Hasta La Ideas

Milan 2013: a coffee table topped with a giant hard-boiled sweet and a white chocolate chair are among items in a series of edible furniture by design studio Lanzavecchia + Wai (+ slideshow).

Designed in response to the current economic climate, the decorative or unnecessary elements of the furniture can be eaten until all that’s left is what’s needed for basic functionality. Lanzavecchia + Wai used a range of food types to build up each item around its pared-down black iron version.

The Hard Candy coffee table has a top made from a huge hard-boiled sweet that leaves one saucer at the end of each leg after it has been nibbled away.

Twenty-four kilograms of white chocolate was formed around a stool to create the Chocolate chair.

Rice bricks glued together with starch form a backrest for a bench, draped with a cotton quilt full of dried beans.

A table top baked into a cracker balances on stacked tins of corned beef, which can be removed as the table is munched to leave a simple tray.

The pieces were shown as part of a series of food-based projects at the Padiglione Italia‘s Foodmade exhibition, located in the Ventura Lambrate district of Milan.

Another cuisine-related exhibition in Milan featured patterned rolling pins that made edible plates and a meat grinder that squeezed out biodegradable bowls.

We’ve previously featured tableware and a desk lamp that can be eaten.

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Lanzavecchia + Wai sent us the information below:

The domestic landscape reflects our culture, our taste and our habits. The objects that populate it absorb the atmosphere that pervades the space through their physicality, functionality and identity.

Ostensibly living intact through good times and also adverse ones, the domestic objects become invisible to us over time with their familiarity.

How can furniture react to times of crisis? The decorational elements that were once appreciated, suddenly become superfluous and should evolve to reflect a new era of austerity; the objects become edible and offer themselves to be consumed when needed.

In four conceptual objects, Lanzavecchia + Wai repropose basic nutrients, carbohydrates, proteins, sugar and chocolate as food reserves which at the same time complement and finish the objects by covering elemental metal structures.

Piece by piece the object is eroded, exposing a soul, the core-function, which will remain over time. This will encourage us to re-think what basic necessities are: a true reflection on the essence of the things that will lead us into the future.

The Austerity collection consists of Hard Candy coffee table, Chocolate chair, Grains sofa and Hardtack table.

The post Austerity edible furniture
by Lanzavecchia + Wai appeared first on Dezeen.

Italian-Singaporean studio Lanzavecchia + Wai created these paper lamps in collaboration with a Singaporean craftsman who makes masks for a traditional lion dance.

Called Leone Series 01, the lamps are made from strips of bamboo covered in paper and painted orange inside.

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Photography is copyright Lanzavecchia + Wai and Daniel Peh K.L.

Here are some more details from the designers:

LEONE Series 01 – Handcrafted Lighting Objects
in collaboration with Singapore’s last Lion Dance mask craftsman
Launched at Salone Satellite 2011

During the Milan Design Week 2011,  Lanzavecchia + Wai, a creative studio of Francesca Lanzavecchia and Hunn Wai presented LEONE – Series 01, a family of handcrafted lighting objects at the SaloneSatellite.

“LEONE”

Lanzavecchia + Wai collaborates with Singapore’s last remaining Lion Dance mask craftsman, resulting in Leone Lights which are a series of lamps that bring the artistry of this rare South-East Asian trade into the domestic space.

Hand-made from lithe strips of bamboo, covered by rice paper and then painted internally with a fiery orange inspired by traditional livery, these objects put the Lion dance mask craft literally in a new light to re-enter the public consciousness in a new context and expression.

Bio – Master Henry Ng

Master Henry Ng, having many years of Lion dance performance experience under his belt, dedicated his passion for the art form into the craft of making Lion masks.

Picking up this skill through sheer passion and inquisitiveness, he took this activity seriously and became a full-time craftsman (switching from the job of a precision metal machinist) in the mid-Nineties to cater to the many martial arts associations here.

There were about twenty lion mask craftsmen in Singapore then but competition came in the form of cheaply mass produced lions from China in the late-nineties.

As a result of thinning profit margins, every single craftsmen left the trade and so he became Singapore’s last Lion Dance mask maker, a torch-bearer of a piece of culture passed on from South Chinese immigrants who came to Singapore in the early 20th century.

Photography © Lanzavecchia + Wai
Photography © Daniel Peh K.L.

See also:

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Handmade lights by Asaf Weinbroom	Story lamp by Skar+Vidal	Loom by Benjamin Hubert

Milan 2010: Lanzavecchia + Wai, an Italian-Singaporean studio, presented their debut collection in Milan last month, featuring a range of furniture wrapped in brightly-coloured stretchy fabric. (more…)