The Composition Chair was designed by Japanese designer Kouichi Okamoto of Kyouei Design and created entirely by bent aluminum wire without the use of any bolts or welding. The wire is crossed, one by one, using only a jig and a pair of pliers for tools in the process.
These chairs remind me of a design project I did a long time ago. When I was in college I took a series of art classes, one being 3D design and we had to create a sculpture made completely out of wire and nothing else, that had to express the essence of another person. At the time, my roomate was a drama major who’s closet wall full of bright colors and highly textural fabrics but her favorite piece was a bright pink feather boa. So I chose to create a feather boa out of wire. I spent days sitting on my bed with a big role of wire and pliers. By the end my hands were raw. I created it one little section at a time so that when the whole thing went together, it was flexible and moved like a real boa. It looked pretty awesome and had an organic feel to each piece like the interesting nest-like chair below.
The Crochet Crochet chair, designed by Ruth Fore, was featured as part of the Immaterialize student showcase from the Rhode Island School of Design’s Department of Furniture Design. The emphasis was placed on exploring the specific qualities of materials rather than their most familiar and typical applications.
From the designer: “Crochet Crochet was created through a material exploration of aluminum wire. The initial idea was to create a stable structure using a material known to be soft and flexible. By experimenting with crocheted stitches a woven structure was created that could support a significant amount of weight. The piece evolved into a spherical form as aluminum loops were crocheted three-dimensionally in space transitioning from small to large gauges. The total wire amount ended with 3000 feet. The final product was anodized giving the overall structure more stability. Upon first glance Crochet Crochet appears to be composed of a chaotic mess of wire but when viewed in closer detail the organized woven structure is revealed.”
The Cafe America chair from Grain Design is inspired by the chain link fence. While the material is often an eyesore in the landscape, here it’s reused and repurposed to become an interesting little chair. While the chain link is a flexible and supportive material for the seat and back, I think perhaps the spaces might be a little big for ultimate comfort. Something with smaller gaps, or maybe just a seat pillow, might help.
From Grain Design: “Café America is a surprisingly comfortable indoor/outdoor chair. Taking inspiration from ubiquitous chain-link fencing, it recontextualizes the unsung material. A unique cushioning effect is created by the lightly tensioned chain-link seat and back. Café America is made of recycled chain-link whenever possible and flat-packs for efficient shipping and storage.”
Dutch designer Nic Roex has taken some ordinary garden shovels and turned them into a curving, double-sided seating structure with a light and whimsical feel that can seat up to 8 people. This would be seriously fun in a park area with a community garden.
This shiny metal bench is an ingenious design also by Nic Roex. From the front it looks like a sleek and smooth, molded seating element. I love the use of the bright color, it works well.
From the rear, the structure of the bench is revealed and you can see that it’s actually a repurposed car hood. I like how it seems like a total behind-the-scene, peek behind the curtain kind of thing as if you’re not really supposed to know that it’s a car hood. The metal frame feels like scaffolding holding up the structure. Super cool.
We all do it. We dream about getting away from the day to day…throwing our laptops, turning off the mobile phone and going somewhere that we can actually hear ourselves think without all the noise that consumes our life. Perhaps that place is a rustic cabin by some remote lake, a beach in a country that believes in moving a bit slower than us or camping up in the wilderness far from civilization. How about relaxing in a hot tub in the middle of….anywhere you want? Sounds pretty relaxing doesn’t it?
Floris Schoonderbeek, an art student from the Netherlands at the time, came up with a fabulous design for a portable wood-fired tub for his product design thesis back in 2002 he calls the Dutchtub. An image of the product without anything to show scale, kinda makes the tub look like something you might use in science class. But it’s actually quite large and is simple and ingenious design. The water is heated through the spiral coil on the side of the tub with a wood fire and then the water circulates back through the tub. It can take 2-5 hours to heat the tub to a nice hot temperature depending on several factors like the air temperature and how hot you want it but hey, who’s in a hurry…it’s all about slowing down, right?
What makes this tub especially unique is it’s ability to travel completely independantly of anything. With a simple roof rack on top of even a small car or even carried by helicopter, snowmobile or tractor, it’s ready to travel. And then after a long, peaceful day’s soak and the water has cooled, all you have to do is pull the plug and the water drains out. You can then use the water for irrigation.
The designers goal was to create a link between the indoor and outdoor environment and to enourage a stronger connection with people and their surrounding environment. The tub can allow you to relax and rediscover the natural world. And while the picture above was taken at a ski resort called Schmitten in Zell am See, Austria, I couldn’t help but imagine that these could be pretty popular at some place like the Icehotel in Sweden. There’s nothing like being outdoors under the stary night sky with snow all around and the steam curling up all around from the hot water.
Created by Japanese flower artist Makoto Azuma in collaboration with Unitika Ltd., this biodegradable concave moss planter displays a wide varieties of moss that sweeps around columns and furniture and organically creeps along the floor like water spills under people feet at the Tokyo Fiber Sensware exhibition. When I first saw these images I thought it was some sort of Photoshop fantasy because of the amazingly crisp edges and flowing lines. But why not? Moss is highly adaptable and can take to many different shapes while revealing a variety of color and texture.
Of course the secrete here and the reason it’s being displayed at an exhibition on fibers is it’s eco-friendly 3D knitted and spun fabric called Terramac® which acts as a binding agent to hold the moss together, protects seeds and provides a place for the roots. The fibers have been woven in a way that provides lift and thickness to the system.
What makes this system biodegradable is that the fibers themselves which are derived from a plant-based polylactic acid fiber which, over a series of years, will break down and biodegrade and ultimately return to the earth.
