2013Wed17Apr

Mazda uses its “Soul of Motion” design language on furniture

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The Mazda KODO Chair

“Motion while sitting still,” or similar such phrasing, is a favorite of automaker press releases. Every car manufacturer loves to pretend that its latest car looks like it’s speeding down the highway even while it’s parked at Denny’s. For Milan Design Week, Mazda extends the same design concept to the very essence of sitting still: a chair.

Mazda calls its still motion “KODO,” which translates to “Soul of Motion.” The design language began with the 2010 Shinari concept and made it to production lines on the CX-5 redesign. Mazda says that KODO styling was inspired by the natural movements of animals in the wild.

Mazda describes the KODO Chair’s styling as a “ready-to-pounce, forward-leaning stance conveying the sudden release of pent-up energy.” We’d argue that those long, lanky front legs actually give the chair more of a feel of a rear-leaning entity, such as a child playing crab soccer, but we’ll agree to call it a tensed-up rear lean, as in a snake or feline about to lay teeth into an unwelcome guest.

Article source: http://www.gizmag.com/mazda-soul-of-motion-furniture/27031/

2013Tue16Apr

Movement and Balance in Furniture Design: The Walking Cabinet

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Walking Cabinet black Movement and Balance in Furniture Design: The Walking Cabinet

Markus Johansson Design Studio came up with an original cabinet design characterized by twisted lines. The new project has an appearance that seems to play with our visual perception: “A form featuring movement and balance, the Walking Cabinet seems almost like a playful and harmonic dance. Legs twist in different directions on the pavement; the cabinet seems to pose a life of its own, en route to some other place“. It does seem to have a life of its own, doesn’t it?

Walking Cabinet Movement and Balance in Furniture Design: The Walking Cabinet

Contrary to all belief, the eye-catching design of this furniture unit is also very practical: “The twisted form allows not only for a center-piece, the Walking Cabinet allows for the addition of two or more cabinets in a module system which invite new configurations and forms“. Its size and shape make it easy to move from one room to the next and its simple, yet creative look goes hand in hand with a variety of contemporary interiors. Find it appealing?

Article source: http://freshome.com/2013/04/12/movement-and-balance-in-furniture-design-the-walking-cabinet/

2013Mon15Apr

Color-Changing Furniture Controlled by Electrical Pulses

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Ron Arad’s color-changing furniture (All images via dezeen.com)

Part of choosing to buy an aesthetic object, whether that’s a piece of art, a decorative sculpture, or a provocative furniture item, is committing to living with it. Sure, your Zaha Hadid desk looks amazing, but would you really want to do work on it every day? Into that conundrum comes British designer Ron Arad whose new series No Bad Colors is a series of pieces that can change in response to any environment.

Color-changing panel by Ron Arad

Debuting at this year’s Milan Design Week, Arad’s series takes advantage of a new technology to create color-changing surfaces that can be modified at will by the buyer. A slab-like workstation with is covered in a grid of colored boxes. It might be intimidating to commit to such an audacious pattern in your home or workplace, but Arad’s desk has a trick up its sleeve: The boxes can switch their hues at a moment’s notice, shifting from pale green to bright red, yellow, or black. A dramatic, graphic wall pattern can perform similar transformations. Switching the color is as easy as using a smartphone app.

The technology behind this material is called Active True Color, from the company Versatile Technologies. Arad’s pieces are covered in transparent sheets that enclose a layer of fluid. Applying electricity to the fluid reorients its molecules, allowing it to create a range of colors. Once the electricity is applied to the material, the color change is stable — it requires very little power and doesn’t emit light. That’s one of the chief advantages of the innovation. Earlier color-shifting displays had to use backlighting or LEDs. The Active True Color, by contrast, look good under external light. “We are talking about reflecting rather than transmitting colors,” Arad explained in a statement.

Article source: http://hyperallergic.com/68665/color-changing-furniture-controlled-by-electrical-pulses/

2013Sun14Apr

Milan Furniture Fair | New and Newer

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In spite of forecasts of moderate to extreme cautiousness, in light of Europe’s economic woes, this year’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan and related outside events, which run from today through Sunday, have plenty to offer, whether it’s new furniture or reimaginings of classic pieces. Among the latter are Vitra’s recoloring of Jean Prouve’s Standard chair by Hella Jongerius (who worked with the Prouve family); Karl Lagerfeld’s photographs of iconic designs like Gio Ponti’s 699 Superleggera chair or Gerrit Rietveld’s famous Zig Zag chairs; and Barnaba Fornasetti’s reissue of his father Piero’s Architettura desk-cabinet in honor of the 100th anniversary of the artist-designer’s birth (along with a second wallpaper collection for Cole & Son, and scented candles and room sprays).

In the new-design arena, Kartell’s continuing collaboration with Philippe Starck has produced the sleek polycarbonate Uncle Jack sofa, made from what the company says is the largest mold of its kind. Foscarini‘s Yoko light, by the Norwegian designers Anderssen & Voll, has a delicate, soap-bubble-like synthetic shade. And the Swedish design collective Front is showing its delicate yet graphic Mikado wooden cabinet at Porro.

On the more artisanal side, the galley Nilufar showroom is presenting new work by a number of designers, including Massimiliano Locatelli, Bethan Laura Wood, Nucleo and Lindsey Adelman, who calls her Catch lights a “play between masculine language of strict rational brass structures” and “sensual feminine vulnerable glass forms.” Among the Dutch editor Thomas Eyck’s offerings at Spazio Rossana Orlandi, is the vinelike Hain ceramic console by RaR, the designers of the Schwarm beetle vases of 2011. The Japanese designer Oki Sato of Nendo seemed to be all over Milan last year, and this year is no different. Among his many works on view is the Patchwork Glass collection for Lasvit, which is being shown at the design gallery Dilmos. A hybrid of Bohemian cut glass and traditional sheet glass techniques, these forms are cut, flattened and remixed to achieve something that is not only different from Nendo’s usual cerebral aesthetic, but which also looks entirely new. And that’s enough to make any design aficionado’s heart beat faster.

Article source: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/milan-furniture-fair-new-and-newer/

2013Sat13Apr

DNA furniture by Tjep. and Dutch DNA inShare2

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Milan 2013: a map of genetic code generated the forms of a table and sculpture on show at Dutch studio Tjep.’s stand at Ventura Lambrate in Milan.

DNA furniture by Tjep. and Dutch DNA

Produced with Netherlands-based company Dutch DNA, Tjep. has utilised gene mapping to create patterns that can be manipulated with specially designed software, producing forms that can be translated into furniture pieces.

DNA furniture by Tjep. and Dutch DNA

To create the DNA map, a sample was taken from the saliva of Dutch contemporary dancer Giulia Wolthuis, whose father Eric founded Dutch DNA. “The process starts with a simple and very established genetic profiling test, the same that’s used by the police or in parental tests,” Tjep. founder Frank Tjepkema told Dezeen.

Article source: http://www.dezeen.com/2013/04/12/dna-furniture-by-tjep-and-dutch-dna/