Milan 2014: a three-metre-long sofa created by Peugeot Design Lab splices together a piece of volcanic stone and carbon fibre to create a mix of the old and new (+ slideshow).
The design arm of the French car manufacturer mined a single block of volcanic stone from the Auvergne region in France. The material is known for its ability to filter water and was created by volcanic eruption 11,000 years ago.
The team worked with stone cutters who created a flat surface to allow the other half of the sofa to be connected. A seat section was then carefully chiseled out of the stone and polished to a shiny finish, in contrast to the rough, dulled edges of the surrounding rock.
The latitude and longitude coordinates marking the origin of the stone have been chiselled into the material.
“The Onyx sofa is an illustration of a new concept that we intend to explore,” said Cathal Loughnane, the head of Peugeot Design Lab.
“Unique pieces of furniture, made to measure, to suit the choice, origin and personality of the customer, but which always respects a common idea.”
The Carbon Fibre section makes up the larger proportion of the sofa. The material was wrapped around a wooden frame before being attached to the stone. This section also has the coordinates of where the piece was made engraved onto the surface. The whole process took 70 days to complete.
“By means of a sharp straight cut, this contrast is powerful, voluntary and assumed in the way we look at the materials and how they are used,” said Gilles Vidal, Peugeot’s styling director.
According to the team, the sofa weighs more than 400 kilograms and is available in other materials.
Onyx will be showcased alongside seven other sculptures in Milan next week. The series will include lamps, shelves, armchairs and tables and contain a mix of materials including quartz crystal and aluminium, black palm and basalt.
Au bord d’un lac d’Espagne, Ensamble Studio a décidé de construire la maison « The Truffle » qui a été évidée par une vache nommée Paulina. Faite tout en pierre naturelle, la maison offre un petit cadre agréable où le minimalisme est de rigueur. Des photos signées Roland Halbe à découvrir dans la suite.
Chissà poi perchè proprio Alfred, nome insolito per un raccoglitore di riviste. Ad ogni modo questo modello è stato disegnato da DesignByThem in collaborazione con Seaton Mckeon. La struttura è interamente in alluminio piegato verniciato a polvere. Disponibile nei colori pastello nero, bianco, giallo e menta.
Focus sur l’artiste espagnol Dionisio Gonzàlez qui a fait la série « Interacciones » en noir et blanc et dans laquelle il prend en photo des maisons et les retouche pour les transformer en maisons futuristes et très designs. Une sélection de sa série est à découvrir dans la suite de l’artiste.
A group of London-based industrial designers have created an edible water bottle using algae and a technique popularised by El Bulli chef Ferran Adria.
The Ooho, created by Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez, Pierre Paslier and Guillaume Couche holds water inside a transparent membrane that can be made in a variety of different sizes.
The edible balloon is made using a technique called spherification, a method of shaping liquids into spheres first developed by scientists in 1946, which captured the public imagination when used in recipes at Adria’s restaurant in Spain.
To create The Ooho, water is frozen and then placed into a solution containing calcium chloride and brown algae. When the frozen water is introduced, the calcium solution causes the outer layer of water to form a thin, flexible skin.
The result is a package that is, “simple, resistant, hygienic, biodegradable and even edible,” the designers said in a statement.
To drink from the Ooho, a user simply applies light pressure to the sphere causing the water inside to burst through.
The technique can also be used to incorporate edible labels, sandwiched in between two gel layers.
The designers believe that the technique could be used to replace traditional plastic water bottles entirely, with each Ooho costing around a penny to make.
The Ooho is one of 12 winners of the second annual Lexus Design Award and is due to go on sale in Boston later this year. It will also be on display in Milan next month.
This egg-shaped spirit decanter by London designer Sebastian Bergne can be positioned at different angles without spilling its contents.
Named Egg, the ovoid-shaped decanter comes with a cork stopper and matching place holder, which allows the vessel to sit upright or tilt, raising its end.
“I have been interested in eggs for some time,” explained Sebastian Bergne. “They are full of complications and meanings. It is in many ways perfection from the organic world.”
When empty, the container stands upright. But when liquid is added the centre of gravity is lowered, allowing the top of the decanter to lean to 45-degree angles without falling over.
“Nowadays we usually associate perfection with geometry. The egg goes against this idea. In fact, if you’ve ever tried to draw an egg using geometry, it is surprisingly hard,” said Bergne.
Egg was designed for French gift company Designerbox and is made from borosilicate glass.
“As this project is an edition piece for Designerbox, I also felt free to experiment with using a form so full of symbolism. It is not something we are used to reading in objects these days but it is always there and we should not forget it,” added the designer.
The Egg is available to buy as a one-off purchase on the designerbox website, or as part of a subscription service.
Pour leur projet Street Eraser, les artistes Tayfun Sarier et Guus ter Beek (travaillant tous les deux dans l’agence Wieden+Kennedy) ont créé des autocollants géants qui imitent l’outil d’effacement de Photoshop et servent à effacer les rues, les publicités, les graffitis et les affiches des rues de Londres.
As a symbol of their 175th anniversary, Switzerland’s last remaining specialized high-end clock manufacturer L’Epée has engineered and crafted another visionary design by conceptual micro-engineering lab MB&F. The resulting…
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Milan 2014: objects made out of lava from Mount Etna in Sicily will be presented by design duo Formafantasma in Milan next week (+ slideshow).
Small Pillar table
Sicilian-born Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi of Formafantasma experimented with cooled lava from the volcano’s eruption last year to create the De Natura Fossilium collection, made in collaboration with Gallery Libby Sellers.
