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TOKYO DESIGN WEEK 2012
BEIJING DESIGN WEEK 2012As our NY Design Week 2011 coverage winds down, I've finally gotten around to sharing one of my favorite pieces from the myriad shows, one of the very first pieces I saw in Noho Design District nearly two weeks ago. The $H!T Happens crew wasn't quite done installing at Relative Space on Bond St, but I managed to get a photo of Judith Seng's "Trift" as it was displayed in the middle of the space.
The German designer (formerly of Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec) does a nice job combining modern geometry and a more overtly organic form.
Trift explores the ideal of perfect, high-gloss surfaces by creating and destroying them within the same object. Each form and surface derives from the individual size, characteristics and gradual transformations over time of the underlying tree-log.
The polished, plastic quality of the lacquered top fades into the natural grain of the log, while the saturated hues add a more whimsical dimension to the stools, suggesting some kind of supernatural ossification.
I also noticed that the project is dated back to 2009... guess we'd been sleeping on this one. Still, I'd be curious to see variations where the shape of the log is preserved in its entirety—i.e. as a cylinder—or where the square shape emerges from an unmodified log base, following the color gradient.
Comments
"Each form and surface derives from the individual size, characteristics and gradual transformations over time of the underlying tree-log."
Unless trees grow square, these don't look as though they've been gradually changed overtime, they look as though they were cut on a saw and sandblasted, then the endgrain covered thus hiding any 'characteristics and gradual transformations over time of the underlying tree-log'. Also due to the various sizes, it looks as though very little consideration has been given to function ie. the ideal heights for stools. It looks as though the 'designer' has found a load of random lumps of wood and decided to lazily label them stools.This is not new, I've seen many things similar, over the last few years, but the over pontification of the description of something very simple by Ray reaches a new level.
'The polished, plastic quality of the lacquered top fades into the natural grain of the log, while the saturated hues add a more whimsical dimension to the stools, suggesting some kind of supernatural ossification.'
Supernatural ossification! Are you trying to say - some dude could only be arsed to spray half a lump of sandblasted wood? Slow day in the office?
Looks a lot like the 47 table by One & Co. for Council Inc.
http://www.dwr.com/product/living/coffee-tables/47-table.do?sortby=ourPicks