The Independent, 09/02/01, Anna Whitney

Store puts designers in the shop window

Pink cones, electromagnetic furniture and an original model of a Ford concept car domi-nated the windows of Selfridges' flagship store in London's West End yesterday as the company brought the art of shopping to life. The unusual displays in the store's Oxford Street windows were by five of Britain's leading designers, all of them short-listed for a new award, the £20,000 Perrier-Jouet Selfridges Design Prize. Ron Arad, Tom Dixon, Dunne & Raby, Jasper Morrison and Marc Newson were selected from more than 50 entries submitted by the design industry for making "a significant contribution to contemporary design" and "exerting an influence on the field".

Dixon, the head of design at Habitat, has turned his window into a laboratory where technicians make plastic models with an extrusion machine. Arad has created an interactive window commenting on the mass production of furniture. Passers by can press a button to make two chairs spin around so fast that they become an indistinguishable blur. Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby's electromagnetic furniture, titled "Placebo", is designed to remove static electricity in the home.

The shop-window displays aim to bring design concepts to people who might not venture into museums or galleries, said the organisers of the prize. "This is taking design to a larger audience, and allowing the public to vote for their favourite,"a spokeswoman for the event said. The prize is to be presented on 6 March.