Small Pillar table
“When Mount Etna erupted on 20 November 2013, the dramatic event was broadcast by a haunting noise of rumbling stones and a vast plume of dark smoke that completely obscured the sun,” said the designers.
Small Pillar and Big Pillar tables
“Mount Etna is a mine without miners – it is excavating itself to expose its raw materials.”
Big Pillar table
After the eruption, the lava cooled and solidified into dark grey basalt rock. Formafantasma collected samples of the rock from Etna and nearby Stromboli, which they melted and blew to create glass, wove into fibres for textiles and milled into various shapes.
Big Pillar table
“When we experimented with the melting, mouth blowing and casting of lava, the research and tests took a really long time,” Trimarchi told Dezeen. “The difficult part was to understand the right cooling time of the material. We had thousands of tests made that just cracked during the cooling time.”
Stools from De Natura Fossilium collection
The pieces were used to create stools, coffee tables and a clock with linear forms that reference the work of Postmodern designer Ettore Sottsass.
1614 stool
Paired with brass elements, the rock has been cut to reveal strata and textures formed as it cooled quickly.
1892 stool
A crater of powdered stone forms the base of a circular clock, which has brass hands that turn inside the depression.
Monti Silvestri clocks
Sections of the tables and stools patterned by the air holes formed in the rock are held in place with brass plates and secured with threads.
Monti Silvestri clock
The glass was mouth-blown into vessels or moulded into boxes shaped like the dwellings at the foot of the volcano.
Monti Silvestri clock
A black mirror suspended on a string over a brass frame is balanced using a chunk of rock.
Bowls from De Natura Fossilium collection
Formafantasma’s collection will be shown at Palazzo Clerici in Milan city centre from 8 to 13 April.
Stromboli bowl
Here’s some more information sent to us by the designers:
“When Mount Etna erupted on 20th November 2013, the dramatic event was broadcast by a haunting noise of rumbling stones and a vast plume of dark smoke that completely obscured the sun. After the smoke, black earthen debris began showering down over the villages and cities within the immediate vicinity of the mountain. From the highway through to the Greek theatre in Taormina, everything was covered with black. Mount Etna is a mine without miners – it is excavating itself to expose its raw materials.”
Lipari bowl
Studio Formafantasma, in collaboration with Gallery Libby Sellers, present De Natura Fossilium – an investigation into the cultures surrounding this particularly Sicilian experience to bring both the landscape and the forces of nature together as facilities for production.
Filicudi vase
As in their previous projects Autarchy (2010) and Moulding Tradition (2009), Formafantasma questions the link between tradition and local culture and the relationship between objects and the idea of cultural heritage. De Natura Fossilium is a project that refuses to accept locality as touristic entertainment.
Salina vase
Instead, the work of Formafantasma is a different expedition in which the landscape is not passively contemplated but restlessly sampled, melted, blown, woven, cast and milled. From the more familiar use of basalt stone to their extreme experiments with lava in the production of glass and the use of lavic fibers for textile, Formafantasma’s explorations and the resulting objects realize the full potential of the lava as a material for design.
Alicudi vase
In homage to Ettore Sottsass, the great maestro of Italian design and an avid frequenter of the volcanic Aeolian islands, this new body of work takes on a linear, even brutalist form. Geometric volumes have been carved from basalt and combined with fissure-like structural brass elements to produce stools, coffee tables and a clock. The clock itself is deconstructed into three basalt horizontal plates to represent the passing of hours, minutes and seconds. A brass movement spins around the plates, shifting three different ages of lavic sand that have been sampled from three different sites on Stromboli.
Alicudi vase
Lavic glass, procured by remelting Etna’s rocks, has been mouth-blown into unique vessels or cast into box-like structures that purposefully allude to the illegal dwellings and assorted buildings that have developed at the foot of the volcano. Drawing on their own vocabulary, these solitary glass boxes and mysterious black buildings have been finished with such archetypal Formafantasma detailing as cotton ribbons and Murano glass plaques. By returning the rocks to their original molten state Formafantasma are reversing the natural timeline of the material and forcing a dialogue between the natural and manmade.
Alicudi vase, Linguaglossa box and Zafferana box
A black, obsidian mirror that is suspended on a brass structure and balanced by lavic rocks continues this line of narrative, as the semi-precious glass like stone is produced only when molten lava is in contact with water. Formafantasma have also investigated the tensile properties of lavic fibre and woven two different wall hangings.
Zafferana box
These pieces combine illustrative references to both the Greek mythological gods of Mount Etna and the microscopic views of lavic rock’s geological strata as ascertained through the designers’ collaboration with the Volcanologist Centre of Catania (INGV). As a sustainable alternative to carbon fiber, Formafantasma’s use of lavic fibre has effectively reappropriated a conventionally high tech material for artisanal ends.
Linguaglossa box
While the collection focuses on a specific locality, the project has been developed in collaboration with a number of European experts: from the CNC cutting of basalt in Sicily to the scientific analysis of lavic stones at the INGV of Catania, through the experiments with lava as glass at both the Glass Museum in Leerdam and Berengo Studio in Murano, to the brass developments with Carl Aubock in Vienna and the textile works with the Textile Museum in Tilburg. The collection is also accompanied by a photographic series by long time collaborator Luisa Zanzani.
Iddu mirror
All works are part of an edition, available exclusively through Gallery Libby Sellers, London. Supported by Creative Industries Fund NL.
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