copperindesign - European Copper Institute

copperindesign
exploring the potential of copper in design world
www.copperindesign.org
issue 31 March 2012
art
furnishing
Endless
art
art
3
4
Cage-B Bookcase
U3365
Pendant Light
lighting
3
5
6
Line Of Control
The Microbial Home
7
lighting
art
Si Dix Et Six Plis...
lighting
objects
9
Bronze Playground
objects
8
Arc Handle
10
11
Random Orbit
Steampunk Mouse
12
www.copperindesign.org is a meeting space for contemporary designers and their followers. This
international platform provides a comprehensive source of information on the crafting of the red metal:
copper creations, first-hand accounts from designers, exhibitions, competitions and many others. The
website is aimed at creators, design professionals, journalists and all copper-loving netsurfers, offering
them an invitation to (re)discover this material whose natural properties have established it over the
past few years as an essential feature of the design scene.
Sponsor: European Copper Institute www.eurocopper.org
art
3
Ross Lovegrove
Endless
Internationally-recognised English designer Ross
Lovegrove has recently had his first solo show in Italy,
entitled ‘Endless’. The exhibition presented a series of fine
art works deriving from Lovegrove’s personal research,
brought forward with the Liquid Collection, also shown at
the Endurance show at Phillips De Pury, New York in 2007.
The show at Cardi Black Box of Milano is enriched with two
new projects: Long Liquid Bench and Liquid Shelving, a
chaise longue and a bookcase made of copper, together
with a spectacular video projection appositely created for
the gallery space.
‘Endless’ continues Lovegrove’s research as an artist in the
experimentation and limited edition field, a fertile territory
for developing projects whose results are too ambitious
and rarefied for mass production.
The designer’s investigation demonstrates how the
borderline between visual arts and design is becoming
diminished, even though the pieces accomplish a specific
function. The exhibited projects are charged with an intense
emotional value and a specific oneiric force: the works in
‘Endless’ are sculptures suspended in physical, but also
temporal space.
Link: www.rosslovegrove.com
furnishing
4
Massimo Castagna
Cage-B Bookcase
Italian architect and designer Massimo Castagna has
created this linear, grid-like bookshelf, appropriately called
Cage-B. Manufactured by Henge, the handmade design
was presented at last year’s Salone del Mobile fair in Milano
and is available in a range of sizes and depths, made with
heat-treated and oil-finished Eucalyptus wood with a
structure of solid brass.
The bookcase is in the form of a brass cage, fully varnished
and in burnished brass, handmade using traditional
methods and without any chemical products. Cage-B comes
with inbuilt supports for shelving and thick-width shelves,
available in a range of sizes and depths. The bookcase
comes in a variety of sizes and can be personalised for
specific projects.
Link: www.ad-architettura.com
5
lighting
Jørn Utzon
U336 Pendant Light
The classic U336 pendant light, designed more than
half a century ago by the Pritzker Prize-winning Danish
architect Jørn Utzon, has been re-released by the famous
Finnish manufacturer Artek.
The neutral white finish and shell-like structure of this 1957
lamp echo Utzon’s most famous project, which he designed
in the same year: the Sydney Opera House.
Presented by Artek at this year’s international biennial
lighting exhibition Euroluce, the lamp is now available in
three versions: the original white-painted version, and the
new brass-plated or brass-chromed finishes.
Link: www.artek.fi
art
6
Subodh Gupta
Line Of Control
Indian artist Subodh Gupta employs many of the original
techniques of French conceptualist Marcel Duchamp by
elevating the ready-made into an art object. Gupta chooses
signature objects of the Indian sub-continent and relocates
them as art objects in monumental installations of stainless
steel and tiffin-tins.
Gupta is the creator of Line Of Control: an apocalyptic
sculpture that resembles the immediate aftermath of an
atomic explosion. It garnered enormous interest when
recently displayed at the Tate Gallery in London, possibly
because it is composed entirely of used copper and brass
kitchen utensils.
Subodh Gupta has been called “the Damien Hirst of Delhi.”
Like Hirst, he loves to create skulls in artistic forms, but unlike
his British peer, pots and pans are brought to bear in the
formation of many of his masterpieces.
Link: www.tate.org.uk
7
art
Philips Design
The Microbial Home
The Microbial Home Probe is a concept project
developed by Philips Design that consists of a domestic
ecosystem that challenges conventional design solutions
to energy, cleaning, food preservation and human waste.
Our world is sending us warning signals that we are
disturbing its equilibrium. A drastic cut in our environmental
impact is called for. This project explores how the solution
is likely to come from biological processes, which are less
energy-consuming and non-polluting. We need to go back
to nature in order to move forward.
