Gravity keeps the aluminium and timber components of these lamp shades by industrial designer Nick Sadowsky locked together.
The pieces on the Spindent Light don’t use any screws or adhesives, instead relying on aligned component parts that slot into each other and are kept together by gravity and their own weight.
The light’s soft triangular shape features two pieces of anodised aluminium, separated by a thin strip of timber to create a minimal shade for either the home or office. A black fabric electrical cord completes the monochrome look.
“I was originally inspired by the aluminium spinning process and its capabilities,” said Australian designer Nick Sadowsky. “I looked at how I could make something both visually engaging and sustainable.”
The polished sheen of the metal is interrupted by the warm tones of the wood and its rough grain.
“I had a low-impact material and finishing process,” said Sadowsky. “It was then a matter of developing the form and I liked the idea of combining another material I really like, timber.”
The wood element connects the aluminium together, creating a small lip between the two pieces.
“Its qualities are warm and organic and could provide an interesting detail in the form and become part of the assembly, as I was trying to avoid any adhesives or screws,” explained Sadowsky.
The Spindent Lights are available in either black or silver from Sadowsky’s website.
Milan 2014: British designer Ross Lovegrove has created an aluminium stacking chair for Italian furniture brand Moroso.
The Diatom chair is made entirely from aluminium to make it suitable for both indoor and outdoor use, and can be stacked vertically without tipping forward.
“It is entirely computer generated, resulting in a universal geometry that is ergonomically neutral, lightweight and providing a vertical stack that is rarely achieved,” said Lovegrove, who wanted to explore contemporary aluminium-pressing technology developed by the car industry with this project.
“My path in the designing of chairs is to embrace technologies that open up new possibilities and with this a commitment to exploring the moment where industrial investment can result in products that are aesthetically uplifting, long lasting and respectful of environmental issues yet economically accessible from a cultured design house to a wider audience,” Lovegrove added.
Each chair is produced in five stages: the first involves drawing aluminium, a process that involves using tensile forces to shape the metal.
This is followed by a 3D laser-cutting stage, which defines the outer surface, and then another stage of drawing to create the inner parts including slots for the legs, all the raised elements and the outer edge. A fourth stage finishes off the seat and finishes the leg slots and the chair is then ready for its final assembly.
The idea for shape of the design was generated from “the beauty and logic of natural lightweight structures familiar to architects and marine biologists who study intelligent growth logic,” said Lovegrove.
Its curved seat design is based on pieces of fossilised plankton that fascinated Lovegrove as a child, and the chair takes its name from one of these single celled organisms.
British designer Samuel Wilkinson has created a range of lightweight aluminium furniture (+ slideshow).
The Grace collection designed by Samuel Wilkinson for Italian brand EMU includes a stacking chair and armchair, a stool, plus a folding cafe table.
All the pieces are formed from die-cast aluminium to make them lightweight, and suitable for use both indoors and outdoors.
The shapes were influenced by early twentieth-century wood furniture.
The table has a simple self-locking mechanism for when the top shifts from horizontal to vertical and is supported by a stand that branches into four legs.
Tubular chair legs have been designed to stack neatly on top of each other.
“By making the castings and connections work hard we have reduced the amount of welding to a minimum,” said Wilkinson.
At the end of their life, the pieces can be disassembled and recycled.
What if an iPhone could defend itself against the harshness of the environment it is subjected to? In a world less perfect than what Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive expected it to be, KLOQE comes to the rescue. This next to naked Aluminium iPhone case mimics the profile of the phone with such a slender profile that the entire KLOQE + iPhone 5 combo is slimmer than the naked iPhone 4. And thats not even the best part. The slide to lock, two part, KLOQE’s patent-pending design makes it the only all-aluminum iPhone case that does not affect your phone’s reception. The knight in shining armour; well matte Aluminium in this case (no pun intended), comes in multiple hues so that your phones can reflect your personality.
Designer : Sergio Troiani
Guest Post by Akhil T.
