Circular economy
Commission
Design
Exhibitions
Fabric
Live demonstration
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Press
Tradeshows
Workshops
Artist's Residency Urubamba, Peru.
My room with a view during my stay …
Rothko’s of Urubamba - Rosa y Marron
The ordinary and the incidental in perfect harmony.
My back-strap warp set up and ready to go…
These mountains are the lesser-known Rainbow Mountains, Palcoyo, over 4000 feet above sea level. Named as such due to the glaciers that have melted over time with climate change, revealing the sediment salts, minerals, and metals of the rocky landscape.
It was a jaw-dropping adventure in a small van of 12 of us… vistas to make your eyes water, waterfalls, traces of Inca agriculture high up in the mountain ridges, llamas and alpacas sprinkling the mountain sides like salt and pepper, the red earth, the adobe brick houses. A feast for the eyes and heart!
I felt a strange chill on my face for the first lap of the mount, and moments of complete dizziness due to the altitude. We were offered dried coca leaves on the ascent, and chewing them did seem to help!
And the locals in their colourful splendour positioned themselves along the ridges to be photographed, with their beautiful woven clothes in perfect harmony with the landscape.
Cusco
It struck me as I was landing in the city of Cusco, how the landscape seemed to reflect a woven textile; the housing blocks with oblong or square windows representing the weft against a predominant warp of brown terracotta tiles from the hill tops down to the central square. So many unfinished breeze block facades, interspersed with adobe brick housing or extensions, and the Colonial buildings of central Cusco still emanating the histories of a past time… The hybrid mash-up of Inka and Colonial architecture is fascinating to behold.
A close up of my first weave with Maria.
The local vernacular of Urubamba above
Azul Rothko’s of Urubamba
Above a section of my second weave ….
Below: Red dyes in general are notoriously hard to achieve, the best sources in the Andes are madder and the amazing cochineal bugs in the pictures below that thrive on the cactus plants. When our teacher added lime juice you can see the dark red lighten to an orange.
National Saturday Club Masterclass with Ella
A Peace Flag for Ukraine, designed by Students from the Fashion & Business and Art & Design Club members of the City of Oxford College.
This was a truly collaborative piece, with the clock ticking, as they had to design, carve and print the wood block designs, cut, sew, and piece the motives together in one session! One group focussed on the block printing, and the other on making and sewing the symbols of peace and unity onto the base flag. I provided the base fabrics and remnants from my collections, and the Students sketched ideas before we came together to curate and decide who should do what.
The National Saturday Club Summer Show is returning to Somerset House from 4–12 June. This year’s exhibition features the work of 1,500 13–16-year-old National Saturday Club members who have been attending weekly Saturday Clubs at 56 universities, colleges, and museums across the country.
I am proud to be part of the Masterclass programme, it will be an inspirational showcase of the ideas, creativity, and innovation of the nation’s next generation.
Go visit if you can find more details HERE
Interior Design Declares
Are you an Interior Designer?
Are you helping to challenge the industry you work in, and the companies that you do business with?
As a collective body of designers, contractors, installers, makers and more, we can all make a difference; by questioning processes and the way we are working with materials and systems (energy/diversity/health and the environment) into more regenerative and circular ways… join the movement and the conversation
For more information and to add YOUR NAME to the list and the conversations visit the website HERE
The twin crises of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss are the most serious issue of our time. Buildings and construction play a major part, accounting for nearly 40% of energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions whilst also having a significant impact on our natural habitats.
For everyone working in the design and construction industry, meeting the needs of our society without breaching the earth’s ecological boundaries will demand a paradigm shift in our behaviour. Together with our clients, we will need to commission and design spaces within buildings as indivisible components of a larger, constantly regenerating and self-sustaining system.
The research and technology exist for us to begin that transformation now, but what has been lacking is collective will. Recognising this, we are committing to strengthen our working practices to design spaces with a more positive impact on the world around us.
Interior Designers who have declared a Climate Emergency, will seek to:
Raise awareness of the climate and biodiversity emergencies and the urgent need for action amongst our clients and supply chains.
Advocate for faster change in our industry towards regenerative design practices and a higher Governmental funding priority to support this.
Share knowledge and research to that end on an open source basis.
Evaluate all new projects against the aspiration to contribute positively to mitigating climate breakdown, and encourage our clients to adopt this approach.
Work towards including life cycle costing, whole life carbon modelling and post-occupancy evaluation as part of our basic scope of work, to reduce both embodied and operational resource use.
Work with others in the construction industry to upgrade existing buildings for extended use as a more carbon-efficient alternative to demolition and new build whenever there is a viable choice.
Act to address the disproportionate impact of these crises on disadvantaged communities and ensure that all mitigation and adaptation efforts address the needs of all people.
Ensure diverse and inclusive principles are implemented in hiring and retaining staff so that people of all backgrounds can participate in decision-making about the future of the designed environment
Request 3rd party certification or similar demonstration of environmental provenance and impact for each product specified.
Adopt more regenerative design principles in our studios, with the aim of designing spaces which go beyond the standard of net-zero carbon, including the specification of ultra low energy appliances.
Accelerate the shift to low embodied carbon materials in all our work. Seek to reuse and recycle products and materials at every available opportunity.
Minimise wasteful use of resources in interior design, both in quantum and in detail. Collaborate with all members of the industry to further reduce construction and packaging waste.
URGE collective
Ella is one of the founder members of URGE which is a creative collective made up of designers, strategists, architects and makers.
We have come together to help drive change through transformation, education, innovation and communication. As a collective we are well versed in sustainability, and circular economy approaches. We partner with businesses large and small, helping to facilitate and accelerate change.
