Hasta La Ideas

Dutch designer Ineke Hans plays on traditional Canadian furniture as part of these collections for remote artists’ community Fogo Island (+ slideshow).

Hans has created two collections of wooden furniture for the recently built Fogo Island Inn and a seating range for public use on the island, built by local craftsmen.

The designer’s outdoor furniture consists of chunky wooden planks painted bright red and sits on the hotel’s roof terrace.

Seating for the interior of the inn includes a traditional rocker with tapered legs and a slanted recliner called Get Your Feet Up.

“From the start I thought, whatever I do has to fit the island, its history and its people,” Hans told Dezeen. “The way things used to be made there in the old days was playful and practical at the same time.”

The wooden furniture is painted in colours taken from existing Fogo Island interiors and textiles. “I wanted to design furniture that the makers would also feel proud of and connected to,” said the designer.

Hans has also designed public seating scattered around the island, referencing local wooden structures and fencing to form six benches connected together in a zig-zag shape.

Fogo Island Inn was designed by Norwegian architecture studio Saunders Architecture as a hotel and gallery on stilts.

The picturesque island is dotted with artists’ studios and cabins as part of an ongoing arts residency programme being established in Newfoundland – see a slideshow of them here.

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by Ineke Hans appeared first on Dezeen.

Recently in Malmö for The Conference, we took the time to visit local designer Martin Björnson in his studio workshop. Björnson’s Bobbin stool has received a lot of design recognition this year,…

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Product news: Dutch designer Arian Brekveld based the design of this lounge chair on the shapes of seats in cars.

Brekveld‘s VIK lounge chair for Dutch design company Spectrum consists of a low seat surrounded by a metal pipe frame.

Separate seat, backrest and adjustable headrest sections are all tilted back into a permanent reclined position.

The armchair is available in nine colours, upholstered in perforated leather or fabric.

The post VIK lounge chair by Arian Brekveld
for Spectrum appeared first on Dezeen.

Dutch Design Week 2013: designer Eric Klarenbeek has 3D-printed a chair using living fungus, which then grows inside the structure to give it strength (+ slideshow)

The chair is the result of a collaboration between Klarenbeek and scientists at the University of Aachen to develop a new way of printing with living organisms. “Our main purpose  was to bring together the machine and nature to create a new material that could be used to make any product,” Klarenbeek told Dezeen.

The result is a new material that, Klarenbeek believes, could be used to make almost anything in future. “It could be a table, a whole interior or even a house,” he said. “We could build a house with it.”

Presented at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven this weekend, the Mycelium Chair was printed using a mixture of water, powdered straw and mycelium, which is the thread-like part of a fungus that lives underground.

The mycelium grew within the structure, replacing the water and creating a solid but extremely lightweight material. Mushrooms began sprouting on the surface, at which point Klarenbeek dried out the structure to prevent further growth.

“When you dry it out you have the straw kind of glued together by the mushroom,” Klarenbeek said. “You have this strong, solid material that is really lightweight and durable.”

A thin layer of printed bioplastic covers the structure of the chair to contain the growing fungus. Straw was used as a substrate since the fungus used in the project – the yellow oyster mushroom – likes to grow on straw.

“The mushrooms are only a decorative element,” said Klarenbeek. That’s why we shot the photograph with the mushrooms popping out. Our main purpose was to bring together the machine and nature to create a new material that could be used to make any product.

“This chair is really a metaphor for what could be made with this technique of 3D printing a living organism and then have it grow further. It could be a table, a whole interior or even a house. We could build a house with it.”

Here’s some text from Klarenbeek:

Studio Eric Klarenbeek most recent project is the Mycelium Chair, a chair in which 3D printing and growing material are combined. 

Designer Eric Klarenbeek interest is combining materials in unexpected ways. Klarenbeek is exploring ways of making 3D prints of living organisms, such as mycelium, the threadlike network in fungi.

He uses experimental raw materials for printing material: organic substrate for mushroom growing and bioplastics. Working with scientists, Klarenbeek has printed a chair from straw, with a thin coating of bioplastic.

Once it is mature it should be strong enough to support a person. The chair is a metaphor for what can be achieved with materials and production methods.

Thanks to: CNC Exotic Mushrooms, Wageningen UR ⋅ Plant Breeding ⋅ Mushroom Research Group, Beelden op de Berg

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is 3D-printed with living fungus appeared first on Dezeen.

Mineral crystals grown on thin threads form the shape of a chair in this installation by Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka.

Tokujin Yoshioka created the Spider’s Thread sculpture of a chair by suspending just seven filaments within a frame that was sat in a pool of mineral solution.

The solution was drawn up the threads and gradually formed into crystals around them, fleshing out into the shape of a piece of furniture.

The project is a development of Yoshioka’s earlier Venus chair, where crystals were grown on a sponge-like substrate.

“Spider’s Thread applies the structure of natural crystals in an advanced way aiming to produce a form even closer to the natural form,” said Yoshioka.

The designer says this iteration references a traditional story by Japanese writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa. “The Buddha takes a thread of a spider in Heaven and lowers it down to Hell so that the criminal can climb up from Hell to Paradise,” explains Yoshioka. “In the story, the thread of a spider is a symbol of slight hope and fragility.”

The piece is on show as part of a solo exhibition called Tokujin Yoshioka_Crystallize at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo until 19 Janueary 2014.

There are three crystal chairs in the exhibition to show the different stages of growth.

Yoshioka is known for his barely-there designs, and past work includes transparent plastic furniture that resembles cut-crystal glasses, a watch with a see-through strap and a tank of flying feathers.

See more design by Tokujin Yoshioka »
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Tokujin Yoshioka appeared first on Dezeen.