The Microbial Home is a proposal for an integrated cyclical
ecosystem where each function’s output is another’s
input. In this project the home has been viewed as a
biological machine to filter, process and recycle what
we conventionally think of as waste – sewage, effluent,
garbage, waste water.
The bio-digester kitchen island is the central hub in the
Microbial Home system. It consists of a methane digester
which converts bathroom waste solids and vegetable
trimmings into methane gas that is used to power a series
of functions in the home. The bio-digester hub is designed
as a repositionable kitchen island, including a chopping
surface with vegetable waste grinder. Materials used in the
design are mainly copper for doors and vertical partitions,
cast iron and glass.
Link: www.design.philips.com
8
lighting
Francois Hurtaud
Si Dix Et Six Plis Brillent
“Six dix et six plis brillent” is a copper lamp designed
by French designer Francois Hurtaud that puts a great
emphasis on the material and its specific features.
The lamp takes advantage of the ductility of the metal for
its sphere-shaped module.
This module naturally tends to come back to its original flat
shape and thus applies a small pressure on each side that
makes it mechanically fit in the disks located at each pole.
When you live with copper, you see time impacting and
transforming the product every day.
Time and oxidation continue working on the material and
thus make the product unique to every user. The copper
and its evolutions reinvent the product and redefine its
identity.
To ensure this oxidation occurs, the copper undergoes little
surface finishing. By focusing on the copper features and
its evolution to endlessly reinvent its identity and reflect the
flying time, this lamp is a great example of how material
itself can at the heart of a product’s function and identity.
Link: www.francoishurtaud.com
9
art
Tom Otterness
Bronze Playground
Over the past two decades, American sculptor Tom
Otterness has created numerous works designed for public
spaces throughout the United States and internationally in
The Netherlands, Germany, and Korea.
Featuring cartoon influences, his works combine a childlike
sense of play with adult sensibilities and recognition of
larger political issues. Otterness enjoys a large audience for
his work, not simply because he manages to make bronze
appear cuddly, but also because his mini-fables are so
accessible that they reward even those who feel they lack
the tools to interpret an artwork.
The playground was designed for a private installation,
and is a series of whimsical miniature bronze sculptures
depicting cartoon-like characters showing people and
animals in various situations, and additional abstract
sculptures. The bronzes here varied greatly in size, and
their finishes simultaneously absorbed and reflected light.
Link: www.tomostudio.com
objects
10
Rodolfo Dordoni
Arc Handle
Minimal yet refined, the shape of the Arc handle,
designed by Italian architect and designer Rodolfo Dordoni
for Italian producer Olivari, is characterised by its curved
profile with variable section.
Broad and almost semicircular at the point where it meets
the door, also to provide necessary sturdiness, the handle
tapers gradually towards the end, making it easier to hold.
Made from brass with chrome, matt chrome and SuperInox
satin finish.
Link: www.rodolfodordoni.it
11
lighting
Christopher Moulder
Random Orbit
Christopher Moulder is a composer of light whose
works possess a flow and visual rhythm that leave indelible
signatures on the spaces they inhabit. His chandeliers,
pendants, and ceiling- and wall-mounted fixtures span a
broad range of styles: from sea- and sky-inspired rhapsodies
that swim and soar, to architectural, sculptural designs that
assert their quiet presence with elegantly refined gestures.
Fabricated using only the finest, most texturally sophisticated
materials such as copper, brass and aluminium, and
meticulously engineered to the highest standards, these
works of lighting art transform commercial and residential
spaces.
Random Orbit is a ball of frenzied, zipping fireflies caught
in a freeze frame. High efficiency, long life Xenon bulbs are
suspended by phosphor bronze loops emanating from the
centre sphere like wispy solar flares.
Link: www.christophermoulder.com
objects
12
Alex Neretin
Steampunk Mouse
The real appeal of the Steampunk style lies in the
metallic look and the intricate artistry created from brass,
copper and other metals. Most modern designers love to
recreate gizmos and gadgets in Steampunk style as a tribute
to the Victorian era.
Russian designer Alex Neretin has designed the Rhombus
Maximus, which is essentially a Steampunk computer mouse
made of copper, brass and walnut wood. There is also an
accompanying Steampunk USB drive, which looks equally
metallic and Victorian.
Steampunk style transports us back in time and gives us a
glimpse of how modern things would have looked had
they been invented in the 1900s. Rhombus Maximus’s
design depicts the mouse and USB pen drive as traditional
industrial age creations. The inner detailed design, structure
and thought even imply this mouse is powered by steam.
The wheel mouse buttons are made of brass and copper,
and are directly derived from the industrial age.
Link: www.behance.net