– Yanko Design Timeless Designs – Explore wonderful concepts from around the world! Shop CKIE – We are more than just concepts. See what’s hot at the CKIE store by Yanko Design! (iPhone – A Case Sturdy was originally posted on Yanko Design)
Shiny aluminium-clad walls allow this small house in Almere by Dutch studio MONO to reflect the colours of its setting (+ slideshow).
Named Rebel House, the single-storey residence was designed by MONO to be deliberately alien to the typical brick buildings of the local neighbourhood.
“The house looks like a spaceship which touched ground to mother earth,” said architects Gijs Baks, Jacco van Wengerden and Milda Grabauskaite. “It seems to want to leave any moment again.”
The house was constructed on a tight budget, so low-cost corrugated aluminium was used to clad all four walls. The same material also covers doors, allowing them to blend into the facade.
The interior surfaces of the walls are fronted with timber to give the appearance of warmth to the open-plan living spaces.
A grid of shelves stretches across one of these walls to accommodate a kitchen, storage areas and a large window seat.
The rest of the space is loosely divided up by the presence of a boxy bathroom that integrates extra storage areas and a sliding partition to screen off the bedroom.
Double doors open the house out to the garden, where the architects have added a triangular shed clad with the same aluminium panels.
Rebel House liberates itself from existing prejudices, and appears radically unconventional for a house. The house looks like a spaceship which touched ground to mother earth. The corrugated aluminum sheeting reflect the sun and the surroundings, and create an extreme lightness. The house seems to want to leave any moment again.
Both this dream and the raw realities of site parameters and proximity to its boundaries, budget limitations and the desire for low maintenance were crucial in the design development of Rebel House.
In contrast to the exterior the interior is warm and convivial. The timbered walls integrate a kitchen, an open cupboard and a deep windowsill as a ‘hangout’. The detached box houses all services of the house. Living around it is a continuous experience. The hidden, double doors open the house to the garden. The triangular, aluminium shed in the garden seems to provide an anchor for the house and completes the composition.
Client: private Architect: MONO (www.mono.eu) Location: Almere – The Netherlands Area: 77sqm Team: Gijs Baks, Jacco van Wengerden, Milda Grabauskaite Stuctural Engineer: On Man Interior Fit Out: Thomas Meubels
Danish architects COBE and Transform have completed an aluminium-clad museum of maritime history in Norway with a zigzagging profile modelled on the shapes of local wooden buildings (+ slideshow).
Located south-west of Oslo in the harbourside town of Porsgrunn, the Maritime Museum and Exploratorium was designed by COBE and Transform to relate to the scale of its surroundings, which include a number of small wooden residences and warehouses.
Photograph by Rasmus Hjortshøj
The architects broke the volume of the building down into eleven blocks, with asymmetric roofs that pitch in different directions. Combined, these shapes give a zigzagging roofline to each elevation.
Photograph by Rasmus Hjortshøj
“We wanted to understand the area’s characteristics and then we wanted to strengthen it but at the same time create something new and contrasting,” said COBE founder and director Dan Stubbergaard. “The abrupt building structure of downscaled building volumes and the expressive roof profile are, for example, clear references to the area’s historic small wooden buildings, which all have their own particular roof profiles.”
Photograph by Rasmus Hjortshøj
“This interpretation of the area’s pitched roofs and small wooden building entities sets the final frame for a unique and characteristic contemporary building,” he added.
Aluminium shingles give a scaly surface to the outer walls and roof of the museum, and pick up reflections from the river that runs alongside.
Opening today, the museum’s exhibition galleries chart the town’s maritime history and tell the story of its dockyard industry.
A grand staircase leads visitors up to a large exhibition hall on the first floor, while smaller galleries and events rooms are housed on the ground floor.
Transform principal Lars Bendrup said he hopes that the building will help to revitalise the formerly industrial section of the town.
“Our general vision was to turn a backside into a frontside,” he said. “With the new museum, the town will now orientate itself towards the beautiful river that for much too long has been Porsgrunn’s industrial backside.”
Photography is by Adam Mørk, apart from where otherwise stated.
