that they are designed to sail around the world non stop and be totally self sufficient, while at the same time they push materials and technology to the limits. There is a lot we can learn from these awesome, and absolutely minimal machines.'
Jonathan is a member of the Chartered Society of Designers in London UK and was appointed to the Royal Academy of the Arts. He has won virtually every award there is to win in the design field.
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