Hasta La Ideas

Product news: Polish designer Oskar Zieta will launch a collection of modular furniture made from Meccano-like perforated steel plates at MOST in Milan next month (+ slideshow).

Each piece of furniture in Oskar Zieta’s 3+ collection is constructed from hollow plates of white, black or grey powder-coated steel or raw galvanised steel, which is suitable for outdoor use.

As well as enabling users to combine elements in many different configurations, the holes across the metal surfaces help to keep laptops cool and cables neatly organised.

The plates can be used horizontally as office, workshop or dining tables, or vertically for displays and shelving systems or as magnetic boards.

They come in four thicknesses, with the thickest having three rows of holes on its edges and the thinnest having none.

Other elements include wooden and metal legs to build tables and shelves and an L-shaped sheet that can be mounted on a table as a space divider.

The furniture can be built with the connectors designed by Zieta or with standard screws, so users can take the pieces apart and make their own combinations.

The furniture is already in production and will be presented next month in Milan at the MOST exhibition and at EDIT by designjunction from 9 to 14 April – see all news and products from Milan this year.

Zieta’s previous work includes a bulging metal stool formed by inflating its legs with fluid – see all projects by Oskar Zieta.

Other metal furniture we’ve published includes Thomas Heatherwick’s aluminium furniture made by the world’s largest extrusion machine and a series of tables and shelves on 3D-printed metal legs – see all design in metal.

Photographs are by Jedrzej Stelmaszek, Paulina Sikorska and Zieta Prozessdesign.

Here’s some more information from the designer:

3+ Collection

The office, workshop, kitchen, lounge room and retail are all stationary, yet characterised by mobile function. They tend to follow the contemporary user.

3+ technology reinvents its function every day with every interaction. It becomes an ultra-light construction for the every day, thanks to its strong, innovative and minimalistic features, which you create. In our collection we offer chairs, tables, shelving, but we don’t want to categorise them as office or dining chairs, workshop or kitchen tables, because it is you, that creates their function. Thanks to a simple system of connectors and versatile elements you are able to give each product a new context, function or even create new ones from scratch. Each perforation is a starting point to satisfy your personal needs, accommodating products to new situations and tasks.

3+ is work, hobby and leisure. It is customisation, lifestyle, space – it’s always current, and ready to answer the requirements of change.

Dynamic businesses in which teams outgrow space and new tasks require constant adaptation of office arrangements require flexible and modular solutions. 3+ offers the stability of steel construction required by warehouse or workshop context, as well as the aesthetic appeal essential in a modern office or retail space. While creating the ultra-light, flexible, modular and mobile 3+ system we considered studies about the nomadic lifestyle of the modern human. In the more intimate personal sphere we continue to further exploit our access to mobility, we expand our professional skills allowing us to take on new more challenges. This entails moving from place to place as well as changing our immediate personal space.

Milan 2013 – Salone Internazionale del Mobile

During the Salone Internazionale del Mobile this year Zieta Prozessdesign, design and engineering studio established by Oskar Zieta, will be launching in the exhibition space at the MOST museum at Olona in Milan a new system of modular furniture 3+. This is not only name of collection, but especialy a new innovative technology of stabilisation of thin metal sheets 3+. At the stand also will be present ultralight and bionic furniture made in FiDU technology invented by Oskar Zieta too. You will can take a part in production process and make your own product!

We will exhibit our products at designlink.pl as part of EDIT at designjunction too.

Exhibition and Guide on Polish Design, Milan Salone 2013 at Edit by designjunction is organized by the Creative Project Foundation in partnership with Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Poland.

Zieta exhibition at MOST is Powered by Adam Mickiewicz Institute/www.culture.pl

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Oskar Zieta appeared first on Dezeen.

Product news: Japanese design studio Nendo has come up with a modular office furniture system with tall backrests for extra privacy (+ movie).