We have the ability to envision new ideas and mobilise people to bring their ideas to life.
We have asked each member of URGE to share their reasons for being part of the collective and their hopes for how it will help build a better future. Read an excerpt from Ella’s response to this question:
‘Since the pandemic, we have seen that community can be powerful, adaptive and caring. We have all felt the potency and value of our social economy and community, and the need for everyone’s good health and wellbeing. We want to harness this in URGE.
My URGEncy is to help promote the wake-up call that we have been given at this moment and to collectively advance on the raised awareness around the well-being of all life.
I have made or been part of making ‘products’ for over 25 years, thousands of products, in volume and design through my own manufacture and that of my licensors. It was over 10 years ago when I started to engage with re-use and re-designing old furniture, this led me to a residency at the RSA’s Great Recovery Project with (fellow URGE member) Sophie Thomas.
We started at a waste site looking at bulky waste and we ended up focussing our research and findings on the retrieval of a perfectly good sofa that was headed for landfill due to the missing fire label. There is much work to do in order to promote more ‘closed loops’. And my part in URGE’s community of creatives could support, inspire and promote this transformation. Through workshops, through Life Cycle Assessments, from individuals to large-scale companies. We could build carbon literacy events for businesses and the public through the lens of design and art-based activities and workshops.
My own company is working with our manufacturers and collaborators to close as many loops as possible in the stream of materials and manufacturing processes we share together. We have shifted from a stock-holding company to only making to order the products that are required.
Read Ella’s full article HERE.
Why not sign up for the URGE collective newsletter HERE
Do you know about the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill?
I urge you to take a look at the CEE Bill and sign up and share. The CEE Bill, which was officially published in the Commons back in November 2020 offers the UK Government a viable framework for climate action. It has been drafted by a group of scientists, academics, lawyers and environmentalists, the Bill aims to ensure that the UK plays a good and proper role in limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees Celcius.
I encourage you to share it widely between family, friends and work colleagues. During a talk hosted by @businessdeclares last week, I learnt that the Climate Bill back in 2008, started out as a Private Members Bill like this one before it was brought into law. If we can get this into law, then we have a fighting chance of keeping within our planetary boundaries. As we stand at the moment with our current government's pledge of reductions by 2050, we do not!
There has been a minor setback, as the next reading of the Bill in the commons has been cancelled. The plan now is to create a Twitter storm that MPs won’t be able to ignore. On Friday, 26 March those in support are being asked to record a video and tweet to your MP asking them to back the CEE Bill (or thanking them if they already do). You can find out if your MP supports the Bill here.
I also learnt last week that every Private Members Bill that has been supported by the campaign model used to drive the CEE Bill forward has been passed into law the Climate Change Act was the last example (back in 2008). And each of those previous Private Members Bills was vigorously opposed initially by the government of the day, and it was the citizens and voters action in every constituency holding their MPs to account and building broad and deep coalitions both locally and nationally that enabled the likes of this Bill to go through. Take a read and sign up. We cannot ignore the Climate Emergency we are all facing.
Let’s get our MPs supporting it, keep dreaming big everyone and let’s make this happen!
https://www.ceebill.uk/bill
Read the interview by Darren Clanford of Material Source
Chatting to Ella Doran designer, photographer, and mark-maker.
Read the full interview at Material Source
Watch the conversation replay of 'What We Need Now'
Replay Ella Doran and jewellery designer Sian Evans as they discuss what we need as people and small businesses to survive and even thrive moving forward in this moment.
Moderated by Charlene C Lam, NYC-LDN content consultant and curator of The Creative Edit.
Redesign and Reuse: Ella Doran, Duncan Riches, Sophie Thomas, Urban Upholstery
Duncan Riches interviews Ella Doran, Andrea and Patrizia of Urban Upholstery, and Sophie Thomas about their new chair ‘Clean Up Plastic Camo’ launching during Shoreditch Design Triangle 2020. Discover the story behind the Chair and how they created a new fabric using the negative back-story of plastic pollution with a new message of re-use and hope.
This podcast was recorded live on Monday 14 September 2020.
‘Clean Up Plastic Camo Chair’ revealed at Solid Floor East
Ella Doran and Urban Upholstery join forces to showcase their stunning ‘Clean Up Plastic Camo chair’ viewable at Solid Floor East during Shoreditch Design Triangle 2020
Urban Upholstery and Ella Doran have celebrated the circular economy and material re-use and re-design by giving new life to old furniture for over 10 years.
The project started with an abandoned chair from the streets of Hackney. The chair was de-constructed back to its core frame and re-upholstered during Shoreditch Design Triangle 2018 live at The Old Bank Vault art gallery, alongside a group of school children from Shoreditch Park School.
Clean Up Plastic Camo chair Thames London.
7a Ezra Street,
London E2 7RH,
UK VIEW ON MAP
Mon - Fri 10 - 6 pm Sat 12 - 6 pm Sun 10 - 2 pm
The textile design was born from a further collaboration between Ella and Sophie Thomas.
The design depicts waste plastic collected by Sophie from beaches around the world. Together they created artful arrangements of these almost jewel-like pieces. Ella photographed them to then create the textile design, the nature of which is only revealed under close inspection.
The fabric tells the negative back-story of plastic pollution with a new message of re-use and hope.
Visit the showroom at Solid Floor during the festival to view the chair in all its splendour. The chair is available to buy as a unique one-off piece and we welcome further commissions, just get in touch.
There will be a podcast discussing the full story of the chair and the textile at 3pm on September 14th, featuring everyone involved, from Ella Doran and Sophie Thomas to Andrea and Patrizia of Urban Upholstery, as part of the Shoreditch Design Triangle podcast series.
