“I don’t want to design solutions…I want to design possibilities.”

Streetscape seeks to explore how street furniture inhabits and relates to its surroundings. Designer Fabien Cappello is inspired by the everyday and how we negotiate our urban spaces. From bollards, bike stands to public benches these generally anonymously designed, often unnoticed, objects are the workhorses of the built environment.

For his Stanley Picker Design Fellowship Cappello has researched the objects around Kingston town-centre. Taking into consideration the provenance, uses and contexts of the existing street furniture, in consultation with the Royal Borough of Kingston, Cappello has created a series of prototypes that aim to sit comfortably amongst what is already in situ whilst making an interesting improvement on what was previously there.

The Gallery installation includes an audio-visual collaboration with the filmmaker Rachel Davies, whilst all of the working prototypes commissioned for Streetscape will also be sited outside of the Gallery in the streets around Kingston upon Thames for the duration of the exhibition.

Fabien Cappello (Paris, 1984) is an award winning furniture and product designer working across contexts from commercial objects to limited editions and the public space. He studied at the University of Art and Design (ECAL) in Lausanne, Switzerland and in 2009 obtained a Masters degree in Design Products at the Royal College of Art, London. Cappello was appointed Stanley Picker Fellow in 2013.