Above: movie shows various configurations of the modules

Created for Japanese office furniture and supplies brand Kokuyo, the Brackets sofa and table units by Nendo are intended to surround their users “like parentheses.”

The seven sofa types and four table types can be combined into numerous combinations, from rows of alternately facing single seats to compact meeting booths.

At 140 centimetres tall, the backrests screen the occupants and provide privacy as well as dampening surrounding noise.

Other products launched by Nendo recently include bent wood chairs that flick out as if they’re wearing capes and a series of 30 lamps made from a modular set of parts – see all design by Nendo.

Earlier this month we reported on the studio’s mountain range of laser-cut foamboard installed at Stockholm Design Week, where Nendo was guest of honour – see all news and products from Stockholm 2013.

Photographs by Akihiro Yoshida.

Here’s some more information from the designers:

Brackets

An office-use unit sofa designed to create a communication space by ‘bracketing’ its inhabitants like parentheses.

Users can freely combine the seven sofa types and four table types into a variety of spaces with a finely tuned balance of openness and privacy, concentration and relaxation and individuals and groups.

The sofas are composed of sharp outer lines and softer inner curves, so that they respect the mood of the office environment while providing for user comfort.

The height of the backrests, relatively tall at 1400mm, provides visual privacy and dampens the surrounding noise, allowing for focussed conversations.

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for Kokuyo appeared first on Dezeen.

These triangular sofas by Dutch architects UNStudio were inspired by geological formations.

Created for furniture manufacturers Walter Knoll, the seats tesselate to form clusters that break up communal spaces like lobbies and lounges.

They are made of Polyurethane foam on a steel frame and can be upholstered in a variety of colour combinations that are meant to reference a collection of precious stones.

“The Seating Stones are designed to generate numerous different atmospheres, which is why we included a wide variety of possible configurations and colours but also a selection of materials,” co-founder of UNStudio Ben van Berkel told Dezeen. “We also created something that wasn’t instantly recognisable as a chair and that in fact was somewhat more sculptural as a form.”

UNStudio are launching the sofa design this week at Orgatec in Cologne, which continues until 27 October.

You can read more stories about UNStudio here»
See all our stories about seating»

Here’s some more information from the designers:

Seating stones

Throughout history natural formations have been used to provide seating elements for rest, relaxation, gathering and communication. Inspired by the rhythmic smoothness of geological formations, the sculptural Seating Stones exhibit a playful take on spatial awareness and versatility, presenting myriad possibilities for placement, color, texture, arrangement and communication.


Seating Stones are designed as individual objects and can be used autonomously. However they can also be placed side by side as a family of forms in a variety of configurations. The shape and contours of the seating elements facilitate a wide range of possible groupings. They can be placed together, either to accommodate privacy or to invite communication; they can be both individual and private or social and open.


Seating Stones are equally versatile when it comes to multipurpose usage, offering a diversity of options for placement; from offices, waiting rooms, lobbies and meeting spaces to use in the home. In all situations the configuration of the seating elements can be arranged to suit individual spaces and the desired ‘connectivity’ of the users.


Inspired by the bright and varied natural fabrics produced by the Incas of Latin America, Seating Stones can be upholstered in a wide variety of fabrics and colours. Furthermore, the fabric types and colours can be mixed, creating different appearances and textures in each element, or in a grouping of individual seats. The fabrics of the Seating stones can therefore reference a simple, individual stone, or alternatively can resemble a mixed formation of richly coloured minerals.

Seating Stones, Walter Knoll, Herrenberg, Germany, 2012

Client: Walter Knoll
Location: Herrenberg, Germany
Size/s: w x l x h: 1596 x 876 x 800
Materials: steel frame and PU Foam, upholstered.
Seat Comfort by belts
Status: will be presented at Orgatec 2012

Credits

UNStudio: Ben van Berkel, Caroline Bos with Martijn Prins, Maurits Fennis and William de Boer
Walter Knoll: Markus Benz and Jurgen Rohm

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by UNStudio appeared first on Dezeen.