Inflatable leather and other novelties for the interior
21.4.2022
Translation: machine translated
Pictures: Pia Seidel
Paper, cardboard or leather were used unconventionally for new design pieces at the last furniture fair "Maison et Objet". Because of nine of them, I'm still all over the place.
Treating the ordinary in an unusual way. That's what creative people do. They look at everyday materials with different eyes and create something unprecedented out of them. At this year's Design Week in Paris, various design studios reinterpreted paper or leather, among other things, and inspired me with them.
1. floating paper
Most lamps simply make light, these are mobiles at the same time: the hanging lamps from Baku Sakashita 's "Suki" collection are composed of semi-transparent paper circles and rectangles and thin stainless steel wire. When light passes through them, the geometric shapes are projected onto the floor and walls.
"Suki" means several things at once in Japanese: "transparency," "making paper by hand," "empty space," or "fine taste." The first three terms perfectly express the character of Japanese Washi paper, and therefore the lamp.
2. mirror handbags
3. tassel lamps
Hélène Nepomiatzi's unconventional look at things is evident in another object: the "Pompom" lamp. Actually, hand stitching, edge dyeing and two-tone leather fringes are traditional stylistic devices in the processing of leather goods. In "Pompom" they are used to embellish a simple lamp. Thus, tradition and modern ideas are combined in one object.
4. inflatable leather
5. leather tiles
6. sheet cardboard box
7. cardboard tables
Also part of the Kristina Dam Studio collection, created in Copenhagen, is the sculptural "Edo" furniture, the result of a collaboration with Amanda Betz, a Danish paper designer. You can fold the side table like a cardboard moving box and use it especially in cramped living conditions.
8. villa motley MDF
MDF is often covered with veneer to make it more visually appealing. But Broste Copenhagen makes an exception. The Danish brand does not hide the slightly cheaper wood, but colors it. Equally worth knowing, the lid hides chaos and turns it into a coffee table.
9. wood terrazzo
Strikingly often for the production of wood we help ourselves only to a very specific part from the tree. Not so Yuma Kano. The designer mixes everything from the tree together with an acrylic resin for his "ForestBank" project: Bark, foliage, seeds, fruit and the soil around it. This turns into a solid mass reminiscent of terrazzo.
In this way, any tree, no matter how small, becomes valuable, which until now was considered worthless in the construction of furniture. Moreover, they can be processed using the same woodworking methods. However, they will never look the same. That's because the pattern varies, providing different insights into the grain of unique forest finds depending on the depth of the cut.
Design studies like this are the reason why, from now on, I will no longer label even everyday things like cardboard or tree bark as boring.
Pia Seidel
Senior Editor
Pia.Seidel@digitecgalaxus.chLike a cheerleader, I love celebrating good design and bringing you closer to everything furniture- and interior design- related. I regularly curate simple yet sophisticated interior ideas, report on trends and interview creative minds about their work.
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