Here’s a project description from COBE and Transform:
Porsgrunn Maritime Museum and Exploratorium
Today is the grand opening of a new spectacular Maritime Museum and Exploratorium in the Norwegian town Porsgrunn. The building is designed by the Danish architects COBE and TRANSFORM, and has already, before the opening, become an architectural landmark of the town.
From backside to frontside
Porsgrunn Maritime Museum and Exploratorium is situated in the Norwegian town of Porsgrunn, 100 km south west of Oslo. The new museum will tell the story of the town’s dock yard industry and its maritime history, which has employed thousands of people from the whole region. In addition, the attractive location of the museum right on the riverside opens up an important process for the city concerning the future extensive urban renewal of the entire Porsgrunn Harbour area.
“Porsgrunn is an industrial town, which is reflected clearly in the museum’s surrounding context. It consists of small to medium sized industries in the shape of small characteristic wooden buildings. It was important to create a museum with a high level of sensitivity towards these surroundings, yet at the same time for the new Maritime Museum and Exploratorium to stand out as a spectacular contemporary building and become a landmark of Porsgrunn,” Lars Bendrup explains, owner of TRANSFORM, and continues: “Our general vision was to turn a backside into a frontside. With the new museum the town will now orientate itself towards the beautiful river, which for much too long has been Porsgrunn’s industrial backside.”
New meets old
The new Maritime Museum and Exploratorium is composed of eleven smaller square volumes, together amounting to almost 2,000 m2. Each volume has a different roof slant that assembled make up a varied roof structure. A characteristic aluminium facade, locally produced in Porsgrunn, not only holds the dynamic building structure together, but at the same time it reflects light and colours from the surrounding Norwegian mountain landscape.
Dan Stubbergaard, founder and creative director of COBE, elaborates: “It is a sensitive art adding new to old in a historic area. First of all we wanted to understand the area’s characteristics and then we wanted to strengthen it but at the same time create something new and contrasting. The abrupt building structure of downscaled building volumes and the expressive roof profile are for example clear references to the area’s historic small wooden buildings, which all have their own particular roof profiles. This interpretation of the area’s pitched roofs and small wooden building entities sets the final frame for a unique and characteristic contemporary building.”
He continues: “The goal was to create a house that not only understands and shows consideration for its surroundings, but also contributes with something radically new and different.”
Porsgrunn Maritime Museum and Exploratorium Porsgrunn, Norway Client: Telemark Museum Architects: COBE and TRANSFORM Engineers: Sweco Gross area: 2.000 m2 Construction period: 2011-2013 Total construction costs: 34 mio.
The latest in a string of products designed by Jonathan Ive and Marc Newson for the (RED) charity auction is this one-off aluminium desk.
Australian designer Marc Newson and Apple‘s Jonathan Ive covered the surface of the thin desk with a pattern of 185 interlocking cells.
The blade-like legs and top were machined from solid pieces of aluminium by Californian company Neal Feay Studio. The unique piece is inscribed: “Designed by Jony Ive & Marc Newson for (RED) 2013 edition 01/01”.
The auction will take place at Sotheby’s auction house in New York on 23 November and the proceeds will go towards helping to fight malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS.
These aluminium stools and benches by design graduate Sara Mellone are designed to look like folded pieces of paper.
The Simple Things, Sara Mellone‘s graduate project from the University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf, comprises pieces of furniture made from 2.5-millimetre sheets of aluminium that have each been folded four times.
The process of bending the lightweight aluminium gives the furniture strength and ensures that the stools and benches have a stable footing.
“The simple shape of the double fold creates enough strength to build a bench that is three times longer then the stool,” says Mellone.
Both designs can be manufactured without any offcuts and don’t require any additional parts for assembly.
Mellone has also created a version finished with a white powder coating, which protects the surface from fingerprints and scratches.
La Jaguar F-Type est la nouvelle voiture de sport décapotable lancée par la marque. Cette merveille de technologie utilise l’aluminium comme matériau principal et Ian Callum, le directeur du design pour la marque, argue un réel focus sur le pilote. Et de fait les commandes sont inspirées du cockpit des avions de chasse.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
